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Bless the Lord Who Blesses
16 Plays2 months ago
Eph. 1:1-14
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Transcript
The Power of Visual Aids in Sermons
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Part of my sermon today requires picture, so i just want to make sure everybody's queued up. The success of this entire sermon hangs on this first picture.
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If you've ever bought furniture from Ikea, you know two things are true.
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Assembly is required, and you're the one doing assembly. When you open the box, you discover something like this. Odd furniture. individual parts, strange wooden pieces, all somehow wrapped up in tiny plastic bags.
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And you can easily get overwhelmed thinking that these pieces can somehow turn into this.
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But luckily for you, they provide you with this.
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Instructions. And sometimes they're even in English. Yet as bad as those instructions are, they're helpful because they allow us to see the big picture.
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They give us a glimpse of the grand
Society's Influence on Salvation Views
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design. And without the big picture and without the grand design, we can sometimes get lost. We can sometimes place more importance on the individual pieces rather than the entire picture.
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And friends, that can happen in our Christian walk as well. unfortunate we Unfortunately, we live in a society that that's called oh It's All About Me. very me-centered, me-centric society that tells you somehow you're at the center of it all.
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And this mentality, unfortunately, permeates right here into the church, into our view of salvation.
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That somehow it's all about us that somehow God's grand plan is all about saving you and me.
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But I'm here to tell you it's not.
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You're not the center of the story.
Understanding God's Plan through Ephesians
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It's not all about you. The pieces are not greater than the whole. God's grand plan isn't simply to save you and me.
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Well, that's a part of His grand plan, but that's not the whole plan. And when we fully understand the big picture of what he's doing, the grand plan, and our glorious place in that plan, friends, it's only then can we rightly praise him.
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So I hope this morning as we study Ephesians, which is where we're going to be for the next 12 weeks, that we a new vision. glimpse a better, clearer picture of God's grand design.
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And that grand design will inspire something inside of us to praise and worship Him differently than we have in the past. This is what we're looking at this morning. You'll see from your outline, if you grabbed your bulletin, there should be an outline in that this morning.
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Brother Tim lovingly told me many months ago I can't believe you preach from an outline.
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I said, I've never done it any other way. I know my own fallen humanity and my frail mind will often go off track. And I may dare slip in some of my own opinions.
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So why do I have an outline? It's to keep you safe and it's to keep me safe. Friends, we're going to look at God's grand plan right from the scriptures. We're going to look secondly at our glorious part in that plan.
00:03:55
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And finally, we're going to ask ourselves, how can we adequately praise God for this grand plan and our involvement in it? If you have your Bibles, turn with me, please. The book of Ephesians, you'll know if you were in our Wednesday study many, many, many months ago where we did the big picture.
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We did Old Testament how to remember those things. books with number system, which all of y'a are looking going, do I remember those? There we have somebody faithful back there was repeating it.
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The New Testament, we had the same set of numbers, 4, 1, 21, 1. Gospels, one book of history, 21 letters, one book of Revelation.
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Friends, the book of Ephesians is in that 21 letters. That's where you where you're going today. It's after Galatians. It's before Philippians.
Focus on Christianity 101: Belief and Practice
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If you've gone to Philippians, you've gone too far.
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Paul wrote Ephesians sometime probably between 60 and 61 AD. He wrote it from a Roman prison where he most likely wrote Colossians and Philemon at the same time.
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This is why the Ephesians is one of the four epistles that is commonly referred to as one of the prison epistles. And Ephesians, while I chose it ah many months ago, fits beautifully in what we're going to do Wednesday nights beginning in September.
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Beginning in September, we're going to teach a one Wednesday night class called Christianity 101. And it is what we believe and how you are to live out those beliefs. It is what we believe biblically and how we live out those beliefs.
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Ephesians deals exactly with this. And so it lines up nicely with what we're going to do on Wednesday nights. Ephesians is all about what it means to be a Christian in faith and how to live out that faith.
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Three words that you're going to want to write down in your notes to start off today, even before I dive into the meat of the sermon. Three words, each of these words starts with this word, ortho.
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These are fancy words. Ortho, O-R-T-H-O. Ortho means straight or precise or correct. This where we get our word orthodontist, meaning to straighten your teeth.
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The first word is orthodoxy, d-o-x-y. d o x y Orthodoxy means the straight teaching or the straight doctrine. The second word is orthopraxy, p-r-a-x-y. p r a x y Praxy means to practice.
00:06:36
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So we have right teaching, right practice, and third is orthopathy, P-A-T-H-Y, pathy, which means right affection or your right emotions. All three of these are interconnected.
Unity with Christ and Spiritual Riches
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All three of these we'll see in the letter that Paul has written to the church in Ephesus.
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All three Teach sound doctrine and that should lead to right living, which should be affected and motivated by genuine, heart-centered, God-centered emotions.
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We'll see these over the next 12 weeks, and and I'll point them out as we as we go. You've learned three fancy words already, and the sermon hasn't even started. Orthodoxy, orthopraxy, orthopathy.
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Alright, let's go to the scriptures and let's read the first 14 verses. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. If you're visiting us, the reason why I read from this translation is because this is easier on the ear.
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When I study and prepare, I look at all... various translations because I want to know what's being said and where the variances are and I will point those out if I think they're applicable.
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But the New Living Translation, if you're looking for one and you're like, Pastor, I don't know really what Bible I want to get into, the New Living Translation is super easy. Read with me here. It should be on your screen if you don't have it.
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Ephesians chapter 1 verse 1 says, This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I'm writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.
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May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
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Bless you.
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Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us and into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Christ Jesus.
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This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace He has poured out on us who belong to His dear Son.
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He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedoms. Verse 9 says, Now listen closely. Verse 10 says,
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will regarding christ whiches to fulfill fulfil his own good plan and listen closely verse ten says and this is the plan At the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ.
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Everything in the heaven and on the earth. And furthermore, because we are united in Christ, we have received an inheritance from God. For he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.
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God's purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth.
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The good news that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, He identified you as His own by giving you the Holy Spirit whom He promised long ago. The Spirit it is God's guarantee that He will give us the inheritance He promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people.
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He did this so that we would praise and glorify
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probably the longest sentence in all of the Bible and the in the original language, only to be outdone by one other of Paul's sentences.
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This one long sentence. And when I read this and restudied this, I was reminded, Kim is gonna know this story, when my youngest daughter was in elementary school, we got a call from the teacher, which normally you dread as a parent because you know if something's wrong.
00:11:08
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They said, would you mind coming up and we want to talk to you about Sweet Nevada. And we did and we went up and we met with this teacher and and he said, I gave each of the kids a writing prompt and I wanted them to write something, of you know a paragraph or something so I could tell where they were at in their writing skills.
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He said, i've I've covered up the names of the other children but I want to show you their response. it was you know two or three sentences, each one, maybe a paragraph. And he said, now here's your daughter's.
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And he flipped it like this. And then he flipped it over. And he said, now there's a second page that she wrote. And thought, this is great. He's doting on her. I love this teacher. And he said, Mr. Ransom, there's one problem.
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There's not one bit of punctuation. It's one long sentence. So when I read this letter and I read through Paul's first portions here, it almost makes you want to take a big breath, like, there's so much in here.
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Some pastors will preach simply on a verse or two from the beginning here. This grouping, 1 through 14, you'll see the reason why I chose to preach it this way is it it describes first God's grand plan.
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And while you and I are in it its It's grand for a reason because it includes something bigger than you and I. He starts here with the source of the blessing, you'll see. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord jesus Jesus Christ. God the Father has made us rich in Jesus Christ. And when you were born again and you were born into God's family, you were born rich.
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Through Christ you share in the riches of God's grace and the riches of His glory and the riches of His mercy and the unsearchable riches of Christ. Our Heavenly Father, friends, is not poor.
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It's just the opposite. He's rich.
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I did a little search. Who is the world's richest person as of today? Anybody want to take a guess?
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Elon Musk.
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Those of you who are trying to figure out how to pay your bills this month, listen to this. He is worth an estimated $347 billion, dollars with a B. Such a big number, you can't wrap your head around it, so I thought I would do some math.
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The weekly income is about $180 million dollars a week he makes. hundred and eighty million dollars
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All of this wealth is but pennies when compared to the spiritual wealth we have in Jesus Christ. In this letter, Paul explains to us what these riches are and how we draw on them as we walk this Christian life.
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The scope of the blessing is found here, verse 3 and 4 and onward. He says we have all spiritual blessings. It can maybe better be better translated as all the blessings of the Spirit.
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Referring to the Holy Spirit.
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Everything you need to live a successful Christian life, you have.
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I'll put a note to myself. It's like ragu. You know what ragu is? The spaghetti sauce. Remember ragu? That commercial growing up? It's all in there.
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Friends, that's what, when the moment you become a Christian, the moment you dedicate your life to Christ, you're not only saved, you're not only adopted that we're going to see, you're not only receive all these blessings, it says you have everything you need right now to lead a spiritual life.
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A happy, a successful, a satisfying Christian life. I simply wrote down everything we need, we have. You're not trying to earn something.
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like so many other world religions will have you believe. You're not working your way up to some type of spiritual blessing. You already have it. You simply need to appropriate it.
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What does appropriate mean, by the way? I use that word all the time, and and I take it for granted that you know what it means. In the very basic sense, it means to what?
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Eat it. To appropriate it, to take it, to put it in, to use it. You have every spiritual blessing, friends. You just need to start using it. Did you know that?
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It's the beauty of becoming a Christian. Not only is the scope all, if you're somebody who's highlights or circles or underlines, you might just want to circle or underline all. All spiritual blessings there.
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We have everything we need. Our blessings are in, it says, the spheres and the heavenly places in Christ. This is not a material blessing. This is where a lot of people like to steer you the opposite direction into the prosperity gospel.
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Well, God wants you to have every blessing. That means money too. Oh, no, it doesn't. Because he tells you the sphere of it is in the heavenly places and in Christ. Maybe better translations is in the heavenlies.
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In the heavenly realm where Christ is seated. See, the unsaved person is primarily concerned with themselves. They're me-centered. And their wealth and their things are earthly bound things where ours, friends, is not. Our focus are things in heaven.
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Our citizenship is in heaven. Our name is written in the book in heaven. Our Father is in heaven.
God's Sovereignty in Salvation
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And our attentions and our affections are pathos, right, where we get this word praxi from.
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Our affections ought to be centered on the things in heaven. Where Christ is currently at. I always loved the young children's song. and i Don't worry, I'm not going to sing it. I learned my lesson.
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We often think Jesus is in our what? You hear that? Jesus is in our... No, friends, he's in heaven, sitting on the throne. That's where he's at. I love Warren Wearsby. He says this. He says, the Christian really operates in two spheres, the human sphere and the divine sphere, the visible sphere and the invisible.
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Physically, he's on earth in a human body, but spiritually, he's seated with Christ in the heavenly sphere. And it is this heavenly sphere that provides the power and the direction to walk in earthly walking.
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You ever thought about that? While we live here in our earthly bodies, we're really seated with Christ in the heavenlies. And that battle that you are seeing happen in your life right now, while it may look like an earthly battle, is really spiritual battle.
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The President of the United States is not always seated at his desk in the White House. But that executive chair represents the sphere of his life and his power. No matter where he is, he is still the president.
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Because he, and only he, has the privilege of sitting at that desk. Likewise, with you and I as Christians, no matter where we may be on earth, we are seated in the heavens with Jesus, and this is the basis of our life and our power.
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I saw some of you, as soon as I mentioned the President the United States, you thought I was going to go political.
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Don't worry.
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What makes this plan so grand? Well, it starts with you and I. That He loves us so much that He's willing to save us and to give us these spiritual blessings, to give us the Holy Spirit.
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Verse 4 says that He chose you.
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realize that? I often hear people say, I'm out seeking God.
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That's my journey. I'm out seeking God. No, you're not. Because you're a sinful fallen person. And your your basic nature, your sinful nature, is not to follow God.
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Is not to seek after God. He is the one doing the seeking. He is seeking you. And it says, for those He has chosen... That salvation begins with Him, not with you and not with mankind.
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We offer nothing to that equation. John 15, 16, Jesus says, You have not chosen me, but rather I have chosen you. Left to our own devices, we don't seek God, but in His infinite love and mercy, He seeks us.
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He not only chooses us and seeks us, verse 5 says He adopts us. Now, unless you have never... been adopted, you don't really understand what that means. See, those who don't have a family have no rights, no privileges.
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But the moment you're adopted into the family, you receive all the rights and privileges of that family.
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Yeah, i know. Look at verse 5. Your verse 5 may use this misundersturd misunderstood word, predestination.
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Can I simplify this for you just a little bit?
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Predestination in the Bible simply means to be ordained to beforehand, to be predetermined. Election refers to people. Predestination refers to purposes. God has predestined our adoption, our conformity to Christ, as well as our future inheritance. He chose us. He adopted us. In verse 6, He accepted us.
00:21:15
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He didn't accept us, kind of like Psalm 18 said today, not by anything we did, but for his own good pleasure. Right? We don't make ourselves acceptable to God, but he, by his grace, accepts us through Christ.
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This is our eternal position, which will never change. This is where I steer everybody who says you can lose your salvation.
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Some translations you may have read this way, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. That's the new American Standard translation. Because of God's grace in Christ, we are accepted before him. You're not accepted on your own merit on your own righteousness. You're accepted because of Christ's righteousness.
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Not only are we chosen, adopted, accepted, but it says we are redeemed and forgiven.
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And I really wanted to start pacing back and forth on the stage like Tim did last week. Because he does such a great job. When he got to ah a part that was impactful, he started pacing.
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Friends, if you're going to start pacing, you need to start pacing on verse 7.
00:22:31
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He redeemed you. He purchased you. He set you free by paying that price. You know Jesus' time? There were over 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire. Did you know that?
00:22:46
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Not the slaves like you and I think, although there were some like that. Often they would put themselves into servitude, so they would pay off a debt or something like that. But once you were enslaved, once you were owned by a master, only that master could set you free.
00:23:04
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This is what Jesus did for you and I. He paid the price. And what was that price? He paid it with His blood and He paid it on the cross.
God's Grand Plan for Creation
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He set us free from the law, free from the slavery of sin, free from the power of Satan and the world.
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If you and I were slaves, we would be poor. But now that you and I are adopted sons and daughters, we are rich. We're not only redeemed, it says we're forgiven.
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This word forgiven, by the way, here means to carry it away.
00:23:35
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It reminds us of what was practiced back in Jesus' time. That on the day of atonement, the high priest would come and he would take the scapegoat. You know this part of your Bible in the Old Testament?
00:23:47
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He would take the scapegoat and he would place his hands on it and he would pray all of the sins onto the scapegoat. then they would take this scapegoat and they would carry it out and lead it let it go out into the wilderness.
00:24:01
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Never to be seen again. Friends, this is the same picture of what Jesus has done on the cross. He's forgiven that sin and it's carried away never to be seen again. There's no written accusation that stands against you and I for the sins that we have committed and the sins that you will commit.
00:24:20
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You ever thought about that? He's forgiven you for the sins in the past, the sins you're going to do today as soon as you walk outside those doors, when y'all are elbowing each other to get to El Charro.
00:24:33
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Oh, I've seen some y'all. He's not only forgiven you for past sins, the sins that you're going to do today, He's going to forgive you. You're already for forgiven for the sins you're going to do tomorrow and beyond.
00:24:48
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We're rich in grace. I just put a note to myself there. We're not poor in sin. We're rich in grace.
00:24:55
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Not only does God's plan include you and me and saving you and me, it goes much bigger. And this is why I put grand and I circle grand in my notes. Verse 9.
00:25:06
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God has revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ. This word mysterious isn't like we'll never figure it out. Mysterious means it it was once hidden, now it's revealed.
00:25:19
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What is that mysterious plan? Well, thankfully, verse 10 tells us, for those of us who are slow. Verse 10 says, here's the plan. At the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ.
00:25:33
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Everything in the heaven and on the earth.
00:25:37
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What does that mean? Friends, that means that the salvation that he's given you is a very small portion of the grand picture. What was broken back in the garden in Genesis 3 wasn't just a relationship between us and God.
00:25:52
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It was a relationship between you and I. It was a relationship between us and creation. The Bible tells us creation is broken and groaning now. Friends, of the grand picture is God is saving you and he's saving me, but we're just a small piece.
00:26:06
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In the overall picture, that it says when he comes back the second time, he's fixing it all.
00:26:15
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He's restoring it all. He's not just restoring our relationship with him and our relationship with each other. He's restoring all creation. but what does that look like? Well, I was reminded when we were in Tennessee, or our friends had this beautiful place.
00:26:28
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Deer come up and they eat right in the backyard.
00:26:33
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What's that other creature that comes up? Turkey. Turkey comes up. Lots of turkeys. Squirrels. Birds. All getting along. Of course, they're all eating corn.
00:26:44
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That's why they're all getting along. But friends, when God comes back, Jesus comes back and fixes it all, All those animals are getting along.
00:26:58
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Our right relationship is made with Jesus. Our relationship with each other is made right. Even creation. Everything is brought under His authority. Everything on heaven and on earth.
00:27:12
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He will be acknowledged as the head.
00:27:16
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He now rules and reigns at God's right hand, but one day He will come back and He will establish His kingdom. He will bring in the new heavens and the new earth, fulfilling and finalizing that redemptive plan.
00:27:32
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And the beauty of that I just put down as a note to myself this week. We get to participate in that. We're a part of that grand plan.
00:27:44
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What is our glorious place in that plan? That's where we're going to go next.
00:27:49
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just put mankind... Deliberately chosen before time. If you're filling in your blanks, that's what the next one is.
00:27:58
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Mankind was deliberately chosen before time in love with grace to be holy. He deliberately chose you before he created the universe so that our salvation is holy of his grace and not on the basis of anything that you and I bring.
00:28:16
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We can earn it. And I know you long-time Baptists, you get it.
00:28:23
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Because if you don't get it, you're not a Bible-believing Christian. If you think somehow you bring something to the table, that God then says, oh, you know what?
00:28:36
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Kathy did such a great job. I'm going let her in. And I can say Kathy because there's like 10 of you all here at this church. You don't know who I'm talking about.
00:28:45
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Friends, we bring nothing to the equation. It's all God. He's the one who initiates Matter of fact, we'll learn in just a few weeks here in Ephesians. It says we're dead.
00:28:58
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Spiritually dead. We cannot ourselves respond. We cannot seek God. We cannot seek salvation. It is by His grace and His initiative. He does it, it simply says here, because it's His good pleasure.
00:29:13
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And it's ultimately to bring praise and glory to Himself. Period. You're elected, you're predestined, you're adopted. sometimes we have a tendency to think, wow, we're special.
00:29:27
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Wow, God knew what he was doing when he picked me. He knew someday I was going to stand in front of guys and Cameron way before all the creation. he knows what's going on.
00:29:37
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I am something special. No. You know what you are? You're one of the Ikea pieces. I say that in the most loving way. But we all are part of that package pieces.
00:29:53
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And what makes it glorious and grand is it's his plan. It's not us. He knew what he was doing well before when he chose you. Just like he knew what he was doing with another group of people.
00:30:07
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Who he chose to be his own, nothing to do with them. That was Israel. It's not all about us. It's all about him.
00:30:19
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My old pastor told me, every time you open up your Bible, it's a hymn book. H-I-M. It's a hymn book.
Eternal Inheritance and Gratitude
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Not only did he choose us, adopt us, redeem us, forgive us, he didn't leave us here without a plan.
00:30:38
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R.C. Sproul says this, he says, I can't think of anything designed to create more optimism in the church than to know that God had a plan that the future of this planet, the future of reality, the future of you and I is in his hands alone.
00:30:57
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He could have simply said, welcome to earth, life's a mystery, go figure it out. Luckily he didn't. He gave us an instruction manual.
00:31:10
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This is how I want you to live. Would you live this way?
00:31:17
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He made us an inheritance. He's chosen, predestined us according to his plan. We will receive this inheritance and the the Bible tells us here in verse 11 and verse 12 that we have this down payment. Maybe your your translation will say that. This deposit.
00:31:31
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We have the Holy Spirit now. It's a deposit. You've been sealed so that when he comes back it's a guarantee, it's a down payment.
00:31:42
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That one day there will be this final release from sin where we stand before God in heaven. And he says, good job, my faithful servant. what a glorious day it will be.
00:31:56
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Knowing that he will make everything all right again.
00:32:01
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How can we not praise him even more for this? when i When I was studying not just Ephesians and And thankfully, Wes was out this week and I got to teach Psalm 18. Psalm 18 starts with a praise and ends with a praise. And I thought, how appropriate, because this is exactly what Ephesians, right? We're all about praising God for being part of this glorious plan. How do you and i do this? This is where the application is today. How do we...
00:32:25
Speaker
How do we adequately praise God? Because if you simply think He's here to save you, you're only praising Him a very minute way. But when you see the bigger picture that He's here to save not only you, but to fix it all, to fix the broken nations, to fix you and I and our broken relationship with Him and our broken relationship each other, and to redeem and restore all of creation, when you fully understand this big picture, does that not just change the way you praise Him now?
00:32:53
Speaker
I simply put this as as at our application point. How can you and I do this today? Well, simply one point, and I just put corporate prayer. Corporate prayer.
00:33:03
Speaker
And I know Marilyn is loving this right now. This is very Methodist, y'all.
00:33:10
Speaker
And I know all the Baptists are like, what? I want us to recite corporate prayer. How do we adequately praise God for this glorious grand plan that he has and our involvement in it?
00:33:25
Speaker
We simply are going to recite this together. Is it on the screen, by the way? Can we do the next slide? I just want make sure i put that up. Oh, good.
00:33:36
Speaker
I'm glad we did this. Here's what I want to do. I'm going to start reading. You guys are going to read along with me. We're going to do it as a congregation. This is corporate prayer. And it has, I'll just give you a heads up, there's six of them.
00:33:49
Speaker
Adoration, we're going to start. Confession, we'll go to. Praise and thanksgiving, a petition, an intercession, a commitment. And then I will close us in prayer. And I'm going to stand down front for an eternity of an invitation.
00:34:04
Speaker
As Brother Tim showed me, he can do it. Pray with me. We praise you, God Almighty, for the power you have shown in creating the world.
00:34:16
Speaker
We thank you for your love in redeeming us from sin and creating us anew in Christ. Grant us strength in this life to honor you, Lord God, both in worship and in witness.
00:34:29
Speaker
For Jesus Christ's sake, amen.
00:34:34
Speaker
Merciful God, We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed. By what we have done and by what we have left undone.
00:34:45
Speaker
We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. In your mercy, forgive what we have been.
00:34:56
Speaker
Help us amend what we are and direct what we shall be. so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your holy name, through Christ our Lord.
Corporate Prayer: Adoration, Confession, and Thanksgiving
00:35:10
Speaker
Amen. Loving God, we give you thanks for sending your Son, Jesus Christ, to us, for the communication of His Holy Spirit, for the light and liberty of the glorious gospel, and the rich and heavenly blessings revealed in it.
00:35:27
Speaker
Our election, our vocations, our adoption, our justification, our sanctification, and hope of glory. Amen. Living God, help us so to hear your holy word that we may truly understand that understanding we may believe and believing we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience.
00:35:52
Speaker
Seeking your honor and glory in all that we do through Christ our Lord. Amen. Heavenly Father, We pray for those who lead us in worship and those who bring us your word.
00:36:05
Speaker
May the gospel be powerful in their hearts and fresh on their lips.
00:36:10
Speaker
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith.
00:36:21
Speaker
Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. And where there is sadness, joy. Amen. Brothers and sisters, may we be a people who adequately praises God for his glorious plan and our involvement in it.
00:36:38
Speaker
And all God's people said, Amen.