New City Catechism XXVII
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Are all people, just as they were lost through Adam, saved through Christ?
Who and why would you choose players for your team?
According to the bible, God chooses the members of his family, but he does not choose us based on our ability, intelligence, beauty, or goodness.
When we talk about God’s choosing, we call it
Election
When we use the word Election, what we are saying about God is that the choosing of God’s family is done purely by God’s will and not because of anything in us.
Another word the bible uses about our membership of God’s family is the word
Adoption
I wonder if anyone knows what adoption is?
How do prospective parents choose which child they will adopt?
Do they choose the baby whom they think will be the smarteest or the prettiest or the fastest? No - how would they be able to tell?
In today’s bible reading, we are going to learn that all who trust in Jesus for forgiveness and salvation have been adopted by God. They were chosen to be in Christ before the world was even made!
We are not chosen based on anything special about us, but because God freely decides to pour out His love upon us.
Some people in the world and even some people who go to church believe in something called
Universalism
Does anyone know what that means?
Answer: That God will save everybody, regardless of whether people have sought forgiveness from God, through faith in Jesus.
Now that might feel a bit more comfortable, but is that what the Bible teaches?
Remember what we have learnt in previous weeks:
Because Adam and Eve choose to disobey God’s only commandment to them - not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - everyone born after that would be born in sin.
The bible says:
Born in Adam
But that in His love for His creation, God came in the person of Jesus - fully God and fully human - to put things right.
So that those who through faith, trust in Jesus, can be born again - no longer born in Adam, but seen by God as clothed in Jesus’ righteousness.
The bible says that whether we are still born in Adam, or born again in Christ Jesus, determines our eternal future.
God didn’t need to do that - He didn’t need to choose anyone for His family - he could have wiped the slate clean and started again - but the bible teaches that in His grace and kindness He chose some people to make His sons and daughters.
He doesn’t choose everyone.
Everyone is born in Adam, some will be born again, through faith in Christ Jesus.
God isn’t picking a winning sports team.
God chooses those whom he will save even before they’re born. Being chosen by God has nothing to do with us, but everything to do with God.
Let’s have a look at our Bible reading for today:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,
10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
Did you notice the word
Predestine
I wonder what that means?
…to determine something beforehand.
God predetermined whom he would adopt, even before he created the world.
Why?
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Grace = “unmerited favour”
G od’s
R iches
A t
C hrist’s
E xpense
If God had chosen to favour those who deserved it, we would not be recipients of grace.
Paul seems to assume everyone he is writing to have been chosen by God - why?
Because Paul is writing to those who have trusted Jesus for their salvation.
What is it that Paul wants his readers to understand they are part of a bigger story, a story that begins even before the creation of the world.
This subject is not a new thing.
5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.
22 Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son,
What do you think our passage help us to understand about God?
The first thing I think this passage points to is that
Everything God does, he does purposefully and intentionally. Nothing takes him by surprise.
This is how John Stott puts it:
How did we become his people? Answer: ‘According to the good pleasure of his will.’ Why did he make us his people? Answer: ‘For the praise of the glory of his grace.’ Thus everything we have and are in Christ both comes from God and returns to God. It begins in his will and ends in his glory. For this is where everything begins and ends.
John Stott
The second thing
We can only understand who we are and be who we are as we fully understand the role that Jesus played at the cross
The third thing
The church together as a family adopted by God, is a picture of the future, which we can experience now, if only in part, because of the Holy Spirit that dwells within every believer.
A couple of things people ask when we talk about predestination and election:
What about free will?
There is no doubt that we all have free will.
Free will determines what we do each day. We can use our free will to decide how we personally will live for Jesus, or not.
The extent to which we will embrace the life that God calls us to is limited or enhanced by the use of our free will.
What is clear from this passage and others like it, is that we are given everything we need by God at the point of our conversion. The question is - how will we use our free will to grow up into what we are called to be? But the fact we ‘belong’ to God is all about him.
Another question, people love to ask at this point:
Why bother telling anyone about the Good News?
Two brief answers:
The first one:
Because Jesus said to do it...
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The second:
Because you might just be the person that God will use to bring forth that person into the plans that God has already pre-determined.
I mean, to take the whole family, parent and child analogy a step further - which parent, grand parent or any carer of children enjoys having to drag their child kicking and screaming everywhere?
It happens, we know it does, we know there is always a season or seasons of particular challenge as we love and nuture those in our care - but ultimately, what is it we hope that our children will become - well, for me - it is that as they grow in their love of the Lord and in their obedience to Him that they become joyful and willing participants and contributers to our family and our world.
God places children with adults because they need guidance, direction, love and nurture.
There may be more eternal significance in looking to God as our heavenly parent - but essentially at its most basic level - does God feel any different?
We share the good news with others because our heavenly parent has already determined who will be in his family -
we might have done it differently had it been left to us, but God has not only chosen us, He has also determined that it will be as we join in with what he is doing that his purpose to bring others he has chosen into His growing family will be completed.
We need to read further in Ephesians to get the application of this passage - so please do that.
For now, I think it would be hard to miss Paul’s response of gratitude - may it be ours as we
Praise God for the past blessings of election (1:4-6)
Praise God for the present blessings of redemption (1:7-8)
Praise God for the future blessings of completion (1:9-10)
Praise God that you are part of a glorious inheritance (1:11-14)
And if you are not sure about that - don’t leave here today without coming to talk to me!
Question 27:
Are all people, just as they were lost through Adam, saved through Christ?
The Bible answers:
No, only those who are elected by God and united to Christ by faith.