Your Ultimate Destiny

Today’s Reading from God’s Word

Ephesians 1:3–6 CSB

3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

Introduction

Probably one of the most frustrating things in the world is the feeling that your life is going nowhere.

You’re alive …. but what’s the point?

You might daydream — thinking about what it might be to be involved in something great and valuable - and play a significant role - but then reality comes back and everything looks small and insignificant and pitiful and pointless.

Have you ever been there? It can be a deep rut to pull out of.

You were not made to live without a destiny

God made you, he designed you, to be sustained by a meaningful, purposeful future.

He intends for you to be strengthened each day by this assurance and confidence — that no matter what happens today, no matter how mundane or ordinary, that you are in the middle of something significant that is leading to something great, good and beautiful.

I believe this is the basis behind passages like

Romans 8:28 CSB

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

2 Thessalonians 2:13–14 CSB

13 But we ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God has chosen you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, so that you might obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 CSB

9 For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

This is what you’re moving toward.

Must do whatever you can to keep the connection between your present life — and your amazing destiny alive and burning.

Satan looks to extinguish it at every turn.

Thru disappointment, distress, and defeat.

As these things pile on, he tells you there is no use.

Wasting time/energy … for nothing.

You don’t deserve anything nice because you’re a failure.

His goal is to enslave and trap you in your fear, guilt, remorse, and sorrow.

He also wants to make you feel isolated and alone.

This is why we’re seeing the rise of suicide at an unprecedented level in our country — the most blessed on the planet.

This is why our nation is the most addicted of any nation on earth.

People are numbing themselves to the pain with alcohol, drugs, porn. Or they’re overindulging in work, or play.

You see, the world has no connection to the purpose for which God created us.

And our mission here at Cornerstone is to help people reestablish the connection by discovering Jesus - who shows us what our true destiny can really be.

A Story from Hungary

In his book, Kingdoms in Conflict on p. 68, Charles Colson tells the story that during WW2, prisoners in a concentration camp in Hungary were forced to do the awful and nauseating work inside a sewage plant.

But it was work — and through that work — something was accomplished.

But the plant was destroyed by allied bombers. Now what to do?

The Nazi officers arranged for prisoners to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the other side of the camp and dump it.

Then the next day, they ordered them to shovel it back into carts and move the sand back to where they started.

This went on for weeks.

After some time, one old man began crying uncontrollably.

The guards hauled him away.

Another man screamed until he was beaten into silence.

Then a young man who had been in the camp for 3 years darted away from the group.

The guards shouted for him to stop as he ran toward the electric fence.

Even the other prisoners cried out for him to stop, but it was too late.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling noise as his flesh smoked and smoldered.

In the months that followed, dozens of prisoners went mad and ran from their work — only to be shot by teh guards or electrocuted by the fence.

We were made to be sustained by a purposeful future. We were made to live in assurance of a significant destiny.

In Today’s Lesson

I want us to think about our eternal destiny and connect it with the word “predestined” in Ephesians 1.5.

Ephesians 1:5 (CSB)

5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

My goal is to establish in your heart — those of you who have chosen Jesus as your Savior, Lord, and Hope — I want to help you find a greater confidence in a predetermined destiny — a good and great and beautiful future - so that you don’t get lost in the fog of your spiritual war with Satan.

When disappointment, distress, and defeat come, I want to help you keep from losing your connection to what is ahead. to what awaits.

There will be days where you will be tempted to cry out or feel beaten down by the futility, and I don’t want you to throw yourself on the wires because there is no future worth living for.

And the way I want to do this to establish it in your heart and make it firm is to show you two important things in our text:

The goal of your destiny

The ground of your destiny

The Goal of Your Destiny

Again, we are talking about those who have willfully, consciously submitted themselves in obedience to God.

These are God’s chosen or elected ones.

What are we destined for?

Ephesians 1:5 (CSB)

5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

God predestined you for sonship — from before the beginning of the world.

“predestination” has to do with the goal, destiny, or as we said last week, “result” for where we are headed.

Remember, God has predestined the result of your salvation — not the beginning of it.

What is that result?

Sonship.

That you be part of His family.

That you become an heir of all he owns.

That you would take on the family likeness. What’s that?

Ephesians 1:4 (CSB)

4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.

This is what Paul means in Romans 8:29

Romans 8:29 (CSB)

29 For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

This is what he is speaking of bringing to completion in Philippians 1:6

Philippians 1:6 CSB

6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 4:24 (CSB)

24 and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.

God has determined for you to bear His family’s likeness.

He calls on us to take up His character, the character of holiness and blamelessness.

This is our destiny.

Its All from Love

Ephesians 1:4 (CSB)

4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.

It depends on the translation you’re using … but the “in love” can be placed at the end of the first sentence in v. 4, or it can go with the sentence that is included with verse 5.

So the first way would be rendered like the CSB has it.

Here, “in love” goes with holy & blameless, showing us what holiness is.

If you’re reading out of the ESV, NIV, or NASB, “in love” is connected with the sentence running into v. 5.

If it’s rendered this way “in love” is connected with how or the way God predestined us.

The order of the Greek words allows for both of these renderings.

Now, let’s consider another passage:

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

Let’s consider how love is the essence of our holiness.

1 Thessalonians 3:12–13 NASB 2020

12 and may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you; 13 so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

There are several parallels with our passage in Ephesians 1:4-5:

“in love”

the combination of “blameless” and “holiness”

the usage of the term “before our God”

the reference to God as our Father just like the focus on sonship in Ephesians 1:4-5.

Your Destiny is to Live in and Walk in Love

Love is the pathway to holiness, Ephesians 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:12.

And so, to live in love and to walk in love is part of our destiny in Ephesians 1:4-5.

God predetermined that his children would be like him — holy, blameless, and to live in love to each other and to all men.

This is why John says what he does here:

1 John 3:10 CSB

10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.

Your destiny is to be as your father is holy, and that means your very essence is to love — because your father is love.

1 John 4:8 (CSB)

8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God has predetermined that you be like him.

Your Highest Destiny

Let’s go back to Ephesians 1:6 now.

Ephesians 1:6 (CSB)

6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

Why has God predetermined that you would be his child and that you be holy and blameless in love?

These things are not ends unto themselves.

They exist to the praise of his glorious grace.

This is the final goal of your destiny.

There is no higher hope, no greater tomorrow, no more meaningful future, no more cause worthy to live for, than to reflect God’s grace throughout eternity.

The Ground of Your Destiny

So, we’ve seen the goal. Now, what is its basis?

Let’s look again at Ephesians 1:5

Ephesians 1:5 (CSB)

5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

predestined to sonship.

Now, let’s connect Ephesians 5:25-27.

Ephesians 5:25–27 CSB

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.

What is the basis for your having become holy and blameless?

Answer: the loving self-sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf. (v. 25)

So, when God predetermined his redeemed ones for sonship, he also predestined his son to die for you.

This is the ground or the basis for your salvation.

Not only was the end of your salvation predetermined (v 26-27), but so was Jesus’ death.

Now back to Ephesians 1:5

Ephesians 1:5 (CSB)

5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

It was all according to the good pleasure of His will.

The initiative for salvation rests with God.

It is not according to what we have done.

It is not about any knowledge we’ve acquired.

It is not about any family connections.

It is not about race.

It is not about our work or status or wealth.

It is not about what we willed.

Our salvation has only come about because of the good intention of his will.

As We Close…

Romans 8:31–38 CSB

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything? 33 Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies. 34 Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. 35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

If you are in Christ, you have been rooted in him.

And even on the worst days when it feels like things are going sideways, the branches of your life are growing into a glorious future with God.

There are no unimportant days of your life.

You need no go to bed at night feeling your life is going nowhere.

You do not need to get caught up in the lie that you are not connected to an awesome purpose.

Ephesians 1:4-5

Ephesians 1:4–5 CSB

4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

Have you been adopted?