Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

She had gone down in history as “America’s Greatest Miser,” yet when she died in 1916, “Hetty” Green left an estate valued at over $100 million.

She ate cold oatmeal because it cost to heat it.

Her son had to suffer a leg amputation, because she delayed so long in looking for a free clinic that his case became incurable.

She was wealthy, yet she chose to live like a pauper.

Eccentric?

Certainly!

Crazy?

Perhaps—but nobody could prove it.

She was so foolish that she hastened her own death by bringing on an attack of apoplexy while arguing about the value of drinking skimmed milk!

But Hetty Green is an illustration of too many Christian believers today.

They have limitless wealth at their disposal, and yet they live like paupers.

It was to this kind of Christian that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians.

- Bible Exposition Commentary, Wiersbe

In many ways Christians today are very much like Hetty Green.

They fail, we fail to understand what we have in Christ.

The Book of Ephesians clearly spells out what we have in Christ, the riches we have in Him because of Christ death on the cross.

The book of Ephesians is laid out in showing what we have, who we were, who we are, and what we are to do.

The main theme in Ephesians is the purpose of God in Christ for the Church.

The central purpose is to glorify God through unity.

The foundation (belief) of this unity is taught in chapters 1-3 and lived (behavior) in chapters 4-6.

The first three chapters are filled with declarative statements whereas chapters 4-6 have many imperatives/commands woven throughout.

In the first two verses Paul introduces this letter to the Ephesian church.

He does so by describing the people of the church.

He describes the believer/ Christian as one who is appointed by God, set apart for God, faithful to God, in Christ, and receive God’s grace and peace.

This description alone ought to bring us a church to a deep contemplation of our relationship with God.

Paul though does not stop here.

He goes from describing to delineating what has happened to the believer, to those a part of the church.

See, the book of Ephesians is about “What God is doing in the church through His Son for His own glory forever.”

– Mark Minnick.

Paul begins his doctrinal teaching about the church with a magnificent hymn.

This hymn contains truths that need to be singing melody in our hearts on a daily basis.

This hymn comes in three Stanzas followed by the same refrain.

This refrain again is emphasizing the center, the core to Christian life!

This year we are placing a strong and concerted focus on the gospel.

It is my desire as well as Pastor and Carl’s and the deacons that we as a church be identified as a gospel preaching, gospel teaching, gospel believing, and gospel living church!

As we look at this hymn this afternoon and you do not come away supercharged, I would challenge you to evaluate your life and see why you are not excited and energized by the gospel and its power!

The truth of the gospel IS the POWER of God!

AS you follow these stanzas you see a progression from one stanza to the next.

You find a Trinitarian progression.

Stanza 1 discusses the blessings come from God the Father.

Stanza 2 discusses the blessings become ours in God the Son.

Stanza 3 discusses the blessings are applied by God the Holy Spirit.

In all of these we still see a common thread—God the Father is the key worker.

We see the refrains in 1:6, 1:12, 1:14 – “To the praise of His glory.”.

Let’s dive in!

I. Redemptive blessings come from God the Father, 4-6

A. Blessing #1: God chose us before the foundation of world, 4.

The word is used 51 times: 2 times it is used for choosing rooms in wedding, Lk.10:42; 14:7. 4 times use of God’s chosen Messiah, Lk.23:35.

8 times of Jesus choosing the 12, use of service as in choosing deacons etc. 30-32 times use of men and women to salvation and called the “elect”.

Mt24:14; I Cor.1:21-28; Jm.2:5.

This is the marvelous doctrine of election, a doctrine that has confused some and confounded others.

A seminary professor once said to me, “Try to explain election and you may lose your mind.

But try to explain it away and you may lose your soul!”[i] Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 11.

How?

What makes election possible?

Election is always and only in Christ.[i]

We were chosen in Him.

Eklegō (chose) is here in the aorist tense and the middle voice, indicating God's totally independent choice.

Because the verb is reflexive it signifies that God not only chose by Himself but for Himself.

His primary purpose in electing the church was the praise of His own glory (vv.

6, 12, 14).

—MNTC

He chose us in Christ, not in ourselves.[i]

[Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 11.]

By God's sovereign election, those who are saved were placed in eternal union with Christ before creation even took place.

Although man's will is not free in the sense that many people suppose, he does have a will, a will that Scripture clearly recognizes.

Apart from God, man's will is captive to sin.

But he is nevertheless able to choose God because God has made that choice possible.

Jesus said that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16) and that "everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die" (11:26).

The frequent commands to the unsaved to respond to the Lord (e.g., Josh.

24:15; Isa.

55:1; Matt.

3:1-2; 4:17; 11:28-30; John 5:40; 6:37; 7:37-39; Rev. 22:17) clearly indicate the responsibility of man to exercise his own will.

God's sovereign election and man's exercise of responsibility in choosing Jesus Christ seem opposite and irreconcilable truths—and from our limited human perspective they are opposite and irreconcilable.

Since the problem cannot be resolved by our finite minds, the result is always to compromise one truth in favor of the other or to weaken both by trying to take a position somewhere between them.

We should let the antimony remain, believing both truths completely and leaving the harmonizing of them to God.

MNTC

When?

Before the foundation of the world… Revelation 17:8

Spurgeon – “I am glad God chose me before I was born because he would not have chosen me after.”

(somewhat cavalier)

To say that election took place before creation indicates that God’s choice was due to his own free decision and love, which were not dependent on temporal circumstances or human merit.

The reasons for his election were rooted in the depths of his gracious, sovereign nature.

To affirm this is to give to Christians the assurance that God’s purposes for them are of the highest good, and the appropriate response from those who are chosen in Christ from all eternity is to praise him who has so richly blessed us.[i]

([i] Peter Thomas O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 100.)

God elected us before the foundation of the world.

Before the creation, the Fall, the covenants, or the law we were sovereignly predestined by God to be His.

He designed the church, the Body of His Son, before the world began.

Because in God's plan Christ was crucified for us "before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet.

1:20), we were designated for salvation by that same plan at that same time.

It was then that our inheritance in God's kingdom was determined (Matt.

25:34).

We belonged to God before time began, and we will be His after time has long run its course.

Our names as believers were "written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain" (Revelation 13:8; cf.

17:8).

MNTC

Why? …to be holy and blameless before God…

Holy and blameless in his sight mimics Colossians 1:22 (yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—).

The purpose of Christ’s reconciling work is the presentation of his people to be holy, blameless and without reproach in the presence of Christ.

B. Blessing #2: God predestinated the believer to adoption, 5.

Predestination and election happen simultaneously in the mind of God.

However it is hard for us to think and explain it that way so God in his grace placed in scripture an explanation of the sequence.