Blessings Beyond Imagination

We are into week 2 of our study through the book of Ephesians that we’ve called “Beyond Imagination” or “Church Beyond Imagination.

We are going to take this book section by section to see God’s unimaginable vision for the Church… so that we can pursue that vision and bring him MUCH GLORY!

So the title of each sermon is going to fill in that blank before the words “Beyond Imagination.”

Last week was “Church Beyond Imagination” and really that is the theme of the whole book and the whole series… last week we did an overview of the themes of the book by looking at chapter 1 verses 1-2…

and so this week and next week we are into verses 3-14 that we are going to call “Blessings Beyond Imagination.”

Intro: I want you to write down the answer to two important questions:

1) Are you blessed?

2) How do you know?

I think many of us would answer that first question, “Are you blessed” with a “yes” just because we know we SHOULD.

We know it would be impolite or sound like we were complaining if we said “no.”

We know we have it better than some people (whatever that means) and so most of us would say “Yes, we are blessed.”

Now, if I asked, “Do you FEEL blessed?” that might be a different story…

You have those people who always seem to be having a good day who would say, “Of course, I ALWAYS feel blessed.”

And then you have more melancholy people like me who would have a hard time seeing the sun when there is one cloud in the sky.

Which is why we have to press on to the next question: How do you know?

And this is where it gets interesting...

Because we might answer YES to the first question even when we don’t feel like it...

But then we will point to temporal, visible, physical reasons to prove why we are blessed:

At least I have my family.

At least I have a roof over my head.

At least I have food over my table.

At least I have a job.

Have you ever answered in those ways?

Notice that when we describe blessing in that way, we have a rather scant view of blessing… yes God has blessed me, but he COULD bless me more. He’s blessed me in the “LEAST” way possible.

Not only that, but when we point out to temporal or physical blessings, we reveal where our minds are set… we reveal the realm to which our hearts are bound… we reveal where we find our identity: in EARTHLY things.

But what happens if all those things are taken away? What happens when our job isn’t what we hoped it would be, or conflict starts to tear apart our family?

What does it mean for the person who DOESN’T have those tangible so-called “blessings.” Can they still be blessed?

I think you know where I am going with this: OF COURSE THEY CAN!

Because the greatest blessings we can receive are not things that can be touched with human hands or seen with human eyes.

The greatest blessings we can receive do not come from the earthly realm… they find their home in the heavenly places.

And if we root our identity IN CHRIST, we will be OVERWHELMED by the blessings we have been given in him… and we will consider ourselves, above all things, “Blessed in Christ.”

And we will know that this was all of grace… and that we must give God ALL the glory.

So here’s where we are going today:

Big Idea: Give God glory by looking beyond what is seen to the unimaginable blessings we have in Christ.

If we are going to be the church that God calls us to be, we are going to have to cling to the spiritual blessings… the provisions… the benefits… that are given to us in Christ.

This week we are really honed in on our first main goal as a church for this Fall which is all about our identity in Christ defining our everyday experience.

When we use those words, “identity in Christ,” (at least in more theologically conservative circles) we are talking about these two very important words that show up all over the New Testament… that true believers are IN CHRIST.

That they are united to him and hidden in him through faith.

Those words “in Christ” or “in him” show up all over Ephesians 1:3-14...

The Apostle Paul is writing from his imprisonment in Rome… he is under house arrest chained to a Roman guard… not exactly a situation most people would call “blessed.”

And he is writing to the churches in Ephesus and the surrounding regions…

And he wants them to know that their blessing is not tied to their physical earthly circumstances… his blessing is not limited by the short length of his chains in prison...

The blessing God has for them extends to the furthest reaches of the heavenly places because it is IN CHRIST.

And that is for the purpose of God getting much glory through them as they unite together as Christ’s blessed body, the church.

So read with me in Ephesians 1:3-14.

That’s a lot to take in isn’t it? Just be thankful that your English translations put some periods in there… because in the Greek that’s ONE LONG sentence with no punctuation!

I went back and forth for a long time about how long to spend on this section… should it be one, two, three… twenty-five sermons (like the venerable Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones gave to his church)?

MOST preachers spend quite a long time on this...

Because there’s a lot in there… a lot that people like to debate… like election and predestination...

But here’s my concern when we do that: if Paul wrote this all in one sentence, that means that the author’s intent was for the churches in and around Ephesus to take this all in at one time… and possibly even in just a few readings.

So I HAD landed on one sermon...

And then I got to studying and writing this week.

And I thought… I’m crazy. This is way more than one sermon worth if I’m going to explain it well…

So here’s where I landed… it’s going to be ONE, TWO-PART sermon… this week and next week.

We won’t take as long as SOME excellent preachers have… but we won’t be as short as I was going to be.

But in the end, I hope the effect of all of it is that you would see the WONDER of the WHOLE of what he has captured here…

And that we would not get lost in the trees so that we lose sight of the beauty of the forest.

If you are following along this week, I’m going to (Lord willing) send out some more study questions so you can go even deeper into this section and stay with us… you will NOT go on to week 3 this week.

So TODAY we are going to work our way through verses 3-6 and next week we will cover 7-14 (Lord willing)…

And Paul starts his long sentence in verse 3 by laying out the main topic he is addressing...

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,”

There are a few things that I want you to notice about this first verse… because it sets the course of everything we are going to study in the next two weeks:

First, Notice: what’s his purpose in writing this RICH, THEOLOGICAL, and yet CONTROVERSIAL sentence? That GOD would be blessed.

That word, when used toward God, means to PRAISE… to BESTOW HONOR...

Paul’s concern in talking about these blessings in Christ Jesus isn’t so that we would feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

It isn’t so that we would make much of ourselves and say, “Look at how amazing I must be that God would CHOOSE ME… I don’t get it, but he must think I’m awesome!”

No, the purpose is, “Look at how awesome GOD IS… blessed be HIS NAME… all praise and honor and glory belongs to HIM!”

In fact, at three critical points throughout this long sentence, Paul is going to call our attention back to this by saying something like “to the praise of his glory.”

He wants us to remember the point of any blessing we receive from God is that we would turn around and bless HIM.

Second, notice that this blessing… this praise... is given to “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That’s what we would call TRINITARIAN language.

Our ONE GOD is being revealed as THREE PERSONS… (two of whom are mentioned here in this verse… the third is mentioned later).

And those three persons of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit… are going to be featured in different ways throughout this passage.

Paul organizes his thoughts around the work of each person of the Trinity.

Third, I want you to notice that these blessings are described as coming to us IN CHRIST....

We talked about these two words, “In Christ” just briefly last week… they quite possibly the most important two words in the New Testament because they govern the entire Christian experience.

The Bible says that when we truly believe in Jesus for our salvation, when we put our FAITH in him, we are IN CHRIST.

Biblical Belief… Saving FAITH... is not just KNOWING or THINKING something is true:

It is the transfer of our allegiance… our identity… our trust… our hope and confidence… to the object of our belief.

So when we believe in Christ, we forsake our allegiance to anyone or anything else...

We stop looking for our identity and blessing in what we do… or what we have achieved… or in our relationships with other people and their approval of us…

We forsake all else and find our identity in Christ.

IN THE Promised. Anointed. Savior. King.

The Bible gives us a number of pictures to capture this:

John 15 says We are attached to him and abide in him as branches are attached to a vine: Jesus the VINE gives us the nourishment of eternal life.

Ephesians 4 and Col. 3 describes this like putting on clothing: We are clothed in the new self made after the image of Christ... so that his righteousness becomes our righteousness… first in our position before God… and then also in our practice in daily life.

Ephesians uses the imagery of the body: we are IN CHRIST just like your hand or your foot or your eyeball is IN your body.

Most of Paul’s letters use the imagery of baptism and death and life: When we are in Christ, our lives have died with him as if we are drowned under water... and we are raised with him and his resurrection power now defines us.

Let me illustrate it for you this way...

I want you to imagine that this sponge represents you and me.

And the air around this sponge represents the default state of everyone apart from Christ… we will call this state of being “IN THE FLESH.”

So what is the relationship between the sponge and it’s current environment, the air?

Well, the air has dried it out…

In fact, the air is filling all of the pores of this sponge so that when you squeeze it, it fills back up with air...

The air is defining it’s shape and texture and even it’s usefulness… nobody can use a dry sponge for a sponge’s intended created purpose.

That’s us in our natural born state: in the flesh.

We are dried out… filled with sin and fleshly desires…

Defined by it… virtually useless for our intended created purpose.

Now this clear bowl of colored water… this represents Christ...

Jesus became a man and shed his blood so that our sins could be paid for… and so that we could be restored in the image of our Creator… the purpose for which we were created.

So when God awakens your heart and you put your faith in Christ [dip sponge]… here’s what happens:

You don’t just say, “I believe that the water exists… I believe that Jesus died and rose again… and then go on living in the flesh...

NO! You immerse yourself in the person and work of Christ!

By faith you transfer your allegiance and identity from the flesh to Christ.

You are no longer IN THE FLESH… you are IN CHRIST.

Now what is happening as I plunge this sponge into the water?

It is fully submerged… and it is fully saturated.

I can still SEE the sponge, but I only see it THROUGH the filter of the water.

AND… not to push this too far… if the sponge were able to look out, all it would see would be filtered by the water.

That’s what it means to be IN CHRIST.

First, you are no longer regarded according to the flesh… you are no longer SEEN as fleshly…

Second, You are fully immersed in Christ… God sees you THROUGH HIM.

Third, you see the world around you through the lens of Christ… he changes your view of reality.

And third, Christ is filling up every part of you… he is fundamentally changing who you are so that your life bears his image.

So if we were to examine this sponge (by the way, this is where the analogy breaks down because once we are IN CHRIST, we can’t be taken OUT OF CHRIST… but just for the sake of examination)… the sponge has now changed color and is permeated with the water…

it’s flexible and useful…

It’s fundamental identity has changed.

That’s union with Christ.

And God the Father has blessed us IN CHRIST.

Why? Because he is the one who deserves ALL blessings!

He is the one who earned them and received them first!

He is the one who can’t do anything to mess them up!

And we are in him… and therefore we are in his blessing.

Every single one of them.

That’s the fourth thing that I want you to notice about these blessings… in Christ he has given you EVERY spiritual blessing...

First was that the point of the passage is PRAISE blessing to God… second, that we are praising a God who is TRINITY or TRIUNE… third is that the blessings come to us IN CHRIST… and fourth that God has given us EVERY Spiritual blessing (emphasis on EVERY).

There is not a spiritual blessing that God COULD give you that he has NOT given you.

God is NOT holding out on you.

He’s not waiting until you perform better before he gives some of them to you…

Christ has already done the work to secure every spiritual blessing of God for you.

And that’s WHY we can’t have this poverty mentality when it comes to our view of God’s blessing.

Sometimes we act like God is some mean dictator living in heaven with his arms crossed withholding things that would make our Christian life better!

But that’s just not the case!

God, in his grace, is LAVISHING every spiritual blessing upon us!

Peter wrote that he has given us ALL THINGS that pertain to life and godliness.

There is not one thing that would benefit your life in Christ that God has not already given you.

But notice this: the blessings come in Christ… and they are in the heavenly places.

What’s up with that? Does that mean I have to go to heaven to experience them?

And the answer is yes and no.

The blessings will be experienced MOST FULLY when we are physically in the presence of Christ in the New Heavens and New Earth for all eternity...

But because these are spiritual blessings, they are dependent upon our SPIRITUAL POSITION, not our PHYSICAL POSITION....

And our SPIRITUAL POSITION is that we are IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES IN CHRIST right now!

Look at Ephesians 2:4-6 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

We talked about this last week: that our experience of salvation… and our experience of the church… is not limited to what we can see.

At this moment, those of us who have put our faith in Christ are not MERELY sitting in a building at 902 Winter Hill Rd.

We are gathered around the throne of God… not just in our imagination… but in our spiritual reality.

And when we leave this place and scatter throughout the week, we remain IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES to enjoy all the blessings Christ has for us there.

There’s more to this than what we see.

So these blessings HAVE been given to us NOW and they are experienced in a REAL, but SPIRITUAL way...

They are not blessings that we can always FEEL emotionally.

They are not blessings that we can necessarily PERCEIVE with our five senses.

They BELONG to another realm.

They are blessings that we only access and enjoy THROUGH FAITH because they are experienced through our union with Christ in the heavenly places.

Let me just pause here and say: this is why it is so important to distinguish between what we FEEL and what is REAL.

When I am feeling DEPRESSED...

And I start to think, “All is lost… everyone hates me… I’m just a failure...”

That’s what I FEEL in my flesh talking...

But what is REAL is that I am in Christ...

That I am seated with him in the heavenly places...

That I am loved and blessed beyond imagination...

That I have a purpose: to glorify God… and that I have been given every spiritual blessing imaginable in order to accomplish that purpose.

We have to know who we are in Christ. We have to distinguish between what we FEEL and what is REAL.

Take another example: when I feel ANGRY about the injustices that we see in the world.

And we think the world is going to Hell in a handbasket...

And that all hope is lost for our generation… and especially for the next generation...

What we FEEL is anger and hopelessness...

What is REAL is that God is working all things together for his glory and for the good of those who love him…

What is REAL is that Jesus is on the throne in the Heavenly Places and the kings of this world are just pawns in his plan.

And those who are IN CHRIST will get to enjoy his Kingdom when he returns.

So when your FEELINGS start pulling your heart away from faith in Christ and hope in Christ and love in Christ… remind yourself of what is REAL.

Immerse yourself in your identity in Christ.

Being IN CHRIST changes everything because IN CHRIST we have EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES… SO THAT… we might BLESS the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Just take a moment right now and bless him… praise his name! If you really dwell on the truth of verse three, it will blow your mind!

But now Paul wants to take us even deeper into the wonder of this identity we have in Christ… he wants us to understand what these blessings are… and what had to happen for us to come into them...

Paul transitions to the rest of this sentence with these words, “Even as...”

He’s signaling that he’s about to describe both the blessings AND the means by which we obtain those blessings.

Election and adoption and redemption and forgiveness… and all of these other things are both BLESSINGS in and of themselves...

AND they are the way that EVERY BLESSING comes to us in Christ.

Now, like I said before, Paul organizes this LONG SENTENCE in a couple of different ways:

First, (and I didn’t mention this before), he follows a rough timeline… he talks about God’s work in eternity past… and then carries that THROUGH the present into eternity future...

Second, he talks about the work of each distinct person of the Trinity.... he flows from the work of the Father… to the work of the Son… to the work of the Spirit… and there is overlap, but there is a clear flow in the passage.

And finally, he concludes his description of each Trinitarian Person’s work with some form of the words “to the praise of his glory.”

The purpose of this section about identity in Christ and spiritual blessings for believers is clearly that God would receive MUCH GLORY.

So Paul starts in eternity past with the work of the Father (and this is all the further we are going to be able to look today):

Pick up in v. 3 again - “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, EVEN AS he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

Both the blessing… and the means by which we receive that blessing… is the gracious election of God.

1) Praise the Father for the blessing of gracious election. (1:4-6)

Explain: Now this is the part that everyone loves to debate, isn’t it???

This is where people lose their minds.

CHOOSE?!?! How could a loving God CHOOSE some people and not others?

Doesn’t election mean that humans aren’t responsible in their choices? Doesn’t it NEGATE human free will (as if that was the most important thing in the world to protect)???

And if God has already sovereignly chosen, why should we pray? Why should we evangelize?

Those are all valid questions… but they all share the same MAJOR problem: they all have PEOPLE at the center… they all start with HUMAN WISDOM and HUMAN LOGIC, and Paul’s whole point is to show the glory of God who alone is to be praised forever and ever.

And so don’t we think that maybe God understands some things that we don’t and we should let HIM do the talking instead of twisting his words to what seems logical to us???

Paul’s whole point is to show that the reason and the timing and the idea and the prerogative and the grace of salvation ALL belongs to God… so that the praise and the glory ALL go to him!

And so we must start, not with human logic, but with the way God actually revealed this to us… with words that have concrete meaning that were inspired by the Holy Spirit himself.

So two words govern this section of the Father’s work: God chose and God predestined. They are not the same, but they DO work together.

First, Paul says God the Father CHOSE US.

The word means a decisive action to pick out something or someone for yourself.

So one might go to the store and CHOOSE a shirt to buy.

Or someone might CHOOSE a husband or a wife to marry.

But here’s the thing with the way that we tend to look at choice: WE make choices based on a certain quality that we see in that thing…

Our choices are DEPENDENT and therefore INFLUENCED by factors outside of ourselves.

I choose the shirt because I like the style.

I choose my wife because she is beautiful and unique and interesting and all sorts of other things...

There was something IN HER that made her stand out.

SHE influenced my choice.

But not so with God’s choice.

God is the only Person who is not DEPENDENT on anything else… he is not swayed or influenced by factors outside of himself.

So for God to CHOOSE does NOT imply that he liked some and not others and that’s why he chose.

It does NOT imply some quality in the people he chose that does not exist in the others.

In fact, the Greek word for “choose” really tells us nothing about WHY God chose one person instead of another… just that he did.

And the Bible is clear that God did not choose a people for himself because he saw anything unique in US…

or because he looked down the corridors of time and saw that we would have some response of faith or that we would make “good Christians” that he could use more than others...

That would make God dependent on US, which would make him less than God.

God’s choice says more about him than it does the object of his choosing… because he chose us IN CHRIST.

That is, he chose us in connection to the person and work of Christ.

Apart from Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for sin, God would choose NO ONE.

We were ALL enemies of God… children of wrath… NOT one of us wanted him… no one was righteous… EVERYONE rejected him...

You want to talk about free will?

Our so-called “free will” leads us to sin all the time… it taints everything that we do apart from Christ.

And therefore God CHOSE us based upon the work that Christ would do for us and in us, not based on the work that we do for him.

We don’t know why he chose US in particular and not others… God in his wisdom chose not to reveal that...

Except that in his choosing, somehow his GRACE would be made more evident, which would bring him more glory.

But here’s what’s really crazy… He CHOSE US IN HIM… BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.

That is before he created anything...

Before mankind ever fell into sin and became fully deserving of his just wrath by their own will.

LONG before you and I ever drew a breath...

God had a plan to rescue a chosen people for himself.

God had a plan IN CHRIST… his plan was to send his Son to die for the sins of his people…

His plan was not a REACTION to our sin… as if Adam and Eve ate the fruit and God said, “Well I didn’t see THAT coming… now what am I going to do?”

His predetermined choice… before he ever created one MOLECULE... was to choose a people for himself IN CHRIST… who would be redeemed from sin as objects of His grace...

His predetermined choice was what we see at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21… a people, redeemed from sin, from every tribe and tongue and nation and people... who live forever with him in a New Heavens and New Earth.

He chose it.. because that’s what would demonstrate his glorious grace the most.

Now notice the RESULT of his choosing… the AIM or TARGET of his choosing: that we would be holy and blameless before him.

If you are chosen, you are chosen to be holy and blameless.

Some people argue against election or sovereign choosing because they say, “Well that means that you can live like hell and still go to heaven.”

No, he CHOSE US… and he CHOSE US TO BE HOLY AND BLAMELESS.

The result of his choosing is HOLINESS and BLAMELESS living.

Other people ask, “How do I know if I am chosen?”

And we would answer that question with another question, “Do you have faith in Christ that has surrendered yourself to his will… has immersed yourself in him… so that increasingly, your life starts looking like his holy and blameless life?

If SO, then you were chosen. If not, then turn to him in faith today.

The Bible calls you to repent of your sin and turn to Christ.

And maybe God is using this moment… as you hear of what God has done in Christ to awaken faith in your heart...

So if he is, and if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart… forsake all else and turn to Jesus!

And if you do that, you are in Christ, which means you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

Listen, this doctrine has been made to be so confusing because we want to approach it with human logic...

We want to make it an either/or: Either God is sovereign OR we have responsibility.

But God’s word is clear: God is Sovereign… he chooses… AND we have responsibility to repent and believe in him.

But when we do, we can rest assured that our salvation does not depend upon that faith, but upon God who chose us before the foundation of the earth.

The doctrine of election was given to us by divine wisdom, not so that we could be confused… not so that we would be worried... not so that we could argue about it… but simply so that we would WORSHIP.

But the question remains… was his choosing SURE?

Was it EFFECTUAL?

Could God CHOOSE us for salvation, but that salvation not come to pass?

THAT’S what is covered in the next word.

Predestined - In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”

First, let me say that there is a lot of debate about whether the words “in love” belong with the idea of predestination or with the idea of being holy and blameless…

I really don’t have time or any desire to go into all that, so let’s just say this: GOD LOVES those whom he chooses and predestines… can we be satisfied in that?

Can we ENJOY the love of God rather than debate the love of God?

His love is far beyond any human love you have ever seen...

It is based entirely in his own character.

If you were to ask, “But WHY does he love me?” The only answer that the Bible gives is “Because he loves you. Because he IS love.”

His love, just like his choosing, is rooted in him not in you...

And so is this word “predestined.”

It means he DETERMINED YOUR DESTINY beforehand...

It does NOT mean he “knew of your destiny beforehand...”

It does NOT mean that he responded to something in us that he knew would become true.

No, it means that he determined the boundaries of of everything in Creation so that those whom he chose would become his.

Simply put, “He fore-ordained.”

It was his good pleasure to work ALL things according to the purpose of his will…

every MOMENT of history... working out EXACTLY as he planned it...

So that... through his glorious grace... a certain people would be called out of death and into life…

So that they would be ADOPTED AS SONS through Jesus Christ… we are PREDESTINED TO ADOPTION.

This idea of adoption is super important… it means that God planned for and initiated a certain type of relationship with us.... one in which we approach him as Father.

Now Paul specifically says we are predestined to adoption as “sons”… that word SONS is less about gender and more about the privileges afforded to adopted sons in the Roman culture.

Paul is not EXCLUDING women… instead, he is saying that MEN AND WOMEN have the full privilege of SONSHIP through Christ...

They become HEIRS of God in Christ… that theme of HEIRS or inheritance will come up again in the section we study next week.

Because Jesus is God’s Son, and we are IN HIM, then we can be adopted as SONS and receive the full rights and privileges of him.

And this was all through his GRACE that he blessed us with in the “The Beloved.” (that refers to Christ)

The Father loves his Son more than anyone in the UNIVERSE…

And we are IN HIM… which means he is showering GRACE… FAVOR… BLESSING… upon us as he would his own Son.

So here’s the bottom line: God chose us in Christ… that we should be holy and blameless… and he predestined us to adoption as sons…

I want you to understand that these are UNSHAKABLE TRUTHS.

This was all decided before the foundations of the earth.

This is all sovereignly being worked out in time and space...

This is a blessing kept for us IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES… the circumstances and trials and feelings can’t change the fact that this is true!

And so what does it mean for us this week?

I like what Alistair Begg said of these verses… he said that these truths produce in us humility, dignity, and security.

First, these truths produce humility in us because our salvation was all of God. We can’t even understand it, let alone achieve it.

Second they produce dignity. We are not defined by our sin. We are not defined by our fallen state. We are defined by being “in Christ.” We are sons of God. Heirs with Christ.

And third they produce security. If my salvation was all accomplished apart from me, then I can’t mess it up! Not that I go on sinning that grace may abound, but rather because I am chosen to be holy and blameless, I can actually pursue that goal without fear of failure.

And because this blessing of gracious election produces this kind of humility, dignity and security, ALL PRAISE flows to HIS GLORY for HIS GRACE.

HE has done it all, he gets all the praise.

The natural response of the believer to this passage is not to cross our arms and say, “HUMPH… CHOOSING… PREDESTINATION… ELECTION… that doesn’t make any sense to me... how DARE God take away my free will like that?!?!”

NO! The natural response to these verse is, “PRAISE THE FATHER FOR HIS GRACIOUS ELECTION!”

There is NONE LIKE HIM.

So as we go to prayer...

I’m just going to have you pray on your own right now...

And first of all, I want you to spend some time ADORING GOD as the only Sovereign God who has chosen a people for himself.

Praise him for his plan… praise him for his choosing… praise him for his creating… and saving… Praise him for being your perfect Father…

And then prayerfully consider this question, “Am I in Christ? And if so, How much have I made of that truth this week?”

Confess any way you have let other things define your identity.

And then finally, acknowledge your need for Christ to live holy and blameless before him.