Encounter the Truth

Here's the reality: God has made known to us his plans and his intentions for the future, that we might be part of it, that we might have a role to play, that we might benefit from it, and that we might live fruitful and productive lives.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. Jonathan, last time we began to look at ways that God just poured out his generosity, his riches upon us, and we saw he did that through adoption. Today, we're going to take a look a little bit at how he did that through redemption, but also through revelation.

Jonathan Griffiths: Thanks, Steve. It's very, very interesting this emphasis that the Apostle Paul makes right here at the beginning of Ephesians on the blessing that we have in knowing God's intentions. Paul tells us that God has been pleased to make known to us the mystery of his will and his plan not just for us, but for the universe.

He wants to show us that God's grand plan for all things is to bring everything together under the headship of Jesus Christ. He wants us to know that as the people of Jesus Christ, we're going to be included in that in a way that brings great blessing to us and glory to Jesus Christ as well. In knowing these things, we're the most privileged people in all the world.

Steve Hiller: It's remarkable to me that God really allows us to be a part of what he's doing. I mean, he doesn't need us. He doesn't need us to accomplish anything, but he gives us the opportunity basically to come alongside and to be used in his plan.

Jonathan Griffiths: It is a wonderful thing, and I think for me one of the reactions to all this and part of the fruit of this in my life is it makes me want to read God's Word and listen to God's Word in the teaching and preaching of God's Word so that I can just enjoy this truth and enter into the privilege of knowing what God has revealed in Jesus Christ and through his Word. What a privilege we have to do that.

Steve Hiller: Well, speaking of getting into his Word, let's go ahead and open our Bibles, if you can, to Ephesians chapter one as we continue the message, God's Great Generosity in His Great Plan. Here's Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: We went out for brunch the other day and the restaurant gave us some coloring sheets for the kids to do while we waited for the food. As is standard on these things, they had some connect-the-dots pictures. You know those? You start at number one and then you find number two, and then when you finally get there, it's an elephant with a basketball or something. Anyway, you try and complete the picture before the breakfast arrives.

Now, if you just hold that image in your mind for a second, I want to suggest that it is not always helpful for us to play connect-the-dots when it comes to big Bible doctrines, Bible truths, and particularly when it comes to truths like the ones we're speaking of today. If I take a doctrine, a truth like the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in adoption and then try to draw a straight line to the Bible's insistence that human beings have a responsibility to respond to the gospel, well, I find it difficult to draw a straight line there.

I may well find that I can't connect the dots very well and make a coherent picture. The danger is that I might end up saying that one of the dots doesn't fit within the picture. It needs actually to be left out. One of the dots, dot number seven, I need to exclude that one if my picture is going to be tidy.

I might say, well, I'll drop the dot that speaks of the sovereignty of God and make a nice coherent picture all focused on human choice and human responsibility. Or I might drop out the responsibility dots and make a nice tidy picture all focused on the sovereignty of God.

But we need to allow for the fact, don't we, that these truths are big truths. They stretch our thinking beyond what we can fully comprehend. The Bible will make affirmations, all kinds of affirmations, that we can't always tidily reconcile and kind of knit together in our own limited rational capacities.

I'd like to suggest this morning that that is okay. That's actually okay. In fact, I'd like to suggest that that is exactly what we might expect when it comes to big truths about the eternal God who is infinitely powerful, infinitely wise, and infinitely great. If we could put everything into a nice tidy box, well, we might well wonder if we had reduced the infinite God down to our very finite size.

Actually, we'll go in some very unhelpful directions if we try to play connect-the-dots here without following the contours of Scripture very carefully. We can draw all kinds of incorrect conclusions from this truth if we're not careful—the truth that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

For instance, if we're not listening carefully to Scripture but just connecting our own dots, we might end up concluding that evangelism is unimportant or a waste of time. After all, God is God. He's chosen his people from eternity past. So maybe we should just stand back and leave him to it. If the outcome of missions or of personal evangelism is kind of already determined, well, why bother?

Sounds logical, right? That dot connects in our thinking. Well, not so fast. The Bible never allows us to reach that kind of conclusion. Our thinking might lead us there, but the Scriptures don't lead us there. The Bible calls us, doesn't it, to make Christ known. The Bible implores us to proclaim the gospel, to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us.

The Bible teaches us very clearly that God's appointed way for men and women, boys and girls to come to salvation is through the proclamation of the gospel. In the book of Romans in chapter ten, Paul really drives this point home. Having dealt with the doctrine of election pretty thoroughly in some ways in chapter nine of Romans, he goes on to insist that the proclamation of the gospel is God's appointed means of bringing salvation to the world. It's a famous passage, as you may remember it, Romans 10 and verse 14. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

God is sovereign, yes, but he involves his people, his church, in his plans for salvation. People aren't going to be saved if they don't hear, and they're not going to hear unless someone preaches to them. That's God's plan. That's his mechanism. That's his stated intention. Go and make disciples of all nations, Jesus tells us. That's our commission. That's our call.

It's clear from the Scriptures, isn't it, that the work of making Christ known is urgent. People are perishing. The responsibility is very great. You see, the sovereignty of God in salvation doesn't diminish the urgency of missions or the responsibility of evangelism. Both are real. Both are true.

If anything, actually, as we stand back and reflect upon it, if anything, the reality of God's sovereign work actually motivates our evangelism because it tells us this work is going to be fruitful. We're not lone rangers here going out into the world, but we're actually partners with the sovereign God in what he is doing. So as we go out in obedience, we know there's going to be a response because God is at work.

Now, there's a great deal to chew on there, but it is an awe-inspiring truth to rejoice in. God has made us rich through adoption. He's chosen us. He's set his love upon us for whatever reason, through no merit of our own. From eternity past, God chose to set his love upon me. And brothers and sisters, he chose to set his love upon you. What profound blessing, what immense riches are ours in Christ.

Next, God has made us rich through redemption. Verse 7: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

On Labor Day this year, we thought we'd go and explore a new place and try something new. After reading up about some different options, we ended up heading over to the Perth Agricultural Fair. I wonder if anyone's ever been to the Perth Fair. It was a new experience for us and a new place for us to visit. I wanted to go partly because I read that this fair had been running for 173 years. Can you believe that? I thought that was very impressive, and we had to go and give them our support.

Now, the one thing that surprised me just a little about the outing was that we had to pay an entry fee to get in, to enter the fairgrounds. There'd been some pretty good advertising inviting people to come along, and I had anticipated a pretty relaxed, open-door community event. But no, there was a gate, there was a ticket booth, and there were guards at the entry. The price was reasonable. We were happy to pay. But there it was.

When God adopts us into his family and welcomes us in, the Scriptures make it clear that there is a cost to pay for our admission. Even though the door is wide open, there is a price attached to it, a price attached to coming into the family of God. But Paul wants us to see here in verse seven that when God adopts us, he also covers our entry fee. He fully bears the cost. In him we have redemption through his blood.

To be redeemed means, of course, to be bought back at a price. The reality standing behind that statement is that you and I have been enslaved to sin, to its power in this life and to its penalty in death. But now Paul tells us that Jesus has bought our freedom through his death. He's paid the price of our wrongdoing, the price that God the judge demands, and he set us free.

I'm watching a documentary at the moment on the American Civil War, and you'll know that the Civil War was in large part, although not exclusively, a war fought over the matter of slavery. Union forces would set the slaves free and the Confederates would maintain the status quo. The ugly reality of that war was the sheer scale of the bloodshed, each battle becoming progressively more costly and bloody than the last. It was thought in the early stages of the war that it would be very light in terms of casualties and over quickly. But that optimism proved misplaced, and the reality couldn't have been more different.

And of course, when legally sanctioned slavery did come to an end in the United States, we could look back and we could say how many hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, how much blood was shed to set those slaves free. Redemption, if you like, was a very costly and a very painful thing.

For you and me to be set free from sin, blood would need to be shed. That was the cost. That was the price. And at the cross of Calvary, Jesus gave his life for that very purpose. Just this week, I was doing a little Bible time with our four-year-old and we were looking at the theme of Jesus coming to Earth and why he came. Our son wanted to understand why Jesus chose to come to Earth.

I said Jesus came so that we could know him, so that we could be friends with him, so that he could die for us. He had to become a human being if he was going to die. And so next, our little guy wanted to understand why it was that Jesus wanted to come and die. I explained that he was paying for our sin. He was taking the punishment for the wrong things we had done.

Now, our son had heard all those things before, but he was clearly kind of grappling with them this week at a bit of a deeper level and thinking them through. It was quite something to sit alongside him and to grapple with these truths, to look at the reality with fresh eyes, the eyes of a four-year-old. I mean, we rattle off the gospel truth that Jesus shed his blood for us and died for our sins, and it's so familiar to so many of us that we barely think twice as we say it and as we hear it.

But for our little four-year-old trying to grasp these things, it was quite something. He asked me repeatedly, why did Jesus do that? Why did he want to do it? That was the question he kept asking. He must have asked me that same question four or five times. There was a kind of wonderment about it as he asked. He could see that this was remarkable, unfathomable, even outrageously generous for Jesus to want to die for us, to choose to die for us. And of course, it is.

I hope we can see the wonder of it this morning. I hope we can feel the wonder of these words. Let me just read them again and let us really hear them, really listen, really let them sink in: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us."

CBC has just published figures indicating that Canada ranks among the very top countries in the world, the top five, for ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Apparently, 10,840 people in Canada make that list. I understand that one of the factors driving this accumulation of wealth is inheritance, and in particular the fact that we don't have an inheritance tax here.

Now, perhaps some people in this room have benefited from a great inheritance. Perhaps you even make the list. I have no idea. But I'll tell you this: if you belong to Christ, you are astonishingly rich. You are infinitely blessed, and so am I. Blessed beyond measure, blessed beyond that rich list. In him we have redemption.

That is the gift that our Father in heaven has lavished upon us. He's poured out the riches of his grace upon us that our sins might be forgiven, that we might be redeemed, set free from slavery, that we might live and not die. And if he has done that for us, then whatever else we may feel we lack in this world, it is completely inconsequential. We are rich beyond measure, infinitely blessed through redemption.

Finally, as we finish, we have been made rich through revelation. Verse 9: "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

In material terms again, in financial terms, you and I would become fabulously wealthy if we could know the future. If we knew where the markets were headed, if we knew where to invest, how best to put our money to work, we would very quickly amass a very great fortune. And of course, the best investors in this world are the ones who best predict the future, who make the best calls about the future. That's the bottom line. The one who rightly predicts the future is the one who profits greatly.

Now, what's true in material terms here is also true in spiritual terms. If we know what the future holds, we know how to live in light of it. we know where to invest not our money especially, but our very lives. The future is not ours to know by right, of course. As finite beings, we simply can't discover these things on our own. We don't have that capacity.

But here's the amazing reality: the God who created time and space, who knows the end from the beginning, who is master of time and lord of history, he has chosen in his kindness to make his plans known to us. His will, verse 9, was a mystery, which in Scripture means a fact known only to God and not previously revealed. These things were a mystery, but as an act of great kindness, God has chosen to make this mystery known to us.

It is a plan and an intention that is in Christ. That is, it is all wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ. It is focused on Christ. It is fulfilled in him. And here's the plan, verse 10: when the right time comes, when the fullness of time comes at God's appointed time, he will bring all things in heaven and on earth together under the headship of Jesus Christ.

There we have it. That is the future of the universe. There's the future of this world. That is my future and that is your future. And it is the future of everyone who has ever walked the face of this earth. A glorious day is coming when all opposition to Jesus Christ will be removed, all sin will be done away with, and Jesus Christ will be revealed in all his glory.

A day is coming when all things will be brought into submission under the Lord's universal King, Jesus Christ. And each one of us will bow the knee before him. Each person who has walked the face of the earth will bow the knee, either in grace or in judgment, but each one of us will bow. That's the future. That's where this thing is going. That's how the story ends.

And knowing that, and having insight into this mystery, you and I are immensely privileged. We are infinitely blessed. To have insight into this deep mystery is to be the recipient of God's abundant grace and his lavish generosity. Because knowing the future, we are now equipped and we are now prepared to live wisely now. Knowing the future, we can live productively and well in the present.

If we know which stock is rising, if we know which ruler will come out victorious, if we know beforehand which way things are going to go, we're well-placed to live fruitful and productive lives in the here and now. And through God's revelation to us in his Word, in the Scriptures, we know that Jesus Christ is his appointed universal King. We know that all will bow the knee to him.

And so wisely—it's the only wise choice—we bow the knee to him now, and we give ourselves to him in wholehearted service. We know that God's will, God's good pleasure, is to bring all things under the headship of Christ. So we live our lives now with that same aim, working alongside God, seeking to bring ourselves into submission to him through the help of the Spirit, and making him known to others so that they may learn to bow the knee to him.

From our limited human perspective, it might look as though other pursuits are more attractive, more fruitful. Perhaps we should just give ourselves to making our own little kingdoms, amassing our own temporal riches, making our own name great. But no. In light of God's coming future which he has shared with us, which he has revealed to us, all those goals are meager and they're misplaced.

God has shown us what really matters, where true value is to be found. He's told us where history is going. And knowing these things, being the recipients of such revelation, of such a mystery, we're blessed. We're rich. We're privileged.

If we're feeling hard done by, left out perhaps, even poor this morning, here is the medicine that our souls need. If we are in Christ, God has adopted us. We may feel impoverished relationally. Maybe some here today even have a sense of rejection by family or exclusion by peers, a sense of poverty in relationship while others around you seem rich.

But if you're in Christ, you're unfathomably rich in relationship. God has set his love upon you. He has adopted you. He has chosen you. He has determined to make you his own treasured possession in Christ. Maybe folk around you have received gifts or favors that you never have. Maybe others have received an inheritance that you secretly envy, a promotion or an opportunity at work that you really crave.

But friends, there is no greater gift than this: God has redeemed you. God has redeemed me through the precious blood of Christ. Maybe you feel left out when others are in the know. Maybe you see others making insightful career moves, making clever investments, seeming to know how to get themselves well-placed for the future, and you're always slightly behind, always just slightly out of the loop.

But here's the reality: God has made known to us the greatest mystery in all the universe, his plans and his intentions for the future, that we might be part of it, that we might have a role to play, that we might benefit from it, and that we might live fruitful and productive lives. Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we belong to him, we are immensely rich. We are thoroughly blessed.

But as we close, I do want to say this as well: if you don't belong to Christ, you can belong to him. I want you to know that. His welcome is for you. All this talk of God's choice and of God's initiative and so on, it could sound as though the door is closed to you. And maybe that's what you're thinking as you listen.

But actually, if you're intrigued this morning and you're wanting to know more, you're wanting to be part of this, that is actually a wonderful sign that God may be at work in your heart and he's prompting something within you. And you mustn't ignore that. You mustn't cast it aside.

But for those who turn to Christ, for us who have bowed the knee, God has blessed us abundantly and lavishly, and our only response is one of praise. 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.

Steve Hiller: Jonathan Griffiths here in Encounter the Truth, wrapping up our message, God's Great Generosity and His Great Plan. If you'd like to listen again, you can do that at our website, encounterthetruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We're able to be on this station, make the podcast and the app available because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book entitled The Final Lap, written by John Wyatt. Jonathan, I have a friend who likes to say, you know, what you read isn't necessarily as important as who you read. So that kind of begs the question for me then, who is John Wyatt?

Jonathan Griffiths: Yeah, John Wyatt is a medical doctor who's a leading Christian ethicist in the UK. And John's made a wonderful contribution to thinking about practical Christian living and significant choices we make in Christian discipleship. I've used John's resources over the years when I've had opportunity to teach Christian ethics at different times. I've relied on John's thinking a huge amount.

But just recently, he's been working on the whole area of aging and retirement and dependency and the final years of life, and how we think about that as Christians and how we steward that time well as believers. I had an opportunity to speak alongside John at a convention in the UK, the Keswick Convention, not so long ago. And John's seminars on aging and retirement and ill health and dependency in older age were just gold, and people appreciated them so much. So I think this particular resource that we're making available this month will be a tremendous help to many people.

Steve Hiller: It is called The Final Lap, and it's our thank you gift to you as you financially support Encounter the Truth this month. You can call and give a gift over the phone. Our number is 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884. Or go online to encounterthetruth.org.

You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1. Or in the US, Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Breda, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time.