Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: What Paul is saying here at the end of verse five and toward the beginning of six, this is to the praise of his glorious grace. Look what God did. And the beauty and the wonder of that is it actually gives us the security we need. Because what we recognize what God is saying to you and me despite our undeserving, our going a different direction, our inability to claim him, is that he is our father.

Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan continues a series with a study on verses three through six of Ephesians one. Dr. Chapell investigates the Father's love for his children, as Paul writes of God's choosing of us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, check out the new daily devotional podcast called Daily Grace. Pastor Bryan will guide you through a devotion each day to help focus your attention on God's grace as you study his word. Watch and listen to each episode when you visit unlimitedgrace.com today. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, "The Father's Love."

Bryan Chapell: When my oldest son, Colin, was in high school in his senior year, our high school had just started a wrestling program. And yet Colin, in that particular year, made it through districts and regionals and ultimately to the state championship. We were really tickled and pleased that he did so well so soon.

But there was a problem. The date of the state championship was also the date that Colin was required to be at a particular college to compete for a scholarship that if he won would be a full ride. And the college would not let him come on any other date than that day. Now, you parents know that we could not say to our son who had trained so well, fought so hard and gone so far, you can't go to the state championships because we want to save some money. I mean, he was going to go.

But we did come up with a plan. Here was our plan. We said, all right, there are many rounds in the state championship and we began to calculate if he did not go very far, then there was still time to get in the car, drive three states and get to the college that we wanted to go to. Pretty good plan. Here's the problem. How do you pray? I mean, you can't pray for your son to lose, but you want the scholarship.

So what do you pray for? Well, I will tell you we struggled with that, but once we got to the state championship, there was no question what a father did. You know what I mean? When you're in the Coliseum and there are thousands of people looking on your son, he's wrestling on the mat with a well-muscled opponent, you know as a father exactly what you're going to say. You're going to say, Colin, get him! Squeeze him! Squash him!

You want him to win. It may offend the people around you the way you shout as a father of your father's love. But you just say, tough, because I want my child to know, you're mine, I'm for you, I don't care how hard the struggle, I'm with you. That's what God is saying to you and me in Ephesians one. Now just think about it. Here are Ephesian Christians who are gathering. They are from pagan roots.

They are struggling with cult practices and immorality and a city that doesn't care anything about the things of God. It must be so hard to walk with God. And yet God shouts from the heights to the people who are wrestling, you are mine. I love you. I'm going to love you eternally and I have loved you eternally. And while we'll struggle to make sense of that, if you put it in the context of the fatherhood of God, it makes perfect sense.

He is going to shout his care to assure them and us that he has always and will always love us, regardless of the struggles that we may be facing. How are we being assured of the Father's love in this passage? First, we are simply assured that we are being blessed with his child's blessing. Look at verse three. 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.

We have been blessed in Christ. Last week, I mentioned to you that there is that language of union with Christ that the Apostle Paul is so serious about. He mentions it over 200 times in his letters. And in this one long sentence that goes from verse three through the end of verse 14—I know there are periods in your English Bibles, but in the Greek, there is no period to the end of verse 14—in that one sentence, he talks about our being united to Christ 12 times.

He is serious about this. Why? What would it mean to be united to Christ? Well, then you have to ask, who is that Christ to whom we are united? And he is described for us a little bit later in the same chapter, if you look in your Bibles at verse 20, you'll see it. Halfway through verse 20, we are told about what God has done in and for Christ.

It says this, he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come and put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church as head over all things to the church. Christ is pictured here as seated at the right hand of God, and in that place of privilege with power over all things, not only in the present age but in the age to come.

And we are united to him. What would that mean? It means as you perceive every power, every authority, every entity in this world, you recognize its oriented to and actually derivative of the power of Jesus Christ whom God has blessed with that seat of privilege. The beauty of a sunset, the power of a storm, the wonder of love's passion, the purity of a child's prayer, the glory of God on display, it is all made possible by Christ who is seated at the right hand of God.

And if we are in him, united to him, not only surrounded by his goodness but taking power from him, it means all that beauty and power and glory is ours to share. If we truly capture the significance of it, there should be a song that's kind of going on in your brain right now. If all of earth's beauty and power and wonder is ours to share in Christ, we should be singing, "Heaven, I'm in heaven"—I'm not going to dance.

But it's actually what Paul says. Remember? He says, verse three again, God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now, one way you might read that is to say that Jesus is up in heaven in the heavenly places, blessing us down here. It's actually not what he's saying. If Christ is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places and we are united to him, where are we? We're in the heavenly places.

Now, I know that seems odd and that's strange, but it's actually said even more clearly in chapter two and verse six, if you look there. In chapter two and verse six, coming out from the truths that are being said in verse five, it says, we were dead in our trespasses, and God has made us alive together with Christ, by grace you've been saved, and God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now, isn't that amazing? Seated, past tense. God has seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. And you say, wait, I'm just right here in Grace Church in Peoria, Illinois. How could I already be seated in heavenly places? Because the promise of God that we're united to Christ has so much been certain and secured that the reality is already ours even though we are not there yet. Remember, time before God is spread out as a map, so that God sees the end from the beginning and he already identifies us by our heavenly destination.

And what's that meant to mean is that we are already blessed by that heavenly reality. Now, how can you be blessed by a reality that you're not living quite yet? I thought of it some years ago when I was with my children at our cabin in Missouri. And it's in a dense set of woods and we kind of, as a family, like taking hikes. And so we took a hike one afternoon and got fairly far away from the cabin.

And as the dusk was closing in, I began to recognize we were going to lose the path and the normal landmarks that we saw to orient ourselves to get back to the cabin. And so to try to get back before dark, we just started deadlining through the woods. And it got darker and darker and the kids began to worry, "Dad, are we lost?" "Oh no, I got it." And inside I'm thinking, "We're lost."

And just as I was about to turn to the kids and confess that we were lost, just in that very turning, I saw the light of our cabin through the trees. Now we weren't home yet, but you know what? I was already at peace. We were already there in terms of the realities experience we could begin to have, even though it was not fully our experience of being inside the cabin yet.

If God is saying to his people, you are mine and I have secured you for heavenly blessings, and where Christ is seated because you're with him you're already there, then we recognize even this day when we face struggles of disease and uncertainty and sin and family pain, that while this is here, I have a security that is guaranteed by God. By virtue of my union with Christ, I'm already able to say, heaven is my home and those blessings are mine and I begin to partake of them now so that I'm already there.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. This is Chris Sobak, executive director of Unlimited Grace Media. I hope you have been enjoying this encouraging message from Pastor Bryan. If this program has been a blessing to you, I want to share with you a new way in which you can receive daily encouragement from Dr. Chapell. We've recently launched a daily devotional podcast entitled Daily Grace.

If you've already signed up to receive daily devotions by email, this podcast is a great companion piece. You can watch and listen to Pastor Bryan share these devotions daily when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. You can also find this podcast on all major podcast platforms or watch it on YouTube. This is just another way that we want to serve you with Christ-centered content and help focus your attention on the grace of God that pervades all of scripture. Let us know what you think of this new podcast. We're always encouraged to hear from you. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: Heaven is my home and those blessings are mine and I begin to partake of them now so that I'm already there. I know it sounds like a song from Lonestar, but it's true. By faith, I'm already there. And that reality is giving me strength and security that I need for now as a child of the Father who is making me promises of a home with his son. But that's looking forward.

And you must recognize if this map of time is spread out before God, he's not only seeing the end, he sees the beginning. And that's verse four. Remember what is said there in chapter one of Ephesians. It's saying not only have we been blessed with Christ in every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, but this is even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him. It's just as the map of time goes out to the future, it also goes out to the past. And God is reminding us that his love didn't just start this day but long, long ago. In Paul's letter to Titus, he doesn't even go back as far as the foundation of the world. He says that we were loved before time began.

For what purpose? God chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. Something is being taken away and something is being given. Do you catch that? God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be blameless. Blame is the accusation of guilt, and there could be just accusation against us for our sin against a holy God. But that blame has been taken away by the work of Jesus Christ who suffered on the cross taking the penalty for our sin.

But the beauty of that is it's just half the gospel. Half the gospel is that our sin is taken away. The other half is that we are holy before God. That because we're united to Christ, not only has our guilt been taken away, but the holiness that is his has been given to us. We are robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So this love that is ours from before the beginning of the world is for those who are holy and blameless—holy and as blameless as Jesus Christ by the work of God.

And this great work of salvation is something that God comprehended, planned and brought about before we could accomplish it ourselves. Now, I know that sets up all kinds of logical struggle in our minds, but if you have been saved from your sin, if you knew that you were hell-bent and that was to be your home, but God rescued you, somewhere in you you know that we are going to say, God, you saved me.

I think of the way that Christian leader Lyle Dorsett explains it—some of you know him, high up in Crusade and other organizations. He talks about his salvation in terms that may be closer to home than we may want to read. He says this, "During the first six years of my marriage, I taught full-time at a university and pursued research. Promotions came quickly and publications and grants. But despite the blessings of a lovely wife and two children and professional success, no rest came to my soul."

"To fill the void, I began to drink heavily. One evening my wife implored me not to drink in front of the children. My answer was to stomp out and find a bar and drink until closing time. I left armed with a six-pack and drove up a winding mountain road, stopped at an overlook and blacked out. The next morning, I found myself on a dirt road at the bottom of that dangerous mountain, next to a cemetery, and no memory of how I got down."

"Despite the hangover, I recognized I had experienced something of a miracle, and in utter desperation, I cried out, Lord, if you are there, please, save me. After that, I moved many times, made countless mistakes, but the Lord never gave up on me. He gradually brought healing and restored the years the locust had eaten. The most humbling and reassuring lesson coming now from at least three-quarters of a century of looking back over my life is the glance of God's persistence in drawing me to himself."

"Now I know God was always way out in front of me, initiating life-giving knowledge of himself. It was he who pursued me and sustained the relationship when I strayed and doubted and sometimes deliberately moved to the far country. It's all grace—unearned, undeserved, unpayable grace." Listen, I can't explain it all. But I know that when you and me stand before God in his heaven, we are not going to say when he says, why should I let you in, we're not going to say because God, I made a great choice.

We are going to say because God, you rescued me. And the point that Paul is making in this particular passage is that's not just passive, that God is actively working in behalf of those that he loves. And so he says words that we struggle with, verse five, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. I have kids right now who are in that path of adoption.

And as they are seeking to adopt, I must tell you that everything in them is striving for that child. The reports they fill out, the examinations they go through, the things they look at, what they submit themselves to, this longing for a child means it brings out everything in them. Paul is saying God predestined us toward adoption, he was working in our behalf. I can't exactly tell you what all of that means, but I heard it expressed so well some years ago in a Sunday night meeting where people were giving their testimonies.

And a man who was new to our church stood up and he'd obviously had kind of some military gruffness in his background and he stood up and he said, "It's a darn good thing that God saved me because I was going to hell." And he didn't use the word darn. And there were kind of gasps from around the church. But you have to see, it was perfect. Everything in him was saying, I didn't deserve this, I didn't earn this, I was going that away, and God did something to change me that I did not have control of.

I didn't fix it, God fixed me. And that reality is what he was totally thankful for so that he could say what Paul is saying here at the end of verse five and toward the beginning of six, this is to the praise of his glorious grace. Look what God did. And the beauty and the wonder of that is it actually gives us the security we need. Because what we recognize what God is saying to you and me despite our undeserving, our going a different direction, our inability to claim him, is that he is our father.

I mean, ultimately the assurance that we have is that we have the same father that Jesus has. That's what's being said here. After all, what does predestination sometimes mean to people? I mean, you know, I know the arguments. If you accept predestination, it means that we're all puppets. That, you know, God is just kind of pulling strings, "Say that you love me, all right, you get into heaven." Pulling strings, "Say that you don't love me, all right, you go to hell."

Is this passage saying that we're puppets? No, we are predestined to be adopted as sons, as the children of God. Do you remember how Paul says it in Romans eight and verse 29? That God predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son, that he would be the firstborn among many brothers. I'm being called to be like Christ. Christ is no puppet. You know how I ultimately know I'm not a puppet? I sin.

And that's not of God. I mean, this letter is so assuring me that we're not simply puppets. And I know that because this is a letter full of responsibility. Friend, will you allow me to pray with you that the work God is doing in your life through the teaching of his word would take hold and help you? Heavenly Father, thank you for the fact that you pardon and give purpose to messed up people like me, like us. Today help us so to believe in your grace that we rejoice to receive it and live to reflect it. This we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If this message has been an encouragement to you, you can find a collection of more valuable resources at unlimitedgrace.com. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by his unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.