July 15 Ephesians 1: 3-14 Predestined, free will, grace

The old pastor of a congregation up north had his last teeth pulled and got dentures. Well the first week back in the pulpit he preached for 10 minutes. The second week he preached for 20 minutes and the third week he preached for an hour and 15 minutes. On congregation leader took him aside and asked what had happened. “Well” the preacher said “the first week, the dentures hurt my gums so bad I could hardly talk for 10 minutes. The second week was not much better and they still hurt a lot limiting me to 20 minutes. The third week I accidentally put my wife’s dentures in and I couldn’t stop talking.

Well, I have good news and I need your help. Oh great. Here it comes. The preacher is going to start another project for us.
I was asked the other day by Mike, “what happens with all these plans when you go to school in the fall?” I just looked at him and smiled. “Isn’t it great being a leader, Mike?” So here it is. My project, my plan, what I want to do.
I want to transform the world!!
Well. What do you think? Why aren’t you running up to the alter rail now? … I know we can do it!! I have no doubts about it. Oh it might take a couple weeks or maybe a few months to do, but we can do it.
I HAVE A BIG GOD. A really smart woman once said “Big Hopes, But Why Hope With Little Dreams”. Isn’t that insightful?? We are talking about building a Family Life Center of some sort in the future.
Why? For more classrooms. Yes that’s a start. But what else. A new Praise and Worship service. That’s great.

What else? Church and community dinner where we can feed 250-350 people. Hurricane victim’s campout. Retreat center, Walk to Emmaus weekend, artist venue.

I HAVE A BIG GOD. What can we do? The bible says Philippians 4:13 “We can do ANYTHING thru Christ.”
In our Ephesians scripture, the trinity works in perfect harmony and agreement. They perform distinct roles, but work together.
We are going to be talking about subjects that have been discussed for thousands of years. Predestination, free will, and grace. When it comes to salvation, John Calvin would say that you are predestined to either be saved or not. God decides and he will choose whom he wants to choose. Every one of us deserves death and hell and there is nothing WE can do to go to heaven.
Others would say God knows which people will choose Christ as savior and saves those people. Then others would say that God put this world into motion and does not interfere so if you chose God you chose God and if you don’t you don’t. So what is the correct answer, and where does grace fit into all this??
So what is grace?? Christians throw around that word a lot. What does it mean though? By grace we mean the undeserved, unmerited and loving action of God towards us.
Starting in verse 5, our scripture says “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-to the praise of His glorious grace, which he has given us thru Jesus.”
So when referring to Salvation (another big word we will talk about), grace is all the good stuff God has done for us. But what about this unmerited and undeserved stuff??
Well here is an example……Meagann, can I use you as an example?? OK thanks. Now I don’t know if Meagann has done this, but let’s say she started using curse words around mom and dad. You know what words I’m talking about so I won’t say them here.
Mom gets upset and tells her to stop. Meagann says “Why? It’s just a few words and not that big of deal.” What do you think people? It’s just a few words, right?

Now mom goes into the house and makes some chocolate chip cookies. Oh she is the best chocolate chip cookie maker and the girls love them. Meagann runs into the kitchen and asks for a cookie. “Of course you can have one,” mom says,
“I made them just the way you like them and then added some dog poop to the batter before cooking them.” What?? Did you just say you added dog turds to the cookies? “Oh yeah, but just a little. Nothing major.”
Well heck. That just ruined the cookies didn’t it?

That’s what sin is to God and its grace that fixes it. You see, God is that perfect hot gooey chocolate chip cookie.

To fold us into part of God’s world, you have to take all the junk out of us. We don’t deserve it because we are selfish and greedy.
Jesus said “have you ever looked at another person with lust, well you committed adultery.
Have you ever been angry with another person, well you committed murder.
Have you every lied, stolen something, broken a promise? If you have done just one (and I have done many myself) then you are not worthy of being in the kingdom of God.
That’s where Grace comes in.
Even though you have done all these things you have done in your past, God still wants you. Isn’t that great. Men scratch, burp, and stare, but God still wants to lead them. Women change their hair color 5 times a year, buy more shoes and purses than anyone ever would need, and have an emotional range longer than the interstate highway, but God still loves them. Even though all this is true about both sexes, God still wants you.
You and I don’t deserve it, but by his grace and the cleansing blood of Jesus’ death we are made spiritually perfect. Then and only then can we be folded into the batter which is the Kingdom of God.
In verse 9, Paul says “God has made known to us the mystery (remember that word) of his will which he planned thru Christ to be put into effect.”
Mystery.

Now John Grisham is a great author and sometimes it does take to the end of the book to find out ‘who done it’. Ocean’s Eleven with Julia Roberts was a great movie, and at the end you say “How did they get the money out of vault” but the movie goes back and shows you.
Another mystery…(pause)… is what is this mystery that Paul is talking about. He mentions Christ. It has something to do with Jesus.
If we jump over to Colossians 1 we see starting at vs. 25 that “To the apostles, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles (that’s us), the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you.”
The mystery is “Christ in you”. What does that mean? Salvation (There’s that word again) comes thru Christ. Salvation is getting folded into the Kingdom of God.

We jump to Chapter 2 of Colossians and it says “you have received Christ as your savior. Continue to follow his leadership. Be strengthened in all that you do. See to it that no one tries to deceive you by telling you that you can only get salvation by traditions or doing other things. Christ is the only way to heaven and God.”

Works will get you to heaven. Oh…did you catch that. Works will get you to heaven. But pastor, you say, doesn’t the bible say faith alone? Yes. And here it is.

YOUR works will not get you to heaven. They won’t even get you close. However, the works of Jesus WILL get you heaven. That is the mystery Paul is talking about. Nothing you can do will get you salvation, but everything Jesus did, guarantees you salvation.
Now to verse 11 of our Ephesians text. In him we were chosen in order that we, who were the first to know Christ, might bring praise to his Glory. Paul is talking about the disciples.
The 12 were chosen by Christ personally. They were the first to start transforming the world. And in this, they brought praises to Jesus and God to their glory.

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the truth and mystery, and you made the decision to let Christ be your leader. Having believed, you were marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. You were tattooed by God. God has written on your forehead.

Bill Fuller was talking to a guy outside the church one day when the guy’s wife walked up. She is glowing, they both said. You could see the radiance of God on her face.
She has been sealed. The seal is just a deposit, though. You won the lottery and you get yearly installments, but on the last day of the installment, you get a lump sum payment greater than anything expected.

This seal, the Holy Spirit, is just the installment. Wait until you see the final payout.
I plan on transforming the world. We can do it together. If you have been branded and tattooed by God and given the Holy Spirit, you can do this with me. WE HAVE A BIG GOD. With him we can do anything he wants us to.

If you don’t have the mark of Christ, if you have not decided to let Jesus be your coach, be your leader, be your life…then you can’t change the world. And when you see the transformation occurring, you will want to be a part of it, but you can’t.
The cookies have to be perfect.
If all this time you have been going along doing different projects, kind of skating thru life, but have not asked Jesus to be your life leader, you can do that now. It’s time to be transformed by Christ so you can transform the world.
While we are singing this last song, come down to the alter rail if you want to be transformed. We will pray together. Don’t worry about the music ending too soon or people looking at you. It’s not about them.

It’s about you and God. Let’s stand and sing together……