Pentecost 8 07/30/06 Text: Ephesians 1:3-14 Title: Before Time I Chose You.
Pentecost 8
07/30/06
Text: Ephesians 1:3-14
Title: Before time I chose you.
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all, if it were not for the death of Jesus Christ, your son and our Savior we would not be able to come before you, as a child asks their loving father, for those things that you desire to give us. We need you O Lord, for left on our own we are completely unworthy of your love, forgiveness and continuing care. We humbly ask you Lord to stir up your Holy Spirit in each one of us this morning so that we will be able to understand your words of life as they are found in your Holy Writings. Amen.
Today’s sermon is based on our Epistle reading Ephesians 1:3-14, which contains the doctrines of foreknowledge and predestination. At first glance the text is a hard one to understand, and I almost decided to teach on one of the other readings. The more I thought about it the more I realized that you need to learn about God’s foreknowledge and your predestination.
You need to learn more about it so that you can live your life in calm assurance of your salvation, the taking away of your guilt caused by your sin.
God is a perfect God, perfect in every way and we are not. Because God is perfect and we, as we are all well aware of, are less than perfect, so we cannot exist in his presence. We are thus doomed because each one of us is guilty of directly or indirectly breaking every one of his laws.
Some of you might be thinking that there has to be something good in yourself, something that God must be pleased with, but that is just plain wrong thinking, for we daily break the First Commandment of God, “Thou shall have no other Gods before me”. Who of us here this morning can say that you always trust in God to care for you? Even though we know and confess that God is in control of all things, we still worry, we still do not fully trust God to care for us and those we love, and in doing so we continually break the First Commandment.
Just think about how many times you have found yourself just mouthing the words of the confession and Lord’s Prayer. How many times have you not paid attention to the words of a great hymn, because you do not like or know the melody? How many times when God’s Holy Word is being read do you find yourself thinking of other things. How many times during a sermon do you truly listen with an ear for learning? How many times during the prayer, do you think; “This is a waste of time”? How many times when you come to communion, to eat and drink the very body and blood of Jesus, do you come with an unrepentant heart toward a family member, or a fellow brother or sister in Christ that you have a disagreement with?
How many times, too many times I am afraid. We are all guilty, guilty, guilty, and that is why we need to know what part God’s foreknowledge and our predestination play in our salvation.
For without at least a reasonable understanding of God’s foreknowledge and your predestination to heaven, you will find yourself being tossed back and forth on the sea of life. Am I saved or not? Can I fall away from faith? When I sin, am I not in the faith? Can I fall away and then come back to faith? And my personal favorite; if God has chosen me, does that mean that I can live any type of life and not worry about my salvation, for God cannot be wrong? All of those questions can be quite distressing to someone who is struggling to the live their life as God wants them to live it.
Left to our own thinking we can quickly get into serious trouble, to put it mildly. We need something that can help us have confidence in God’s promise. That is what God’s foreknowledge and predestination are designed to do, otherwise there would be no reason for his having them recorded in his Holy Scriptures.
The time we have this morning is short, and will not allow me to really do justice to the topic, but it is my prayer that when I am through you will have a good basic understanding of these two wonderful Gospel terms. They are meant to greatly enrich your life, by giving you confidence in your salvation that was won for you by Jesus’ substitutionary act on the cross so long ago. You were, before Jesus even died that day, already chosen by God to be an adopted son or daughter.
Let’s start with what I think is the easiest of the two Gospel words, foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge means to some that we have no free will. They would say that we just think that we are living our lives as free thinking humans, but are not, for by God knowing all things past, present, and future we cannot act on our own.
There is no doubt that God knows all things, even those things in the future, but that does not take away our free will. Let me take a minute and explain. God is outside of time, he has to be, for him to be God. Since God knows all things, being perfect in every way; that means that he knew before he even created anything, including time, what was going to happen in his creation until the end of time and beyond.
In other words, God in his perfect knowledge knows every decision and movement you will make during your life time. He knows the bad stuff and the good stuff. He knows everything about you, everything you will do, because he is outside of time and sees all things and time at the same time.
Now it is true that since God knows what you will do in the future, you cannot do anything different than what he knows. But that does not mean that you have no choice in your life. It only means that our all knowing God is not limited to time like we are. He can say he knows who is saved and who is not, because being outside of time he already knows all about Judgment Day. He knows who is saved and who is not.
Is not that wonderful, that God knows all things, that nothing is a mystery to him, that he cannot be surprised by anything. What God tells us through Jesus Christ and his Holy Scriptures will all take place, for foreknowledge is perfect knowledge.
Now let us take a look at predestination. The first thing we need to know is that predestination is all God’s work and reveals his very essence as shown in Jesus Christ and his Holy Will. He has freely chosen those who are to be saved, all out of his gracious will.
Now I can pretty well bet that some of you are thinking, “If he chose some to be saved then he must have chosen some to be damned”. That makes logical sense, but it is completely wrong thinking, for we know in God’s inspired Word, where we learn about him and his will for us, that God desires all to be saved, and that Jesus died for all people.
Predestination is tied to God’s foreknowledge. Those that God knows are going to be saved, are predestined to be saved, for God cannot be wrong, otherwise his foreknowledge would be faulty and worse of all he would no longer be a perfect God.
That is it in a nutshell. What God has perfect foreknowledge of he predestines, and what he predestines cannot be changed. The more I think about it, it is really quite simple, if you do not get too bogged down in the process of how it takes place, for in the end you cannot rely on reason, law, or outward appearance to understand God’s plan of salvation. It is a God thing and not a human thing, something I give thanks to God for.
So how do you know you are predestined to be saved? The only way to know for sure is to trust God’s Word. Be in his word so that Christ and his Gospel of forgiveness, becomes who you are.
Remember that the warfare between Satan and God is over with. Jesus won the war on the cross. Satan has been defeated forever. The war that is going on now is between you, Satan, and your sinful self. But have no fear, for God has told you that there is nothing that can separate you from his love.
When you know those two things then, and only then can you truly understand that God’s foreknowledge and predestination are there to be a wonderful comfort to you as you live your life.
Remember, predestination is not a one shot deal. It continues through your lifetime. This gives you, an adopted son or daughter of God three assurances that cannot be taken away. First, you can know without a doubt that you are made holy in God’s sight by the blood of Jesus Christ. Second, you can know without a doubt that God is looking after you so there is nothing in life that will take away his promise of salvation. Third, you can know without a doubt that when the time has come for you to die that your soul will be taken to heaven.
Predestination is a wonderful Gospel message from God to you. Live your life in peace knowing that your name is written in the Book of Life. Amen .
07/30/06
Text: Ephesians 1:3-14
Title: Before time I chose you.
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all, if it were not for the death of Jesus Christ, your son and our Savior we would not be able to come before you, as a child asks their loving father, for those things that you desire to give us. We need you O Lord, for left on our own we are completely unworthy of your love, forgiveness and continuing care. We humbly ask you Lord to stir up your Holy Spirit in each one of us this morning so that we will be able to understand your words of life as they are found in your Holy Writings. Amen.
Today’s sermon is based on our Epistle reading Ephesians 1:3-14, which contains the doctrines of foreknowledge and predestination. At first glance the text is a hard one to understand, and I almost decided to teach on one of the other readings. The more I thought about it the more I realized that you need to learn about God’s foreknowledge and your predestination.
You need to learn more about it so that you can live your life in calm assurance of your salvation, the taking away of your guilt caused by your sin.
God is a perfect God, perfect in every way and we are not. Because God is perfect and we, as we are all well aware of, are less than perfect, so we cannot exist in his presence. We are thus doomed because each one of us is guilty of directly or indirectly breaking every one of his laws.
Some of you might be thinking that there has to be something good in yourself, something that God must be pleased with, but that is just plain wrong thinking, for we daily break the First Commandment of God, “Thou shall have no other Gods before me”. Who of us here this morning can say that you always trust in God to care for you? Even though we know and confess that God is in control of all things, we still worry, we still do not fully trust God to care for us and those we love, and in doing so we continually break the First Commandment.
Just think about how many times you have found yourself just mouthing the words of the confession and Lord’s Prayer. How many times have you not paid attention to the words of a great hymn, because you do not like or know the melody? How many times when God’s Holy Word is being read do you find yourself thinking of other things. How many times during a sermon do you truly listen with an ear for learning? How many times during the prayer, do you think; “This is a waste of time”? How many times when you come to communion, to eat and drink the very body and blood of Jesus, do you come with an unrepentant heart toward a family member, or a fellow brother or sister in Christ that you have a disagreement with?
How many times, too many times I am afraid. We are all guilty, guilty, guilty, and that is why we need to know what part God’s foreknowledge and our predestination play in our salvation.
For without at least a reasonable understanding of God’s foreknowledge and your predestination to heaven, you will find yourself being tossed back and forth on the sea of life. Am I saved or not? Can I fall away from faith? When I sin, am I not in the faith? Can I fall away and then come back to faith? And my personal favorite; if God has chosen me, does that mean that I can live any type of life and not worry about my salvation, for God cannot be wrong? All of those questions can be quite distressing to someone who is struggling to the live their life as God wants them to live it.
Left to our own thinking we can quickly get into serious trouble, to put it mildly. We need something that can help us have confidence in God’s promise. That is what God’s foreknowledge and predestination are designed to do, otherwise there would be no reason for his having them recorded in his Holy Scriptures.
The time we have this morning is short, and will not allow me to really do justice to the topic, but it is my prayer that when I am through you will have a good basic understanding of these two wonderful Gospel terms. They are meant to greatly enrich your life, by giving you confidence in your salvation that was won for you by Jesus’ substitutionary act on the cross so long ago. You were, before Jesus even died that day, already chosen by God to be an adopted son or daughter.
Let’s start with what I think is the easiest of the two Gospel words, foreknowledge. God’s foreknowledge means to some that we have no free will. They would say that we just think that we are living our lives as free thinking humans, but are not, for by God knowing all things past, present, and future we cannot act on our own.
There is no doubt that God knows all things, even those things in the future, but that does not take away our free will. Let me take a minute and explain. God is outside of time, he has to be, for him to be God. Since God knows all things, being perfect in every way; that means that he knew before he even created anything, including time, what was going to happen in his creation until the end of time and beyond.
In other words, God in his perfect knowledge knows every decision and movement you will make during your life time. He knows the bad stuff and the good stuff. He knows everything about you, everything you will do, because he is outside of time and sees all things and time at the same time.
Now it is true that since God knows what you will do in the future, you cannot do anything different than what he knows. But that does not mean that you have no choice in your life. It only means that our all knowing God is not limited to time like we are. He can say he knows who is saved and who is not, because being outside of time he already knows all about Judgment Day. He knows who is saved and who is not.
Is not that wonderful, that God knows all things, that nothing is a mystery to him, that he cannot be surprised by anything. What God tells us through Jesus Christ and his Holy Scriptures will all take place, for foreknowledge is perfect knowledge.
Now let us take a look at predestination. The first thing we need to know is that predestination is all God’s work and reveals his very essence as shown in Jesus Christ and his Holy Will. He has freely chosen those who are to be saved, all out of his gracious will.
Now I can pretty well bet that some of you are thinking, “If he chose some to be saved then he must have chosen some to be damned”. That makes logical sense, but it is completely wrong thinking, for we know in God’s inspired Word, where we learn about him and his will for us, that God desires all to be saved, and that Jesus died for all people.
Predestination is tied to God’s foreknowledge. Those that God knows are going to be saved, are predestined to be saved, for God cannot be wrong, otherwise his foreknowledge would be faulty and worse of all he would no longer be a perfect God.
That is it in a nutshell. What God has perfect foreknowledge of he predestines, and what he predestines cannot be changed. The more I think about it, it is really quite simple, if you do not get too bogged down in the process of how it takes place, for in the end you cannot rely on reason, law, or outward appearance to understand God’s plan of salvation. It is a God thing and not a human thing, something I give thanks to God for.
So how do you know you are predestined to be saved? The only way to know for sure is to trust God’s Word. Be in his word so that Christ and his Gospel of forgiveness, becomes who you are.
Remember that the warfare between Satan and God is over with. Jesus won the war on the cross. Satan has been defeated forever. The war that is going on now is between you, Satan, and your sinful self. But have no fear, for God has told you that there is nothing that can separate you from his love.
When you know those two things then, and only then can you truly understand that God’s foreknowledge and predestination are there to be a wonderful comfort to you as you live your life.
Remember, predestination is not a one shot deal. It continues through your lifetime. This gives you, an adopted son or daughter of God three assurances that cannot be taken away. First, you can know without a doubt that you are made holy in God’s sight by the blood of Jesus Christ. Second, you can know without a doubt that God is looking after you so there is nothing in life that will take away his promise of salvation. Third, you can know without a doubt that when the time has come for you to die that your soul will be taken to heaven.
Predestination is a wonderful Gospel message from God to you. Live your life in peace knowing that your name is written in the Book of Life. Amen .
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 2:22 PM
|
0 comments
