Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Welcome to the beginning of our new sermon series, Everything in Christ.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: We're going to be walking through the amazing book of Ephesians together.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: We're also going to be taking communion together at the very end of our service today. So if you did not get the
[00:00:19] Speaker A: cracker and the juice when you came
[00:00:22] Speaker B: in, please raise your hand so that we can get it to you.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: And my hand is raised. I will not make the same mistake the next service, but I do not have one. If someone would be willing to bring me one, that would be incredible.
It has been a special fall for
[00:00:39] Speaker B: our church so far. I'm so.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
It's quality service.
All right, all right.
I am happy to share that we
[00:00:50] Speaker B: did get all of the sponsorships that
[00:00:52] Speaker A: we needed last week and more for
[00:00:56] Speaker B: our work in Zambia.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: So thank God. Thank you guys for your willingness, thankful for how God will use our church
[00:01:11] Speaker B: in the lives of those people.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: And I'm thankful for how to see how he's going to work in us and through us as we walk through what.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: What is considered to be perhaps the highest, most overarching book of the New Testament. One commentator that I heard this week
[00:01:28] Speaker A: said that in Ephesians, Paul is flying
[00:01:31] Speaker B: so high, we almost can't go with him.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: But we can.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: And today we are going to be in the first 14 verses of Ephesians. The concepts in Ephesians are vast, but the implications of them go all the way down to ground level. And that's where we're going to start with what is one of the most underrated, significant questions in life?
[00:01:57] Speaker A: What's the plan?
[00:02:00] Speaker B: You ask this question more than you think I think, what's the plan? We need the plan. What's the plan for dinner?
What's the plan for school next week? In many small ways, we want to know the plan. In big ways, we need the plan.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: What's the plan?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: On Wednesday of this week, my wife
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Scarlett texted me that she was worried
[00:02:25] Speaker B: that James was getting sick. And she was speaking with our Flourish and Square One women groups on Thursday morning. She was asking, what's the plan if James can't go, what are we going to do?
[00:02:38] Speaker A: And I said, if he's sick, I can keep him while you go speak. And immediately, she felt better.
Great. There's the plan.
She was relieved to know there was a plan.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: We also want to know the plan for bigger things or more complicated things than just what's happening with our kids tomorrow. Many of you want to know the plan.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: For college football?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: What's the plan for Nil and the transfer portal and pros trying to play in college? What's the plan for the Aggies or the Horns or the Red Raiders or even the Clarks? Buckeyes?
And this week there was some measure of relief, and perhaps amongst some of you, even rejoicing because the Senate says it has a plan.
We want to know the plan and we want to know the plan for
[00:03:31] Speaker A: the biggest possible issues there are.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: This week I read another long form article on why superintelligence might someday destroy
[00:03:42] Speaker A: the world, why it could happen, and
[00:03:46] Speaker B: what could keep it from happening. Right now, AI companies are claiming to be worth trillions of dollars while losing billions of dollars, hoping to be the first one to make something that could, but hopefully won't, ruin humanity.
And it doesn't take very long when you're considering the future of artificial intelligence to begin passionately asking the question, what's the plan?
Imagine your relief and rejoicing if somebody could tell you, here's the plan for how AI will impact the world. That's not what I'm gonna do. But I am happy to tell you that there is a real sense in which we can experience that level of relief and rejoicing today in all things. Because the first section of Ephesians is gonna tell us that the all powerful
[00:04:41] Speaker A: God of heaven and earth has a plan for everything at all times, in all places.
The message of Ephesians is that the God of the universe is currently and always accomplishing a plan that incorporates and subsumes and ultimately redeems all the plans of all the seasons of time. God has a plan. There is a plan. It's happening. We're living in it right now.
James might get sick or he might not, but we know the ultimate resolution.
College football might be saved, or it might not, but we know how it culminates.
Whether AI destroys humanity or not, we know what it will have been accomplishing in the end.
What's the plan?
It is this.
Our God has an eternal plan for your everlasting good, his ultimate glory, and the restoration of the cosmos in Christ.
That's the plan. No big deal. Right
[00:06:05] Speaker B: now I'm speaking to followers of
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Jesus when I say this.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: And if you're not a follower of Jesus, I'm going to be standing right
[00:06:11] Speaker A: there, right there at the end of this service. And I would love to help you
[00:06:15] Speaker B: become a follower of Jesus and make this true for you. But Christian God has an eternal plan for your everlasting good, his ultimate glory. And the restoration of the cosmos, of heaven and earth in him, the culmination of all things in Jesus. That's what we're going to see in the book of Hebrews, especially in these first 14 verses. And before we start walking through this passage, I want to tell you a couple of pretty cool things about Ephesians
[00:06:40] Speaker A: that will help us since it's its significance.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: First Ephesians was written to.
Ephesians was not written to address a specific need, as many of the works
[00:06:52] Speaker A: in the New Testament were.
You guys know this like Peter wrote First Peter because followers of Jesus needed to know how to live in exile. Or Paul wrote Galatians because the Gospel
[00:07:05] Speaker B: was under attack from the Judaizers and
[00:07:07] Speaker A: he wanted to defend the work of grace from legalism. Right?
[00:07:12] Speaker B: In Ephesians, Paul is simply writing about literally the biggest thing in the galaxies.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: It wasn't directed at an occasion, but all of them.
It's about the plan of the God for the everything.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Ephesians is also one of the letters that Paul wrote from prison.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: And in light of the content, it's a world shaping reality that Paul wrote this letter in chains. As he'll mention several times in the book. Paul was not free when he proclaimed
[00:07:47] Speaker B: the truth that God is accomplishing his plan, his universe unifying plan through all things, even through the imprisonment of one of his apostles.
The third thing that I think is
[00:07:59] Speaker A: special about this book is some of the earliest manuscripts.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Don't include the phrase in Ephesus in
[00:08:07] Speaker A: the greeting that I'm about to read to you.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: You guys remember several months ago we learned that the Bible is the most
[00:08:13] Speaker A: well preserved ancient document in human history.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: We have many early manuscripts of it and some of the earliest and most important manuscripts.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: There is a space where, where in Ephesus is in our Bibles.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Many scholars believe, and I prefer this as well, that since the letter was not written from a struggle in one church, that it was originally intended to be circulated throughout all the churches and that churches therefore left a blank to
[00:08:45] Speaker A: fill in their name.
Now I try to always differentiate between how I talk about things that are 100% true versus things I think are true. This is not 100% sure, but it is how I'm going to read it. For us right now, this is the opening of this powerful letter.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in grace. Community Church in Tyler, Texas are faithful in Christ Jesus.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let there be grace to You Grace as we walk through this book together for the next few months, perhaps especially, let there be peace to you as God shares and explains what the plan.
What's the plan?
We need a plan.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Peace to you from God our Father
[00:09:53] Speaker A: and the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Because there is a plan. It's as big as it can be. And the first part of the plan
[00:09:59] Speaker A: as we walk through this passage is God's plan is to bless you.
Wow, Christian.
Somehow there is an ultimate peace giving,
[00:10:15] Speaker B: rejoicing, causing plan for literally all things. And one of the main themes of that plan is God blessing us. Pick up reading in verse 3 of Ephesians 1. 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. This is telling us that before the world was ever formed, it was God's intent to bless us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. His plan was to grant us the grace that we don't deserve and the peace that we couldn't create on our own. We'll see many ways that he has blessed us as we walk through the books, but let's pause first and focus
[00:11:10] Speaker A: on how it happened.
Verse 4 says, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world in love he predestined us. Part of God's plan is his predestination of blessing, and I want us to see that.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: This is so beautiful. This passage, as we'll see in a moment, is all about ultimate unification of
[00:11:34] Speaker A: heaven and earth in Jesus.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: For us, that begins with being predestined.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: And I think we can talk about this without frustrating each other, especially because the very context is everything coming together in unity in Christ. If we can't do it right here, we won't do it right anywhere.
Let's focus for a moment on the beauty of predestination.
I've been a pastor for a long time. I've definitely had people tell me, brandon, I don't believe in predestination, and I've tried to lovingly tell them that that isn't one of your options.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: There is room in studying and following the Bible for discussion about how predestination
[00:12:23] Speaker A: happens, but not that it happens because it has happened.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: It happened so long ago that it was before there was such a thing as so long ago.
God talks about this part of his plan a lot in His Word And I want to give you a broad and comforting definition for predestination. Predestination is God's purposes in grace directed toward those whom he will ultimately save to the uttermost. God purposed to direct his grace to those he will save to the uttermost. He did this before the foundation of the world. Now, as you should expect with something that happened supernaturally prior to creation, there is mystery in predestination.
The question most often debated is around
[00:13:20] Speaker A: how God purposed to direct his grace
[00:13:25] Speaker B: to those he determined to save.
The struggle is that we have some degree of will.
And the question is, can our will respond to the goodness of God and our need for Jesus without the impetus of God's will working on us? Right.
Said another way, does our will respond to the goodness of God, the offer of grace? Because God's will acts in us first.
That's what I tend to believe.
You don't have to agree with me.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: But what we do have to agree on is that either way, whether our
[00:14:07] Speaker B: will moves first or his will moves first, our will must surrender to his
[00:14:13] Speaker A: will in faith in the finished work of Jesus.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: And what's most important today or literally every other day, is that when we we experience faith in Jesus by the grace of God, it means blessing for
[00:14:29] Speaker A: us now and forever.
When we experience saving faith in Jesus, it is a part of God's predestined eternal plan. And it means that he not only loves us forever, but he loved us before anyone had a concept of forever.
He loved us before time, Predestined to be chosen into his love before time. One commentator I read this week says that that means not only does God's love for us as his sons and daughters not have an end, but it never had a beginning.
Look at verse 5.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: In love he predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. That's Jesus. In him, Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight. God's plan is to bless us.
It's always been his plan to bless us. It will always be his plan to bless us. And that looks like redemption, the riches of his grace lavished upon you. Paul goes on to say in verse 11, in him we have obtained an inheritance.
We'll talk about this more later on. It's going to show up in chapter three. But this means that those in the love of God don't just experience blessing now, but way, way more later and forever.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Some of you have or had wealthy parents or grandparents from whom you got or will get an inheritance.
Congrats.
Can you imagine the inheritance of the God who from him and through him and to him are all things. To connect this back to our last series, everything is God's and we are his heirs.
The blessing continues in verse 13.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance. So we have the blessing of God's spirit, the living God of the universe dwelling in us right now to help us walk in that blessing and sealing that inheritance forever.
Christian, can you believe and can you
[00:17:17] Speaker A: live in the truth that the God of the heavens and the earth chose you before the foundation of the world to love you with an everlasting love,
[00:17:25] Speaker B: to adopt you to make his daughter or his son so that he can pour out his riches and his blessing in ways that no one else can now and in ways we can't imagine then?
[00:17:44] Speaker A: It's big.
That's what I'm trying to say.
So let's zoom way back down and go back to 2017 when Scarlett and I made a plan to adopt a girl named Wang Yachu.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Scarlett chose her from a computer screen,
[00:18:07] Speaker A: chose to love her before we met her, chose to adopt her so that we could bless her in all the ways that we're able.
But it probably won't surprise you that Scarlet and I don't have incredible wealth.
Papa and Bamm Bam have more than us though, and they were excited from the moment Joy was chosen to bless that little girl. They were nervous about us going to China for two weeks, but they were instantly ready to love Joy. My father in law, who was a, he was a SWAT cop, he told us as we're about to leave, he said, get in, get the package, get out.
And we did.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: We brought that sweet little package back
[00:19:00] Speaker A: here and Papa and Bam Bam met us at the airport and they drove us home to our house that they'd filled up with food and toys for Joy. They helped us love and take care of her from the first moment. And here's what's crazy.
Joy Hiltabitel, chosen from Tianjin, China, is an heir of Papa and Bam Bam in an Orphanage in 2017. She could not have imagined Christmas at Bamm Bam's house.
This is Papa helping a young Joy open yet another present. It was Blessing upon blessing upon blessing.
And that is infinitely less compared to what it means to be chosen in love before the foundation of the world, to be made adopted heirs of the God of the heavens.
And that's his plan.
God's plan is for us to be the blessed adopted heirs of the gracious sovereign Creator.
What's the plan?
God's plan is to bless us. And God's plan is also to glorify Himself. And I pray for a day when we're as excited about that point as the first one.
God's plan is to glorp. And they really go together.
They're simultaneously exciting because one goes with the other.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: But God's plan is to glorify Himself.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: That's the next thing for us to see.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: And how could it not be? How could it not be?
[00:20:50] Speaker A: I want us so badly to be
[00:20:52] Speaker B: a church that rejoices in this truth. I want us to love that God's plan is God's glory because that means that we understand that God really is the ultimate, that he really is the like no other. God is infinite. And the better we see him, the bigger we see him.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Back to verse 5.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: In love he predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to to the praise of his glorious grace, verse 12. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. It makes no sense for us to get the blessing, but it's true we do. It also makes no sense for us to get the glory. And that can't be true. It is impossible if we understand who we really are and who God really is.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: It's we know it is nonsensical for anyone else to get the glory.
Glory means weightiness or substance.
God has infinite weightiness, infinite significance.
All substance is his substance.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: You remember at the beginning of last
[00:22:07] Speaker A: series we talked about the reality that God is the one necessary being.
Everything else is secondary and dependent.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: That means the most glory, the most significance that we can have on our
[00:22:23] Speaker A: own is really nothing.
I won't take the time to unpack all the ways in which you wish you had glory. But it falls apart. So I'll say one I want to be the best pickleball player in Tyler Indoor Pickable's 9am slot on Saturday mornings.
You want to be the prettiest mom on your street.
Like, what is it?
Our glory can only be dust because we are dust.
It's vapor because we are vapor.
Our glory is only weak and temporary because we are we contemporary?
I've got a question I do not think you expected to answer today.
But who is the strongest aunt that ever lived?
The bug? Not the wife of the uncle?
Strongest aunt. You've probably never thought about that before. Why would you?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: The most powerful and intelligent ant in
[00:23:33] Speaker A: history might be alive right now.
How much would that matter to you?
You might have stepped on the wisest ant that ever lived on the way to church today.
How could you?
You wouldn't have even known it.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: The aunt's strength, mind, intelligence. It's not in the same category as yours. The most imp ant in history is nothing to us. The most glorious ant has no glory compared to us.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: And that is true to infinity.
When we compare ourselves to God.
The truth is that we want God to want his glory because he's the only one actually worthy of it.
And for him to act like he doesn't know that would be false.
It would be a failure of His Godness.
It would be disordered for us.
Everything God does is because everything God is, knows he's supreme, knows he's the best, the ultimate fill in the blank from him and through him, and to him are what?
And God's plan in predestination and creation and redemption and adoption is for weak,
[00:25:20] Speaker B: temporary, sinful, hurting people to glory in the only one who could do such a miracle.
God is the only one big enough to create worlds. He's the only One loving enough to rescue ants. He's the only One gracious enough to adopt our orphan hearts even as we were rejecting him while he was drawing us to Himself. How can it be true that in him you also, when you heard the Word of Truth, the gospel of salvation, and believed, believed in him, were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.
And how could it not be true that it's to the praise of his glory?
[00:26:11] Speaker A: You want to know the plan? That's the plan. And I haven't even read the main verse yet.
Verse 10 is probably the most important verse, not just in this passage, but in the book of Ephesians.
It tells us the ultimate aim of God's plan. Paul wrote as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in Him.
God has a plan.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: And that word plan there is so
[00:26:45] Speaker A: powerful because in most contexts it would be a small thing.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: The word for plan there in the
[00:26:51] Speaker A: original language means household administration.
Isn't that beautiful?
Caring for the house, except that In God's case, household administration is the galaxies.
God administrating the household means eternity past and eternity future. God caring for his house means millennia
[00:27:16] Speaker B: worth of bringing lost and hopeless people
[00:27:20] Speaker A: to Himself by His grace for salvation and inheritance forever.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: And the amazing truth that we get to live in is that everything will ultimately be made part of that plan.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: That's the power of God.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: That's the glory and the blessing that takes us to the third part of the plan. God's plan is to bless us. God's plan is to glorify Himself. And God's plan is to culminate everything in Christ.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: God's plan is to unify everything in heaven and earth in Him. Jesus.
Back to verse seven. Let's read this again.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom
[00:28:09] Speaker A: and insight, making known to us the
[00:28:11] Speaker B: mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ,
[00:28:20] Speaker A: things in heaven and things on earth in Him. What's the plan for everything?
God's plan that he's accomplishing right now is to culminate all things across all time. In Jesus, the fullness of time means the filled upness of all the seasons,
[00:28:38] Speaker B: all things across all ages. And to make it extra clear, he
[00:28:41] Speaker A: says things in heaven and things on
[00:28:43] Speaker B: earth, all things across all time will be united in Christ. That word literally means to sum up all occurrences across all the ages will be summed up under Jesus. This is a powerful image for us because we sum down, it's mathematical.
We take the tally, we add things together, and the total is at the bottom. Just this week, Brittany sent me a spreadsheet of things that we are tracking in a couple of categories. And the sum of those categories was
[00:29:14] Speaker A: at the bottom of the Google Google Doc
[00:29:17] Speaker B: summed together. But at the bottom, back when Ephesians was written, things were summed up, totaled up, things were added together and what they equal was at the top. As an example, here's these are literally just random numbers I pulled out of my brain.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: 12 plus 18 plus 27 plus 154 plus 33 plus 4 equals 248. Don't check that, but I'm pretty sure it's right.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: And Paul is saying that God's plan is to have everything there ever was or ever will be to be totaled up to equal the exaltation of Jesus, the victory of Jesus the supremacy of Jesus. And you know what that means? That's almost too big for us to get there. But it's not, because that means everything.
What's in Jesus?
I didn't shout this much.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Of the eight.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: What's in Him?
In him is every real hope and true good. The Bible tells us what's in him. John 1 says, in him is life and the light of men. Jesus said, in him is life and life and abundance. Acts says, in him we live and move and have our being. Psalm says, in him is fullness of joy. Ephesians says, in him is redemption. Colossians says, in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Revelation says, in him are the keys to death and hell. And in him is the worthiness to take the scroll and open its seals. Because he purchased for God people from every tribe and language and nation and. And they will reign on the earth.
That's the plan.
What God is doing is he is
[00:31:07] Speaker A: summing up everything there ever was.
The creation of the world, the fall of Adam and Eve, the wandering in
[00:31:15] Speaker B: the desert, the groaning of the judges,
[00:31:17] Speaker A: the failure of the kings, the imprisonment
[00:31:19] Speaker B: of Paul, your son's sickness, your struggling marriage, your career that's never quite panned out, even artificial intelligence and your very last breath.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: And all of it will be totaled up and it will equal Jesus Christ, Son of God, friend of sinners, hope of the world, Lord of Heaven, giver of life and joy for all time.
That's the plan.
No wonder Paul can say to the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you. Because God has a plan. And it's to bless you and to glorify Himself and to culminate all things in his son. We're going to spend the next few months learning and many ways how to live in that plan. But for right now, let's experience the peace and the rejoicing of the good plan of our gracious God. And I'm going to pray that God will help us to do that. Father, you are so big, so glorious.
God, I pray that you'd help me, my friends here, to have a little bit better understanding of your weightiness, your vastness.
And somehow your love before the foundation of the world. For our hearts as your kids.
You are our dad.
The King of the cosmos is my dad.
And that's good.
And you are good.
Thank you for blessing us.
Please have all the glory and please help us to see the moments of our lives all adding up to victory in Jesus it's his name we pray and to him we sing Amen. Let's stand and sing about this together.
