The Ultimate Foundation - Ephesians 1:1-14

Well, a little over 7 years ago, I turned 30. Um, but before my 30th birthday, without me knowing about it, Abby reached out to just a whole list of men in my life. These were father figures, my dad, my father-in-law, mentors, pastors, coaches, friends. The men who, like in one way or another, they had shaped my life. She asked each of them to write me a letter, just a letter, in their own words, uh, telling me what they'd seen in my life, what they were, what they were proud of, what they hoped for in me, what they thought God was up to in my life. And then, uh, when my birthday came, she handed me one letter at a time, just spacing them out throughout the day. And guys, let me tell you. I was not prepared for what happened that day. See, at that time, I was in the middle of wrestling with my call to pastoral ministry. There were days I honestly wasn't sure. Days I wondered if that's what God wanted for me. Days I wondered if anyone, other than Abby, actually believed in me. And then I sat down with these letters. One at a time. And as I read them, What struck me wasn't just the kind words. I mean, the kind words were wonderful. Everything that they had said was just awesome. But what struck me was the heart behind each of those letters. Each letter, in its own way, said similar things, right? Like, I see you, I've seen you grow, I love you, I believe in what God is doing in you, I've prayed for you. I see the Lord in you. I mean, these weren't just like empty words on a page. They were beautiful words. But there were also a window into the hearts of men who knew me and loved me. Because for that whole season, I had just been wrestling with a lot of questions like, does anybody actually see what I'm trying to do with my life? Like, does anyone actually see that I'm trying to to give my life to the Lord and to live for for him and to minister and to serve as a pastor? And as I read the letters, the answers just came back and letter after letter was, yes, yes, yes. I mean, the letters were beautiful. But the meaning of those letters wasn't in the letters themselves, right? It was in the hearts of the men who wrote them. Take the men out of those letters, and they're just like empty words on a page. But if you put those men back into those letters, man, the same words. They became life-changing. So the meaning of a gift is never just in the gift. Like we know that. It's actually in the heart and the why behind it. Now, why am I telling you this? Because that's a great picture of what Paul is explaining in Ephesians one, one through 14. So what I want us to do is I want us to pray, to press pause, pray, ask the Lord to speak to us, and then we'll jump into Ephesians one, one through 14. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for another day in Christ. We thank you that you've gathered us here to this time and this place to worship you. to be reminded of the good news that we have in Christ. to be encouraged and challenged and to most of all be pointed to your word and to grow in Christ-likeness. And if you would, take a moment where you sit and pray that God would speak to you this morning and that it would be helpful and clear to you. Take a moment to do that. And next, if you would, pray for someone around you, to your left, to your right, maybe it's a spouse, a friend, a child. Pray that God would speak to them and it would be encouraging and challenging to them. And then, lastly, pray for me that God would speak through me. It would be clear and bold and accurate, and helpful to you. Oh, Father, we love you, and we trust you. We ask that you would use this time for your glory and for our good. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last week, we walk through what God has done for us in Christ. We saw all these blessings, 8 blessings. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He adopted us into his family. He redeemed us through the blood of Jesus. He forgave us. He made known to us the mystery of his will. He made us and gave us an inheritance. And then he sealed us with his very spirit. We saw that the core of Christianity, the base of Christianity, a celebration, and that when that really lands on you, and not just an understanding but a belief, that it goes from your head down into your bones, that celebration turns into praise, turns into worship. That if you understand all these blessings that you have in Christ, that it all comes through Christ, man, you become a worshiper. that you really see what when you really see what God has done, you can't help but praise him. But see, there's another dimension running through these verses. And last week, we didn't slow down enough to look at it. So as Paul writes, he keeps answering a question that we as human beings, we often ask ourselves. When we hear of all the things that God has done for us, man, a natural question for us to ask, oftentimes we ask questions like why, why would God do that? And if I have all these blessings? What are they according to? Like, are there grounds for keeping them? Or grounds for losing them? What do I have to do? with my life to earn these blessings? Or what could I do? For God to take them away? And Paul answered these he answers all those questions throughout this passage. Last week, I pointed out how many times Paul says, in Christ, in him. But this week, We're looking at another short phrase that Paul uses throughout this passage. Did you see it? He keeps saying, according to, according to, according to, according to, 5 times in the span of 7 verses, Paul keeps wanting to tell you what's behind or what's underneath what God has done. Because if it's just a list of like 8 blessings from last week, well, that's amazing. Don't get me wrong. But if you can see the heart. Underneath, if you can see what those gifts, those blessings are actually built on, Man, they become unshakable. They become a foundation, under your feet, that nothing in this life can actually crack. So this morning, we're going to examine that foundation. We're gonna examine the heart of God behind all the blessings of being in Christ. And before we start looking at those, according to statements, before we look at the 1st one, the 1st aspect of God's motivation is actually found at the end of verse 4. And so that's our 1st point. Our 1st point is God blesses because he loves us. Look at verse four. Verse 4 says, He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Now, some of our English translations put a period there, and then they kind of, they start a new sentence. You see that? Just before verse 5 begins. Some of us have a translation like that. Others might change where the period goes to the beginning of verse five. Some of it back it up just a little bit earlier. But it's clear that in Greek, the phrase in love that you see there at the transition between verse 4 and five, that actually attaches back to the previous sentence. So he chose us, let me read this again. He chose us before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him in love, period. So that phrase, in love, that's the foundation. underneath the choosing. Like he didn't choose you because he had this quota to fill. He didn't choose you because somebody like put his put your name in front of him and he was just somehow obligated to pass it along. He didn't choose you reluctantly. He chose you in love. And it was before the foundation of the world. Before there's a star. Before there was an atom. before there was time itself. The people of God were on the mind of God. And he was not just like thinking about us. He was thinking about us in love. So that means that choosing us is built on top of loving us. Oftentimes we think it's the other way around. He loves us, or he chose us, and therefore he's obligated to love us, but that's not true. Choosing is built downstream from loving. He chose us. Uh, choosing is built on top of loving. Now some of us, We may have come up through religious environments where the picture of God is a picture of duty, right? Like he saves people because that's just what God does. He has to, he chooses some people, and he just passes by others. Sorry. And so you just kind of tiptoe through the Christian life, hoping that you're on the right side, that you're on the right list, and then just trying not to get bumped off the wrong side, right? But that's not the picture that the Bible gives us. That's not the picture of God that the book of Ephesians gives us. The God of the Bible isn't a reluctant administrator. He's a father whose love appeared first. It was a love that produced the choosing. Love produced adoption, love produced redemption. Love is upstream from all the blessings in Christ. And the reality is, some of us walking in here this morning, man, we just believe that God tolerates us. Like he just tolerates me. that I'm just kind of, I snuck into the family of God. He just puts up with me because, you know, Jesus made him and That's not the heart of God. Like it says, he chose you in love. The love isn't the result of his choosing, the love is what produced his choosing. He loved you, he wanted you, he delights in you, and so he chose you. That's the order. And second, our 2nd point this morning. is that God blesses according to the kind intention of his will. God blesses according to the kind intention of his will. Look at verse five. It says, Paul writes, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ. According to there's that phrase that we're going to see over and over, according to the purpose of his will. Now, uh, some translations say, According to the kind intention of his will. That's what we've got on the screen for .2. Or some translations you might be reading in your Bible according to the good pleasure of his will. I think the NASB gets it most accurate. Now, all the translations, they're aiming for different levels of accuracy or readability. So if you've got something different, it's not necessarily that it's wrong, you probably got a great translation in front of you. It's just a way of trying to help you understand what Paul wrote in the 1st century. But I think the NASB is one of the translations that seeks to get more accurate and maybe it sacrifices a little bit of readability for accuracy. And so NASB, New American Standard Bible, it translates this phrase according to the kind intention of his will. The Greek word there is the word for good pleasure, that kind intention, or the purpose, or the good pleasure. It that word is delight. It literally means it puts a smile on God's face. that he adopted you, according to the kind intention of his will, according to his good pleasure. He adopted you because it delights him to do so. Listen, it's one thing to know that your spouse bought you a gift. But it's a whole nother thing to know that your spouse was excited about buying you a gift, right? So, ladies, let's say your husband or your boyfriend or just someone cute, I don't know, decides to take you to your favorite restaurant. Oh my gosh, favorite restaurant. Here it is, Friday night, you dress up. He dresses up, he takes you there. He initiated, he scheduled it. He brought you there, favorite restaurant, amazing dessert. This is happening, right? It's gonna be awesome. And you sit there. But the whole time, he's just like, Hmm. Checking his watch. He's just looking around. Like totally disengaged, checking his phone. He's not looking at you, tapping his foot. And so at some point, you're just like, what is going on here? And so you ask him a few questions, obvious questions like, so, um, what are we doing here tonight? Like, was this something special? I mean, don't get me wrong. I really appreciate you initiating and scheduling. This has meant so much to me. Um, but why did you want to bring me here tonight? And what if he said, like, oh, I don't know, I just, you know, thought I was supposed to just supposed to bring you here. I mean, like you like this place and all. So I just wanted to make you feel good and then we could just move on with the rest of our evening. I just figured we'd get it over with. And then I'd go and do something else. Is your response to him? Like, do you go? Aw. That is so sweet. No! That's a bad motive. And that bad motive messes up even the dinner, even the thing itself, even the restaurant. So you order your favorite dessert, but you're like, I don't even want to eat this because it's tainted with hate, right? And like, you can't even enjoy it. And God says, man, I adopted you. I wanted you. I delighted in you, and it's not, well, I'm God. I just, I just gotta adopt people. It's a tax write-off or something. No, I adopted you because I wanted you. I was excited to. I delight in you. And some of us, man, we have lived our entire Christian life. feeling more like a charity case in the house of God. Like he took you in, but he doesn't really want you here. He's just obligated. And we walk through our spiritual life with this nagging sense that we're imposing on God. that he's helping us out. that he's helping us out as a favor, and we better not ask for too much. But hear what he's telling us. He brought us in according to the kind intention of his will. He smiled when he thought of you joining his family. That's the truth. That's the honesty. That's the reality of what Paul is saying, what God is saying in Ephesians chapter one. And our 3rd point this morning is that God blesses according to the riches of his grace. God blesses according to the riches of his grace. Take a look at verse seven. In him, we have redemption. That was last week. Remember that? To redeem, is to buy something back. We have redemption through us? No, through him. We have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses. According to, there's the phrase again, according to the riches of his grace. Now think about that for a 2nd. The redemption. the buying us back, the forgiving of our sins, it wasn't funded out of God's like petty cash. God's not getting out his wallet, and it's not like he's, God is running out of money, and he's saying, hey, how much for that one? How much does that one cost again? Oh, man. You know what? I just, it's not in the budget this month. 2026 has just run out of funds. I can't afford him or her. No. God's grace is not funded according to our riches. It's according to his, to the riches of his grace. Now, I was thinking about it this week, uh, thinking about like how forgiveness works for us, because oftentimes how we think God operates, unfortunately, we relate it to how we operate. Like we think God's forgiveness is limited because honestly, our forgiveness is limited. So this week I was thinking about how our forgiveness works, like between human beings. And we tend to forgive people like out of an allocated budget. I've got an X amount of grace allocated for that person and that person, and that person, but you know what? That coworker, that family member, that parent, that child, they just, they spent all my funds last Tuesday. Completely out. Sorry guys. And now I'm running a deficit on forgiveness. Sorry, all out of forgiveness last week. I gave you what I had. I'm not running. I'm not made of forgiveness. I've run out of it, and that's just how we forgive, right? But guys, God doesn't forgive like that. God forgives according to the riches of his grace. His cup overflows for you. It never empties. His well, never runs dry. There is no sin you have committed. There is no failure you carry. There is no shame from your past that exhausts the riches of God's grace, poured out through Jesus Christ. You've been forgiven, not according to what you deserve, not according to what you can repay, but according to the riches of his grace. I want to tell you guys about a man named Horatio Spofford. Horatio Spofford. He was a Chicago lawyer who lost a lot of his fortune, almost all of it in the great Chicago fire of 1871. And then in 1873, just 2 years later, he sent his wife and his 4 young daughters ahead of him on a ship back to England. And he was planning to follow them as soon as his business would allow, as soon as he wrapped everything up. But in the middle of the Atlantic, their ship was struck by another vessel. And it sank in just under 12 minutes. And all 4 of his daughters drowned that day. Only his wife survived. And when she made it to England, she sent him a telegram of just 2 words, saved alone. And as Spofford later crossed the Atlantic to meet her, The captain called him to the bridge and pointed out the very spot where his daughters had died. where the ship had gone down. And out of that grief, Spofford wrote these words. My sin. Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. O my soul. Horatio Spofford wrote. It is well with my soul. And that's not that's not naive sentimentality. Like, that's a father whose profound loss has met the riches of God's grace and found the floor beneath him solid. His foundation is intact. That's the language of someone who has stopped trying to forgive himself out of his own pocket. And he started trusting in the riches of God's grace. Horatio Spofford knew that his life was found in Christ and Christ alone, that he was saved by Christ alone. Here's our 4th point this morning. The 4th thing is that God blesses according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. God blesses according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ. Take a look at verses 9 and 10. Making known to us the 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 him, things in heaven and things on earth. So now we're zooming out. We've gone from, Paul has gone from choosing a people to this cosmic plan for the entire universe. And here's what you should be feeling at this point. After we've gone through these verses earlier last week and all the in Christ, all the things that all the blessings we have in Christ, and now we have all these according to statements, this is what you should be feeling, what God has done for you, is not a side project. It's not a footnote at the bottom of God's real agenda. What God has done for you is part of his plan to unite all things. In heaven and on earth, every atom, every century through history, every nation, every star, as small as every sorrow and every joy, he is uniting it under the headship of Christ. It's all falling under him. We are not a charity case in God's economy. We are part of his cosmic plan. And it's a plan with a destination. He says in verse 10, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him. So God's not like throwing dartboards at this dart, at a cosmic dartboard and hoping that something sticks. God has a plan. That plan started before time began. It runs through history. It runs through the cross. It runs through this very moment, and it runs all the way to the end. When Christ will gather everything that's broken, everything dislocated, everything fractured. And he's going to put it all back together under himself, under Jesus. That's where all of this is going. So we're not on the sidelines of God's story. We're not just bench warmers. We're part of the culmination. We're all part of the after party, right? That's where all this is going. God's plan has a destination. It's according to his purpose, which he set forth in Jesus. And here's our 5th point. Our last one. God blesses according to the counsel of his will. God blesses according to the counsel of his will. Look at verse 11. In him, We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. He works all things according to the counsel of his will. All things. There's nothing, nothing in heaven, nothing on earth, nothing in your life right now, nothing in your past, nothing in your future that's operating outside the council of his will. That which I'm really thankful for because anytime that something is operating in the council of my will, man, it's not going to go well. Like, I'm so grateful that my prayers aren't answered according to my own will. They're answered according to God's will, to his counsel. That word counsel doesn't mean like a roll of the dice. It doesn't mean a guess. It means a deliberate, intentional, weighed and considered decision. He works all things according to the counsel of his will. So that means the God who chose you in love, who adopted you with delight, who forgave you out of his bottomless riches, who set forth a plan for the fullness of time, that God is the same God who's working all things in your life right now. according to the counsel of his will. There's not a thread that's out of place. There's not a moment that's slipped past him. There's not a tear that's gone unaccounted for. And the honesty is, just about all of us sitting here this morning are walking through hard things. Like some of us are walking through grief. Some of you are walking through illness, either your own or someone you love. Some of you are walking through job loss, financial pressure, marriage difficulty, broken relationships with your kids or with your parents or siblings. anxiety that just doesn't let you sleep. And I think the questions that tend to hover over us in hard seasons could be, does my life even have a purpose? Has God just lost the plot of my life? Did he forget about me? Or is this just a season of life that's chaotic and I just have to grip my teeth and get through it? God says no. He's working all things. Not most things, not just the ones with happy endings. All things according to the counsel of his will. Which means that the same God who can count the hairs on your head even before you had any is the same God who's overseeing the season that you're in right now. He hasn't abdicated his responsibilities. He has not, he hasn't fallen asleep on the job. He's not been caught off guard. He works all things according to the council of his will. And the will of the God who chose you in love. is a will that's for you and not against you. That doesn't mean that every season feels good. It doesn't mean that every prayer gets answered the way you want when you want it. But it means that nothing in your life is unaccounted for. The same hand that set the universe in motion is the hand that holds your life together. Now, Paul's been working through all this in one massive run on sentence. Remember? Like verses 3 through 14 in Greek. are just one giant sentence of praise. And the moment that sentence ends, Paul does something remarkable. Verses 15 through the end of the chapter are another giant run on sentence. This time of prayer. So we need to understand this, praise spills right over into prayer. Like Paul gets so worked up about what God has done in Christ and the motive underneath behind what God has done, that he drops to his knees. And he prays for the Ephesians. He prays that God would give them the eyes to see it, the hearts to believe it. So imagine. That I took 2 of you up here. I thought about doing it, but, you know, it's a lot of pressure being on stage. Uh, But imagine I took 2 of y'all up here and I said, hey, I've got a job for both of you, identical jobs, uh, maybe boring sometimes, uh, probably brutal. It's hard, sometimes difficult. And I grabbed one of you and I said, hey, it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be tough. You're gonna have some sore muscles at the end, but at the end of the year, if you work hard, I'm gonna give you $1,500, One, five, count them, zero, zero. It's coming to you, right? Now let's say, uh, I took the other one. Over here and I said, hey, same job. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be difficult. It's going to be taxing, but at the end of that year, I'm going to give you $15 million. Right? Now, what would that year look like for the 2 of them? Are they gonna have the same attitude? No way. There's no way they're gonna approach their work in the same way, but it's the same work. Same hours, same hard days, but approached totally differently. That 1st guy over here, he's in despair because at the end of this, man, I can pay for like my rent for a month, maybe two. This 2nd guy over here, doesn't matter what you throw at him. He's like, zippity-doo-da, zippity-dee. My, oh, my, right? You can even say, I'm going to take your broom away. No problem. My, oh my, what a wonderful day, right? It doesn't matter what you throw at him. He has so much joy because he knows what's coming for him. He knows he has a glorious future ahead of him. That's the difference guys, that Paul is writing for. And the honesty, the reality is that some of us are living like this guy over here, the $1,500 guy. Other of us are living like the $150000 guy. The difference isn't necessarily what you've been given in this life. The difference is whether you know the heart of the one who is in charge of it all. And the heart behind the blessing is what makes the gift so amazing. The heart behind the blessing is what makes the gift unshakable. So when life is hard, And it will be. You're not abandoned. When you fail and you will, you're not exhausted. When you can't see the way forward, and there will be days, he hasn't lost the plan. The hope of your life is anchored in the heart of God. So when I sat down and I read those letters all those years ago that Abby gathered for my 30th birthday. I needed them. I was in a season of wondering whether anybody saw what I was trying to do, whether God was actually in it. And as I read those letters, what I needed wasn't the words. What I needed to know was the heart of the men behind them. I needed to know, the heart of the men who had written to me. Once I saw their hearts, Man, the words landed in a place they couldn't have landed otherwise. And guys, man, I cried tears of joy that day. But the gospel isn't just words on a page. It isn't just a list of blessings in Christ. There's a heart behind what God has done for you in Christ, and that heart is Jesus himself. God made you to know him and to walk with him. But your sin and my sin cuts us off from him. We've all turned from God and earned the wages of our rebellion. The wage is something you earn. Like you make a wage at your job. At the end of the day, you do a certain amount of work. Your wage is what you've earned. And the Bible says, our wages, what we've earned for our sin is death. We've earned death, and yet, because of love, love that existed before time itself. God sent his son, Jesus, to live the life that we couldn't live, to die the death that we each deserved. But then 3 days later, he rose from the grave, and anyone, anyone who turns from sin and trusts in Jesus is forgiven, adopted, sealed, made an heir of God. He's the gift. And the heart behind the gift is a father who chose you in love. So here's the question. Remember, there's no application in this chapter. There's no direct command. So we'll wrap up with this one question. Do you want the heart of God? Do you want Jesus? Whether you've been walking with him most of your life? or whether you just got baptized today. Do you want him? Because that's who we're standing on. That's who our forgiveness is built on. That's who our adoption is built on. He's our hope. He is who our hope is built on. The blessings are amazing. But the blessings are not the foundation, the heart of God, expressed through Jesus, is our foundation. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you that you've spoken to each and every one of us this morning. that you've given us something to carry into our week from your word, to be encouraged by, challenged by, but ultimately, Lord, that we would look more like Jesus as a result of our time together, that as we go about our week, and our jobs, our communities, our schools, our parenting. that we would take what we've learned here this morning and apply it. that we would seek to know the heart of God. that we'd seek to know you, Jesus. and that we would seek to walk with you all of our days. And that we wouldn't work according to, we wouldn't try to earn your blessings or earn your favor. We wouldn't work according to our own riches, our own forgiveness, our own strength, Lord, but that we would rest in the truth that all the blessings in Christ or according to what you have done. The kind intention of your heart. The riches of your grace, the purpose of your counsel, that you're uniting all things under Christ. And I pray that we would reflect on that and meditate on that this week, that we would know that our foundation is found in Christ and Christ alone. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.