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Chinese evangelist Watchman Nee once noted that Paul’s letter to the Ephesians comes in three parts, which he named Sit, Walk, and Stand. Before we walk in Christ, and before we take our stand against evil and injustice, we must sit in God’s presence and fully absorb the Bible’s teaching that our relationship with God is completely his initiative. God has chosen us, adopted us into his family, and prepared the universe as his gift to us — all because he loves us with a love that is beyond comprehension.

 

Chosen by God
What God Really Thinks About You
April 17-18, 2010
Glenn McDonald

Ephesians 1:3-6

Let’s take our Bibles and open them once again to the first chapter of the book of Ephesians. This is the second week of our eight-month exploration of this short letter that has rocked the world for the last 20 centuries. While our intention is to encounter the essence of Ephesians one word and phrase at a time, it’s also useful to appreciate the landscape of this book from 30,000 feet. What is the overall plan and structure of these six brief chapters?

Watchman Nee, the most famous evangelist in the history of China, observed that Ephesians is arranged in three parts. He named them Sit, Walk, and Stand. The first half of the book, chapters one through three, command us to sit. We must sit down and pay attention to God. Before we ever try to get up and walk with God – let alone start running around in God’s name – we must make sure we know who the Lord actually is. Toward the end of this summer we’ll arrive at Paul’s walking lessons in chapters four, five, and the first half of chapter six. But it won’t be until Halloween that we finally hear God’s call to stand – not to stand up, but to stand against evil, injustice, and the principalities and powers of this world, which is found in chapter six beginning in verse 10.

Sit, Walk, Stand. In that order. We open up Scripture knowing that if we don’t begin by seeking to know God as he really is – what he has done for us and what he really thinks about us – everything else is going to be a mess.

Last week we looked at the two opening verses of chapter one. Now we’re ready to tackle one of the most extraordinary patches of teaching found anywhere in the Bible – verses 3-14. Here we want to reiterate our church-wide challenge to memorize all the words of the book of Ephesians between now and Thanksgiving. How many of you began your memory work during the past week? What did you discover when you came face to face with today’s four verses? This is tough. These thoughts and words are dense. Verses 3-14 are like a seven-layer lasagna: nourishing but a bit overwhelming.

Perhaps you’ll be encouraged by these reflections from a ZPC member. She wrote just the other day: “I get it. I was struggling to memorize Ephesians 1:3 when I said to myself, Why is this so hard for me? The immediate answer was, Don't just memorize it, understand it first. As I repeated the words I understood their meaning, placement, and punctuation. WOW what a feeling to have the Word of God living in me through Christ.” The real joy of Scripture memorization is that it compels us to look at God’s words, as closely as we can, so we can understand them at a depth that almost always eludes us if we simply read over them.

As we turn our attention to this weekend’s text, Ephesians 1:3-6, I’d like to ask you once again to stand so we can speak it aloud together As you feel led, you can follow one of three paths. You can read these words out of your own Bible. You can read them off one of the screens. Or you can look away or close your eyes and say them from memory. Let’s declare together the Word of God:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. 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 freely given us in the One he loves.

Letters in the ancient world usually began with a greeting. That’s what the apostle Paul provides in verses one and two. Then the writer would offer a prayer for health. Paul’s “prayer for health” is found in verses 3-14. In the original Greek, these 12 verses are actually one extremely long sentence. Paul cranks up on the subject of spiritual health and he can hardly bring himself to put down the pen.  

One commentator describes this as “doctrine set to music.” Another calls it “a theologically loaded and structurally complex summary of God’s work in Christ” – one cascading description after another of what God has done for us through the person of Jesus. Paul is so overwhelmed by God’s love and grace that he keeps searching for fresh and unique ways to say, “Wow!”

Paul also makes a point concerning the geography of his readers. Where do they live? They live in Ephesus. But they are also “in Christ.” Nine times in the first 14 verses of this book (including three times in today’s text), Paul says that Christians are “in Jesus,” “in the Lord,” or “in him.” If you have surrendered yourself to Christ as Savior and Lord, then you have a dual citizenship. You live in central Indiana. But you also live in him – and that should make all the difference in the world in the eyes of your family members, your neighbors, and your co-workers. Knowing Jesus is like living in another country even while you live in your same old house on your same old street.

The central thesis or main point of Ephesians is summarized in verses 3 and 4. The rest of the book is just commentary on these two verses. God has blessed us because he loves us. He has chosen us so we can live a particular kind of God-honoring life. Notice that there is nothing here about what we think, what we are doing, or what we are planning next. This is all about God.

And that is very hard for us to “get.” We usually start by thinking about ourselves. How can I have a great weekend? Where can I find a fulfilling job? What should I do to kick-start my love life? But the Bible tells to sit down and be quiet and pay attention to God.  

True spirituality is responding to what God is doing, not figuring out how to get God involved in what we are doing. This is against almost everything we see and hear in North American culture. More disturbingly, this is contrary to something like two-thirds of the Christian publications that come out every year – books that promise inside information on how to obtain God’s blessings, how to become a prayer warrior, or how to make a difference for Christ in the world.

Now there’s nothing wrong with praying or being blessed or making a difference. But we don’t begin with ourselves. First we think rightly about God. If we do that, all that is truly needed will fall into place. In fact, the exact nature of our relationship with God rises and falls according to what we think God thinks about us. Let me say that again: The exact nature of our relationship with God rises and falls according to what we think God thinks about us. In the opening verses of Ephesians, Paul says, “This is what God thinks about you.”

To be specific, God is not a distant being who is waiting to see what we are going to do next. Look at the five verbs in today’s text: God has blessed us. He chose us. He predestined us in love. He has adopted us. His grace is something he has given to us. God has gone to extreme cosmic lengths to bring us to himself.  

Every day millions of men and women are drinking and drugging themselves out of awareness – or they are out spending their time shopping, which is essentially the same thing. We are afraid that life has no meaning, and that we have to invent such meaning for ourselves. To this numbed and fearful humanity God says, “I have claimed you for myself! I’m not saying this because I’m stuck with you, but because I love you. Even though I’m the one who knows you the best, I also love you the best. You may be sure that I have chosen you.”  

It is impossible to overstate how difficult this can be for people to believe. If you grew up emotionally crippled in a love-challenged home, then the message of God’s eternal love may seem like a farce or a dream. You can accept it intellectually – perhaps as an article of faith that you say in a creed – but secretly, at the level of your emotions, you struggle to believe that God will ever treat you with fairness and compassion, since you have never personally experienced anything of the sort. This is especially true for kids who grow up in homes where mom and dad and grandparents quote Bible verses, but who themselves do not know how to give and receive love. Therefore, concerning God, some of us feel angry, hopeful, uncertain, loving, grateful, and anxious all at the same time.

Once when Norman Vincent Peale was traveling in Hong Kong he walked into a tattoo shop. One of the tattoos for sale was the words, “Born to Lose.” Astonished, Peale asked the artist if anyone ever actually put such horrific words permanently onto his own skin. The artist answered, “Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.” In much the same way, we can come to the pages of Scripture and read that God loves us and has adopted us, yet there may be something branded onto our hearts that screams, “Don’t be stupid; God wasn’t talking about you!” And if at that moment we don’t feel the love of God, we wonder if we can ever possibly be safe and secure in him.

This is why Ephesians begins by saying, “Being right with God is not about you. It is not about what you feel or fear. It’s about God.” We belong to God because of his character, his plans, and his actions – not because of our character, our plans, and our actions. Our feelings and our fears do not have veto power over the fact that if you have a deep spiritual undertow in your heart right now for Jesus Christ, then you have in fact been chosen…and God’s call to you is to respond to him in trust. God has done all the work. Our role is to trust that work and thus to trust him at the level of the heart.

When verse four says, “He chose us in him before the creation of the world,” that doesn’t mean that God started thinking about us approximately 10 minutes before the Big Bang. Let’s see, things to do today: Plan the universe in such a way that 13.8 billion years from now there will be people I will want to know and love. No! It has always been in God’s heart for us to come into existence so we can personally experience what an awesome God he is.

Notice that God chose us for a purpose. We are “to be holy and blameless in his sight.” Being chosen brings responsibility. It also brings us into a new family. Verse five says we were lovingly predestined “to be adopted as his sons.” There’s no question, by the way, that Paul fully endorsed God’s adoption of daughters. Now adoption is a wonderful thing in any culture in any generation. But adoption at the height of the Roman Empire – the very time when Paul was writing this letter – was something uniquely special. It sheds light on Paul’s statements about God.

If you were adopted during the Roman Empire, you received three things: First, you got a new father. You lost all the rights pertaining to your family of origin, but you gained all the rights of your new household. Second, you became heir to your new father’s estate. Even if your adopted dad gained a dozen additional sons or daughters by one means or another, nothing would ever affect your new inheritance. And third, your old life was completely wiped out. All of your debts were erased. It was as if you had never had that former life. You were now regarded as a completely new person.  

So when Paul says that we have been adopted as the children of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it means we have begun an entirely new existence. We have been given the ultimate spiritual do-over. God doesn’t have identity crises, and he doesn’t want us to have them, either. We can know who we are in Christ – today, tomorrow, and the next day. And all of this, as verse six tells us, is for the purpose of bringing glory to God. It is for “the praise of his glorious grace.”

Now let’s tackle the big scary word in verse five. Paul says that those who are “in Christ” have been predestined for new life by God himself. What this means is that salvation is God’s business, not ours. We don’t choose God. God chooses us. The bottom line of predestination is that, despite all our wishes to the contrary, we are never in control when it comes to God. You cannot have a desire for God that is not surpassed by his desire for you. And you cannot have a desire for God that he did not in fact put there himself

Now if you’ve been seeking God for as long as you can remember, it’s tempting to think that you’re the one who has been the initiator. You’re the one who has been banging on the door. What the Bible tells us is that such relentless seeking is a homing device that God has planted in our hearts. And Jesus makes it very clear: “Everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7). If you’ve been a Christian for a long time, and you’re still seeking because it doesn’t feel as if you have enough of God, don’t be afraid. You’re not broken. You’re blessed! That seeking is God’s ongoing gift to you – so that you will end up going places spiritually that you would never reach if you were left to yourself.

A good part of our life with God is inherently mysterious. God chooses us, yet he holds us accountable for our responses to him. So what should we do with these opening verses of Ephesians chapter one? How can we work them into our lives in a practical way? We can do three amazing things just by sitting in God’s presence.

Begin with gratitude. Spiritual maturity is grounded in the words “thank you” spoken to God again and again and again. He never grows tired of our appreciation for what he has done for us from before the creation of the world.

Next, sit alone with God sometime this week and receive his love all over again. Life’s number one priority is to allow the love of God to reach us and to transform us. Don’t try to deserve such love. Just receive it gladly. We can’t do anything except to welcome it. God’s perfect love drives out all fear.

Finally, surrender your worries. Give to God whatever is compromising your experience of peace. Those might be small things or issues that have vexed you for years. In the kingdom of God, worry and peace cannot co-exist. If verses 3-6 are true – and they are in fact true – and we have responded to God in heartfelt trust as best we can, we literally have nothing to worry about. The moment that we take seriously the fact that God values us eternally, our entire outlook on life changes. We don’t have to spend years pounding on the gates of heaven, hoping for a response. God in his grace has already opened every door.

Richard Blackaby, a pastor in Canada, remembers the day that he and his wife Lisa decided to visit a frame shop in their hometown. They were armed with a 50%-off coupon for any picture framing project. It was a busy day for the Blackabys. Knowing that the store opened at 10:00 a.m., they decided to get there a few minutes early so they could be the first customers in line.

They pulled up at 9:49. It was a bitterly cold Canadian winter morning. The lights were already on. The sign on the door indeed said that the store would open at 10:00, but Richard suggested to Lisa that if she stood outside and looked sufficiently pathetic, perhaps they could get in a few minutes early.

Lisa hopped out of the car and walked up to the glass, peered inside, and noticed the shopkeeper. Lisa smiled at her. The shopkeeper smiled back, then went on with her work. Lisa began pacing back and forth in front of the store trying to look like a seriously big spender. Whenever the proprietor looked up at her, Lisa smiled enthusiastically. But the shopkeeper never came to the door.

As her body approached the point of freezing, Lisa returned to the car and said to Richard, “Don’t just sit there, help me!” Richard, who is a fairly big guy, got out of the car wearing a black trench coat and mirrored sunglasses. He assumed that the woman working in the store might show him a little bit more respect. He opened the trunk of his car to take out the painting – just to demonstrate that they really did intend to make a purchase – but then noticed that the shopkeeper was on the phone.

At 10:03 a.m. Lisa had had enough. “Let’s go to another store,” she said. “What do you mean?” Richard asked. “Surely she’ll open up now. It’s after 10:00.” “I don’t care,” said Lisa. “I refuse to do business with these people. Any store that makes customers stand in the bitter cold for ten minutes just because their store hours haven’t officially begun is not going to get my business. That’s a principle with me.”  

Richard answered, “Lisa, I know you are a person of principle, but I’d like to appeal to a higher principle.” While she may have been expecting something from the Sermon on the Mount, he pointed out instead, “We have a 50%-off coupon at this place and not for any other frame store.” She retorted, “I’d rather pay twice as much elsewhere than to get it done here for free.”

Realizing that their entire morning was now in danger of running off the rails emotionally, Richard asked, “So what happened when you tried the door?” What followed was an awkward silence. Lisa wordlessly exited the car, walked up to the door, and pulled it wide open. It had been unlocked the entire time. When they both walked inside they found the shopkeeper visibly shaken. She said to Lisa, “You kept staring at me and smiling at me, but you would never come in the store.” She said to Richard, “You looked like a mobster! I thought you were going to your trunk to pull out a sawed-off shotgun. I called my sister and told her I had two lunatics outside my store and to be ready to dial 911.”

Lisa and Richard honestly believed they understood the facts of the situation, but they didn’t have a clue. They spent 10 minutes peering in at the very things they needed but never opened the door to receive them. It’s possible to spend your whole life assuming you know what God must be thinking about you. Get the facts instead. Become a student of God’s own heart as revealed in his Word. Don’t miss the chance to walk through the door that he has already opened for you.