“There Is A Real Salvation Available”

It is great to see you this morning.  I'm glad you're here.  I invite you to take your Bibles, please, and turn to the Book of Ephesians Chapter 1.  We are beginning a walk through this book and you can find today's passage in Chapter 1, just verses 4-6.  We are going very slowly at first to lay the groundwork for what God has for us in this great book of Ephesians, so if you would turn there please, Ephesians 1 beginning with Verse 4.

I would like for you to keep in mind this morning that the objective is to learn from the scriptures that God has made available a real salvation.  I think that is one of the issues at stake, is He wants the people at Ephesus to know there is a real salvation available.  It is not like any other pagan religion that they have heard.  It is not some order of works to get your way to Heaven, maybe some day hopefully so, but there is a concrete and real salvation available. 

Now, he's writing this to the church at Ephesus so his audience is believers but he is not leaving the lost person out.  He is establishing the fact that there is a real salvation available.  He wants the believers to know that so they can go into the world and evangelize.  But he also wants them to know that for a second and equally great reason, that because there is a real salvation available that the assurance of being saved is there and strong.  There is an assurance of individuals truly being saved.  Through the years of pastoral ministry, that is one of the most often things that I talk to people about in private counseling.  People who have known the Lord for a year, people who have known the Lord for 50 years want to know, "Am I really a Christian?"  "How can I know I'm really a Christian?"  Well, the foundation actually starts with proper evangelism in learning there is a real salvation available, one where God comes and truly saves people.  It doesn’t depend on us, it doesn’t depend on anything we do, it depends on God alone.  That's a real salvation.  Then the apostle takes that for these believers and shows how this real salvation sets us on a foundation that is unshakable, it is unmovable, it is unchangeable because it rests in Christ Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Since I'm beginning in the middle of a sentence, by the way, verses 3-14 are one long sentence in the Greek language, we have put commas and periods in there to best catch his thought process as we know how, but Verse 3 says:

Eph 1:3  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,

Eph 1:4  even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Eph 1:5  he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

Eph 1:6  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

First, I just want us to walk through the passage to see what is there because there are a couple of hot-button words in this passage.  We should go ahead and name them so you can already have the hair on the back of your neck standing up, election and predestination.

By the way, in walking through this passage of scripture, I have often wondered how many of us have ever stopped and thought, why  the word election is chosen here?  Why the word predestination causes within us such a knee jerk reaction? Have you ever really thought about that and tried to answer the question now, why does that cause in me such a reaction? It's like we read it and say, "Nuh uh! No-o, no, no, it's not that way.  That's not what…..

So what I want to do this morning because those are hot-button words, it's hard to come to a passage of scripture that has something like that in it that either promotes extreme good in our minds or causes resistance.  It's hard to come to it with a mind that says, "Okay, I want to hear what God says."  So, what I want to try to do is bring us all just within earshot of hearing the voice of God, of hearing this as if we were hearing the day it was read for the first time at the Church at Ephesus, fresh and new!  So, let's talk about it.  The first thing is you have to draw a circle around verses 3-14 and the circle because outside of Christ all of this is impossible.

Eph 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ

Everything we see is in Christ;  11 times in this long sentence the phrase in Christ, in the beloved, in him, is used.  Everything God is talking about, every blessing of his salvation comes to use because we are in Christ.  It doesn’t come to us because of anything about us, it comes to us because of everything he is, so it is impossible to understand and apply this passage if we don't just draw a big circle around it and put in Christ, everything that we get is in Him. 

So let's just first walk through it because it is not easy to understand and it's not because the terms are difficult, it is because Paul was so excited he wouldn't stop long enough to put a period.  He got so excited about all that God has done he just rambled on.  He would have gotten an "F" in grammar for this sentence! Did your teachers ever get on you for a run-on sentence?  There are least, I think either 4 or 5 of these huge sentences in Ephesians, Paul was motivated when he wrote or dictated this letter to be written.

All right, so we're blessed in Christ.  How are we blessed?  We are blessed even as he chose us in Him.  So, inside the circle of Christ, you put the word chosen.  Now, take away your predetermined meanings, my friend, listen to the voice of God.  First of all you do admit it is in the Bible so I've got to preach on it, right? And, certainly you realize that preachers are in a very dangerous position when they stand in the pulpit and share their own opinion, right? I wouldn't do that because frankly I'm afraid God would strike me dead on the spot!  And that's not a joke.  That's how serious I take this. Moses said, 'His Word is no trifle to us it is our very lives." Isaiah speaks of "the one who trembles before His Word" and I tremble that God's people don't tremble before His Word more than they do.

So, even as He chose us in Him, that's in Christ, so somehow God put Christ in His mind, His only son, and us together.  When did He do this?  He did it even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.  God is timeless.  There is nothing God doesn’t know.  There is nothing in the past, nothing in the future, nothing anywhere that God doesn’t know and in his mind He chose us in Him so I already know this is a real salvation because since I am not born yet, I haven't done good nor bad yet, God decided He is going to save me.

You say, "Whoa, I don't know if I like that or not."  I've decided I'm not going to argue with this passage because by the time I got to the end of it and I found out that he chose me before the foundation of the world, and he has a purpose in my life that I should be holy and blameless and that he predestined me, this is an act of God and that he predestined me specifically in this passage for adoption through Jesus Christ and that so I would have His grace poured out on me richly I decided, you know, I don't think I want to argue with that.  That's pretty good! 

So, He chose us before the foundation of the world.  Why?  That we should be holy and blameless before Him.  Many of the misapplications of the doctrine of God's choosing or election cause people to do strange things.  They cause us to have silly thoughts like, "Well, if it's determined before the foundation of the world and I get saved and I can't be unsaved, then I can go out and live any way I want to."  According to this passage, it looks like to me the assurance or the only sign that God offers us, since election is His business and not ours that we might want to be one of his children, is this - that we are on the pathway to be wholly and blameless.  If we are not, then we've got something really to think about here.  So, that we should be holy and blameless, this may be the phrase that gets me as much as any in the whole passage, before Him.  Have you ever contemplated what it would be to be before God? Have you ever just studied the passage in the scriptures where people were before Angels of God? Everyone of them falls down in fear.  I wonder what it would be like to be before God.  One day we get to find out, but thank God when we get to find that out we're in Christ because I cannot imagine what it would be like to be before Almighty God outside of Christ.  That's the one that probably gets me as much as any of them.

And then, they put a period there and it looks as if that's the best way to do it, and starts a new sentence.

In love he predestined us.

Now, some of yours put the period after in love.  It doesn’t affect the meaning of the passage.  It just decides if this in love goes with us or the in love goes with God.  If he wants us to be holy and blameless before Him in love that means we are to live a life of love as we are holy and blameless.  If it is like this, which I think is the better place to put it, it is in love that God predestined us.  So this issue of predestination doesn’t have anything to do with God being up in Heaven saying, "I like that one, I don't like that one.  You're bad!  You go here! You're good, you come over here."  Where would we ever get the silliness of an idea that God would operate that way anyway?  By the way, this word predestined is only in the New Testament 6 times and every single time it is it has to do with God's prerogative.  Why do I say there is a real salvation available?  Because of sweet words like this.  I've never quite understood how any believer can take a plain statement in scripture knowing that God is good and for our good and our good is His eternal aim and make a sweet pill so bitter.  My friend, when I set these things, even these very words in my mouth, they get sweeter every time I put them in.  Do you want to know why?  It's because I know who Tony Rose is and I know that with the Apostle Paul, there is one area that I do identify with Paul and it is with this statement.  I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing. Not one good thing!  And I see a God who looked from before time and He knew my name, and He was going to come after me and He was going to save me and nothing was going to stop Him until He did and He put me in Christ and chose that I should be moving toward holiness and blameless and it was in His very perfect and eternal love that He did something that the Bible calls pre-destiny.  It means He made a choice showing that He was God above me and He was going to adopt me into His family.  Adopted children don't choose their adopted parents.  God, on His own, went to great cost to adopt me into His family of which I receive, and the Romans understood this, this society understood in Roman adoption that you got all the privileges of sonship.  And obviously he is talking about sons and daughters, language limits us there, but everybody that read this knew he was talking about men and women, boys and girls alike.  Oh, He predestined us.  What was God's purpose here?  For adoption through Jesus Christ.  See, there's the circle again, in Christ.  Why did He do it?  According to the purpose of His will. Wow!

Job said in Job 42:2 "No purpose of God's can be thwarted."  Why is that important to me? Because I've walked through the valley of doubt; because I've wondered if I am really one that could be saved.  And when I fall on this I realize that I'm the greatest candidate for salvation because I am a sinner and there is a real salvation, and when I read what God has done I don't have to worry if I've prayed right, if I repented enough, if I walked a straight line.  I look to Jesus and I see by grace I'm in Him and I rest because God sees all of His children in Christ.  There is a real salvation available and for those who have it, it is assured to them through these precious words.  Some people get worried, "Well, one of the silly things we do with this word, chosen or election, is I might not be one of the elect!  There's a phrase for that, that's stupid!  Why would you ever think that?  That's the mind of God!

Richard Baxter, the old Puritan, had people in his church that dealt with that just like we have people in our church, just like every church has people that wonder if they are saved or not.  Does God love me or not? The same God who decided to save you, who chose to save, who chose to make salvation available also ordained the means of salvation.  If anybody on the face of the globe wants to know if they are one of the elect, I can tell you how to find out.  Repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ.  That's how you know.  Election is God's business; repentance and faith is your business.  And if you are worried about being one, tell God you're sorry for your sin and receive Jesus Christ by faith as the Lord of your life, then this passage becomes sweet in your mouth.

Eph 1:5  In love…. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

The word purpose could be translated "pleasure." Because it's telling us that in the doing of this part of His will, God had the greatest pleasure to do us good.  I am sure there are many of you, when you think of God, you think of Him almost happy to do you ill.  No wonder you have trouble loving Him.  You've painted your own picture of Him.  According to God's Word, He has pleasure in electing, in predestining, in adopting, in redeeming, in forgiving our sins He has great pleasure in doing that.  Why would you ever think He is ill against you, His child?  Now, we would be right to think that God is angry with sinners who will not trust His Son.  We would be foolish to think otherwise, the Bible is clear on that.  As a matter of fact, Ephesians 2 tells us we were at one time children of wrath like the rest, but God is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, made us alive together with Christ.

So, according to the purposes of His will, to the end of this…

Eph 1:6  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us…. [How?] in the Beloved.  In Christ.

God did not bless you because you were good.  God did not bless you because you prayed.  God does not bless you because you witness.  God has blessed you because He chose to love you in Christ, so sit back and enjoy the blessing!  And then let it transform your life.  Do you love God enough to let Him shape you? Because the distinct fruit of being His child is that you are becoming holy and blameless before Him. He's shaping you.  That's one of the greatest ways we know that we're God's children in a practical sense.  So, think with me about this just a minute more.  The passage, then we will apply it.  He did this in Christ according to His will to the praise of His glorious grace.  So, God does something to us so that we might praise Him.  You say, "Well, that's kind of self-centered." Oh, is it?

Have you ever bought a new car?  Do you remember when you bought your first new car? I mean brand new, off the lot, the smell of leather.  It smelled good until you were half-way through the payment book!  Remember that?  When you bought that new car, did you show it to anybody? Did you turn the radio on and let them listen to the Bose sound system that was inside? Did you brag on the color of the car?

Do you remember your first grand-baby?  Do you carry pictures in your wallet? That's what the little girl said that, you remember that? She went home and told her home, about Sunday School, and said "Jesus' grandmother was her teacher." "How did you know it was Jesus' grandmother?" "She kept showing his picture!" [Laughter]  Tell me something!  You take great joy in that grand-baby, but isn't your joy even increased as you praise that grand-baby to somebody else?   Isn't part of the fulfillment of the new car showing it to someone else?

You see, it doesn’t culminate in us until this salvation of ours that God has given us as His free gift, that we praise Him for this grace He's given us, and I find it strange in my heart that the more I recognize this free and sovereign grace, the more I recognize His love for us, the more I praise Him the greater my heart is filled with the desire to serve Him and know Him more.  God is so wise.  He knows us.  So, how do we know if presently my life, then, is according to the purpose and will of God? We've already mentioned two reasons, are we moving towards holiness and blamelessness?  Now, we won't be perfectly holy and blameless until we are before Him in heaven because of Christ, but what about presently? Are you in that process of sanctification, of growing in Christ?  What about using the privileges of adoption?  Do you regularly say, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name?"  Do you ask Him for your daily bread? You know, that's the curse of abundance.  We don't know how to ask for daily bread, we ask for monthly!  Do you take the privileges of sonship and are you reflecting the character of your Father, and are you being thankful? Because those are clear ways to see if your life is according to the purpose of His will.

Now, remember, this was written to saints, that's all of us who have our faith in Christ.  It was written to tell them there's a real salvation and assurance of really being saved in this salvation.  Paul wrote it to them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to tell them about their God and of His saving them.  He wanted them to know that God is God!  And therefore, this God can save.  He wanted them to have… here's the reasons he wrote this to the saints.  He wanted them to know the sweet fruit of assurance.  He wanted them to know they rested on an immovable rock.  How do you gain assurance of salvation?  That's a whole sermon, I'm only going to say a couple of things about it.

First, I'm going to tell you what you don't do.  You do not gain assurance of salvation by memory, by going back to the time when you first prayed or when you were baptized trying to remember, "Did I pray it right?  Did I feel it right? Did I really understand it then?"  That is fruitless.  There are means God has given for salvation. That doesn’t do you any good.  I can tell you something else that won't do you any good -- getting a feeling of doubt in yourself and you are worried your not Christian and so, okay, okay, here's what I'm going to do.  "God, I'm going to go over here, I'm going to kneel down and I'm going to pray right now, I'm going to ask Jesus into my heart, there's my stake in the ground.  Now, every time that I doubt I'll look back to that and I'll know I've done it."

Do you know what that is? You, my friend, are working your way to Heaven.  You don't look to what you did, you look to the cross!  And when you look to the cross, you just, ahhhhhh, thank you, God! 

Now, what good does that do you?  The scriptures say, John wrote in 1 John 5:13:

Jn 5:13  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

If you want to look at something to gain assurance, you look at God's Word and you read especially passages like Ephesians 1 and you rest in the superabundance of his rich grace lavished on us in Christ.  And then you put the practical application there.  The old Puritans used to say, "Stop trying to find the assurance of your salvation by trying your state, examining everything inside and start doing your duty and assurance will come."  That is exactly what Peter says in 2 Peter 1. 

2Pe 1:5  For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,

2Pe 1:6  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,

2Pe 1:7  and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.

And he says if you do those things you will neither be ineffective or unfruitful in your knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be assured of your salvation.  Feelings will go high and low.  If I went by my feelings I would be saved and lost 20 times in a day.  But Jesus never changes. 

So he wrote to them for assurance, he wrote to them for doctrinal stability.  Listen, you take this away and the church goes bonkers.  She does goofy things with evangelism trying to get people to do things to get saved.  We go to works every time we lower the level of who Jesus is.  This is for doctrinal stability, for God's exaltation and for our humbling.  And that's the third thing it does, it guards against our pride.  Listen, if God freely chose to save you by His grace and His grace alone, what room for pride do we have?  As a matter of fact, as a created being what room for pride do you have? Everything you've got is a gift of God.  Do you know that we try to preserve our lives through our pride and pride is the one thing that kills our lives? When you let go of that, you lose your life like Jesus said, you give it to Him, then you gain your life.  He gave us these truths to prepare us for heaven.  Because of this grace, we're all going to be made one new people, it's called the church here on earth; it's called "God's all redeemed people" in Heaven and that's just preparation for there.

Some of you are saying man, if heaven is going to be like my church I'm not sure I want to be there.  [It's okay, you can laugh at that.]  The reason I say that is, if it would be proper to say this, we're going to have some surprises when we get to heaven.  It's not good people that go to heaven, it's graced people.  And there is going to be a few people who seem to be rotten scallywags who are going to be in heaven.  They grew up, they were abused as a child, they were given alcohol as a baby.  Their parents taught them to smoke crack when they were 5; they heard the gospel when they were 25.  They lived a life of a vagabond until then, they got saved, they love Jesus, they couldn't quit smoking.  They love Jesus, had a hard time controlling their tongue and used foul language.  They love Jesus and couldn't hold down a job, but they were truly in Christ.  Now, over time, they are going to change and they are going to grow.  There is no such thing as a Christian who doesn’t bear any fruit. But some of us don't bear a lot of fruit, but we're still saved by grace.  You're not going to heaven because you tithed your income; because you don't smoke, drink or cuss.  You're only going to go to Heaven because of faith in Christ by His grace alone.  We've got to get that straight.  Thank God, we won't be imperfect in Heaven.  We won't irritate each other there like we're blessed to do here.  That's part of earthly life here, my friend, and God uses your irritations to me and my irritations to you as heavenly sandpaper to round us off and get our sharp edges so we can look like Christ.  And He gave them these doctrines of grace and salvation so they would know how to live now in light of these things.  Are these not practical?  Paul thought they are because he deals with our walk in this life, he deals with our wedded life, he deals with our work life, he deals with spiritual warfare all in this same book based on these truths.

So, what then is the application to us today of these wonderful truths?  Let me address one thing first in application and I want to address it specifically to the issue of evangelism.  I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say, "If you believe in election, you don't do evangelism."  All Christians believe in election.  We may not agree one way or the other, but it's right here in God's Book.  The word chosen is the word we get elect from so you've got to deal with it.  But, if there is no such thing as God choosing, just quit doing your evangelism because there is no reason to do it.  You can't talk anybody into being saved.  That's what propels us.  You want an example?  Let me show what the guy who wrote this under inspiration of the Holy Spirit said about his own life under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  We read one of them at the first of the service.  Look at Romans, please, if you are quick with your Bible and would like to see it for yourself.  Look at Romans 8; let me start reading at Verse 38, and then we're going to go back to Paul's initial work at Ephesus.  Romans 8:38:

Rom 8:38  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

Rom 8:39  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How could he write that?  Because he knew and loved Ephesians 1.  Now, look what he says because he knows this is true, because he knows there's a real salvation available, he says these drastic words:

"I am not lying.  My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit." 

This is so true, Paul says, the Holy Spirit is agreeing with me, that…. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsman according to the flesh." 

If that's not missionary evangelistic zeal, I've never seen it. 

Acts, Chapter 20.  This is that man in action.  This is how he lived it out.

Acts 20:18:  We'll start at verse 17 - Paul's traveling, he's already been to Ephesus; the church is established; now he's talking to the Elders there, and in Verse 17-21 we read these words:

Act 20:17  Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.

Act 20:18  And when they came to him, he said to them: "You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, [consistency of life]

Act 20:19  serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews;

Act 20:20  how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,  [doing what?]

Act 20:21  testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why? Because he knew there was a real salvation available, that he could offer to them and Jesus said, "Anyone who will may come and whoever comes I will in no wise cast out."

Now look at verse 24:

Act 20:24  But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, [what is that? ] to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Understood rightly the truth of Ephesians 1 drives the Christian and the church to the edge of the world to share this gospel of grace because it's a real salvation.

Three other words and I close.  This type of salvation does the greatest thing in the world to us, but at times it is immensely painful.  It defeats our pride!  What right do I have to stand up and say, "Hey, God, look at me!"  There's only boasting in Christ, there'll be no boasting in Heaven.  "God forbid that I should boast in anything," Paul said, "except the cross of Christ by which I was crucified to the world and the world to me."  Pride…. Is what actually defeats us.  What reason does any created being have for personal pride?  We're here by God's doing and God's keeping.  It gives us purpose in life.  Do you want a purpose? Try to sink your spiritual teeth into the truth of eternity and that you're moving by God choice and his help and grace towards holiness and blameless that you might be before Him, in love.  Let me offer a quick warning: Don't trample on Jesus to get to heaven.  What do I mean by that?  Some of us see Heaven as a place of rest; a place of food and a place of family reunion with our loved ones and we could care less if Jesus is there or not. That's trampling on Jesus to get to Heaven and that's one sorry Heaven.  All those things will be there, but they are secondary to the One we go who made us, who remade us and as we worship Him together then we are fulfilled in all of those wonderful things because outside of Him they do not exist.  It gives us purpose in life to sense that there is something about my life that matters even to God.  And then it gives us the happiest of hearts.  I have never seen a sad person who has a lot of praise on their lips.  It creates in us praise because as you read through Ephesians 1, and the majesty of God and the wonder of Christ Jesus is magnified over and over to your mind and your eyes and you look and see what He has done in your behalf through Christ.  God is honored through your praises because He saved you and your heart is strangely satisfied and pleased in the fact that He was pleased to save you.  That is basic Christianity.  There is a real salvation and in that real salvation you can really know you are saved because God did the saving, not you!  Now, don't you, with the Apostle Paul, have some friends that need to know that gospel? That is what the church is here for: 

1.       To drink in the sweetness of God's salvation.

2.                 To share that sweetness with the world.