Ephesians; 1:4 – Election of church age believer, part 7. Worldly status has no bearing.

Friday November 11, 2018

 

H.A. Ironside: “You notice in verse 3 he uses the double title, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is God who purposes it this way, it is God who plans, it was God who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world; and notice, it is not that He chose the church as such, but He chose every individual who was to be a member of that church, to be one with Christ for eternity. You say, “I don’t understand that.” I don’t either. Whenever I come to consider a subject like this, God’s electing grace and predestinating love, I remind myself that the Word says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isa 55:8,9).”

 

He continues in that same chapter: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied” (1Pe 1:2). There you have exactly the same order. [as 2Th 2:13 which he quoted: “But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”] God the Father foreknew us from eternity, but it was up to us whether or not we would yield to Christ. When we did yield in the obedience of faith, we took our places beneath the sprinkled blood of Jesus and our salvation was eternally assured. People try sometimes to put the whole responsibility upon God and say, ‘If God has not chosen me, I cannot be saved.’ If you will trust in Christ, you may know that God has chosen you.”  

 

3) Passages where election is applied to believers in this age:

 

3a. The elect are to reveal the emptiness of human desire for life without God, 1Co 1:27-29.

 

3b. Worldly status has no bearing on this position.

 

Jam 2:1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.

 

Jam 2:2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes,

 

Jam 2:3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, "You sit here in a good place," and you say to the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,"

 

Jam 2:4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?

 

Jam 2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

 

So many people start off life in disordered home environments that are filled with pettiness, hatred, and lust. The children born into these environments have no idea that things could be so much better, but eventually they discover life outside their den of iniquity. They then have choices to point their lives in any number of directions.

 

God will bring the gospel to them and offer them His Fatherhood, Brotherhood, and divine guidance. He offers them life, eternal life. He offers it to everyone, from good homes and bad.

 

Everyone in this life is born into the poverty of spiritual death. All are poor.

 

Though many do not recognize it because they compare their meager things against others who have less and conclude they are rich. That is a cruel and deceitful game.

 

The ones who come to know that they are poor are blessed (the first Beatitude). They only come to know it because God the Holy Spirit reveals it to them.

 

God choose the poor to be rich and heirs of the kingdom. The gospel tells every man he is poor in the manner that counts. Why else would a person believe in a Savior if he thought he didn’t need one? The gospel tells us that righteousness is only in Christ and that all who go the way of the devil will be judged. The Holy Spirit is convicting the world of these very things.

 

Those who believe the gospel, believe they are poor and in need of Christ to be made rich – and they are, no matter where or what they have come from.

 

2Co 8:9

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

 

New Jerusalem video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fnyo8xEIc0&t=4s

 

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.

 

Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

 

Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them,

 

Rev 21:4 and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

 

Rev 21:5 And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true."

 

We are to live now as ones in whom all things have been made new, for they have been when we were baptized by the Holy Spirit.

 

Rev 21:6 And He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.

 

Rev 21:7 "He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.

 

Rev 21:8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."  

 

3c. Our election freely gives us all things. God will always be for us and His love will never separate from us, Rom 8:31-39.

 

Rom 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? [8:1 ff.] If God is for us, who is against us?

 

Rom 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? [spiritual things]

 

Rom 8:33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies;

 

Rom 8:34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

 

Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

 

Rom 8:36 Just as it is written [Psa 44:22],

"For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long;

We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

 

Too many Christians in our nation have compromised the plan of God and the word of God in order to make peace with the world. These people are far from being persecuted.

 

Outside our nation, in places where other religions dominate and there is a prejudice against Christians, the Christians there cannot make peace with the outsiders.

 

We are not to look for persecution or invite it. It will come upon us when the light of Christ shines through us, when we make our election the defining principle of our lives.

 

Rom 8:37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

 

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

 

Rom 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

The elect of this age are the most supremely privileged and blessed people in all human and angelic history. We must not be fooled or doubting or unbelieving with the result that we struggle to eke out a miserable, poor, and wretched existence. We must not act like spiritual paupers. We are spiritual billionaires, every believer.

 

3d. Election is to Christ’s love, Col 3:12-13.

 

Only the elect can love with Christ’s love.

 

Col 3:12 And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;

 

Col 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

 

This is the life we have been elected to. It is a life that daily faces every person and circumstance. It is not a life that can be turned off, so to speak, or laid aside. It is a life that is daily challenged by the sin nature and the world. It is a life that the kingdom of darkness plots against as in war. It is a life that contains a constant stimulus to improvement and discovery through more learning and more living. It is frankly, the most challenging, fulfilling, and impacting life ever given to man. It is the life of Christ in His followers.