Did God choose you before you chose him? Or did God choose you because you chose him? One of the core truths of the Bible is that God chose us before we were able to choose him. As you think about this, what makes this doctrine so hard for you to believe? Is it simply that somewhere deep down inside you’ve always believed that God chose you because you chose him? Have you always believed that God knew you would come to your senses one day? Did God just know that you would be a good little boy or a good little girl and choose him someday so therefore he chose you? Wouldn’t this mean that you and I somehow control God’s decision to choose us because of our good behavior? What kind of comfort does that give us?
Think about this. What happens when I don’t choose God? In other words, if God chooses me because I chose him first then when I decide not to choose him later, doesn’t my right standing and my relationship with him fall into jeopardy? And you might say, “well that’s where God’s grace comes in”. But I would argue… why would God’s grace be good enough when I refuse to choose him if it wasn’t enough when I did choose him? Let me put that another way. If my relationship with God began with my work of choosing him then why would I need his grace to sustain what my work began?
And where does God draw the line anyways? Does God want us walking around with an uneasy fear, just wondering when we’ll behave so wrongly that he runs over to his little book and gets the eraser out to blot our names out of his family? Do you ever think about these things?
Think with me for a minute about what this kind of belief system does to our relationship with God. If we get off on the wrong foot, believing that God chose us because we chose him then I think we’ll spend the rest of our lives fighting tooth and nail to keep what we’ve earned. But on the other hand, if we believe that God chose us and therefore we were enabled to choose him then I think we will spend the rest of our lives living out of the power of his grace rather than the instability of our works.
Let me take another angle here. If you and I live like we chose God and therefore he was inclined or just had to choose us then aren’t we just treating God like a butler or a plumber or a construction contractor? Isn’t this more of a transactional relationship where we say “God I chose you… now you must choose me and fix me”? And then what happens? When the relationship doesn’t pay out what we expected, then what? Do we just we just retract our side of the contract and look elsewhere for a new business partner? Doesn’t this feel eerily familiar? Has anyone here ever approached God this way? Man I did for like the first 8 years of my relationship with God.
But here’s the great news. God in his sovereign grace stayed the course with me. He knew that I wanted a God that I could control. He knew that I was looking for a transactional fix. He knew that I believed that I could earn his love. He knew that I thought that my signature on my adoption papers was more powerful and enduring than his. He knew all these things about me and yet he still chose me.
Why would he do this? What purpose did God have in choosing me? Why would God choose you? So why would God choose anyone? He knows that we’re fallen. He knows that we’re broken. He knows that we’re sinful to the core. He knows that if we were left to ourselves we would never choose him on our own. He knows that if our relationship with him were based on our ability or our activity or our works or our power then it would be doomed from the start. So why would God choose you and I? Let’s look at the text and see what God says.
Let’s read Ephesians 1:3 – 6…
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, 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 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
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This passage unpacks a massive doctrine for us today. This doctrine is what theologians call the doctrine of election and it’s rooted in verse four of our text where the apostle Paul says that God “chose us in (Christ) before the foundation of the world”. In one regard this doctrine could be illustrated for us by the picture of the ballot box during the election cycle where we go and we cast our vote for the candidate we want to see elected or chosen.
And while that illustration helps to paint the picture of the truth that God chose us in Christ in a general way… it’s probably important to tease this out a little more. In an electoral cycle you and I go and cast our votes for the candidate of our choice based upon their public performance, their record, their experience and their qualifications. And we choose the candidate we want to elect because we believe they will do a better job than anyone else and we believe they will represent our values the best.
I want to assure you that this isn’t what happens when God chooses his people. God didn’t go to a ballot box where he wrote your name into a form or checked a box next to your name because he knew you would represent his values the best or because he knew you would be a better choice than the person sitting next to you. God chose the names of those who would become part of his family before anything was created and he made this choice apart from any performance, any record, any experience or any qualifications on our part. His choice to save sinners and make them a part of his royal family was a choice that he made despite our performance.
But why would God choose any of us? Again… God knows that we’re fallen. God knows that we’re broken. God knows that we’re sinful to the core. God knows that we won’t represent him well. God knows that if we were left to ourselves we would never choose him on our own. God knows our record and He knows that we would disqualify ourselves as candidates for membership in his family. God knows that if our relationship with him were based on our ability or our activity or our works or our power then it would be doomed from the start. So why would God choose you and I?
I believe this text teaches us that God chose us for three purposes. If you are here and you are a follower of Jesus then I believe that the apostle Paul wrote these divinely inspired words to give us confidence and assurance in the doctrine of election. If you aren’t a believer (I want you to hear that I am super stoked that you’re here and I want you to feel safe) but if you aren’t a believer, then this message is for you too because it acts as an invitation to trust in Jesus and become part of the family. If you are a believer then I think this passage is meant to help you say things like this with confidence: 1) God chose me to be united to Jesus; 2) God chose me to be sanctified in Jesus and 3) God chose me to be adopted through Jesus. Let’s take these one at a time.
#1: God chose me to be united to Jesus… (3)
When I think of being united to anyone the first thing I think of is marriage. I think of the bond of marriage. I think of the vows of marriage. I think of the commitment of marriage. I think of the completeness of marriage. These things describe the unity and togetherness or oneness that happens in marriage.
But I know that when we look all around us, we see brokenness instead of wholeness in relationships. We see division instead of unity in relationships. We see hurt rather than healing in relationships. We see separation rather than togetherness in relationships. Now this isn’t meant to shame anyone who is going through the pain of relational brokenness. I just simply want to draw our attention to the point of pain and the sense of hopelessness that relational brokenness brings to everyone of us. And my hope is to describe the healing and the wholeness that our eternal union with Jesus brings.
When Paul says, “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” he’s simply describing the blessings that are given to each of us through our union or marriage to Jesus. The phrase “in Christ” is literally meant to evoke a picture of our inseparable and eternal union to Jesus. The blessings we have in our union with Jesus are triune in nature. We were blessed in our union with Jesus before the hands of time began. We are blessed in our union with Jesus right now and we will be blessed completely in our union with Jesus in Heaven.
Let me say it this way. Before time began God the Father chose you and I to be united to Jesus in a marriage that will never end. Let that truth sink into your heart. Let that hope of an eternal and inseparable relationship seep into the brokenness of relational conflict in the world you live in. Right now, if you’ve heard God’s voice or if you are hearing his voice, then are united to Jesus in a marriage that will never end. And one day you will experience the complete wholeness and healing of marriage to Jesus in Heaven.
This world we live in doesn’t promise anything but pain and hardship and brokenness. But the God who chose you has chosen to unite you to the perfection of Jesus and it’s not like he took your sins away and left the bank account empty for his bride. At one point you and I prostituted ourselves out as we gave ourselves over to every sinful whim and desire that was alive in us. But God didn’t save us from the filth of the prostitution house where we once lived with a bankrupt account only to leave us in it. God actually came and rescued us from that place of filth and sin and bankruptcy and he filled up our bankrupt accounts with the everlasting riches of his eternal presence. God chose us to be united to Jesus forever. Is that something you can say today? Can you say: God chose me to be united to Jesus?
#2: God chose me to be sanctified in Jesus… (4)
When I say that God doesn’t leave us in the bankrupt whorehouse of our sinfulness, I’m alluding to this second principle that God chose us to be sanctified in Jesus. When we realize the depth of our sin and the horror of our war against God and the filthiness of the ways we’ve given ourselves over to our sinful desires and behaviors we are left with the weight of the blame squarely on our own shoulders and we feel the heaviness of our shame deep inside. In a sense, we realize how dirty we are and we realize how gross our clothing is and we realize that we are hopeless to get ourselves out of the whorehouse and into God’s presence.
But this is the beauty of the doctrine of election. And I honestly believe that without this doctrine of election the message of the gospel is not good news at all. This is why the Puritans and the Reformers called this a doctrine of grace. The doctrine of election is a doctrine of grace that helps us to understand that the gospel is good news because God chose us to be united to Jesus. And not only that but he also chose us to be sanctified in Jesus. In other words, in Jesus our blame is removed, our shame is destroyed and our sin is put to death. In the words of one scholar, “God no longer blames us for what shames us and he doesn’t pay our debt to leave us with a zero balance.”
This is why Paul says that God “chose us in (Christ) before the foundation of the world, (so) that we should be holy and blameless before him.” In other words, when God the Father chose each of us to be united to Jesus through the work of Jesus at the cross, he planned to send his very own Spirit into each of us so that our zero balance could be changed to overflowing with his presence. This is the work of the Trinitarian Godhead from before the world began. The Father chose. The Son saves. And the Spirit sanctifies.
To be sanctified literally means to be holy or cleansed. It’s the picture of dirty bed sheets or filthy clothing being made white as snow. And the prophets screamed this from their pulpits at the people of Israel as they spoke for God like excited parents on the sidelines of their kids sports events when they said things like “Though your sins they be as scarlet… though your hands have been an enemy of God… though your heart has played the harlot… God has given us more than we deserved when he washed our whole world as white as snow.”
And again when the Psalmist says, “As high as the heavens are above the earth and as far as the east is from the west… this is how far you’ve thrown my sins away from me.” These are the biblical pictures of what it means to be cleansed or sanctified by Jesus’ work at the cross. God chose us to sanctify us in Jesus.
I don’t know about you… but this one is a hard one for me to receive. It’s hard for me to believe that God no longer blames me for what shames me. It’s hard for me to believe that God doesn’t pay my debt and then leave me with a zero balance in my spiritual bank account to work hard to fill back up on my own. It’s hard for me to believe that since before the beginning of the world God declared that I am clean and in the present moment he is making me clean and in the future he will make me completely clean, once and for all.
This is just simply hard to believe. I see my faults. It’s like they’re always in font of me. When I look in the mirror I see someone who is dirty and broken and guilty and full of shame. Who I see in the mirror is deeply attached to the things I’ve done. I find it so easy to be defined by my behavior rather than God’s sovereign choice over me. It’s hard for me trade in the image of me that I see in the mirror for the image of me that God has in his pocket.
When my growth is slow it’s even harder. When the sins of my past rear their ugly head in my present moment it’s hard to believe that God has cleansed me and that he is still cleansing me and that I will be completely cleansed in Heaven. But, you wanna know what keeps my head and heart in this thing? You wanna know what keeps me rooted in the truth that God chose me to be sanctified in Jesus? It’s this simple truth from this other passage by the same author of Ephesians who says this, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”. (Phil. 1:6)
This truth invigorates me and it reminds me that this work of sanctification… this work of cleaning me up… this work of making me holy… this work of removing my blame… this work of crushing my shame… this work of destroying the presence and the power and the penalty of sin… this work is the work of my Father in Heaven. And you know what that motivates me to do when I realize that? It motivates me to cooperate with my Father in heaven. Have you experienced this too? Can you receive this truth too? Does this motivate you too? Do you believe that God chose you to be sanctified in Jesus? I pray that the Spirit of God drills this truth into our hearts.
#3: God chose me to be adopted through Jesus… (4-6)
I just want to press pause for a moment and call our attention to the massive mountain of doctrine we have before us today. Some of you are working through our Porterbrook courses that deal with these doctrines in a more in depth way. In fact there’s an entire nine-week Porterbrook course that deals with the first point of this message called “Union With Christ”. There are entire volumes of commentary that deal with the fine details of the doctrine of Sanctification. And there are still more volumes of commentary on the doctrine of adoption which we are going to unpack a little in a few moments.
And there are thousands of years of writing on the doctrine of election, which is the broad category, that the doctrine of union with Christ, and the doctrine of sanctification in Christ and the doctrine of adoption through Christ all fall under. We are barely scratching the surface of these massive doctrinal truths today. And this last point regarding adoption is taken from the largest piece of our text for today. And there are so many nuances that could be distilled for us today that I’m honestly a bit overwhelmed at the task of communicating this final point in a way that is faithful to God’s Word and helpful to us as his people.
Ok… God chose us to be united to Jesus and he chose us to be sanctified in Jesus and lastly he chose us to be adopted into the family of God through Jesus. The apostle Paul says that God, “In (his own) love… predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” In other words… God chose us to be adopted through the work of Jesus because of the Father’s love according to the Father’s eternal plan so that we would become his possessions and objects of his love who spend the rest of eternity praising him for the grace that he lavished upon us in Christ. There are four glorious truths that spider web out of this final point in the text.
First of all… When God chose us, he based his choice of us upon his love not our love. God’s love never fails but our love does fail so it makes sense that God chose us not because we loved him so well since we know that our love for God rises and falls on our propensity to sin. But God’s choice of us is actually based on his perfect and never-ending or never-failing love.
Secondly… God predestined or pre-planned to choose us for adoption through Christ according to the purpose of his will. Meaning that you and I are not mistakes. We are part of God’s plan of salvation. The blueprints of the story of salvation were written before the blueprints for the earth were even laid out. We are not mistakes. God doesn’t make mistakes. And God doesn’t get caught by surprise. The fact that you are hearing this message today doesn’t catch God by surprise and it doesn’t cause him to go running back to the drawing board. He had a plan. This is his will. This is his design. This is his choice.
Thirdly… God adopted us to himself as sons through Christ Jesus. You and I once were enemies of Jesus and we lived in a shabby orphanage that was staffed by our sin. Our old mom and dad in that orphanage was sin and shame and our aunt and uncle were rebellion and guilt. But God in his rich and sovereign grace came to that adoption agency and he said, “that little boy or that little girl is mine and nothing can stop me and nothing can change that. That little boy and that little girl belong to me and they are now eternal objects of my affection and love.” This is grace!!
Fourth… God did all of this to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In other words… God did all of this so that we would praise him because of his grace instead of prostituting and cheapening his grace. And all of this is a massive blessing that we’ve received in the beloved who is Jesus. This is what it means to say that, “God chose me to be adopted through Jesus”.
Another preacher said it this way, “This work of being chosen to be loved is a mark of God’s will (decision) and pleasure (desire) to do so. It’s like God is saying… “I’ve loved you since before the world began, so don’t doubt me now. The message of God’s love, preceding our accomplishments and outlasting our failures was meant to give us a profound sense of confidence and security in God’s love so that we will not despair in situations of great difficulty, pain and shame. Jesus signed the adoption papers with his blood. Nothing can erase the blood signature of Jesus on my adoption.”
Do you find this hard to believe? Do you struggle with doubting that God loves you this much? Do you look into the mirror of your soul and see someone who is ugly or full of shame or unwanted or unlovable or hopeless? Do you doubt the truth of God’s Word to you?
Watch the video below and see what it reveals in regards to our struggle with doubting what God has said in his word.
Conclusion…
God chose me to be united to Jesus… to be sanctified in Jesus… and to be adopted through Jesus. Can you say this too? Do you believe this too? Do you believe that this is who you are? If you are a Christian (whether that happened 60 years ago or 60 seconds ago) do you believe that you are united to Jesus… sanctified in Jesus… and adopted through Jesus? Can you say with absolute confidence that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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!” (Rom. 8:38-39)
If you can say this with absolute confidence today, trembling and fearful as you may feel… if you can rest assured that the blood signature of Christ’s sacrifice on your adoption papers enables your sanctification through your union with Jesus… then you can rest assured that you have been chosen by God. This is who you are. You are chosen. God has chosen you to be united to Jesus… to be sanctified in Jesus… and to be adopted through Jesus.