02_Predestined Unto Sonship_ Piper

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God Predestined Us unto Sonship Through Jesus

Christ

March 08, 1992|byJohn Piper|topic:Assurance of Salvation

Series:God's Invincible Purpose: Foundations for Full Assurance

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Ephesians 1:3-6

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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the

world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons

through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which

he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

One of the saddest feelings in the world is the feeling that your life is going nowhere. You're alive. But you feel

like there is no point in being alive. You get a little daydreama little flickerof what it might be like to be a

part of something really great and really valuable, and what it might be like to have a significant part in it. But then

you wake up and everything looks so small and insignificant and pitiful and out of the way and unknown and

pointless.

Our Need for a Meaningful, Purposeful Future

We were not made to live without a destiny. We were made to be sustained by a meaningful, purposeful future.

We were made to be strengthened each day by this assurance, this confidence: that what is happening in our lives

today, no matter how mundane and ordinary, is a really significant step toward something great and good and

beautiful tomorrow.

When that connection breaks downbetween my present life and a great and good and beautiful destinyI

have three choices:

1. I can kill myself; or

2. I can numb myself (with alcohol or drugs or television or pornography or romance novels or computers or

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frantic work or frantic play); or

3. I can seek to reestablish the connection by finding what my true destiny really is.

An Illustration from a Nazi Concentration Camp

In a Nazi concentration camp in Hungary during the Second World War prisoners were forced to do nauseating

work in a sewage plant. But it was work; and something was accomplished. Then the plant was destroyed by

allied bombers. So the Nazi officers arranged for the prisoners to shovel sand into carts and drag it to the otherend of the plant and dump it. The next day they ordered them to shovel it back into the carts and bring it to

where they started. And so it went for days.

Finally one old man began crying uncontrollably; the guards hauled him away. Another screamed until he was

beaten into silence. Then a young man who had survived three years in the camp darted away from the group.

The guards shouted for him to stop as he ran toward the electrified fence. The other prisoners cried out, but it

was too late; there was a blinding flash and a terrible sizzling noise as smoke puffed from his smoldering flesh. In

the days that followed, dozens of the prisoners went mad and ran from their work only to be shot by guards or

electrocuted by the fence. (Charles Colson,Kingdoms in Conflict, p. 68)

We were made to be sustained by a purposeful future. We were made to live in the assurance of a significant

destiny.

"Destiny" and Predestination

I use the word destiny simply to connect this tremendous cry of the human heart with the word predestination in

today's text, Ephesians 1:5. We began last weekwith verse 4: "God chose us in him before the foundation of the

world." This week we take up verse 5: "God predestined us to sonship through Jesus Christ for himself according

to the good pleasure of his will."

I want to establish in your hearts this morningyou who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and count him your

Master and Savior and HopeI want to establish in your hearts an assured destiny, a great and good and

beautiful future, so that you don't ever have to sob over empty days or scream over futility or throw yourself on

the wires because there is no future worth living for. And the way I want to establish this destiny in your heart and

make it firm is by showing you two things in this text: the goal of your destiny, and the ground of your destiny.

1. The Goal of Our Destiny

First, let's focus our attention on the goal of our destiny. What are we destined for?

Predestined for Sonship to Bear the Family Likeness

Verse 5 gives part of the answer: "God predestined us for sonship." Our destiny from before the creation of the

world was to become the children of God.

The difference between predestination, which is mentioned in verse 5, and election (or choosing) which is

mentioned in verse 4, is that election refers to God's freedom in choosing whom he will predestine. Predestination

refers to the goal or destiny for which he chose them. Election is God's choosing whom he will, and




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predestination is God's determination that they will become his children.

When God chose you, he had a purpose, and so he predestined that purpose to come about, namely, that you

would become a child of God. That you would be part of his family. That you would become an heir of all that

God owns. That you would take on the family likeness.

Your destiny to be God's children is mentioned in verse 5: "He predestined us unto sonship." And one meaning of

that, the family likeness, is mentioned at the end of verse 4: "He chose us in him before the foundation of the

world [Why? For what destiny?] that we should be holy and blameless before him in love." That's the practical

content of our destiny as God's children. We are destined to take on the character of God our Father, the

character of holiness and blamelessness. That's our destiny.

Holy and Blameless "In Love"

Now notice where I am putting the little phrase "in love." I'm making it a part of the end of verse 4, not the

beginning of verse 5. My reading is found in the footnote in your Bible if you have an RSV or NIV or an NASB.

I'm following the KJV and the NRSV.

Here's the difference: I'm suggesting that verse 4 reads, "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world,that we should be holy and blameless before him in love." "In love" goes with holy and blameless and shows us

what holiness is.

The other way of reading it puts "in love" with predestine in verse 5 and says, "He predestined us in love unto

sonship." Here it refers to the love of God and tells us the way he predestined us. The order of the words in

Greek allows for both of these readings.

Four Parallels with 1 Thessalonians 3:1213

Here's the main reason I go with the KJV and put it with verse 4 and make love the essence of our holiness.There is a parallel in 1 Thessalonians 3:1213 that goes like this:

May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all men . . . so that

he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father.

To me it is very remarkable that there are at least four parallels with our text:

1. the phrase "in love" ("may God cause you to abound in love"),

2. the combination of blamelessness and holiness ("that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness"),

3. the phrase "before our God" ("holiness before our God") which corresponds to the phrase "holy andblameless before him" in Ephesians 1:4;

4. and the reference to God as our Father just as we have the focus on sonship in Ephesians 1:5.

Our Destiny to Live in and Walk in Love

All that says to me that just as love is the pathway to holiness in 1 Thessalonians 3:12, so love is the pathway to

holiness in Ephesians 1:4. And so to live in love and to walk in love is part of our destiny in Ephesians 1:45.

God predestined us to be his children and that means he destined us to be like himto be holy, to be blameless,

that is, to live in love to each other and to all men.




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John put it like this in 1 John 3:10, "By this the children of God . . . are manifest . . . the one who does not love

his brother is not [a child] of God."

Your destiny is to be holy as your Father is holy, and that means that your very essence is to love, for God, your

Father, is love (1 John 4:8). You are predestined to be like your Father.

Our Highest Destiny

But that's not your highest destiny. Your highest destiny is described in verse 6. Why has God predestined us tosonship and holiness and blamelessness and love? Verse 6: "To the praise of the glory of his grace." Our holiness

and our blamelessness and our love and our sonship are not ends in themselves. They exist for something greater

the praise of the glory of God's grace.

The ultimate goal of God in election and predestination is that God might be praised for his glory. And the highest

point of that glory is grace. This is the final goal of our destiny. There is no higher hope, no greater tomorrow, no

more meaningful future, no more worthy cause to live for, than to reflect and praise the glory of God's grace

forever and ever.

The certainty of that destiny is grounded in the freedom of God and the all-sufficient work of his Son Jesus.

2. The Ground of Our Destiny

So consider finally and briefly the ground of your destiny. We've seen the goal. Now we look at the ground or

foundation.

"Through Jesus Christ"

In verse 5 Paul says, "God predestined us to sonship through Jesus Christ." Now to see what that means, look at

Ephesians 5:2527.

25) Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26) that he might sanctify her [that is, "make

her holy"] . . . 27) that he might present the church to himself in glory, not having spot or wrinkle or

any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless.

The same two words from Ephesians 1:4! In other words, the basis of your becoming holy and blameless before

God is the loving self-sacrifice of Christ on your behalf. The ground of our destiny to be holy and blameless in

love as God's children is the death of Jesus in our place.

This means that when God chose you before the foundation of the world, and predestined you to be his holy,blameless, loving child, he also predestined his Son to die for you. The ground of your destiny is not only that the

Son of God died for you, but that God planned it that way from the beginning. "He predestined us to sonship

through Jesus Christ." The end was predestined and the means were predestined. Our holiness and Jesus' death.

The Sovereign, Free Will of God

But the ultimate ground, the deepest foundation, of our becoming blameless and holy in love is not the death of

God's Son. Verse 5 points to a deeper ground, namely, the sovereign, free will of God.




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Verse 5 says, "God predestined us to sonship through Jesus Christ for himself according to the good pleasure of

his will." The point of this text is to teach every believer this morning that we owe our adoption into God's family

to the "good pleasure of God's will." We were chosen before the foundation of the world; we were predestined

to sonship and holiness and love not according to what we had done, or according to what we understood, or

according to who our parents were, or according to our race, or according to religious background, or according

to where we lived, or according to our work or our status or wealth, or according to what we willed. We were

chosen and predestined according to the good pleasure of God's will.

And the point of the double phrase (not just "according to his will" but) "the good pleasure of his will" is meant to

communicate to us that God chose us and predestined us without any binding reference point but his own

sovereign will.

Conclusion

The sum of the matter is this: the ground of our predestination is the good pleasure of God's will, the goal of our

predestination is the praise of God's glory, and the predestined connecting links between the good pleasure of his

will and the praise of his glory are the death of his Son and the holiness of his people.

If you are trusting in Jesus Christ this morning, the roots of your life were planted in the eternal counsels of God,

and the branches of your life are growing into an absolutely sure and glorious future with God. There are no

unimportant days in your life. You don't ever have to go to bed at night feeling that your life is going nowhere.

You don't ever have to give in to the lie that you are not connected to an awesome purpose.

For God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world that you might be holy and blameless before him

in love; he predestined you to sonship through Jesus Christ for himself according to the good pleasure of his will

to the praise of the glory of his grace. Amen.

Desiring God

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