Hope
- Jake Chambers
- Mar 14, 2010
- Series: SDSU
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. – Ephesians 1:11-12
Hello Kaleo College Area. Today we are coming down the final stretch of the eleven verse run on sentence in Ephesians. Next week we will finish this stretch off.
In him we have obtained an inheritance. I want us to take a look at this first section and to remember back to our first week in Ephesians, at the sermon titled God is the Gospel. If you remember that week we looked at how blessed our God is. We looked at all the blessings of his character that are found just in the first fourteen verses of scripture. A small sampling of the many ways our God is blessed. We then talked of how the gospel flows out of his character and that we receive these blessings from God because they are a part of his character.
Today I think we see another facet of this truth. Christ has an inheritance. He belongs to the Father. Jesus has the benefits of being in God’s family. He is God and belongs to the family of God as the Son of the Father. What this verse talks about is how God the Father obtains us. Going back to earlier verses, we see that God the Father adopts us into his family. Now we belong to the family. We have the benefits of being in God’s family. Remember how we learned that our God reveals himself as a loving Dad, as a loving Father. We now receive that inheritance and the benefits that Christ has received. It is our status as “in him” that allows us to have the inheritance that he has.
We have inherited the favor that Christ has from the Father, we have inherited Christ’s righteousness, holiness and blamelessness. We have inherited a desire to obey the Father and trust in the counsel of his will. None of this have we earned, none of this do we have if we are “in ourselves.” It is only our status of “in him” that gives us these blessings. Jesus has the Father's full acceptance as his only begotten Son. We now have the Father’s full acceptance. We have the Father’s loving arms and listening ear.
How many of us read the gospels and read about Jesus talking with the Father, praying to the Father, and wonder if the Father loves Jesus? I never wonder if the Father is actually listening to Jesus. I never wonder if the Father actually cares about Jesus or has a relationship with Jesus. I never wonder these things. I have always had a confident belief that God the Father is listening, and loving, and accepts his Son as his Son.
I do wonder, though, if God the Father listens to me. I do sometimes wonder if he accepts me or will comfort me. But this is off. What this verse is letting me know is that in Christ I have the benefits of speaking to my Father and him listening to me. I have inherited his acceptance of the Son as his acceptance of me. I should not doubt that he listens and hears Jesus and accepts Jesus, and since I am in Jesus then I should not doubt that I too have inherited the ability to know my Father. Isn’t this an amazing gospel truth? We have an inheritance in Christ.
Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Isn’t this awesome? Don’t you see here that we have been destined to be in Christ? We have been destined to receive this inheritance and this is not by our works, but it was according to God’s own purpose. Everything works together according to God’s own counsel. God counsels God. What does this mean? It means this awesome gift and inheritance of being counted righteous, loved, forgiven, holy, adopted, accepted and known by being in Christ, was God’s idea. This was all God’s idea. What a loving idea. We didn’t make this up. This isn’t something we wish could happen and so we need to think of a way to be a part of God’s heritage and have an inheritance from God. It is not like the movie Greed in which all the family members are fighting, bickering and scheming ways to get the old mans money and inheritance. This was what God purposed and counseled to do. Because he is a generous and loving God, he found a way to obtain us in order to bless us with his inheritance! We need to put to death any part of us that still believes we need to trick, prove or show God that we are the ones who deserve his inheritance. Stop being the greedy child who kisses up to the rich dying dad the week before their death. We don’t have to do that in fact it will do us absolutely no good.
We are not working for a future inheritance, we are living out of the one we have already generously been given in Christ. This is good news. This is gospel. Isn’t it fantastic that we can keep uncovering more facets of the gospel week by week? You start to see why Paul wrote this in one long run-on sentence. This is utterly indescribable good news. That is what the gospel is!
So that we who were the first to hope in Christ What is our hope in? We have this inheritance but we are so quick to forget this and instead place our hope in something else... We put our hope in our education? We put our hope in our job? We put our hope in our kids to accomplish our dreams? We put our hope in a vacation? We put our hope in medicine?
Don’t you see that we put our hope in things that cannot promise to never leave us or forsake us? We place our hope in someone or something that is not trustworthy. We are so quick to hope in money and trust the security that comes from money. America is never supposed to have an economic downturn like we have now. Many have put their hope in stocks and a financial system or plan that was guaranteed to keep increasing only to find themselves broke. Many have put their hope in their education and degree only to graduate and find out everyone has a degree and the only jobs available are minimum wage jobs. They even made a movie called Post Grad making fun of this false hope of education. How many of us have put our hope in a spouse or relationship? This isn’t even fair to the person you are in relationship with. They will sin against you, disappoint you, maybe even leave you and forsake you.
As long as our hope is in anything besides Christ then our joy is always dependent on our circumstance. As soon as circumstances crush our hope – fired from job, fail a test, girlfriend dumps you, sickness takes over etc. – then we find ourselves utterly hopeless. When we put our hope in anything but Christ we are at the mercy of circumstance and can quickly become hopeless and ruled by despair. When we lose our hope we lose our will to live. We have all felt this. We have had these moments when what we hoped in failed, and we have felt desperate and without hope. A life without hope isn’t really a life at all. It is at best eking out a life of mere existence. Some of us are so quick to settle for a life of existence when God offers us an abundant life.
See, when we hope in Christ we trust in the counsel of his will and therefore our circumstances do not affect our hope. Our circumstances do not change the inheritance we have in Christ and therefore cannot steal our hope and the joy that comes with hope in Christ. We cannot control our circumstances but we can believe the gospel and place our hope in Christ.
Many of you know that my wife and I are preparing for adoption. The last couple of weeks have been crazy as we received phone calls regarding a potential adoption in Washington State, not through he county as we had planned, and then another call speaking of a hypothetical adoption of three kids through the county - not the 1-2 children we are approved for. These were some crazy phone calls that took my wife and I through a wide range of emotions. The circumstances and potential circumstances were unpredictable and out of our hands. If our hope was in anything but Christ then I think the past couple of weeks could have been filled with a lot of despair. It would be easy to place our hope in children, in the adoption system, in communication or in lack of communication. But all of these things would leave us very frantic. The only peace Lindsey and I could find during this emotionally trying time was a hope and a trust that God is in control. These phone calls were not shock and awing God. He is not up there going “oh crap didn’t see that call coming.” “What in the world will those two do?” We can rest in the fact that God knows who our children are. He knows how many they are. He knows if they will be adopted through the county or adopted out of state. He knows when this will happen and how it will happen. And we can place our hope and trust in him because he is trustworthy.
Without this inheritance and knowing I could take all of my thoughts, emotions and desires to my Father, I have no idea who I would have turned to. I don’t know how I would handle any of this. It would be easy for us to misplace our hope after infertility and a miscarriage and place it in medicine, doctors, or surgeries. It would be easy to misplace our hope and have it in social workers, ads or internet adoption programs. But none of these things are worthy of our complete trust and our complete hope. Only Christ is. And we have an in inheritance in him that allows us to go to our Father with all of our sorrows, triumphs, questions and praises.
Might be to the praise of his glory. My hope for us is that we would place our hope in Christ. That we would place our hope in him and by doing this we would declare to each other and to the world that our God is trustworthy. That we have a God that is worthy of our trust. That we could point a world that is hopeless, or has misplaced hope, to the one who will never leave us or forsake us. The one who does not rob us of our hope but promises us an abundant life lived in him. That we would not settle for a life without hope and merely exist, but would place our hope in Christ and live a life that might be to the praise of his glory. Don’t you see when we live the life our inheritance has granted us that we live a life that glorifies God? When we live a life where we have our hope in Christ, we live a life that glorifies God. When we find our greatest joy and satisfaction in Christ, we live a life that glorifies God. Then we can place our hope in Christ and be to the praise of his glory! This is the life we were destined to live! God has predestined us to live a life filled with hope in Christ. Not settling for mere existence ... we were created and destined to hope in him and that hope filled life will be to the praise of his glory! We need to stop fighting what we were destined to do and place our hope in Christ!
When we live this life we are destined for, our circumstances do not define us but our being “in him”, the gospel, defines us and when our hope is in Christ, even our puzzling, troubling, suffering or even successful circumstances are not wasted but are all to be for the praise of his glory.
Some of you here might think this sounds awesome but what if I just don’t trust in Christ?
Earlier this week a student in our church who many of you know met up with an older man to tell him about Christ. This guy called up the church pretending to be a student and saying he would only meet with another student. He then said he needed $285 to be able to think about trusting in God. After some prayer and reflection, the student at our church realized that giving this guy the money would be the easy way out. The hard way out would be to keep investing in him. To offer to meet with him throughout the week and work through his story and the things he has trusted instead of the gospel. The guy ended up yelling at Brett and told him he is the 221st reason he will not trust in Christ. Maybe some of you are like this guy. Maybe you have placed your hope in things besides Jesus and asked Jesus to give you what you really hoped in. Maybe you want God to do all things according to the counsel of your will. This dude's hope was not in Jesus ... his hope was in his will and his will was trusting in $285. Not getting the $285 did not stop him from trusting in Jesus. His circumstances are not stopping him from trusting in Jesus. The only thing stopping him from trusting in Jesus is - trusting in Jesus. Trusting that all things are done to the counsel of God’s will and resting in that.
But maybe you can relate to this dude, and you are wondering what makes Jesus worthy of your trust? Jesus Christ lived our life and died our death on a filthy Roman cross so that we could share in his inheritance. Jesus Christ was not held by the grave but he rose again. We can trust the one who said he would die for us and did. We can trust the one who said he would rise again in three days and did. We can trust the one who willingly shares his inheritance and in fact suffered in order to share it with us. The fact is that there is nothing or no one who has given up as much as Jesus has in order to win our trust. Nobody else ever will conquer sin and death in order to win your trust. I have to make that clear to you that nobody or nothing ever, ever, ever will do as much to gain, earn and win your trust like Jesus has. Place your hope in Christ because he is worthy of our hope and all of our trust.
Luke 39-46 We started this sermon by talking of Jesus’ relationship with his Father. We talked of his prayers with God the Father and I wanted to end by taking a look at one of those prayers. This is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. He knows that the cross is coming. He knows that in order for us to obtain the inheritance we have he is going to endure tremendous suffering. Jesus finds himself in dire circumstances. He finds himself in circumstances that would make anyone want to question God’s will. To question whether or not God is worthy of our trust. To question whether or not we can place our present and future hope in our Father in heaven or if we should just do what we think is best. Jesus asks for his circumstances to change. It is ok to plead with our father for a change in circumstance. But Jesus does not place his hope in a change of circumstances, he places his hope in the counsel of God’s will.
Jesus finds himself in a situation that is so troubling he sweats drops of blood. We must confess that we have been in far less troubling circumstances and have misplaced our hope and misplaced our trust. We must confess that we need Jesus to come and live a life of trusting the will of God because we have been unable to. This is the gospel. Jesus came and in the most troubling of circumstances he prayed “not my will but your will be done.” He trusted in the Father's will. He placed his hope in the Father’s will. We have not lived a life of trust in Christ and of right placed hope. But God sent his Son to live this life for us. This is the gospel. We are now in him. Instead of being the rebellious child who does not trust in his father but looks at his circumstance we are now in Christ and are now the beloved Son who trusted his Father's will, even in the midst of suffering. We are now free to glorify our God and hope in Christ to the praise of his glory. We are now free to echo the prayer of Jesus “not my will but your will be done.” And this is for our joy. This is the life that we were destined to live. A life living out of an abundant inheritance of being loved, known, righteous, accepted and cherished by the God of this universe.
Kaleo College Area Church, In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory! Amen.
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