Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Ephesians 1: 3-5, 11-13 Nov. 12, 2023

Message: “The Chosen!” By Pastor George Gnade

Intro: 1. Last week we began a study on the Eph. 1: 1-14 because it is a great chapter, written to express praise and thanksgiving to God for all He has done for us. That seems most fitting during this Thanksgiving season.

2. In my first sermon, we basically studied the opening verses which explained who wrote this book and to whom the book was written. Primarily, we learned how blessed Christians are to be God’s saints, made holy in the blood of Christ, called to be faithful to Him.

3. Today we are zeroing in on the privilege of being chosen by God.

a. Presently there is a Christian T.V. series called “The Chosen” that will begin its fourth season early next year. It is all about Jesus and the disciples He chose to follow Him.

b. Obviously it is just a movie, but it tries to be faithful to the biblical account while weaving its story around the biblical story. In this series, “the chosen” refers to Jesus’ disciples whom He called to follow Him.

c. In the Book of Ephesians, the chosen refers to all Christians who feel called to follow Him. Today we are going to learn more about this spiritual blessing of being called to love and follow Jesus.

A. Let us begin by considering whom He chose.

1. In vs. 4, it says: “For He chose us…” Between vs. 3 and vs. 10, the pronoun “us” is repeated six times.

a. In vs. 3, Paul says: “He blessed us...” In vs. 4, he writes: “He chose us…” In vs. 5, it says: “He predestined us to be adopted as His sons… ” In vs. 6, the Bible says this was “to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given to us. Again in vs. 7-8, it says: “In Him we have redemption through His blood… that He lavished upon us. Finally in vs.9- 10 it says: “He made known to us the mystery of His will … to bring all things together … under one head, even Christ.

b. From this context, the word “us” refers to all those who love and believe in Jesus.

2. Then in vs. 11- 14, Paul divides “us” into “we who were also chosen” by which he is speaking of himself and the other apostles, and “you who were also included in Christ when you heard the Word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed…”

3. So the chosen includes people from every generation who come to believe in Jesus, not just those Jesus chose in the beginning. In a very special sense He chose us too.

B. Secondly, it says in vs. 4 that “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world.”

1. In plain words, what God has done was not a last minute decision because we took Him by surprise when Adam and Eve sinned against Him. Not at all! He chose us before sin even entered the world, before He even chose to create us.

2. In fact it was planned by the Godhead together, by which I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

a. The Father’s plan was to choose us in Christ.

b. Then Jesus would come to save us by dying for us.

c. Then the Holy Spirit would be sent after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. He would enter us and “mark” us as “with a seal.” The Holy Spirit Himself being that seal.

3. No wonder the Bible says: “The Lord knows those who are His!”

C. Thirdly, notice it says we were “chosen in Him”, meaning “in Christ.”

1. While Jesus only came into the world as a man at Christmas, God immediately began to speak of Him in Gen. 3:15. He called Jesus “the seed of the woman” because the Holy Spirit would form in Mary’s womb the human body of Jesus by the virgin birth.

2. And in Gen. 3:15, He promised all who would believe in Him that Jesus would come and defeat Satan for us. So from the very beginning, salvation has and always will be through faith in the one who was to come and now has come.

3. Since we were chosen before the world was even created, the Bible refers to this in Eph. 1: 4 as “being predestined.”

a. How can there be free will if we were predestined?

This is one of the mysteries in the Bible. But God, throughout the teachings of the Bible, calls us to obey Him, and He holds everyone responsible for our own actions.

b. God never accepts responsibility for our sins. When we sin, we must repent and confess and get right with God.

c. But God has through Christ provided a way for us to be forgiven and saved. And through the Holy Spirit, He also promised to help us to live the Christian life and become more and more like Him.

d. As Paul said in Phil.4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

4. In Rom. 8: 29, it says: “Those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

a. Since God knows all things before they happen, He somehow makes everything work out the way it should.

It is amazing how even the mistakes we make God can use to make us into better people after we come to know Him.

b. Before becoming a Christian, Paul persecuted the church. After he became a Christian, he understood and expected persecution from the enemies of Christ.

c. Often after we become Christians, God uses us to reach the same kind of people who have the same kind of problems as we had.

5. But how can I know I have been chosen and predestined in Christ?

a. That is the good news of the Gospel. We don’t have to know or understand how God does what he does. His ways are far beyond our ability to comprehend. But we can know we are Christians by simply putting our faith in Jesus!

b. We can know we have been called by our own experience. How did you learn about the Lord? Have you had an experience where you felt God was speaking to you? Having accepted Christ by asking Him into your heart, have you continued to believe in Him?

c. In plain words, it may happen in different ways for different people but do you know and love the Lord? Do you pray to Him? Do you live for Him? Do other people know you are a Christian by how you live?

6. Notice I did not ask if you had arrived or considered yourself a perfect Christian, because none of us have arrived. We all still mess up. But we can all know the decisions that we have made and what we openly claim to believe.

a. Peter said it best after he in fear had denied he knew the Lord. In John 21:17, after Jesus asked him if he loved Him, Peter replied: “Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you!”

b. God knows if we love Him, and each of us can know that too.

In Conclusion: I like to compare it to a circle with Christ in the middle of the circle. If you want to be sure of your salvation, just stay close to Christ in that circle. When you wander, get back in! Then Peter said in II P. 1: 10, “then you will never fall, and you will receive a warm welcome into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”