Thank God for His Gracious Choice
Ephesians 1:4
It is Thanksgiving week, one of my favorite times of the year. A time of feasting. There is something wonderful about taking two or three days to eat every kind of glorious dish imaginable (which is better- the turkey leg on Thursday or a thick slice of turkey meat on mayo-enriched Wonder bread on Friday?). A day focusing on giving thanks is fundamentally biblical and distinctively Christian. Thanksgiving as a holiday remains relatively unscathed by the mind-numbing commercialization and secularization of our culture. Christmas is no longer truly Christmas in America, but has become some strange pagan snow festival following the rituals of Halloween in the financial calendar. Thanksgiving is so innately centered upon such a core Christian virtue, that our eucharistic celebration almost defies all attempts at overt commercial defilement.
Yet, there is a silent tension around most tables in the moments before the bird is carved. What are we truly thankful for? Food? Clothing? A three bedroom split plan with two cars and matching kids? To whom is all this thanks given? Do we thank each other? Do we thank ourselves? Our secular commitments thunder forth in that silence, however hard we try to sacramentalize our actions and words around the table. In such secular silence, we must sing forth with all the blessings of the gospel presented to us by Paul in Ephesians 1:3-14. Volumes could be written, and have been, on the wonderful truths strung together by Paul in this incredible 12 verse run on sentence. I will focus on a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith which is seen by the Apostle as a fountain of blessings to the believer.
We should praise God for his sovereign election. Paul says that we have been ‘chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world’ (verse 4). If you are a Christian, your salvation is not because of ‘works done by us in righteousness, but according to God’s mercy’ (Titus 3:5). We would thank ourselves, if salvation was obtained by our own wisdom or power. But, no thanks to us, it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us. In Ephesians 2: 1-3 Paul describes our position outside of the gracious election of God: dead in trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the mind, by nature children of wrath. But it isn’t the voice of a just judge that we hear through the gospel, but rather the calling of a merciful Father. Yes, the doctrine of divine election has rankled many who seek to preserve some degree of human responsibility in the work of salvation. And it should not surprise us that a doctrine that so elevates God and so minimizes human effort should cause chagrin. Nonetheless, praise and thanksgiving should echo through our hearts at the realization of our profound need and God’s wonderful grace in election.
Paul begins here, with God’s gracious sovereign choice, because this is where it all begins for us. It does not begin with us, it begins with God. The Apostle John said it simply and powerfully, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). All of the blessings piled up by Paul in these opening verses flow from the sovereign grace of God: adoption, redemption, forgiveness, revelation, inheritance, the seal and deposit of the Holy Spirit. And what is the basis for his choosing? Is the election of God simply some capricious and arbitrary design? No, says Paul, it is according to the “kind intention of his will” (1:5). This doesn’t solve the mystery of God’s design, and mysterious it certainly is from our very limited and human perspective. But, however mysterious and confounding the doctrine of election might be, Paul assures us that it is anchored in goodness and love, which he calls God’s eudokia (good will, good pleasure, or kind intention in the New American Standard).
This thanksgiving I will give thanks to God for his mysterious, and gracious choice of a sinner like me. I will give thanks to God for all the blessings that flow from this fundamental grace. And in all the questions, the struggles, and the trials that face me and the people of God, I will rest in God’s eudokia. I will never fully understand the design of God in all these things, because his thoughts are not my thoughts nor are his ways my ways (Isaiah 55: 8). But, he promises that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, he promises that all things will be to the ‘praise of his glorious grace’, and he promises that all things will find their place in the merciful and kind intention of the sovereign plan.
It is Thanksgiving week, one of my favorite times of the year. A time of feasting. There is something wonderful about taking two or three days to eat every kind of glorious dish imaginable (which is better- the turkey leg on Thursday or a thick slice of turkey meat on mayo-enriched Wonder bread on Friday?). A day focusing on giving thanks is fundamentally biblical and distinctively Christian. Thanksgiving as a holiday remains relatively unscathed by the mind-numbing commercialization and secularization of our culture. Christmas is no longer truly Christmas in America, but has become some strange pagan snow festival following the rituals of Halloween in the financial calendar. Thanksgiving is so innately centered upon such a core Christian virtue, that our eucharistic celebration almost defies all attempts at overt commercial defilement.
Yet, there is a silent tension around most tables in the moments before the bird is carved. What are we truly thankful for? Food? Clothing? A three bedroom split plan with two cars and matching kids? To whom is all this thanks given? Do we thank each other? Do we thank ourselves? Our secular commitments thunder forth in that silence, however hard we try to sacramentalize our actions and words around the table. In such secular silence, we must sing forth with all the blessings of the gospel presented to us by Paul in Ephesians 1:3-14. Volumes could be written, and have been, on the wonderful truths strung together by Paul in this incredible 12 verse run on sentence. I will focus on a cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith which is seen by the Apostle as a fountain of blessings to the believer.
We should praise God for his sovereign election. Paul says that we have been ‘chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world’ (verse 4). If you are a Christian, your salvation is not because of ‘works done by us in righteousness, but according to God’s mercy’ (Titus 3:5). We would thank ourselves, if salvation was obtained by our own wisdom or power. But, no thanks to us, it was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us. In Ephesians 2: 1-3 Paul describes our position outside of the gracious election of God: dead in trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, living in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the mind, by nature children of wrath. But it isn’t the voice of a just judge that we hear through the gospel, but rather the calling of a merciful Father. Yes, the doctrine of divine election has rankled many who seek to preserve some degree of human responsibility in the work of salvation. And it should not surprise us that a doctrine that so elevates God and so minimizes human effort should cause chagrin. Nonetheless, praise and thanksgiving should echo through our hearts at the realization of our profound need and God’s wonderful grace in election.
Paul begins here, with God’s gracious sovereign choice, because this is where it all begins for us. It does not begin with us, it begins with God. The Apostle John said it simply and powerfully, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). All of the blessings piled up by Paul in these opening verses flow from the sovereign grace of God: adoption, redemption, forgiveness, revelation, inheritance, the seal and deposit of the Holy Spirit. And what is the basis for his choosing? Is the election of God simply some capricious and arbitrary design? No, says Paul, it is according to the “kind intention of his will” (1:5). This doesn’t solve the mystery of God’s design, and mysterious it certainly is from our very limited and human perspective. But, however mysterious and confounding the doctrine of election might be, Paul assures us that it is anchored in goodness and love, which he calls God’s eudokia (good will, good pleasure, or kind intention in the New American Standard).
This thanksgiving I will give thanks to God for his mysterious, and gracious choice of a sinner like me. I will give thanks to God for all the blessings that flow from this fundamental grace. And in all the questions, the struggles, and the trials that face me and the people of God, I will rest in God’s eudokia. I will never fully understand the design of God in all these things, because his thoughts are not my thoughts nor are his ways my ways (Isaiah 55: 8). But, he promises that all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, he promises that all things will be to the ‘praise of his glorious grace’, and he promises that all things will find their place in the merciful and kind intention of the sovereign plan.
Labels: Ephesians
posted by Pastor Erik at
8:58 AM
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