What we believe about God and the church (2): THE PLAN OF GOD
INTRODUCTION
Having looked a little last week at the nature of God we're turning our attention today to God's great plan of salvation. If you like, last week was about what God is like. He is a King, and he is holy and he is gracious. That's what we learned last week from Isaiah 6. And of course God is many other things as well: he is wise and powerful and just and good and true. He is infinite and eternal and unchangeable. He is a Trinity of persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what he is like. But today we're thinking about what he has done. What did he plan to do and what did he then do. And this is a marvellous subject. This is the gospel, for the gospel is the good news of what God has done for sinners like us. This is what he planned for us, before the creation of the world and this is what he has done for us. This is the good news of the Bible and the good news we proclaim and this good news thrills us and excites us and causes us to rejoice because in this good news we discover that the Lord God has moved heaven and earth in order to save us and to give us eternal life.
So as we begin today let's pray quietly to God, asking that he will come to us and open our ears to hear this good news, and open our eyes to see the wonder of it, and open our hearts to receive this message and to rejoice in it, for there is no greater subject for us to consider today than this. Other people this morning are reading the newspapers and perhaps they think they're reading about important matters. Other people are watching TV or they're headed out to watch their favourite team play. Other people are making plans for the rest of the day. And they think that what they are doing is important. But there is nothing more important and vital and worthy of our attention than this.
CHOSEN
Look with me at what Paul tells us about God in verses 3 and 4 of Ephesians 1. He writes:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Paul is praising God. Do you see how this good news, this news of God's great plan of salvation, causes Paul to rejoice. He is moved by this message. He is stirred up by it. It moves him to praise God and to worship him and to love him: 'Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.' As we think about these things today, watch yourself, examine yourself to see whether you are moved by these things. See whether you are stirred up by them and whether your heart begins to burn within you for that is evidence that you are truly saved and belong to God if this is the thing that makes you rejoice.
Why does Paul praise God? Because he has blessed us. Yes, he has done that. But how has he blessed us? By choosing us. Verse 4: 'he chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight'. There you have, in only a few words, a summary of God's great plan of salvation. God's plan, which he devised even before he made the world, was to choose his people and to make them holy and blameless. Now, we all know what it means to choose something. I've spoken about this before. You go into the supermarket and you look at all the apples on the shelf and you say to yourself, 'I'll have that one and that one and that one.' You choose some. You select them. You choose the ones you want for yourself and you leave the rest. And that is what God does for his people. Even before the world was created, even before we existed, and had done anything good or bad, God knew his people and he chose them and he selected them and he said to himself, 'I want him for myself. I want her for myself. I want that person there, who will live in Athy/Naas to be with me for ever and ever.' That's what Paul is telling us about God and so no wonder he wants to praise God and to rejoice. Paul, the terrible persecutor of the Christian church, who used to go around breathing out threats against the Lord's people, hating the name of the Lord Jesus, going from place to place to destroy the church, was chosen by God. God chose this terrible, wicked, sinful man and said from all eternity, 'I want Paul to be one of my people.'
And that is one of the most wonderful things about this. When we go into the supermarket, we select the best apples. We choose the best ones, and we leave the ones which are slightly bruised. But when it comes to God, he chooses us even though we are awful. He chooses us even though we are rotten. He chooses us even though we have done terrible things and deserve to be utterly destroyed. He chooses us even though we are rotten, sinful, making a mess of our lives, and he chooses us to be holy and blameless. He selects us and sets us apart and his intention is to make us blameless, pure, flawless, perfect, good.
If you're a Christian today, a true Christian, then it's because before the creation of the world, God chose you. He selected you. That's the explanation. That's the reason why one person is a Christian and another is not. It's not because one person was more interested in religion than the other person. It's not because one person has a religious temperament and the other did not. It's not because one person is more trusting than the other. It's not because one person was better than the other. Look at Paul. He was completely opposed to Christianity and utterly hardened to the message of the Lord Jesus. But he became a Christian and the only explanation is the one he gives here himself: God chose him. So, if you're a Christian, it's because God chose you. You owe your salvation to God. And when you eventually reach heaven and you're standing before the throne of God, looking around at everyone else who was a Christian here on earth and all the angels, now standing in the presence of God Almighty, the King of kings, and you ask yourself, 'How did I ever get here?' the answer will be, 'Because God chose you in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world.'
STEPS
Well, how does this work? What are the steps involved? How do we get from God choosing us before the creation of the world to our arrival in his presence in the glory of heaven? There's the beginning: God's choice. He chose us because he wanted us. He wanted us to be holy, set apart for him. He wanted us to be blameless, fit to come into his presence. He predestined us, Paul goes on to say, which means he chose us with a destiny in mind, and the destiny he had in mind for his people was to make us his children: to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. He wanted his people and he wants them to be with him for ever. How do we get there?
Well, let me go though the steps with you. First of all, God calls us to come to the Lord Jesus and in calling his people, God makes them able and willing to respond to the call. Think of a man, sitting in church. He's bored by the message. He has been coming to church all his life and he never liked it. He finds the hymns deary and the prayers tiresome and the preacher a bore. Every week he endures the sermon and wishes it were half the length so he could go home and get back to doing the things he really enjoys doing. But then one Sunday, as this man listens to the voice of the preacher, something happens. Suddenly he no longer hears only the voice of the preacher; instead he also hears the voice of God, summoning him to come to the Lord Jesus. His heart begins to burn within him. The message begins to move him. He hears the voice of God, the command of God, the invitation to come, and he comes. For the first time he truly believes in the Lord Jesus, and loves him and wants to worship him. What has happened? God has called him and at the same time, God has worked in his heart to make him able and willing to respond: to believe and to love and to worship.
Is this what really happens? Yes, it is. In Acts 16 we read about Lydia, who was with a group of woman who were listening to the apostle Paul. And as Paul spoke, the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. That's what it says. God opened her heart. Before that, her heart was closed. But as she listened to the message, the Lord opened her heart. He made her able to respond. Recently another minister told me about someone in his congregation who for all his life seemed hardened to the gospel. Totally unresponsive and unmoved by the message. Totally uninterested in Christianity. Finding church and the gospel irrelevant. But one day he was overwhelmed with a sense of the kindness of God. That one truth gripped him and he began to seek after the Lord.
God calls sinners to come to the Lord Jesus and in calling his people, he makes them able and willing to come. The Lord Jesus says to us: 'No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him'. And the wonderful thing is, the Father does draw us; he leads us to the Saviour.
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Well, what next? Having called us and having made us able and willing to respond, the Lord enables us to turn away from our old life of sin and to turn in faith to the Saviour. Well, this shows how God changes us. Once we loved our sins. Now we hate them. Once we enjoyed our sins. Now we grieve over them. Once we gave in to temptation easily. Now we struggle and fight to resist it. Once we did not care what we did. Now we plead with the Lord to pardon us and to cleanse us and to enable us not to sin. That is repentance. It's like a man who once was happy to live in a pigsty, with filth and rubbish strewn on the floor. But then he meets a woman he loves, and he begins to see his home with her eyes. And he sees the dirt and realises how filthy it really is. He sees the mess and realise how untidy it really is. He sees his home for what it is: a pigsty and he hates it and wants to change it and to make it tidy and neat and clean, a place fit for his girlfriend. And the sinner who responds to the gospel message, sees his life from the perspective of his Saviour. And he sees what an odious and wicked thing sin is, and he wants rid of it.
So the sinner turns from sin and he turns in faith to Jesus. He clings to Christ, because he knows that only through the Lord Jesus can he be forgiven and given eternal life. So he clings to Christ. He embraces the Saviour. He grasps hold of the Lord Jesus and holds on to him for salvation. That is what a Christian is: someone who is clinging to the Saviour. Think of a climber who has lost his footing and is about to fall into the ravine, but just in time he clings to the side of the cliff and he's safe. That's the position of the Christian. He's about to fall away from eternal life; he's about to fall away from everlasting joy; he's about to fall into eternal punishment for his sins; he's about to fall into the eternal misery of hell; but he throws himself onto the Saviour and clings to Christ and by holding onto Jesus he is safe. He is saved. He is rescued from hell and lifted up to heaven.
Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi when there was an earthquake. And the jailer rushed in to them, and fell at their feet and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' And do you remember their reply? 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.' Believe in him. Which means cling to him, cling to him the way a climber clings to the rock, cling to him as the only one who is able to save us from the punishment we deserve for our sins. Cling to him like that and you will be saved.
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What next? Well, when someone turns away from their sin and turns in faith to Jesus, they are justified. That means they are pardoned completely and completely forgiven all that they have ever done wrong. God promises to remember our sins no more. To cover them up completely. And when someone turns in faith to the Saviour they are immediately set apart as belonging to God and brought into his family. Once they were part of the mass of unbelievers; now they are set apart by God and become members of his family. And as members of God's family, we come under his protection and constant care, so he enables us to persevere and to keep going right to the very end. And he works in us, to help us to fight against sin and to withstand the sinful desires inside us, helping us to become more and more like our Saviour so that we love what he loves.
God protects us. He helps us. He enables us to persevere. Until finally we're brought into his presence and made perfect for ever. God guarantees it. This was his plan from before the creation of the world. This was the destiny he had in mind for his people. When he chose his people, he chose them because he wanted them for himself, to be with him for ever, in his presence. And so he chose them and he led them to the Saviour and he will keep them to the end. Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi, and perhaps they were wondering if they could keep going, so Paul wrote: 'that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.' Have you ever had a builder who began a job, and then seemed to give it up and go off to another job? Well, what God begins he finishes. He plans our salvation and he will do it. He begins to work in us, leading us to the Saviour, and he will continue to work in us until the work is complete and we are glorified in his presence and the presence of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is wonderful news. This is good news. This is the news that makes us rejoice and be glad.
ATONEMENT
But there is one last thing for us to consider today. Why must we come to Christ? Why does God call us to Christ? Why does he summon us to Jesus? Why must we believe in him and cling to him? What has he done that we must believe in him in order to be saved?
Well, it is because of what he has done for us. The Eternal Son of God left the glory of heaven and came down to earth as a man. Why did he do that? Why did he become a man. So that one day he would suffer and die on the cross. Think about it. It is astounding. What is the Son of God doing on a cross? Why did he have to suffer like that? Why did God's Son have to die in that way? What was it for? What did it mean? What purpose was there in his death?
Well, our Bibles tell us his death was a sacrifice. John the Baptist saw him and declared: 'Behold, the Lamb of God' and what he meant was there is the one true sacrifice. In the OT, lambs were sacrificed and offered to God but here now was the real sacrifice. And what did this sacrifice achieve? First of all, by the offering of this sacrifice, the sins of all who cling to him are covered over. Their guilt is blotted out. God remembers our sin no more. By the Lord's obedience, Paul tells us in Romans 5, many are made righteous. We are made right with God because our sins are covered over.
Secondly, by the offering of this sacrifice God's wrath, his anger over my sin and over yours, is dealt with. His anger was turned away from the Christian and onto his own precious Son on the day that Jesus died. 'This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.'
And then thirdly, by this sacrifice God is reconciled. Paul writes to the Romans and says: 'while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son'. God was offended by our sin. It came between us. Think of a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife. Their relationship has been spoiled. They need to be reconciled. And our sin came between God and us, but he is reconciled to us by the death of his Son.
Fourthly, God was completely and utterly satisfied. The Lord's death was the once for all sacrifice for sins so there is nothing left for us to do. The Saviour has done all that was necessary and so he was able to cry when he died, 'It is finished.' His work was done and God was satisfied with his work and satisfied that all had been taken care of, our penalty had been paid, our debt had been paid. There is nothing left for the believer to give, no short-coming that he must make up. The Saviour has done it all.
And then fifthly, the sinner is redeemed, which means he is set free. Once we were under the power of sin and the tyranny of the Devil and we were under the demands of the law and we lived under the fear of death. But not any longer. We have been set free through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what Paul says in Ephesians 1:7: 'In him, we have redemption through his blood'.
When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, he died for us, as our sacrifice to take away our sin and the consequences of our sin. And this, our Bibles tell us, was all part of God's great plan of salvation. This was part of that plan God devised before the creation of the world, when he chose his people, those he wanted for himself, those he wanted to be with him for ever. And so he not only chose them, but he worked out and planned to send them a Saviour, who would be the perfect, once for all sacrifice for sins. This was God's plan and he put it into action through his Son, and he is still working it out in church on Sundays, as the message is preached, and sinners hear his voice and are enabled to leave their sin behind and turn in faith to the Saviour.
This is what we believe about God. This is what makes us rejoice. This is what makes us get up and sing our hymns and songs. This is what makes us pour out our thanksgiving and praise to him in prayer. Almighty God has worked out a way to save his people and to give us everlasting joy in his presence for ever. He has done it all. And he has done it for sinners like us.