After his rather difficult experience of being spit up by a fish, Jonah prayed. At the conclusion of his prayer, he said, Salvation is from the Lord. No one ever knew that better than Jonah. He was as good as dead and buried in the belly of that great fish that God had prepared. When he was free, He knew that salvation came from the Lord and not from him. Salvation is God's work from beginning to end. The universe which God created is functioning according to his sovereign
and all -wise master plan. And the salvation of his redeemed people for his own glory is no exception to that. It is not left to chance. It is perfect. Salvation is not 50 % God's work and 50 % man's work, for if that were the case, then man would receive 50 % of the glory for it. It's not even 95 % God's work and 5 % man's. Salvation is 100 % the work of the Lord. Jonah
was right. Salvation is from the Lord. In this present age, God is putting together a body of people called the church to be the perfect bride for his beloved son. Such an exalted destiny is unthinkable for the likes of us, deformed and depraved, ruined by our sin. And that is the reason that in Ephesians chapter 1 that the Apostle Paul cries out with praise, to God. He exclaims, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why is he praising God? Because
of the great work of God. Because of what God has done in salvation. He blesses God because God has blessed us. God has blessed us in that he has provided in Jesus Christ a spiritual relationship and resource that are complete and inexhaustible. Our every need has been thought of in advance and provided for because every spiritual blessing is already ours in Christ Jesus. I said to one of the men this morning after our membership class, God bless you, and he said, he has. And
he was right. God has blessed us in Jesus Christ. And then he blesses God as well because God has chosen us. He has selected us before the work of creation itself to be his own and his purpose that we might be set apart as blameless to a destiny that is beyond our wildest imagination. I have not seen... Neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed
them unto us. In other words, we could never think on our own of the things that God would do. But God has told us what he has done for us. And then he blesses God for a third reason. That is, that he has predestined us, and that's where we pick up the context this morning in verse 5 of Ephesians 1. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which
he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. He predestined us. What has God done? He has blessed us. He has chosen us. He predestined us. Now briefly notice with me again the object of what is taking place here. It says he predestined us. This is the same group of people that are spoken of in the previous verses. It is those who are the saints, all the way back in verse 1, who are, in other words, the believers, the faithful in
Christ Jesus. In other words, it is those of us who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. for the object of this action. It is worthy to note that predestination in any context in the Bible never once deals with the unsaved. Predestination, whenever it is mentioned, always has to do only with the saved of God. And that is the case here. We who are saved are the objects of this work of predestination. Now let's talk about the action, secondly. The action
that is involved in this work of God. The word means to mark out with a boundary beforehand. It might be compared to that work that Abraham did when God told him to walk around the land in Genesis 13. saying, I will give this to you and to your descendants. Until the day that Abraham died, he didn't receive it, but his descendants did. He marked out beforehand by his walk the boundaries of the land. That is simply what the word means. It means that beforehand God marked
out with a boundary the destiny of his own. It is an action that logically, preceded the work of election. I don't know that we could say that chronologically they were separated, but the verb here, as it is written in the original language in verse 5, seems to indicate that God's work of predestining gives cause for his work of electing. The idea is this, that God looked forward into time, which was yet to become, And he determined what the destiny of his redeemed people would
be. He marked it out with a boundary beforehand. He said, this is going to be the destiny of my redeemed. And based upon that, he then did his work of choosing, of selecting a particular people
for that destiny. Is it not a marvelous thing to you to realize that your ultimate destiny was determined by God, not just before you were saved or before you were born, but before Adam and Eve were even created, before God spoke the creation into existence, before the foundation of the world, he predestined you to a certain destiny. Now let's talk about that goal of God's work of predestination. What did God have in mind when he marked out this certain destiny?
His goal in mind is described in these words, adoption as sons to himself. The word adoption as sons means to place as a son within the family. Vine, in his expository dictionary of New Testament words, says it is the place and condition of a son given to one to whom it does not naturally belong. You and I are given adult status in God's family by this work of adoption. We are given the rights, the privileges, and the responsibilities of full -grown adult sons within the family of
God. As far as our position is concerned in Jesus Christ, God does not plan into it any babyhood. There is no childhood when it comes to our position in Jesus Christ. Now as to our condition, the state in which we live, there is infancy, there's growth, there's progress into childhood and then maturity. But as far as our position in Jesus Christ is concerned, our unchangeable position,
God does not plan into it any childhood. At the moment that we are saved through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God, at that instant, declares us to be adults in his family. He, at that moment, adopts us in this sense. We are not adopted into God's family in the modern sense in which we use that word. We are born into God's family through regeneration, so we don't need to be adopted in the sense that we use the term today. We are born again as the children of God.
We are his born ones. But this work, the biblical work of adoption into God's family, means that God gives his born ones standing as adults. You say, so what? What does that mean to me? Well, think about this, that babies cannot use their inheritance. Whatever wealth may be in the family, whatever privileges are there, whatever responsibilities are entailed into birth in that family, these are all reserved until later, when that child comes of age. He cannot enjoy all of that while
he is under age, while he's a baby. You see, you and I have been born into the royal family of the universe. But we don't have a period of time in our lives when we are unable to enjoy the inheritance that God has given us. From the very moment that we were saved, you and I can enter into the fullness of all that God has provided for us in Jesus Christ. All of that inheritance
is ours to draw upon now. Those spiritual blessings that he's mentioned earlier may now, at this moment in your life, even if you were saved at 8 .30 this morning, All of those spiritual blessings are at your disposal to be used by you. You need not wait until some later time. Likewise, the responsibilities that are ours, and those would entail all of the commands of the New Testament to God's people, all of those responsibilities are not for somewhere down the road when we get
old enough. But those commands are all for us right now because we are adults in God's family. We have been adopted. We have been placed as sons into God's family. Now, there's a future aspect to our adoption that is mentioned in Romans chapter 8, and maybe it would be helpful to go back to that passage and look there. Romans 8, verses 22 and 23. You find the idea of adoption
also mentioned in Galatians chapter 4. In Romans 8, verses 22 and 23, it says, For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. In other words, he pictures the creation around us as groaning, as prevailing, as though in birth. It is suffering under the load of sin that mankind has brought into the world. And verse 23 says that not only this, but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves. Some of us did that when we got out of bed this morning. But we groan in other ways than physical, too, don't we? We long for release from the sin principle that is within us. The flesh, which is the avenue of temptation and sin. We groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly, he says, for our adoption as sons. You see the same phrase. And then he defines it here as the redemption of our body. So in this context, in Romans 8, he's pointing to a future aspect of
adoption when our bodies will be changed. from the lowly condition in which they are now to be like the body, the glorious body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This, of course, will take place at the rapture of the church. And he says at that moment there will be no more cause for the groaning which we emit now as sounds of our laboring, of our suffering. But at that moment we will be fully released from all that here causes us to groan. and our adoption as sons will then
be complete. Warren Wiersbe has said, we already have our adults standing before God, but the world cannot see this. When Christ returns, this private adoption will be made public for everyone to see. Now the apostle says here that all of this that he has mentioned has been done. so that the church might be his own peculiar treasure, his property. Notice, he predestined us to adoption as sons to himself. In other words, he has done this work of adoption. He has taken us out from
the nations. He has redeemed us. He has secured us to himself so that we might be his own very special treasure. My friend, if that doesn't do something for you spiritually this morning, then you better go back to bed and wake up again. To realize that the holy, infinite God of the universe has predestined you in Jesus Christ to be an adult son in his family so that you might be his own special, peculiar treasure.
I want to do something for all of us. It brings us to the grace of God, as we'll see in a few moments. That is the goal that God has in mind, though, in this work of predestining. Now notice the means by which he does this. He says it is through Jesus Christ. In other words, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and his work at the cross, such an action as this would be impossible. God could never take a sinner like you, a sinner like me, and make us adult sons in his family
to inherit all things. He could never make us his peculiar, beloved treasure were it not for the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the agent through whom the adoption takes place. It is because of his cleansing blood shed at the cross. You and I are able to be accepted by God, the Holy One. Have your sins been cleansed? Has your past been expunged? Is the record clean? It can be made clean only through the blood of Jesus. And that is what is entailed in these
three simple words, through Jesus Christ. It is through his bloody sacrifice at the cross. that we are able to be adopted by God. Now, I would like you fifthly to notice the motive that is involved in this work of predestination. To get this, we actually have to go back into verse 4 in our English translation to pick up two words, the words in love. In love he predestined us.
Now, there are some translations, and in translations... and include those two words with verse 4, but it seems to be a good reason to include it into verse 5 as we study the scripture. Predestination has a definite motive behind it. It is the motive of God's love. In love, he predestined that we should be brought into his family as adult sons. You see, love expresses the very nature of God. It is his very heart. His being throbs with love.
God is love, and it is that love that caused him before creation to determine that there would be a group of people that would enjoy the destiny of being his children. It was his love that caused him, that motivated him to predetermine this. Dr. Skevington Wood has said, any interpretation of this mysterious doctrine that is of predestination, that detracts from the love of God is rightly suspect. Predestination is absolutely soaked in the love of God. There is nothing mean about
it. Predestination was motivated by the heart of God for our good, and thus he undertook through Jesus Christ to provide that we might be brought into his family. and enjoy the privileges and responsibilities and rights of his children. And that brings us, number six, to the basis for predestination. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according
to the kind intention of his will. The basis... of our being adopted as children, as sons, the basis of our predestination is the will of God. He calls it here the kind intention of God's will. God's will is sovereign. What God decrees will happen, will happen. Now, within the sovereign will of God, there is latitude for the moral responsibility of man. You say that seems contradictory
to me. Well, it may, but it's not. Within the sovereign purposes of God, which will be accomplished completely, there is another aspect of God's will. He's called by various names, but perhaps the simplest name is the moral will of God. And within that will of God, he allows man a great deal of latitude. And for his decisions, man is responsible. Now it is the will of God, in the broader sense, the sovereign will of God,
that he makes this statement. It is the kind intention of God's sovereign will that provides the basis for the work that he's talked about in this verse. Some see God's sovereign will as cold and calculating, as even sterile perhaps. But all of that is wrong. Rather, the will of God, even his sovereign will, is to be characterized by what he calls here kind purposes. I think the New International Version puts it, his pleasure and will. You see, God delights in saving sinners,
and he has willed to do so. That's why he calls it here, the kind intention of his will. God delights to save sinners. It brings him satisfaction, because it represents the expression of his very being. It pleases God to save. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 .21, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached, that is Christ crucified, to save those who believe. God is well pleased to save people, those who
believe. It goes on to say that God has therefore chosen the foolish things of the world, the weak things, the base things, the despised, the things that are zeros, that amount to nothing as far as the world is concerned, so that no one could boast before him. It is by his doing that we are in Christ Jesus, so that it might be fulfilled what it says in Jeremiah, let him who boasts. boast in the Lord. What is the basis of our being
brought into God's family and made sons? Well, the ground of it, the basis of it, is the sovereign will of God, which can only be described as kind in its intention. We are told that predestination and adoption are according to God's will or God's purposes. The reason that he's saved is because he chooses to save. He saves some and not all because that is his pleasure and determination as well. You say, would you please explain that? Well, I don't know that we can explain that to
our satisfaction. But God has not purposed to save all of mankind. Indeed, Jesus said, few there be that find the narrow gate that leads to life. God has not purposed that all men will be saved. Why, we do not know. That is one of the mysteries that God has not revealed to us, and he has the perfect good right not to tell us whatever he wishes. God desires that all men should be saved, but that is his moral will. That is his heart. He does not delight in the
death of the wicked. But God only intervenes and saves some because that is his sovereign will to do it that way. And it is kindness that he does it for any of us. It is kindness. Because if he had not intervened on our behalf, then we should forever be lost in sin and experience the judgment that we truly deserve because of our sinful and wicked rebellion against God. God has predestined that there should be a people who would enjoy the destiny of being sons. full
of grown children in his family. He chose a people to enjoy that destiny. And all of that is according to the kind intention of his sovereign will. And then we come, finally, to the purpose of it all, of all of the above actions. And that is, in verse 6, to the praise... of the glory of his grace, which is a way of saying to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. Why has God done all of this? Why has he acted kindly to save
some? It is so that he might manifest and that we might adoringly recognize the excellent nature of his undeserved favor, his grace. Grace now becomes the focal point of what Paul has written about. He speaks of it as being glorious. It expresses the excellency of his person, his grace. Grace which is freely, generously, and graciously imparted to us. Favor is given to us with delight. He holds back nothing. He gives to us graciously his grace. That is the meaning then in that verse.
What it's telling us here is that God loves his son, the beloved, so much that he wants a whole heaven filled with people who are just like him. And that, my friend, is the destiny that God has appointed for you, to be just like God's Son. Isn't it interesting how many times God calls him his beloved when he speaks of him? For example, at the baptism, this is my beloved son. He didn't just say, this is my son, which is accurate. But he described him as my beloved
son. God loves the son. The father loves the son with a love that is more deep than any of us can possibly know. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the father spoke and said, this is my beloved son. Listen to him. In Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul tells us that we have been transferred out of the domain of Satan into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The Father lavishes love on His Son. We who are parents can understand
something of the emotion here. But of course it falls far short of what God feels for his son. But the father loves his son dearly. He is beloved. And it says here that God has freely bestowed his grace on us in the beloved. Some translations put it this way, in which he has made us fully accepted. In his beloved. The idea is the same. That when God looks at you. And he looks at me. He does not see us. With our original roots. That go back to Adam. But he
sees us as we are now. Transplanted. In his son. And listen. Just as fully as God the father. Loves his son. And calls him my beloved. He feels that same way toward you. Because you are in the beloved. All of the emotion that the father feels for his son, he feels for you. He loves you that much. And that is why the Apostle Paul calls it glorious grace. That God should love us that much and put us in that kind of a position.
In Romans 8 .32 he says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Why is it the Father loves the Son so much? Well, there's the aspect from eternity past that has simply been the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. There has been perfect love expressed among the members of the triune Godhead. But there's another element involved. The Son came into the world and was
perfectly obedient to the Father. Jesus said, I do those things, I always do those things that please him. That was Jesus' attitude. Is there any wonder, then, that the Father loves the Son so dearly? When you and I are in Jesus Christ, it is that same willing obedience that God blesses. Because we are taken from an attitude of rebellion against God in our sin, so that when we are saved, that attitude changes, and it's God who works in us, both the willing and the doing of His
good pleasure. One of the marks of a genuine child of God is this, that he delights to do the will of God. And when he sins, he grieves. He grieves and confesses it. That is a mark of a genuine child of God. The genuine child of God, the one who is in the Beloved, is one who desires to perfectly obey his Father, just as the Lord Jesus Christ did. What is your walk
like? If God has done this for you in Jesus Christ, if the grace of God has been active in your life and has brought you into a relationship with the beloved, so that God looks upon you in Christ and loves you as dearly as his own son, in light of all of that, what is your walk like? That is why the Apostle Paul later in this book is going to say to us, walk according to the... the calling that you have. See what you are, who you are in Jesus Christ. And having understood
that, get your life in line. God wants a heaven of people who are like the son that he loves. God loves you, my friend, unconditionally. Nothing can ever change that love for you. But you can grieve the heart of God, and so can I. Grieve not the Spirit of God, for by you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Don't grieve him. That father who longed for the return of his prodigal never once lost love for his son. That father's heart beat for the return of his son.
He longed for it. He looked for it. Until finally that day he saw that prodigal coming, running down the road. And the father went out and... embraced his son, welcomed him home, restored him fully to his inheritance. It may be that you, like the prodigal, have been walking away from God in a period in your life of disobedience. I believe with all of my heart that your Heavenly Father, who loves you unconditionally and dearly, is today brokenhearted and longing for your return
to him, the walk of obedience. He has sovereignly placed you in his Son. Are you willingly obedient now to the Father? Does your daily life reveal the kind of willing, sacrificial obedience which the Lord Jesus Christ expressed in his life? Oh, my friend, may it be so today. All of us who have children have the experience of thanking our children from time to time. That is never
a very pleasant experience. And when we spank our children, never does it mean, I hope, that we dislike our children or that we hate them. Indeed, the very fact that we take a child aside and discipline him is an expression of love because we want the best for that child. It may be that some of us are today being spanked by God. If you're going through that kind of experience, would you understand it is not because the Father
doesn't love you. It's because he so desperately and dearly does love you that he's taking you through that spanking experience so that you might learn obedience as his child. For whom the Lord loves, he takes him, even as a father his son in whom he delights. Oh, do you see today how he delights in you? Do you see how his heart loves you? Are you responding to him? Do you
love him because he first loved you? Our Heavenly Father, as we talk about these things, our hearts are drawn to this truth with deep appreciation. What can we ever say that would fully express the gratitude that we feel inside? And yet you know how often we all fall. And you know the times that we stray. And I want to pray especially for some of my brothers and sisters in the family this morning who are in that condition. And their
walk has been away from you. Oh, Father, in your love, draw them back to yourself that they might love you and willingly obey you as your beloved son did. To that end, I pray that you would work by your Spirit in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.