You Are Chosen

From the series on the book of Ephesians entitled “Understanding Your Identity in Christ”.

Main Text: Ephesians 1:1-14

As you know, we’ve just finished a very deep study in the Gospel of John, where the gospel writer presented us with massive amounts of evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. For that entire series, I was trying to drive one point home for you: that you can believe Jesus Christ is who he said he was, and that if you will believe on him, there is a promise and a guarantee of eternal life. I trust that this portion of God’s Word deepened your faith and your devotion to Christ, and I hope we grew through that process together.

But my ultimate goal for this church is to continue into the book of Acts, because I want to help us understand what it means to be the church. There’s a lot of discussion today about what church is, what church is supposed to be, and what our part is in it, and I don’t think there’s any other book in the New Testament that better describes how the church is supposed to function. Before we go there, though, I want to take the book of Ephesians and pair it with the Gospel of John, because I believe the message of John and the message of Ephesians work together to give us a complete picture of something very important.

The Gospel of John gave us the reality of who Jesus is — his power, his divinity, his authority — and it established truths about Jesus Christ that we need to believe if we are going to be born again. But now we come to the book of Ephesians, one of the most popular and most referenced books in all the New Testament, where Paul wants to convince us of a very important reality about who we are. John wanted to convince us of who Jesus is, and because of who he is, our identity has now changed. If we have received that new life — that being born again through Jesus Christ that the Gospel of John describes — it has significantly changed who we are as individuals, and it’s important for us as Christians to properly understand that new identity.

Your identity is such an important thing to understand, because how you think about yourself and how you think about your life have massive impacts on the things you do, the things you say, and the things you feel. If you believe your identity is broken, or helpless, or less than somebody else’s, or not good enough, or not talented enough, or not attractive enough, you’re going to live according to that identity. Somebody convinced they are unattractive spends a disproportionate amount of time either hiding themselves or trying to cover up what they find unattractive about themselves, and somebody who feels helpless or unchangeable spends their time either wallowing in self-pity or looking for a way out. What you believe about yourself changes who you are as a person.

On the other hand, if you believe you are royalty, if you believe you have access to unlimited resources, that’s going to change the way you do business, the way you live your life, and the way you conduct yourself around other people. The royal family lives and acts a whole lot differently than somebody living in the suburbs of middle-class America, and how you think about yourself affects how you live your life. We need to understand that this is not a superficial issue — people can become superficial when they get caught up in identity, but your sense of identity significantly affects everything else about you.

This letter that Paul has written serves to establish our identity in Jesus Christ. It tells us who we are, what’s been done for us, who we used to be, and the change that happened to bring us where we are now as children of God. Then, as Paul establishes these realities about our identity in the last three chapters of this book, he’s going to tell us how we are to live our lives in light of them, giving us real, practical instructions for who we should be as we live in this world.

When you walked in this morning, you walked in with an idea about who you are — thoughts about your appearance, your character, your likes and dislikes, your plans and desires for your life, and the disappointments you carry. Whether you realize it or not, all of those thoughts running through your head are impacting the way you’re living on the outside. My concern as a pastor is that the church at large has lost its sense of who we are in Jesus Christ, taking more signals about our identity from what the world has to say, from Facebook, from Fox News and CNN, than from the one who created us, the one who redeemed us, and the one who has welcomed us into his family.

If we would get hold of who we are in Christ, what has been purchased for us, what is available to us, and what is lying ahead of us, it would start to change how we think, feel, act, and live today. So we are going to walk through the book of Ephesians over the next however long, looking specifically at our identity in Jesus Christ. I always want you to take these sermons seriously, but I want you to give careful, serious attention to what the book of Ephesians is going to tell us about ourselves, because I firmly believe these truths have life-changing power. If we truly heed them and pay attention to what Paul is saying, I believe we’re going to be different people, and we’re going to be a different church, on the other side of this book.

So we begin this morning with our first piece of identity. After his initial greeting to the church, Paul immediately presents us with one of the most important parts of our identity: that we have been chosen by God. That is the thought we’re going to develop this morning, and it comes down to this single sentence — you have been chosen by God through Jesus Christ for your benefit and for his glory. I want you to become so convinced of this truth about your identity in Christ that it changes the way you live and think this week.

Chosen by God

The first part of this identity is that you are chosen by God. I understand that phrase has created a lot of contention in the body of Christ throughout the ages, and even today, this is a phrase that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Saying that you are chosen by God carries a lot of implications and opens a lot of cans of worms that we simply don’t have time to deal with this morning, so rather than going down those rabbit trails, I want to deal with what Paul is actually saying right here in this text. Everything I’m going to tell you this morning is not something I made up, and it’s not something some dead theologian made up — this is what the Bible says, and we need to pay attention when the Word of God speaks.

So we ask, what does it mean to be chosen? We see it occurring in verse four, where Paul has just said that we are to bless God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

So Paul tells us we are chosen by God, but what does that mean? We have to look at that word specifically. To choose someone or something, as Paul is using the word here, means to make a specific choice out of a larger number for one’s own purposes. So what that means is that God specifically and intentionally picked you out of a larger number for his own purposes — and that’s not theological speak, that is simply the definition of what Paul is saying in this verse.

If you have believed on Jesus Christ, if you have seen the light of his glory, repented of your sin, and professed faith, as the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you are part of that whosoever, what Paul is telling us is that it came about because God saw you before the foundation of the world, before he said, let there be light, let there be land — before God began the foundations of the world, he looked down through time and he saw you. And what did he see? He saw a sinner who made the choice to rebel against him, who was heading in the wrong direction and going that way fast, somebody on a fast track for eternal condemnation, because John 3:16 tells us that whosoever believeth on him shall have eternal life, but the following verses tell us that all those who do not believe on him are condemned already.

So if you did not believe in Jesus Christ, your condemnation was not up in the air — it was already established. You were on the path of receiving God’s wrath, his condemnation, and his punishment. But God looked down through the eons of time and saw you, a rebellious, willing sinner against his perfect plans, and he said, I want that one. Through the course of your life, God sent the Holy Spirit to open your eyes and enlighten you to the truth. You were willingly rebelling against God until his Holy Spirit stepped in and opened your eyes.

God wanted you. You didn’t stumble into your faith, and you didn’t accidentally become a Christian. Understand this — you’re not a Christian just because you were born into a Christian home, and you’re not a Christian just because you were raised on a church pew. If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, saved by grace, that was an intentional, willing, purposeful decision made before the foundations of the world. You were chosen by God.

Paul supports that with another word in the next verse, where he says, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. What does that word, predestinated, mean? It means exactly what it sounds like. To predestine something is to predetermine the destiny — the prefix “pre” means before, and “destination” means where you’re going. So “predestinated” means the destination, the result, the decision was made before the foundation of the world. Paul chose his words carefully because he was being given what he said by God himself, and Paul is telling us that if you are in Christ this morning, if you are a child of God, there was a decision made a long time ago that got you to where you are today. You were chosen by God. He wanted you.

Notice what it says next — that because of this choosing, according to the pleasure of his good will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Who are the beloved? They are the saints, the children of God, the family of God, the beloved of God. And in verse five, he says, having predestinated us unto the adoption — another very important word Paul is using here.

My wife and I have had the privilege of welcoming people into our home by two different means, by birth and by adoption, and I am so grateful for the one right here and for the little one crawling around back there eating donuts out of Wayne’s hand this morning — praise the Lord. I’m thankful for these children born to me, and you understand that they’re special because they came from me, because we made a choice to have children. But there’s something different about the other two, because we made an intentional choice. We saw them as they were, for who they were, with their problems and their issues. They were born premature, and there was an uphill battle ahead. By the leading of the Holy Spirit, we made a willing, purposeful, intentional decision to welcome them into our family — someone who was outside our family by nature, but we made a choice to bring them in.

I don’t tell you that to bring attention to us, but because we have been given a wonderful image of what the gospel is. We were outside of a family we did not belong to, and in that state we had issues, we had uphill battles, we had all kinds of things working against us. God had a firstborn, an only begotten, and he could have been totally satisfied with that only begotten, because he was perfect, he never disobeyed, he never talked back, and his only desire was ever to please and glorify his Father. I was not that kind of child. I disobeyed, I talked back, I knew what he wanted me to do and I did the wrong thing anyway, and I knew what he didn’t want me to do and I did it anyway. I was a disobedient, rebellious, unwilling child, and God looked at me and said, I want that one.

If you are in Christ this morning, understand that you are the object of God’s love — not because you deserved it, not because you earned it, not because he saw anything in you that made you worthy of it — but, as the passage makes clear, he did it all according to the purposes of his own will and according to his good pleasure.

Chosen Through Christ

But there’s another important piece: you are not only chosen by God, but you are chosen by God through Christ. We’re talking about a holy, perfect God here who can only do goodness, who can only do what is right — so how can it be right for the holy judge to make a wicked, rebellious sinner welcomed at his table and part of his family? Paul tells us in verse seven, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.

How are we, as wicked sinners, able to come and sit down at the feet of the Almighty, holy God of heaven and call him Father, without fear that his holy presence will melt us in our sin? It’s because he sent that only begotten, that firstborn, the one who deserved the place at the table by the will of the Father, and that only begotten got up from the table and came down here and lived among us, and he lived perfectly and sinlessly. Then that perfect, spotless, loving Son went and died, and he died the death that was waiting for you and me on that cross. As the world went dark, he took from the hands of the Father himself the condemnation that was deserved by the entire world, and the wrath and judgment of the holy judge was poured out in full measure upon the perfect Son of God. With every lash brought upon Jesus Christ, he took the punishment that you and I rightfully deserved for our sin.

Through that suffering, through the holy, spotless blood of Jesus Christ that flowed down that wooden cross, your life has been washed and cleansed. That’s what it means when he says, in whom we have redemption. In that day, there were people born into slavery, born into situations where they were enslaved to somebody else, owned as the property of someone else. But in Roman society, somebody had the ability to come along and make a payment for that person, to purchase them and redeem them out of slavery and give them freedom. That’s the picture being given to us here.

God saw us in our slavery. He saw us in our chains to sin, and just like those born into slavery, we were born enslaved to the sin of this world. But God, through the blood of Jesus Christ, came and made a payment for us, and he brought us out of that place of slavery. He redeemed us from that position of sin and from those chains that used to hold us, and he brought us into his household — but he didn’t put us in the slave quarters. He didn’t get us out of the slave quarters of sin and put us in the slave quarters of the master. Instead, he came and set us down with the Son. He gave us a spot at the royal table, a seat, a bedroom, royal robes and clothes to wear.

He could have taken you and made you his slave, his indentured servant, but instead he said, I am choosing you not to be my slave, but to be my child, and I am redeeming you from a life of sin and bringing you into a life of joy at the table of the King of Heaven. He did all of that through Jesus Christ. This is the best news any person wrestling with the wickedness of sin can hear today. If being chosen by God to be part of his family sounds unreal to you, if it sounds too good to be true, understand that it is entirely possible and entirely real, only because of the blood of Jesus Christ. When God sent Jesus to die on that cross, you were on his mind. You are chosen by God through Christ.

Chosen for Your Benefit

But the next piece of this is that you are chosen by God through Christ for your benefit. Here’s the amazing part I think we miss a lot of times as Christians. We get saved, and we say, thank you, God, for saving me, thank you for redeeming me — but somehow in our minds, we seem to have amnesia about all the promises God has made to those who are his children. In this passage alone, Paul brings to mind so many things we have received through God choosing us.

Notice first, in verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. He didn’t say some spiritual blessings — he said all spiritual blessings. If there is a spiritual blessing to be received, it is already yours in Jesus Christ. Notice, too, that he doesn’t say he will bless us with all spiritual blessings — he says he already has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now, understand, this is where a lot of your charismatics get off track, because they want to tell you that you’ve been blessed with all blessings in Jesus Christ. But in this passage, God is not promising that you’re going to drive a Rolls Royce, and he’s not promising that you’re going to wear Rolex watches and live in the biggest house in Louisiana, as one megachurch pastor bragged about in a sermon. What he is promising is that if there is a spiritual blessing you need to receive, it’s already yours in Christ. You need peace — he has peace. You need comfort — he has comfort. You need forgiveness of sin — he has forgiveness of sin. You need courage to accomplish something — he has the courage you need. You need strength to carry on down the path God has set for you — he has strength. Do you need victory over some battle in your life? He has victory. The point is that if there is a need you have in your life, he’s already blessed you with it in Christ.

Paul tells us in Corinthians that in Christ, all of God’s promises are yes and amen. That means if God has made a promise, the answer is already yes. If you go to God and say, God, I need that promise, what is his answer? Yes — because of Jesus Christ. In Christ, you have already received all spiritual riches.

We have also been given access to holiness and blamelessness. Notice verse four again: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy — that is, set apart — and without blame before him in love. You have been offered blamelessness and holiness through this adoption.

We’re also given access to the wisdom and knowledge of God’s plan. In verse eight, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on the earth, even in him. Through this adoption, we’ve been given the plans of God — he has revealed what he’s doing right now, what he’s going to do in the future, and how everything is going to shape up in the end, through Christ and through your adoption in him. There is no aspect of God’s big-picture plan that you don’t have access to through his Word, and that’s a big deal. Paul writes elsewhere that in Christ, we have the mind of Christ, made known to us because of who we are in him — a truth that’s only available to those who are in Christ.

And then we have a promised inheritance and a part in eternal life to come, which has been sealed for us through his Holy Spirit. Verse eleven: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

He’s saying you have been given an inheritance. Imagine that when you walked out into that parking lot this morning, you got a call letting you know that some king overseas had passed away, and for whatever reason, he had left everything he owned — his money, his houses, his jet airplanes, his kingdom — all of it to you. Overnight, you received the inheritance of a kingdom. How would you feel? Assuming this is not a scam, how would that change the way you thought about yourself, the way you conducted your life, your decisions, your emotions? I imagine that would have a pretty big impact.

What Scripture promises us is that the greatest King who has ever been has left us an eternal inheritance that will never fade. He’s promised us a part in his kingdom — we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ to the entire kingdom of God — and he’s made that promise real to us through his Holy Spirit, who dwells with us today. The Holy Spirit is just the down payment for the bigger payment that’s coming down the road. If you have felt the joy and comfort and blessing of the Holy Spirit, all of that is just the beginning of what’s coming to you when you receive your full inheritance in glory.

All of these things belong to you right now through Jesus Christ. You are not broken. You are not in poverty. You are not lost and alone and empty and far from God. If you are in Christ, you have everything I just described to you, and so much more than your mind can begin to perceive. That’s a big deal.

For His Glory

Why would God do all of this? That gives us that final piece: God chose you in Christ for your benefit and for his glory. The reason he has done all of this is because our God, by his very nature and character, is love. He is grace. He is mercy. And if he did not choose us to be redeemed and saved and rescued, we would gladly rebel against him and make our way straight to hell, knowing him only as the holy judge. But by his grace and his mercy, he has opened our eyes to see the gift of his goodness, and he did all of that for one purpose — so that we might truly understand and appreciate how good and holy and wonderful he truly is. It is all to the praise of his glory.

So, Christian, let me ask you this morning — do you live day by day with a consciousness of your identity in Christ? Do you rejoice in the reality that you are chosen to be part of a bigger plan in this universe? Do you take advantage of the spiritual riches that have been made available to you in Jesus Christ, or are you still living day by day like an outsider to the kingdom of God, hoping that if you just pray hard enough and just are good enough, maybe you’ll get some little crumb from God’s table today?

Folks, you have a reserved spot at God’s table, and that’s not just true when you’re having your devotions or when you meet here for worship — that is true from the moment you sit down in your car, and for the rest of this week, that reality about who you are in Christ will not change. That’s good news. So I want to challenge you to read this passage every single day this week. In fact, I give you permission to pause whatever other devotions you might be doing right now, and read this passage every day, reminding yourself of who you are, what you have, and where you’re going because of the grace of God and the gift of Jesus Christ.