Does God's Sovereignty Discourage You

Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 1. Verse 3 to verse 14 is one uninterrupted sentence. You say, how do we know that? In light of the fact that Greek has no punctuation, no capitalization. We know it by way of the placement of the conjunctions. We know it by the very way in which this flowed off the pen of Paul or his secretary, that there are no breaks here. One incredibly rich sentence. This is a sentence for God's children. This is definitely for the children. That doesn't mean that others could not read this and benefit from it or even be converted from it. This is not the message that Paul would have preached to the lost. This is a message that he is proclaiming to God's children, to the saints who are in Ephesus. Let's read the entirety of this sentence. Beginning in verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, even in Him should be there. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. Now brethren, as we have sought to work through this, I began to touch on last time, two weeks ago, verse 11, but I want to look at that again. Verse 11. Take your eyeballs there. In Him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, the context would seem to indicate that the predestination, He's already used that word back up in verse 5, He predestined us for adoption as sons. Predestination means that God ahead of time determined our destiny. That doesn't just have to do with sonship. It seems like here, the more immediate context is that He's speaking about our inheritance. We've been predestined to receive an inheritance. According, if you want to know why, according to the purpose of Him who works all things, according to the counsel of His will. Now, you read a verse like this, it can be very easy to want to dive right in, talk about inheritance, dive right in, talk about predestination, dive right in and talk about how the last half of this verse, it's one of the classic texts that's gone to to support the sovereignty of God and the salvation of sinners. We don't want to pass over those first two words. In Him. In Christ. You know what's obvious? As you read from v. 3 to v. 14, which is one long run-on sentence from the Apostle Paul. He never wants us to forget this. In Him. He just keeps on saying it. Have you noticed that? He keeps saying it over and over and over again. V. 3, if you're blessed of God the Father, how is it? He's blessed us in Christ. Go to v. 4. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. V. 5, He predestined us for adoptions as sons through Jesus Christ. There's no being chosen. There's no being blessed. There's no being adopted except it's in Christ. He blessed us or favored us in v. 6. How? In the Beloved. V. 7, we have redemption through His blood, but how is that? In Him we have redemption through His blood. There's no redemption. There's no forgiveness of our trespasses except we're in Him. You go to v. 9, the mystery of His will according to His purpose. How is it set forth? It's set forth as a reality only in Christ. You go to v. 10, the fullness of time. There's this uniting of all things, but where are they all united in? Things in heaven, things on earth. It's all in Christ, even in Him. As I said before, the ESV, not excusable that they left that extra in Him. Why would they leave it out? Probably because they think it's redundant. But Paul didn't think it's redundant. He just keeps on saying this. If there's an inheritance, how has it gotten? It's only gotten in Him. Folks, this is Christianity. And Paul wants us to never forget it. You don't want to pass those first two words. He keeps saying it. It's like he's afraid we're going to forget it. Brethren, we must never do that. Some might think it's redundant to keep on saying the same thing over and over and over, and Paul says it is not redundant, and he's going to keep on saying it. You know what the feeling is you get here? Paul wants to boast in Christ. He worships Him. He adores Him. He exalts Him. He makes Him the center of all of this. Brethren, as we're thinking about all the problems in our world, we need to come back to this recognition all the time. All the theories, all the opinions on how you're going to fix this broken world out here. If you come up with any theory that does not go on repeating Jesus Christ, it's not Christianity. Plain and simple. It's doomed to failure. Anything that tries to pass itself off as Christianity that does not insist on the absolute necessity, centrality, the first, the last, the Alpha, the Omega, Christ being preeminent, Christ being repetitiously put in there, Christ being the focus of all things. If you're chosen, you've got to talk about Him. If you're blessed, you've got to talk about Him. If you're going to be adopted, you've got to talk about Him. If there's an inheritance, you've got to talk about Him. If there's salvation, there's no salvation under heaven given among men anyplace except this name. You've got to keep coming back. Brethren, when we think about fixing the cultural problems, the political problems, the upside-down nature of this world, Paul keeps coming back to one thing over and over and over again. And if you've missed it before, he doesn't want you to miss it now. You cannot read your New Testaments, but Christ is everywhere. He's preeminent, He's the focus, and He doesn't want us to forget it. And you can look at this. I mean, the authors of the ESV to leave one of these in Christ out, inexcusable. It's not redundant. This is life and death. We've got to remember Christ. We've got to remember this. Without Christ, you have nothing. Without Christ, you have no salvation. And without salvation, man never gets fixed. You can give all your opinions, you can change politicians, you can talk about fixing the broken cultural problems, race problems, whatever. Brethren, none of them work unless there is salvation, and there is no salvation except in Christ. Don't miss those first two words. You've got to... You know what? What happens is Scripture can be so massively rich like it is here, where every single prepositional phrase just holds volumes of truth. And we can pass over these things. We never want to do that. So, think with me here. An inheritance. It's only gotten in Christ. V. 11, In Him we have obtained an inheritance. Now, the first thing I want you to notice there is the past tense. Now, in the Greek, there's not specifically a past tense. It's an aorist. But it basically is akin to our past tense. It says, if you are a Christian, you have already obtained it. Peter, he says an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Does anybody know what comes next? Kept in heaven for you. You already have it. It's not in your hand. It's being kept. It's being kept by somebody who knows how to guard things. Not going to get lost. Not going to be eaten by moths. Not going to be stolen by thieves. Not going to rust away. It's a treasure in heaven. You already have it. You already possess it. Now, look, I was thinking about this. Let's suppose there was somebody. David Butterball. He's right here in the front row. We can use him as an example. Let's suppose, remember this really happened, David knew a man, he's talking about himself, who was translated to the third heaven. Let's say David got translated to heaven. And he came back. And he was able to stand up here and say, I saw your inheritance when I was there. And he said, really? Tell us! What was it? And he said like Paul said, well, there are things that are unutterable. I can't tell you. But, I can tell you this, your inheritance is glorious. I can tell you that. It is a glorious abundance of wealth. Would you get excited? Would that fill you with hope? You see, a little bit further in this very epistle, before we even get out of chapter 1, just let your eyes glance down to v. 16. Notice what Paul says concerning the Ephesian Christians. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Really, Paul, what do you pray for? This is inspired language. So it's always good to see what an inspired man under inspiration actually is saying that he prays for. That means God is putting his seal of approval on it. It's a good thing to pray this for Christians. What does he pray? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. For what? To have what revealed to us. What wisdom needs to register on our brains? Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know something. There's knowledge to be gained. What? What is the hope to which He has called you? What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints? Now you know what? If David came back and told you that, that's one thing. You have a man who's under the inspiration of the Spirit of God and he's telling you. He knows by way of direct revelation from the Lord. The Lord has told him, your inheritance is exactly like this is described. What? The riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. There's something there, eternal weight of glory. It's being kept in heaven. Some of the richest people in all the world and all of human history are inside this room right now. You have an inheritance already. For us to pray for one another that we would actually have the God-given ability to perceive and conceive of what this is, that's a good thing to pray for one another. You probably don't think to pray for one another that way, but it is a good thing to do. Why? It's very helpful to have your eyes set on glory. Because when you begin to recognize the eternal weight of glory, it does cause the suffering to seem more momentary and light. It does make the suffering here much more easy to bear in light of the shortness of it, the lightness of it, comparatively speaking. When your hope is set on that, it makes it much more difficult to grumble, to be discontent. You see, sometimes we can get to where we're grumbling about certain things that we don't get here that are just these minuscule little things that we're unhappy because other people get them, but we don't get them. And all the while, there is this enormity of wealth that is awaiting us. The next thing is this. I mentioned this two weeks ago, but there's something that you cannot see in your English translations. And I want to bring it up again because it's extremely helpful in the context in which we find it. And basically, it's this. Paul, the term inheritance is not here in the Greek. But there is a word here. It's the word that means received by lot. The casting of lots. Inheritance is only implied. Something is gotten by lot. And you don't want to casually pass over that. Because what this word does is it emphasizes more how we came to possess what we have than actually what we have. Did you get that? How did you come to get it? You got it by lot. That's the emphasis here. That's what's happening. You don't want to casually pass over this. Look, knowing ourselves as we do, brethren, you ever think back to your lost life and you think about the things you've done? Knowing the things you've done, how have you come to receive anything from God but His wrath? I mean, seriously. Seriously. An image in Scripture. It's so fitting. Like dogs, we licked up our sin with a vengeance. And seriously, we have an inheritance? How did this come to be? What is this? And the term Paul uses helps to explain that. Let's think about the lot. I just think about one of the most classic texts in our Bible that deal with the casting of lots. And I'm thinking of when they divided our Lord's clothing. Let's turn to that passage. John 19. Now here's the thing, brethren, we don't know for certain what a lot is. Which is kind of odd. Because it's spoken about so much in the Bible, and because it was used up until the time of our Lord, and because Roman history was so well recorded, it's really amazing that we don't know exactly what it is. But we do know this, we know for a certainty that it was a method that was indeed used both by Roman soldiers, so even though it's recorded in the Bible, we see that it's used in an extra-biblical context. It's being used by pagans. And we see it used in the New Testament when they selected the replacement for Judas. And we see it used all over the Old Testament. Well, let's notice this. John 19, verse 23. Now look, this has everything to do with our inheritance. So just hang with me. We're going to do a little bit of a study on if we've gained something by lot, and it's implied it's our inheritance, what does this point to? What is the significance of this when it comes to our inheritance? Well, the primary thing about casting lots can be gleaned right here in John 19. Let's look at it. Verse 23, when the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts. You just think about our Lord. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He was naked on that cross. That's how you cast lots for His clothes. He humbled Himself. Think of the humility. Think of the scorn, the reproach that He endured hanging on that cross. He allowed these soldiers to take His clothing. He could have come down from that cross. They divided them into four parts. One part for each soldier. But notice this, there was also a tunic. His tunic. But the tunic was seamless. You see, the tunic was extra. It didn't make it into the four parts. It was an additional piece of clothing. And because it was seamless, I think the idea is that if there was a seam, they could have pulled the thread at the seam and they could have divided it up. It was woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, let us not tear it. They could have torn it into four pieces, but they decided not to. But here's what they decided to do. Let's cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. Now this was to fulfill the Scripture which says they divided My garments among them. And for My clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things. Here's what I want you to see. The primary thing about casting lots is that something gets determined in such a way so as to remove the conclusion of the matter from human intervention. It takes it out of man's hands. That's the idea. You cast lots. The decision as to who the tunic goes to does not rest with man. The decision is outside of man. That's what the lot is all about. Things are determined. Things are decided. Conclusions are come to. Decisions are made without human intervention. That's the idea here. None of the soldiers decided who would get the tunic. They all wanted it. But they cast lots. And the way the lot fell, it determined the outcome. When you introduce the casting of lots into any situation, the conclusion of the matter is no longer in my control. This is the reality that we need to feel about the inheritance. It's not ours by way of bloodline. You see, in this world, inheritance. Well, there are people that get inheritance. They may be adopted or they may be a friend of the family's or something, but typically, most of the inheritance takes place in this world through bloodlines. It's very interesting. Scripture comes right along and says when it has to do with who is born, it is not according to bloodlines. The inheritance is not according to bloodlines. It's outside of man's control. It's outside of man's will. This is the issue with the inheritance. It's out of our hands. God is in control of this thing. Now, look, if you had gone up and asked that Roman soldier, how'd you end up with the tunic? Well, by lot. Well, how'd that happen? Well, luck. A good fortune. The favor of the gods. I mean, whatever his answer would have been. But, at the minimum, he would have acknowledged it was outside of his control. Whether he credited it to luck, chance, fortune, the gods, it was something he recognized. He didn't determine that outcome and neither did the other three soldiers. That's what Paul's saying about our inheritance. You got that inheritance not by anything that you did, not by anything that you are. That's the issue with this. That's what this has to do with. Now, by the way, the biblical mindset behind the lot is never that it is by chance. Brethren, think with me. In Scripture, oftentimes the lot was used to show something that was already known. For instance, you say, wait, what do you mean? You remember the time when Jonathan dipped the end of his staff in the honey and ate it? But he did so ignorantly, not knowing that his father decreed that if anybody ate before the enemy was subdued or before the end of the day, that they would die. You remember that? And here's Saul. He comes to recognize somebody sinned. And you know what they did? They cast lots. First, they cast lots for Jonathan and his father over against all the people, and when the lot was cast, it came out pointing to Jonathan and his father. And so, what I'm saying here is, how did that happen? Was it just chance that it pointed to them? And then they threw the lots again and they pointed to Jonathan. Again, was that just chance? God was guiding that to point to exactly the person. Do you remember the situation with Achan? Most of you probably do. They went in and conquered Jericho. And what happened? God had told them. All the treasure in there? Hands off. Well, Achan went in, he saw some costly garments and he saw some gold. He took it and he buried it in the bottom of his tent. And what happened? They went up to fight Ai and they got defeated. They highly outnumbered Ai and yet they were routed. And so what happened? Here's Joshua and he's going, Lord, what happened? The nations are going to hear about this and they're all going to come and destroy us. You said you were going to be with us. And he's like, get up. Their sin. It's almost like God spoke to him pretty hard. And you know what they did? They cast lots to find out who it was. The matter was already known. It was known to God. It was known to Achan. But nobody else knew about it. But it was already determined. The stuff was already in there. This wasn't a thing like who's going to get the tunic? And everybody is kind of in suspense. And there is a possibility like flipping a coin that we would say, well, maybe that happened by chance. Look, the way the Bible talks about the lot, it doesn't give it up for chance. Every decision of the lot, it lies with the Lord. And what happened with Achan is, they threw those lots, and what happened? The right tribe was taken. They threw those lots again. The right clan was taken. They threw those lots again. The right family was taken. They threw those lots again. Fell right on Achan. How does that happen? Brethren, not by chance. When Paul is talking about an inheritance that is gotten by lot, the idea is this, that the lot is cast into the lap. It's every decision is from the Lord. Do you see what Paul is saying about us obtaining an inheritance by way of lot? He's saying the heirs of God, the heirs of God's inheritance, is no result of what we've done. It's in no way something that we have manipulated. It's no way something that we planned, or we schemed, or we came up with. Brethren, you have to recognize this. The picture is all mankind standing before God, and we are subject to the lot of God. My lot, your lot, every decision of that lot is with the Lord. God has chosen the way the lot is going to fall out to every single one of us. It's not by chance. You see what the text says? Brethren, look at the text. Having been predestined to this inheritance, how? By chance? By you and I intervening? By you and I having some faith that God looked down through the corridors of time and saw? Is it by something that we did? Is it by interaction from us? Is it by our counsel? Did we give counsel to God here? Brethren, there is no better way, no complete way to say this is God's doing than by the way Paul says it. He says it's according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. It's like repetition there. It's His purpose, but not just His purpose. He goes on to say it's the counsel of His will. His will. It's His purpose. It's His counsel. It's His will. I'm in a three-fold emphasis there. How do you get the point across any clearer than that? Well, by considering what He means by an inheritance that is acquired by lot. That is a fourth emphasis right in this verse about the reality that this inheritance, brethren, this inheritance comes to us in spite of us. That's the issue. We're not Christians because we're somehow superior, smarter, better, anything of the sort. I mean, doesn't the Apostle Paul, the same one writing to the Ephesians and to another church, he says, consider your calling, brethren. We've got to look and we've got to say, you know what? God is in the business of picking the last people on the face of the earth that people in this world would pick. I mean, the reality is God goes out and He picks. Do you ever think about that? Do you ever recognize? You know, that probably is quite fitting terminology to describe the vast majority of us in this room. We were not wise. We were not anything special by this world's measurement. He came and He picked the ridiculous and the weak and the backward. Sometimes we like to have fairly high views of ourself. Brethren, we're sinners. We deserve hell. And we will receive hell unless God's lot falls to us. Again, I want to tell you, this is a message for the children. This isn't the evangelistic message you go out and preach downtown or door-to-door ministry on Tuesday. This is a message that God has chosen us. And brethren, you can be certain that if you are chosen and if God is not going to deal with you according to your sins and there's inheritance stored up there, what we're talking about here is security. What we're talking about here is something that ought to excite your soul. Brethren, the thing that we have to grasp is this. When Paul says that our inheritance is gotten by lot, you know what he's doing? He is drawing on Old Testament imagery. Who are the Old Covenant people? The physical nation of Israel. How did they get their inheritance? By lot. You see, brethren? You see the imagery? You see the foreshadowing? Brethren, all through our Bibles, we get the idea when we come to the New Testament, we get this idea that what is given to us in the Old is given for our instruction who have come along here at the end of the ages. That's all for us. And what does it do? It teaches us truths. It sets forth realities. Many of which are just in seed form. They're foreshadowings. They're simply types. That physical Israel is a type. It is a shadow of the spiritual Israel. The true Israel. The church. Back then, they received a physical inheritance. A land flowing with milk and honey. It points to our spiritual inheritance. They got their reward by lot. Let me ask you this. Did they get it because they were superior to all the other nations? Did they get it because they were more righteous than the other nations? Did they get it because they were more in number than the other nations? Did they get it because they were mightier? Now, I just asked you questions that God specifically addresses to them. Just listen to these. He says in Deuteronomy 7, you don't have to look there, but listen to this, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you. For you were the fewest of all peoples. And look, if you go back and think about it, how did this all begin? Abraham is there in Ur of the Chaldees. Was he looking for God? Nope. God came to him. Was he heading out into the wilderness to look for God? No, God told him to go into the wilderness. He was there worshiping his idols right along with everybody else. There's no indication at all that he was worshiping anything else. In fact, Joshua gives us some very concrete evidence that on the other side of the river, they're worshiping all sorts of heathen gods and idols. How did he come to be chosen? Because God set His love on him. God directed him to go. God told him to go out there. God gave him promises. God made a covenant with him. How did these people end up where they were? God determined to deliver them out of Egypt. He rescued them from the iron furnace under the iron fist of Pharaoh. He brought them out into the wilderness. He fed them with bread. He brought them to the River Jordan. He stopped the waters of the Red Sea before parting them. He brought them in. He dropped the walls of Jericho. He told them, I'll be with you. And He told them, when you have taken this land, do not sit there under your tree getting fat, drinking from your wine, thinking, my arm did this. He said, you didn't do it. I did it. And He assures them. Now brethren, He says, beware lest you say in your heart, my power and my might of My hand have gotten me this wealth. He says it's not true. But listen, because this is all a picture of us ultimately. You see, they're Jews, but we come into the New Testament and we see what a true Jew there is in Romans. We see what true circumcision is there in Philippians 3 and Romans 2. Listen, their inheritance is a foreshadowing of ours. Listen to how it's described. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, a land of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing. A land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land that He has given you. And then it's right after that that He says, beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. He says in Deuteronomy 9, do not say in your heart after the Lord your God has thrust out those nations from the land of Canaan, it is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land. God repeatedly reminded them of this. You see, when we hear that we have received an inheritance by lot, may none of you ever say, it's because you were greater. May none of you ever say it's by the might of your hand, it's by the power of your own works, it's by your own merit. You see, what He's telling them is repeatedly, nothing meritorious here. Nothing on your part. You were not there giving Him counsel. This is the counsel of His own will that He fashioned before the foundations of this world. And you weren't there. And there is nothing to recommend you to Him. No righteousness. Just like there was no righteousness in them and no might in them, this is God's purpose being put in motion. It's not yours. It's not mine. It's predestined purpose. God defies this thing before you and I are on the scene. Now brethren, God is in control. And the reality is that if you are one of God's people, you had nothing as far as the plan goes, as far as the counsel goes, as far as the predestining goes, you had nothing to do with it. And it was not your righteousness, your might, it was not your greatness that you are here and not out there. It is entirely God. It is entirely His purpose. It is entirely because He has chosen to put His love on you simply because according to His counsel He sought to be a good thing to do so. Nothing recommended you to Him. He set His eyes on you. He set His heart on you. He set His love on you for no other reason than because the lot fell to you and that lot is in His divine control. He caused it to fall to you. I know that in the course of time we must repent, we must believe, we must respond to the Gospel. Again, I want to emphasize, this is a message for the children. This is who He's writing to. This is what this is all about. Brethren, I actually entitled this, that does God's sovereignty discourage you? It should not discourage you. It should encourage you. Brethren, I'll tell you this, you say, where do you get that from the text? That it ought not to discourage us to think God's in control and who gets saved is absolutely in His control and who gets the inheritance is absolutely according to His lot. It's according to His purpose. Him who works all counsel according to His will. It's all got to do with Him. How do I know that it ought not to discourage us? Because the Apostle Paul is being guided by the Spirit of God. And the Apostle Paul is responding to this message under inspiration. And how does he respond? He responds by praise. Do you see that? I mean, look at v. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ. He's blessing God. V. 5-6, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will to the praise of His glorious grace. He's blessing God. He's praising God. V. 12, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of God's glory. Even there at the end of v. 14, to the praise of His glory. Here's the thing in all of this, you and I are not to be applauded. It's all God. The whole mystery, the whole plan that's being unraveled, revealed to us, God has been revealing this mystery. It's exclusively, it's only, finds its roots, its fountain, its source, all in God. Everything is God's doing. Everything consistent with His counsel, His will, His purpose. The result of God's eternal counsel which He devised before the foundation of the world, it's now coming to fruition right before our eyeballs. Many in this room, we are the working out of God's plan of a people that God by lot is putting His love upon and giving inheritance to. It's out of the control of all of humanity. Out of our control. Brethren, the thing is in the end, the sovereignty of God should humble us, not discourage us. And I get that from the text because I recognize this. Worship is the outflow of finding God worthy. Is it not? Worth-ship or worth-skype is where this word worship comes from. We are accrediting worth to God. When Paul looks at how God is in control of all this, he goes to praising. He goes to magnifying the glory of God. That is an expression of humility. Because what humility does, pride is seeing oneself as big. Pride is exalting self. Humility is seeing self small. Seeing God big. That's where praise comes from. That's where worship comes from. When you're discouraged by the truth of the sovereignty of God, you know what happens? You have hard thoughts of God. Isn't that what happens? Isn't that what a lot of people do with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God? They have hard thoughts of God. They see God as cruel. They don't like to see God in control like this. But we know whether we're thinking right, whether it produces hard thoughts of God or whether it's producing worship. If it's producing worship, what it's doing is humbling us. You see, what these doctrines ought to do is they're meant to make us smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. I deserve hell. I don't have anything but sin. Nothing in my hands I bring. I don't have anything to offer God. God's Word says useless, none good, all fall short of His glory. It's like it says in Isaiah, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet, it's all just like open wounds. That's a physical, graphic picture of what we are by nature. We're just full of sores. We're like the leper. We stink. We have nothing to offer. And we have treasure? How do you explain that? You explain it because God has been pleased to show unbelievable magnitude of love to the unworthy. What we do is we see God grow. You study these realities and God gets bigger and bigger. His kindness, His grace, His mercy, His love, what to me? Knowing myself as I do and I have an inheritance in heaven? How can I explain that? And brethren, if it makes us smaller and smaller and smaller, it's by a lot. It's like getting the tunic. It wasn't in my power to get it. It was the Lord that did this. How do I explain after the things I've done in my life that I'm standing before you as a saved man? A hope of glory? That God will not deal with me according to my sins? I was thinking about what David was preaching from 1 Peter about the two things that ought to cause fear. And on the one side, he said judgment day. On the other side, he said Christ and His blood. And I'm imagining a line of sinners. And God comes to the first with a flamethrower. You're guilty. He doesn't need a flamethrower. But the very wrath of God consumes that sinner and justice is upheld. And He comes to the next and likewise, consumed and consumed one after another after another. And you're standing in that line. Is that fearful that He's dealing with them according to their sins? That is fearful. But then you see, He comes to a man and He puts His finger on the trigger of the flamethrower and Christ steps in the way and Christ is absolutely consumed. That's fearful too. Because you see God's not messing around. And the sins you've committed, they've got to be paid. And you look at the cross, that's fearful too. Because that is God saying, even if I have to pour out My wrath on My own Son, justice must be upheld. Brethren, knowing ourselves the way we do, and you come face-to-face with this reality, I've been chosen to be a son. I've been predestined for an inheritance that Scripture can't even describe to us. Human language that can be thawed up by these inspired writers or led to by the Spirit of God Himself. We're just given broad terminology. And it includes words like glory. Glory. This is God. This isn't just a man looking and saying, oh, that car over there. Glorious. This is God saying, your reward is glorious. Glorious. How? And as you contemplate that, Paul's praying for them, we should be praying for one another. God, give us the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of Himself that we might have this knowledge of the hope and the riches of this glorious inheritance. Because brethren, not only will it help us to set our minds on things above, because after all, where your treasure is, that is where your heart is. But brethren, what it does is it shows us God is everything when it comes to salvation. It should not cause you to have hard thoughts. It should cause you to recognize we need Him, that He is great to save. He saves to the uttermost. He is mighty to save. He is all together at the core of salvation. And we need to run to Him. We need to go to Him. Because brethren, He doesn't say to us in Scripture after He describes us as having all these sores, being sick and the whole heart faint from the bottom of our feet to the top of our head, no sound, just bruises and sores and just raw, oozing wounds. What does He say? Does He say, stand back and perish? I'm done with you. I'm through with you. You're vile. I wish you'd just get out of my face and go to hell. He doesn't. He says, come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, that they're red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Brethren, the thing that we need to recognize is God is very great. We are very small, but He is great to save. And all the day long, Scripture says He extends His hand to this rebellious and contrary people. And we read in our Bibles the kindness of God being showered upon mankind is meant to lead them to repentance. God does not set Himself forth in Scripture as being big to destroy. He is that. But it's like He delights in showing Himself to be big, to be magnificent to save. And brethren, if we understand these things right, that it's all of God, we should break forth into praise. Is it still fresh enough that you can say, Lord, knowing the things I've done, why me? Why me? Why am I in the royal family? Why have I been rescued? Why do I have the hope of the riches, of the glorious inheritance, these indescribable riches that are to be found in Christ? Why me? And what should happen is you should not look for anything in yourself, but everything in Him. He's the cause. He's the start. He's the finisher. It's His purpose. It's His will. It's His counsel. Father, I pray for the brethren here, that which Paul prays. I pray that the hearts of our souls would be enlightened. Our brains, our minds, our thinking, may it be captivated. May it have revelation. May the Spirit of wisdom indwell us, fall upon us, reveal to us this hope, this inheritance. I pray that it would fill our minds. Lord, displace the things of this world. Displace the things in our thinking, in our minds that are unprofitable. Lord, I pray that the brothers and sisters here would have their minds set upon things above. Glorious things. The things that have to do with Christ. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.