Title: Whatever You Want / Ephesians 1:11-14
Contents
◎ Main text: Ephesians 1:11-14
◎ Title: Anything You Want
☞Text:11 According to the plan of him who works in all things according to the decree of his will, we have been predestined and have become an inheritance in him, 12 so that we may become the praise of his glory, which we had long hoped for in Christ. 13 In him you also When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, 3) were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, or 4) became the guarantee of our inheritance, that we might redeem what we had obtained, to the praise of his glory. .
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From time immemorial, we grew up hearing fairy tales about goblin bats. A mysterious bat that comes out of gold when you say "Come out of the house", gold comes out when you say "Come out of the house," and rice comes out when you say "Come out of the house." It's amazing to hear that anything can happen the way you want it to! Wouldn't it be great if I had a bat like that while admiring myself? Longing for such a goblin bat, I grew up with the hope that it might be given to me as well. However, as I grew older, I realized that such a bat didn't exist and that it was just a tale, and my hopes for it faded. However, there are still people who live with hope.
There is no machine, no object, no person in this world that can do whatever you want. Every creature has a set limit, and when a certain limit is reached, it cannot be achieved by any of the creature's abilities.
However, there is someone who can do this, and that is God the Creator, who saved us, gave us eternal life, and made us children.
God, who has become our Father, is the One who can accomplish whatever he desires in his heart. Everything will go the way you want it to.
Verse 11 of today's text says, "All things are according to the plan of him who works according to the decrees of his will."
"Working according to the decisions of his will" has two meanings.
First, it means that God is omnipotent.
We already know that God can accomplish anything. God came to the 99-year-old Abraham and introduced Himself, saying, "I am Almighty God" (Genesis 17:1), saying, "I will give birth to a son through your wife Sarah." You have shown your omnipotence. Because he is Almighty, he can do whatever he wants.
Second, it means that God is an absolute ruler or absolute sovereign.
Doing everything according to the decisions of your will includes the meaning of having absolute sovereignty over all things. Only God is the absolute ruler and absolute sovereign.
Since God is omnipotent and sovereign, he decides everything according to his will, and he will not only accomplish what he has decided, but there is no shortage or failure.
The salvation that has been made to me and you now was foreordained according to God's plan to accomplish all things according to His will, and what was foreordained according to God's plan was fulfilled in Christ. Therefore, the salvation that has been accomplished for us is of great significance.
Let's read the text again.
"In him we were predestined and inherited, according to the plan of him who works all things according to the decree of his will, that we might become the praise of his glory, which we had long hoped for in Christ. When you heard the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, to be the guarantee of our inheritance, that we might redeem what we had obtained, to the praise of his glory."
To summarize, what we have today was predestined according to God's plan, which determines everything according to the will of our hearts, and according to that predestination, he atoned for and saved us from all our sins through Christ and made it to the glory of God Word.
That's right. Our salvation was not accomplished because God had no choice but to be obsessed with some sense of duty, not by accident, but decided and implemented according to the will of God's heart.
If our salvation was made according to the will of God's heart, wouldn't this have a special meaning? Let's take a look at its special meaning.
First, our salvation is sufficient because Almighty God has accomplished it according to his decision.
Is salvation really possible only by believing in Jesus? Is it true that all those sins are forgiven and go to heaven? What to do if you go there and say something is wrong! and worry. No need to worry at all. Almighty God paid off all our sins by nailing His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to shed His blood, so that anyone who believes can be saved.
Romans 5:8-11 "God demonstrates his love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And now that we are justified by his blood, much more is wrath because of him." that we will be saved from .
Not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now been reconciled.”
There is nothing wrong with the death of Christ, the shed blood of Christ, we are justified, we have been reconciled to God, and there is nothing wrong with us, so do not worry at all.
Zephaniah 3:17 “The LORD your God is in your midst, the Almighty to save; he will rejoice over you with rejoicing, he will keep his love over you, he will rejoice over you with singing and rejoicing.”
Second, because it was made according to the will of God's heart, he takes responsibility.
It is unlikely, but if God saved us under some pressure or out of a sense of duty, He will not be held responsible for the latter. Because you made the decision of your heart, you are in charge of us forever. Nothing to worry about or worry about. There is no one with such a guaranteed life as a Christian.
Don't worry everyone. Don't worry about anything. He chose you according to the will of God's heart and predestinated to save you, and now you have reached the level of salvation.
Third, the fact that we followed the will of God is proof that God loves us.
God saves us because of our compassionate heart, just because life is pitiful! Let's see! It's not. He truly loved you and saved you. The God who saved us rejoices because of us. Zephaniah 3:17 “The LORD your God is in your midst, the Almighty to save; he will rejoice over you with rejoicing, he will keep his love over you, he will rejoice over you with singing and rejoicing.”
Romans 5:8 "God demonstrates his love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Dear saints, our salvation is perfect and perfect salvation because it was accomplished according to the will of Almighty God, the absolute ruler, who decides and accomplishes everything according to the wishes of our hearts, is eternally guaranteed, and is of the highest value because it is achieved through God's absolute love. has the So, live your faith with pride.