THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF MESSAGES ON EPHESIANS FOR BBCMP, DELIVERED 2/17/13
PM
HE HATH CHOSEN US
EPHESIANS 1:1-14
INTRODUCTION
I heard
a sermon this week[1]
entitled “Prayer, the Highest Form of Worship.”
In that message, the preacher took on the Prosperity Gospel and Word
Faith heresies, and the blasphemous error of supposing that prayer is a way to
direct God to do what we want Him to do.
Make no
mistake about it, prayer, in the Prosperity Gospel / Word-of-Faith way of
thinking is nothing short of commanding God to do what you want Him to do. It is to
- Imagine what you want
- Declare that you have it “In Jesus’ name”
- Receive it
One
might wonder how anyone indwelt by the Spirit of God, or even taught the
Christian faith and yet not even regenerated, could be deceived by such obvious
heresies. And yet we are seeing a great
amalgamation going on, in which a large segment of the professing Church, many
of which were raised in Fundamentalist or very conservative Evangelical homes
and Churches are getting cozy with Word of Faith heretics. The American Evangelicals are having the Prosperity Gospel heretics preach for them,
they are accepting invitations to Word of Faith events, and sharing the platform in
conferences that should have some kind of theological fencing.
But the
fence has been moved out so far that as long as there is some pretense of using
the Bible, and some use of the name of Jesus, that’s good enough. And I don’t think it will be long before
those things are gone. Consider Oprah’s
“Life Class” and some of the people that Rick Warren brought in for his “Daniel
Plan”
Now I’m
not going to hold any one person responsible for this – or any single
cause. But this preacher happened to
challenge an erroneous view of prayer that would be more familiar to you and I. In fact, he actually referred to one
particular book[2],
one that I read many years ago, and quoted part of it that reads;
Prayer is not
praise, adoration, meditation, humiliation, nor confession, but asking. Again let me press upon your heart and mind that
prayer is asking, and not anything else. .. Prayer is not praise and praise is
not prayer, prayer is asking. Adoration
is not prayer and prayer is not adoration.
Prayer is always asking. It is
not anything else but asking.[3]
He goes
on to say basically the same thing about meditation, humiliation and
confession. And that idea was not just
in that one chapter. It was repeated
again and again throughout the book.
When I
was a baby Christian, and knew that I should pray, and wanted to learn how to
pray, I really couldn’t get anyone to take the time to teach me to pray. The best I could get was a book
recommendation, and the book that everyone recommended to me was that
book. I think it’s because it’s the only
book that they knew about.
It
didn’t help my prayer life. Looking
back, I’m convinced it did me more harm than good, because it did not teach me
anything I needed to learn about prayer.
It just repeatedly came back around to that same premise. Ask, ask, ask, receive, receive, receive.
I had a
hard time accepting it, but I figured I must, because he was a great man of God
and I was a babe in Christ, and a wicked sinner, and still trying to get the
flesh on some kind of a leash.
I was
too uninformed at the time to know that he was disagreeing with the overwhelming
testimony and practice of the church for the previous 19 centuries. All I knew was that he was a big name
preacher in the movement in which I had found Christ, so I figured he must know
what he was talking about. And he
undoubtedly had a prayer life. But he
didn’t teach anything helpful in that book, or if he did, it was offset by his
repeated insistence that nothing but asking is praying.
He
successfully convinced me, and it stuck for a couple of decades, that I wasn’t
praying unless I was asking for something,
and, by extension, that my prayers
weren’t being heard unless I was getting specific answers to specific requests.
In
other words, unless you have a list of “answered prayers”, you aren’t a good
Christian. Well, over time, I began to
realize I wasn’t a very good Christian, and that my prayers weren’t very
effective at all.
Now
maybe you can see the link here. It
would not be a very long stretch to go from thinking that prayer is only and
always asking God for something, and that the test of the effectiveness of your
prayer would be measured by your answers, to full tilt boogie Word of Faith
teaching. It isn’t much different. Both take out the element of real worship and
submission from prayer, and replace it with some kind of intense assertion of
the human will in order to move God to action in giving the mortal sinner what
the mortal sinner wants.
Certainly
the writer of that book would not have intended for his readers to be made more
susceptible to the Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel messages. But intentionally or not he did.
I thank
God that Gordon Trammell saw the handwriting on the wall with me, and used what
influence he had on me to try and steer me toward something a little
deeper. He’s the friend that took me to that
little Christian book room somewhere in an office building in downtown D.C.,
operated by a Chinese man, where they had all the works of Watchman Nee, and
that I bought and read much of that. It
helped to offset the other semi-Pelagian nonsense I was also taking in.
But one
Chinese “Deeper-Lifer” was working against “the world’s greatest Soul-winning
Evangelist" and "The 20th Centuries mightiest pen”, and the preaching I was
hearing that was in full agreement with what that author had to say, and the culture
that accepted that idea.
Apparently,
nobody I was rubbing elbows with had read Luther, or Ryle, or Spurgeon, or
Andrewes, or MacDuff or Nee or anyone else on the subject of prayer. IFB provincialism had been at work for a while
in that culture, and they had a very narrow field to choose from when it came
to spiritual reading. Not only did they
not know of any Christian authors outside a couple of very small publishing
outlets, they viewed them with suspicion.
Now if
I was saying this on my own, against a great Christian leader, it would be
audacious of me. But I’m not on my own
in this opinion. In fact, historically
speaking, I’m with the overwhelming majority – as long as you are willing to
accept that there could be real Christians outside of the IFB movement in the
20th Century.
In point
of fact, prayer is much more than just asking God for things. It IS
adoration, confession, profession, humiliation, creedal affirmation – in a
word, prayer IS worship –
the highest form of worship that anyone can participate in, because that
is the sort of praying that denies self-will and affirms the three things we
pressed home last time
· God
is the Ultimate Being in all of reality.
·
God’s
glory is therefore the ultimate objective and outcome of all things that happen
·
God’s
glory ought to be the ultimate goal of all that we do, and all that we ask of
Him.
I
absolutely cannot fathom how insisting that God give us what we desire because
we have convinced ourselves that we have it coming gives Him any glory at all.
One of
the most Christ-like things a Christian can say is, “not my will but thine.”
Exercising
yourself under the load of “Not my will, but Thine” is every Christian’s
calling, and prayer is the place we work through that. Later in this epistle, Paul is going to
admonish the saints in Ephesus to “be not unwise, but understanding what the
will of the Lord is (5:17), and “as the servants of Christ” to do “the will of
God from the heart” (6:6).
And
it’s wrong, and thoughtless, and misleading and actually harmful to teach
people that they are not praying when
they do that.
I bring
that up because we now enter into this outburst of praise to God which may or
may not technically be part of Paul’s praying, and his teaching about prayer in
the book of Ephesians. That, I think, is
still debatable.
But what
isn’t debatable is that understanding these things, in the way Paul presents
them to us, will enable the believer to pray much more easily, and honestly,
“not my will, but Thine.” The actual
prayer requests may not start till v. 15.
But the theological foundation upon which the requests depend is given
starting here. And these things are not
handled just as dry dogma. They are the
occasion of praise.
Paul
praised God for God’s actual work, not for what it meant to him, or his own
feelings about it, or as a result of it.
After pronouncing the benediction of v. 3 that we looked at last week,
beginning in v. 4, he then reaches back beyond time, space and matter, and
recalls God’s eternal purpose in the salvation of men.
And
there is a clear three-fold division to it wherein each person of the Godhead
is singled out for praise and glory.
· THE
FATHER: Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath … according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in…
· THE
SON: …the beloved.
In whom we
have redemption … 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:
·
THE
HOLY SPIRIT: in whom also after that ye
believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance…
unto the praise of his glory.
I like
answered prayer as much as anybody, I guess.
But if it’s all about me getting the answer I want because I was able to
conjour up enough faith to force God to make it so, who gets the glory in that
equation? Where’s the servant’s attitude
(6:6) of humble submission to the greater will of the greater Being?
Have
you ever considered just how small and insignificant you are in comparison to
God? He’s greater than His own creation
(the greater cannot proceed from the lesser), and we are immeasurably small in
comparison with that. Someone named
Irwin Moon (I can’t remember where I found it) wrote,
“All of us have looked up, on a clear
night, and seen the sparkling, twinkling stars.
But, how many of us have realized that we cannot see the stars as they
are now? Every time we look, we are
looking into the past, seeing them as they were. The most distant naked-eye star, Alpha
Centauri, is about four light years away.
The most distant naked-eye object, the Andromeda Galaxy, is about a
million-and-half light years away. This
means that the light has been traveling four light years or over a million years
to reach us. As a result, we are looking
into the past. But this works both
ways. If you were on one of the stars
you would - assuming an adequate telescope - see the earth as it was sometime
in the past. From the star Sirius, you
could see what you are doing nine years ago, because, in a profoundly
scientific sense, you are still doing it. Yes, everything you have ever done, you are
still doing. The ghost of your past
haunts the universe. But remember . . . God is omnipresent. This means that, for God, every sin you have
ever committed, every evil thing you have ever done, you are still doing, and
will continue to do forever, apart from God’s forgiveness. Only the omnipotent, eternal God who controls
the factors of time, space and matter, could ever remove sin.”
This is
the God with Whom we have to do. This is
the God to Whom we have to answer. This
is the God Who occupies the Eternal now and is everywhere present in time as
well as in Space, and therefor knows everything from the beginning in the sense
of actually being there, always having been there, and always shall have been
there.
How
could He NOT have chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world? If you understand this about God, then
nothing else would make sense. It could
only be this way, and not be any other way.
People
worry when I speak about salvation being of Him, and His work, and not by our
will or our work or of ourselves. But do
they really think that somehow they have the controlling interest in the
salvation of their souls? That it
ultimately rests upon them? That’s a
mighty audacious thing to think.
I have
never denied that the sinner must choose Christ over all competitors, that he
must decide for the gospel, and intentionally turn to God. That is clear in Scripture.
For
they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how
ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; (1 Thessalonians
1:9)
And
saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with
you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the
living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are
therein: (Acts 14:15)
Delivering
thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts
26:17-18)
But you
can affirm that without denying what we have here. We did chose Him, we did turn to Him, without
a doubt. Many of us remember the
date. But He chose us before the foundation of the world. And
I can’t imagine that our choosing of Him at our particular point in time
carries more weight than His choosing of us before time.
I know
that God’s divine choosing and the free offer of the gospel don’t seem
completely compatible. But do you want
to know something wonderful? It’s not your
problem! Nor is
it mine. I didn’t write the Bible, and
I’m not commanded to be able to explain everything in it. But I am commanded to believe everything in
it, proclaim what it says, and not tamper with it or twist it. I’m not obligated, nor am I able to unravel
the mysteries of divine foreknowledge.
But on any time line you could come up with,
His choosing came first. And we should
accept that, to the praise of the glory
of His grace.
And let
me tell you something else that’s wonderful.
You may struggle with the order of salvation (ordo salutis) – John
Bunyan created a pretty amazing chart – one that Clarence Larkin would be proud
of – to try and map it all out. But if
you understand what Paul is saying here, what you won’t struggle with is
assurance of salvation.
This is
radical teaching from Paul. This is not
just saving grace, it’s initiating grace. It’s God reaching out to us before we’re ever
able to reach back to Him. Just as He has blessed you with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, so also, from before the foundations of
the world, He set His love on you.
Before
you existed – before your parents, before the first parents of the entire human
race – before the planet you live on,
before space, time or matter, He
set His love on you – not because of anything you had done, because you didn’t
exist. Not because of anything you would
do. But simply because He
chose to.
How’s that for a place to stake your eternal
security? Way better than thinking that you’re pretty
sure you were sincere enough, or based on whether or not you really have that
besetting sin under control yet. That’s
even better than having the time and the date and the address of the place you
prayed the sinner’s prayer written in the front of one of your Bibles.
And finally, we have here something of God’s
purpose in choosing us; “That we should be
holy and without blame before him in love”.
John (1Jn. 4:19) says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” Both John and Paul are talking about a cause
and an effect. God’s love for us cannot
but eventuate in our loving Him in return.
And God’s choosing of us cannot but eventuate in our becoming holy and
without blame before Him, in love.
This
isn’t teaching Holiness Perfectionism in this life, but it is teaching
something about practical sanctification and eventual glorification, both as
benefits of God’s love toward us.
God
didn’t choose us because we were holy, or because we would become holy. He chose us in order that we could
become holy. We are blessed by
God to be holy; we do not pursue holiness in order to be blessed by God. We are chosen of God, and blessed of God, to
become holy in a two-fold sense – set apart to God now, and sinlessly perfect
in the presence of God someday out there.
And those things will be because God loves us.
If you
are pursuing holiness to get God to love you, or to be assured that God loves
you, then you aren’t going to get very far.
You’ll be about like the Pharisees, lookin good on the outside and
rotten on the inside.
But if
you ever just give in to the truth that God loved you and saved you simply because He to, because of
His love in Jesus Christ, that will change everything. Once you get that, then you will begin to
pursue holiness because you realize that God has made you for that holiness, and
ordained for you to become holy, and that He delights in the glory that He
conveys upon Himself by the holiness He forms in you, well that will make all
the difference in the world.
