The Rest of the Story!

Paul Harvey, who passed away last year, was one of the most famous voices that you could listen to that would normally unfold the biography of someone’s life or event with such profound insight. The word gospel means God’s story and all too often it gets reduced into points and most of us who grew up in the church could easily quote Ephesians 2:8,9 which are great verses. However, if we left it just there we would be missing so much of the context of The Story. Even this week I received an email asking me why did Jesus have to die on the cross and it is mission critical for us to recognize the depths from which we came and the heights to which He always had planned for us. Today our story intersects His Story and be ready to come face to face with death and life as it relates to the kingdom!

Ephesians 2:1-10

First, we need to look at the original condition of man.

I don’t think many of us, especially those who grew up in Christ realize just how bad it was. It isn’t a pleasant thought to really identify with and in doing so we are easily led to water it down or tone it down

1. We are spiritually dead

All of us...the universal human condition – we are spiritually dead blind to Christ, unresponsive to Go Just go up to someone on the street and tell them that they are dead. Well not that I have spent a lot of time with dead people, but there are two things that strike you.

There are two characteristics of death that we need to identify here.

· Utter powerlessness... there is no life in the person and they can do nothing by themselves...We talk about being a dead weight... I’ll never forget when Sharon and I came home to a skeleton placed in our shower by the youth of our previous church.

· Corruption – the dead body will immediately deteriorate

Think hard about the gospel. Unfortunately where we go wrong is when we start to assume that our children who grow up in the church naturally just become believers and that is smelling the beginnings of death as took place We need to teach our children their utter helplessness apart from Christ. Romans 5:6 NLT

Dead in your transgressions and sins

It’s important to separate these two words

Transgressions – it means to miss your step – it may even mean right intentions, but the result is wrong.

Transgressions refer to even our best attempts at doing right. Tim Keller does an amazing job of breaking this down because it is that ‘elder brother’ mentality that so many in the church have. It is that faith that is easily rocked when bad things happen to us because we believe we are entitled to live the life we have on the very nature of our virtures. So, when things go really bad, it is that wrong thinking that leads us to believe that we are being punished. The barrier becomes the pride that we so easily can take in our own moral record. It is that belief that God owes us answered prayers and a good life and a ticket to heaven because we’ve worked so hard to obey Him. The danger in this is in fact that we ‘unspoken’ become our own Saviour and bypass the cross. Sin is more than just breaking the rules. It is the place we position ourselves as we will unpack in this message.

And sins – the cumulative effort of our own sins as well as the fact that we are born into this condition.

Disobedience – why is it that when we are told ‘don’t do it’ there is that initial reaction right?...Why should I? Why should I do what you asked me...that is the spirit of disobedience constantly challenging every single truth or law that God has called us to live by.

What are we working towards.... It is eternal life and eternal life is fellowship with God

Tim Keller – on three kinds of people.

· Business associates – you merely make transactions with

· Friends – you enjoy doing some stuff with, common interests

· Your mate or lover – a strong impulse is there to speak about what you find beautiful about them.

The elder brother may be disciplined in observing regular times of prayer, but their prayers are almost wholly taken up with a recitation of needs and petitions, not spontaneous, joyful praise

Tim Keller

So in fact it is a very dry prayer life...

And then if that is not bad enough, in terms of how bad we really are....he tells us -

2. We are enslaved

A Hebrew expression – in the way you used to live / a lifestyle

Following the ways of this world – drifted along the stream of this world’s theme of living. The pull of culture and been captivated by it. It’s in your face every time you turn on the TV, internet,

Following the prince of the power of the air - evil forces that are active and destructive in working against the design of God.

The cravings of our sinful nature – we are pulled by the influences from inside and outside...

Jesus was never tempted from within Himself...

Cravings - when desire turns to addiction. It is the point when a healthy desire becomes an all consuming passion. It is when normal God given desires turn ugly.

· It is when a privileged position becomes entitlement.

· It is when eating becomes gluttony

· It is when love turns into lust

· It is when fantasy is replaced for a real relationship

· It is when virtual becomes more powerful than face to face.

· It is when anything controls us to the point of sacrificing normal relationships that ultimately enslaves us.

3. We are condemned –the children of wrath – it has nothing to do with spite, hatred, a fly of the handle temper gone bad ... but it has everything to do with God’s perfection and righteousness that is in complete separation from anything that is sinful.

THE TRANSITION

A radical disease requires a radical solution

What we were by nature – the human condition to what we have become by grace,

The Divine compassion

V5 We have been made alive

V6 We have been raised up

The resurrection of Jesus is significant because Jesus can be ruled by nothing, He can be dominated by no one

All of that power is now downloaded, funnelled and placed inside of us

Nothing should be able to dominate us

AND here is the KEY -- We need to mind our work...just like they say on theTube in England - mind the gap!

The power of our desires and thoughts - we wake up with them, what will this day look like for me...we are easily given to self introspection

Whenever we worry about something....where are you MAN? Where are you daughter of God?

When we were in that egocentric focus, manic self focus

We have been raised UP more than 6 feet here!!! It s a long way up to the heavenly realm with Christ. Those thoughts don’t need to dominate our heart and minds

We are free from the self centered desires to do the good works that were prepared for us long before we ever stepped foot into this world.

Keep your focus on that work! Our eyes are not to be on ourselves or to be dominated by the consuming sins in our lives.

It really is a shift of thought process and focus.

Why does Lois Belsey still keep going back to Papua?

If you are a Jesus follower, what powers, what desires have you given up so that you can free yourself up to do the work of God

What are you doing that defies the world’s logic? Are we going with the desires of the moment or the grand design of the kingdom.

It is so hard to focus outward when it is so easy for us just to mind our own business, my own stuff.

If we don’t consciously set our focus, we will easily go back into default mode

The day of the internalized god...obsessive about our internal dialogue, cultivate guilt, worry about our fears...

We can so easily be obsessed with our own story and the selves of other people

The new source of information is talk radio

New books are autobiographies - apparently 1200 autobiographies are produced each week

New news stories are ‘reality TV’ for those who want to live vicariously

We have an incessant preoccupation with the complexities of our own subjectivity- unknown

What do we do with that self-focus – drop it!

The new self is Jesus....put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for self!

Learn from Him, listen to the Holy Spirit

Live a life of love...the self emptying love that goes and sacrifices itself for others.

How can we give up our life for another...by loving with Christ’s sacrificial love.

Congratulations, you have been called to be on the self less team

V6 We are seated with Christ

Resurrection / Ascension / Session

Fundamental to our salvation is our union with Christ. We don’t admire Christ from a safe distance. We are in Christ, organically and personally. Everything that Jesus has done becomes ours as well. His wealth becomes ours because we have been married to Christ. We follow Jesus dangerously close. You ask me why is it dangerous?

It dangerous because it wrecks our so-called life and puts on in the path of radical transformation

We deserve nothing but judgement and love overcomes wrath. We become trophies of His grace

It is not a transaction where God contributes grace and we contribute faith and we gain salvation. This is even a wrong understanding of the gospel as well because faith lays hold of Christ and all the merit is in Him! It has nothing to do with us in terms of what we bring to the gospel in the work and the creation of it

Works for the believer are the consequence of divine initation.

But God

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, {Eph 2:4-6 RSV}

- we were walking in sin and now we are alive in Christ...

George Whitfield always preached John 3...Ye must be born again...why...you must be born again he stated!

Resurrection – requires a Life giver, dead men can’t raise themselves

Creation – out of nothing, requires a life Creator, dead men can’t create themselves

However pessimistic you are about man and the human condition, be more optimistic the Divine compassion.

Don’t minimize the gospel. I can’t stress that enough and the work of God in the life of a believer. It is truly supernatural!! We minimize it when :

· By seeing it as merely a life enhancer

· By focusing on a subsequent experience....how could we ever downplay the resurrection of life in us and our place in God’s family

By Grace

We should always feel uncomfortable with any sense of pride in what we have done or accomplished. There is no place for human pride in heaven. Heaven will be filled with the exploits of Christ and the praises of God

2010 - Unleashing our God given potential

We won’t do it when we are all focused on ourselves, our own situations as good as they are come nothing close to what we can do together if we really believe and trust God in this place.

The gospel transforms our life, our focus and our desires. How big is your story?

The Takeaway

Let the gospel wreck your so called life and call you into the greater work by the grace of God

Digital church – you can download messages on your ipod or mp3, you can do i worship, and even do church from your own bed....

The fact is that you can do it all on your own, but we are all here for a reason and I believe we can do something really special together, the work of God in this place which we will see in weeks to come in more than we could ever dream, hope or imagine for!

Questions For Small Groups and Discussion

1. What words that describe our former life that you can identify most with? What words do you need to identify with now as a result of being saved by grace?

2. What ways can you break out of your default mode that focuses on self as opposed to others?

3. List some common ways people wrongly understand good works. What happens as a result? How does this problem relate to people’s faith and beliefs?

4. Reflect on your life. Have you focused on what the Lord has appointed you to do or more on what you want to do? Share. What steps can you take to make it more in line with what God wants of us – the greater work?

Power Unleashed

Most people are usually willing to let you pray with them, they may not want to hear about Jesus, but they are thankful and glad when you pray. I’ll never forget Sharon and I being led to pray for someone on our way to Missionsfest. The mission had started long before getting to the event and ended up taking a detour at Subway. The thing that really struck me was when he said to me, ‘no one has ever prayed for me before’.

Prayer with all its breakthroughs can be one of our greatest gifts. However there is an area of prayer where we are very weak, corporate prayer.

Often our prayers are focused on circumstances, health, stress relief, job and normally we are good with praying for that as well, but Paul shows us how to take prayer to a whole new level when praying for others.

1. Healthy prayer begins with praise and thanks.

Praise should always be the parallel element to our intercession. It is thanks given in advance for the confidence that we already have in what we have yet to experience, but know full well!

For this reason...we begin in light of everything that we have received as a eulogy a blessing given on our life even before it begins – the initiative of the Father, the redemption of the Son, the promised seal of the Holy Spirit, in light of all of this and the reality of the faith and love they were expressing outwardly...Paul expresses his thankfulness for their progress in the faith.

It is not just thankfulness for crossing the line of faith, but clearly it has taken root in their lives and they have entered the story of God. The only way he knew what was going on was because the news was spreading and what I like to call ‘good gossip’ was getting back to him in prison.

2. The BIG ASK! Going for it with our prayer requests

• The Spirit of wisdom- wisdom in spiritual things – insight into the true nature of things.

• The Spirit of revelation – the communication of God to your soul, it is an uncovering, the ability to unveil. It is the spiritual powers of wisdom and vision that we receive only because of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This is where prayer can become very exciting and bring incredible confirmation into people’s lives. . However, sometimes we think we don’t know how to pray and we say things like. ‘I don’t know their circumstances’ and that is where praying and trusting the Spirit for revelation is an amazing gift that God can give.

At Southside, we encourage you to read your Bible, to get into small groups, to study the Bible, to get into the Word so that the Word can get into you because it is part of God’s plan for us to know Him better and His Spirit is the one who illuminates our minds to understanding beyond just breaking down the words. It goes beyond being a little Bible scholar to becoming more and more in the likeness of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:10-15 Here we learn about the fact that it is the Spirit of God that brings understanding and light to what we are reading. He brings the discernment and clarity to all that we are reading.

3. The BIG Reveal! When God shows up and the Spirit takes us places we never thought possible!

To enlighten is to illuminate.. spiritual enlightenment. When Christ came, his presence was described as the dawning of a new day, the breaking in of God’s light into the soul and without it we would remain darkened in our knowledge of God, our hearts closed and wandering aimlessly in the sin of ignorance and despair. Matthew 13:16,17; Acts 26:18; Hebrews 6:4

Paul pray that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened.

We are called to a prayer of prayer of opening our spiritual eyes to:

• The hope to which we have been called – a calling rooted in His divine initiative 1 John 3:2,3 It is a full and complete awareness to spiritual formation that begins with our identity in Christ. We are becoming more and more like Him

• The riches of our glorious inheritance . Acts 20:32; Acts 26:18. The truth of God’s purpose becomes known and it is declared by the believer. Paul is walking us through our completion in that we have a rich and incredible inheritance with all the saints. That inheritance is God himself, a new heaven and a new earth in which to dwell in fellowship with him forever. History continues to move swiftly toward that ultimate conclusion and Paul prays that they will understand the big picture.

• His incomparably great power Colossians 1:29 – laying hold of it

When we came to faith in Christ and entered into the story of God, our life was transformed, and the Holy Spirit began taking residence in us. His power was unleashed as we surrender to Him and often the filling of the Spirit is a very distinct time and place in our life. Paul does not want us to forget for one minute just how great that power is that pulsates through our very soul.

This is no ordinary life or empowering. This is the same power that God used to raise Jesus from the deadall the way to the place of total exaltation! It is a supernatural power that we have flowing through us to do awesome and amazing things.

Paul wants us to grasp what it means to be a follower of Jesus in terms of the resources of God
himself to live out our calling in every area of our lives, as we face challenges, as we seek to bring Him the glory, the Holy Spirit is there. We’re not left to figure it out for ourselves and ask God later for His blessing on it. Remember it all began with His blessing and we need to get in tune with that before we walk every step of this ‘what should be’ incredible life changing journey.

He often thought of these mighty acts of God as not only the power that we possess but the divine strength that they enable us to live the Christian life happen on a level that goes beyond human understanding. It is that power that raises us to new life in Christ. Philippians 3:10 Honestly, that is very hard to wrap your mind around, so let it sink into your heart.
Christ’s power is reflected here is two incredibly decisive acts:
1. Christ’s resurrection which is a completed picture with His ascension to number 2.... His place at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms .

Our ascension Life is fuelled by the Holy Spirit and He releases us into newness

Joel 2:24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
Matthew 9:17 Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

Many different OT passages refer to a time when God will bring the new wine. The new wine is the realization of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the refreshment that He brings. New wine was never meant to come in the old package of the truth being dropped in your lap. The new way of receiving was that it would be revealed in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The old way had everything to do with appearances, to conform to a code of behavior and in doing so to bring change. However, real change cannot happen from the outside in. It is the very reason that if your walk with Jesus is about following the rules, you have a lifeless walk with God.

Ezekiel 18:31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit.

Ezekiel 36:26 will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I not only want Christ’s words; I want his tone, his joy, his love of life, his fondness for stories, his favour towards children, who are deeply, deeply loved – but most of all, his passion for giving glory to God. My most common prayer is this: “May the risen and ascended Christ manifest himself in me as I submit to be his servant today.” Gary Thomas


As I mentioned in the e bulletin, I want to share with you how I believe the time is now for us to act to realize our potential as a church going forward in faith. God has blessed us with a very unique opportunity and provided resources to take this church to a whole new level of ministry!

2010

It is my BIG ASK that we ‘turn Southside INSIDE OUT for good so that we realize our God given potential now more than ever before’.

For too long we have been sitting on our ‘potential’ and I believe now more than ever before we have been called to keep moving forward. The Word of God challenges us to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me... may we keep pressing onward and upward to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, to take hold of what God in Christ Jesus has taken hold of us. (Philippians 3:13) First and foremost we have to get serious about the power of prayer. The attitude to corporate prayer in this place has to change!

There have been many milestones along this journey that have brought us to this crossroads.
We began with an offer to sell part of our land and gain an acre to the west of our church.
With the anticipation of the sale of the land, we held visioning sessions to hear what the greatest needs were for our present ministries. We sought your input through surveys in 2008

We entrusted the firstfruits of the sale of our land by giving over $50K towards local and global initiatives, to build a school for an orphanage in West Bengal India through Partners, blessing Pathway Camp Ministries of First Nations Reserves through the Greers, building a dorm facility in Papua, Indonesia for future missions initiative, ministry at the Deck here in Milton and Crossings Community, a church plant in Acton.

We formed a Transition Team at the beginning of this year who continued to seek out the needs of all of our ministry leaders in developing a comprehensive report for Schiedel Construction to work on plans that addressed all the needs of our current facility and addressing the needs.

God has been clear that the time is now for us to act. We have sat on our land sale money for one year now. The landscape around us is changing. We are losing almost half of our existing parking lot within weeks.

To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

We can either be reactive or proactive to the change that is taking place all around us. As people move into the communities that will completely surround us, the state of our facility will speak volumes to them whether we are ready for them or just barely holding on. My fear in not moving now will also lead us to rest on ‘the money in the bank’ and we will watch our funds dissipate because there is no compelling vision or plan of action to give.

This year alone I realize has been a tough one financially; however we cannot afford to wait to step out in faith when the townhomes will soon be occupied and letters will be sent to every resident living around us potentially blocking us from building anything of significance that will enable us to fulfill our vision of equipping our people to be turned inside out to reach this community for Christ.

The longer we wait for others to act, the more we will lose focus. Where there is no vision, there is no excitement, no desire to give sacrificially. Hear me out!! We are calling people to realize this church’s God given potential, not to build a building!!

However by creating space for our ministries to expand and grow we can expand our ministries to reach out to young parents though more daycamp, offer more services to those in need beyond clothes.

We will be gaining space back as the school seeks new options for this upcoming fall as they are quickly growing out of our present facilities.

God’s Girls and King’s Sons have grown exponentially and could use better defined ministry space

The rEVOLution Youth will continue to expand their focus with Pastor Mike’s full time focus and are cramped at best sharing their space with the GFN store.

To make disciples we must first evangelize or we will quickly just become self-serving. When a person becomes a follower of Jesus they will need to be developed through the teaching ministry of our church, through small groups and /or mentoring.

Our mission is to pursue Jesus passionately and connect people to their God given family.

The vision for Southside is a church that will be turned inside out in such a way that our focus becomes how we become the church in ministries and acts of love that are felt in our ministries, our community and our world. We will call out of people what God has created them to be in fulfilling their God given mission

We will identify new leaders for our ministries and come alongside them and equip them through regular workshops on spiritual formation, gifting, evangelism.

• We will provide ‘living’ spaces in our church where our people can do life together,
• We will create a facility where we can invite our friends to connect with us through missional events – We want to have a multi-purpose foyer and expand in such a way that it allows us to have great welcoming events.
• We envision a church where everyone is actively sharing the good news of Jesus with their unsaved friends
• It will be a place where the youth and children can connect in an environment that captures their imagination.
• We envision a church of small groups both inside and outside of the church where everyone can experience biblical community, where everyone is accepted and loved for who they are in Christ and where everyone, no matter what stage they are on their spiritual journey can find encouragement, forgiveness and healing!
• We envision a facility that serves the needs of our congregation and growing community both in size and function.
• Unfortunately our present facility in the way that it is set up works against us in creating a welcoming and inviting place for people to connect with narrow hallways, leaks in our roof, our children’s ministry rooms that look more like school than a place to inspire.


In the fall, I was seriously looking at buying a home on this side of the road and God gave me
Haggai 1:6 Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: 4 "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"
5 Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
7 This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. 9 "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.

It is not easy to hear this, but God is calling us to prepare the way of the Lord...We make room!!

The BIG REVEAL is coming!

The Takeaway

Take your prayers to a whole new level as you make the BIG ask and trust God for the BIG reveal through the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation
Review

Paul prays for the health and vitality of the Ephesian believers’ prayers. It is my prayer as well for us.

We always need to soak our prayers in praise and thankfulness. Never grow weary in giving thanks in all circumstances. Make the BIG ask, ask God to open your spiritual eyes to what is available to you, what is available to Southside. May we continue to see the BIG reveal as the Spirit of God gives us the revelation, the strength, the power to accomplish the supernatural in this place.

Paul is praying for the believers at a level beyond the present circumstances of their lives. If we only look at the surface, we will not see the big picture. It is a circular thing: the more we pray for understanding, the more we understand His ways, the more we understand His ways, the more we pray for understanding that brings direction, peace and the fullness of His will.

Let us go deeper than our present circumstances, let’s step out in faith with mud on our faces believing Him every step of the way. Let’s trust that when we go to the place we are called, He will open our eyes and show us how amazing that view really is!


Questions For Small Groups and Discussion


1. What does it mean for you to have the eyes of your heart enlightened?
2. What charges you up the most about the spiritual resources available to you in Christ? What is your BIG ask?
3. Share a time when the Spirit of God revealed something very specific to you about a situation through His Word. If you can, share a time when the Spirit of God gave you a word for someone. Did you follow through and how was it received?
4. Where do you see yourself as it relates to the big picture of Southside? How can you become part of God’s BIG reveal here in this place?

What's Your Story?

Have you ever heard the phrase, you can’t see the forest for the trees. Its about someone who is so focused on one thing to the exclusion of all others. My brother Lloyd is a tree trimmer and when we look at a forest, he’s all about the trees. We were once up in Fergus and a tornado had ripped through and I’m now seeing two forests with a distinct dividing line and my brother, he is looking at one tree on one farm with one job in mind.

In many ways Christians can be the same way, they are so focused on one detail that they miss the big picture. That sin that I’m dealing with, that issue that I’m struggling with, that thing about my church that I don’t like, when is that parking lot going to be fixed. Lord, those people in my small group, they always seem to be dealing with that same issue. My problems, that’s different, they just need to get over their’s. We have all these details about living the Christian life and some of them are good and important, but in being fixated in all of that, we can lose our sense of wonder and awe about the greatness and majesty of God and what Jesus has done for us, when we just look at the trees.

In Ephesians, Paul wants to pull us back and give us a grand view of God. He is praying that our spiritual eyes will be open to know the hope to which we have been called, to know the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Look at the bigness of God’s plan and great

What is your story??

Everyone has a story. I’ll never forget my first pastor sharing that with me as we watched the masses of people come on and go off the l train in Chicago while going to a pastor’s conference.

Some people have stories that are really encouraging, and when we think about our families it’s a very positive thing. However, for some, the mention of family brings a lot of pain and unresolved issues. Most of us continue to seek to live a life that matters, perhaps longing for our story to become more meaningful before it becomes history.

In the beginning of this series we are going to be see how our stories have their roots in

something much greater and grander, and that is the big picture of God’s story. In Ephesians,

we’ll see that God has called us to be part of his grand story, and we’ll look at what God has done to put us into that story and how it affects our lives day by day.

As we journey through Ephesians, we’re going to emphasize certain themes. One important

theme in the first half of Ephesians is prayer. In the first three chapters, in almost half of the text

Paul is praying. We’re going to start looking at that more closely in the next message. Obviously

prayer was essential to and a guiding force in the way Paul related to people.

Another theme is spiritual warfare. Paul understood that being part of God’s story means you’re

going to be part of the battle that God is in.

In the latter half of the book, we will look at how we live out our stories as part of God’s story. What does it mean in the church as we use our different spiritual gifts? What does it mean in our families, our marriages and parent-child relationships?

From verse 3 to 14, the history of the salvation story unfolds before us, rich in description with incredible detail given to our possessions – spiritual blessings, our position – redeemed, our promise, the seal of the Holy Spirit

Spiritual Blessings through the Father’s initiative v4-6

The greek word for blessing is eulogetos from where our word eulogy. It is spoken with the desire to speak a good word of us and it has everything to do with Him.

When people speak of God’s blessings, it is often related to provision through finances or health that is most commonly thought of; however, the blessings given here go beyond our present circumstance to the very core of our being. They are true of us regardless of where we find ourselves, they go with us no matter where we end up, move, job, they are ‘ours’ in Christ.

At times it is difficult just to figure out if it is God being spoken of in this first section or Christ with all the pronouns being thrown around. The key is determining if it is God is if it is definite action taking place with phrases like, ‘he chose us, adopted us’ and with Christ it is word that are more descriptive in nature like ‘through Him’ or ‘in Him’

It is an incredible mystery to be able to come to an understanding of how the God of eternity past before the foundation of the world could look down the space of time and see our lives completely unfold, knowing us and choosing us in His covenantal love to be part of His family. The fusion of our decision to put our faith in Him along with His choosing us is part of His incredible salvation story.

Romans 8:29 He chose us to experience the fullness of life in Him, to restore us to the beauty of His creative destiny for us, to rescue us from the full effects of sin, to be in fellowship with Him

Our salvation is God’s choosing and the purest way to understanding it is seeing it from heavne’s perspective. It begins and ends with God’s will. For Paul there was no doubt in his mind how it all came together and he recognized his favour with God and we can also experience that same realization.

I have never met a soul who has set out to satisfy the Lord and has not been satisfied himself.

Watchman Nee

Paul from start to finish makes his emphasis in the origin and plan of God from His eternal plan.

Satan’s plan is to make anything of God look restrictive, controlling and confining while Paul is all about what God has invested in us and it makes us wide open, free of all the entrapments that this world is all about. This world is all about branding, wanting us all to look the same, seeking for us to wear its label of approval, use the same technology, be all on the same social networking sites and stamp its message all over the site so you don’t forget the advertisers pathways to health, happiness and wholeness...

The true spiritual blessings that we find here can never be found on earth, they are tangible in the freeing presence they bless us with. We can’t even begin to fathom what it is for us to be the glory of Christ. John 17:10 and glory has come to me through them!

I watched the movie Blindside this week and was really inspired by the story of Michael Oher. The story is told of the Touhy family, a Christian family, who embrace this young man from the projects on the rough side of Memphis. With all the strikes against him, there is one thing that the mother of the family picks up on to inspire ‘Big Mike’ and that while his percentile for learning is low, his protective instinct is 98%! She discovers something that is already part of his makeup to inspire him to live.

The gospel is much like this, it is a divine calling that for many believers they have lost sight of. It is part of our makeup, it is part of the very nature that God has infused within us, but so many are lost to it and it really is the most compelling part of us. It is the infusion of the spiritual blessings of God, the redemptive work of Christ and the seal of the Holy Spirit.

Do you see your life as a divine calling? Our greatest possibilities lie within our reach to capture the essence of our very existence. The trouble with us is that we can become so easily fixated on our own earthly pursuits and it blinds us to the real treasures, the very things that God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus as Philippians 3:14 lays out.

Here’s the thing about adoption that I have learned from my friends.

It is very costly, it involves a lot of time, it turns your world upside down

The reality is as an adopted child, He does the choosing and He chose you!

Spiritual Redemption through the Son’s death and life v7-10

Paul’s audience would fully appreciate the language of redemption which was a theme in their life right from the slavery and exodus from Egypt that would be a story forever ingrained upon them to their present oppression at the hands of the Romans.

Paul wanted to relate the exodus from slavery and oppression and speak to the second exodus that was theirs because of their purchase and payment from the slavery of sin.

Once again this is all an incredible mystery and really hard to wrap your mind around, but he really wants to hit your heart with this message. The message is that God is raising up a people for Himself from every tongue, tribe and nation, men and women from every background, a glorious group of people that will be complete one day when one day everything comes under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The forgiveness of sins... some people really don’t like that term, they would rather refer to themselves as ‘morally challenged,’ but the fact is unless we come face to face with the reality of our sin, we will never fully appreciate the price that was paid for our freedom.

Spiritual Promise through the seal of the Holy Spirit v11-14

For Paul there was two very clear evidences that you were part of the body of Christ – faith in Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

The HS is our down payment, guaranteeing our future inheritance.

The Takeaway

We are part of the grand story of God, if we really believed this it would change the way we live. Trace the red line through your story!

We have been redeemed, delivered out of bondage and sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit

Questions for Discussion and Small Groups:

1. Give examples of what you think a spiritual blessing to us in the heavenly realms might be.

2. How do you feel God could have chosen us before the creation of the world?

3. How do you feel it's possible for us to choose to be Christians v13, if He "predestined us," to be adopted?

4. What are tangible ways that we can experience the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the downpayment, in our lives?