Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, our rock and our Redeemer.  [Psalm 19:14, adapted]

 

            You go to the store.  You are going to purchase an item.  On the shelf are choices.  You may purchase because of brand.  You may purchase because of packaging – how the item is presented.  You may purchase because of price.  Then which of the items are you going to pick up?  The one to the left, right, center, or further back in line?  Each item on the shelf is doing its best to lure you to purchase it.  None of the items are certain which one you are going to select.  It is a guessing game on your part and theirs.  There is no certainty.  The final comfort is when you pick the one item up and it is overjoyed to have been selected.  The others are crushed and hope for a better day.

 

            In these early passages from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians God gives Christians the greatest comfort and confidence by removing each one from the guessing games of chance and merit.  God reassures each Christian that it is through his love in Christ that you are definitely his children, adopted through his one and only son, Jesus Christ.  God puts to rest the unsettled questions, “Can I or will I be saved?” or “When will God make up his mind?”  Folks, you are God’s children.  Each and every one of you here today who trusts in God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ is holy and blameless in God’s sight and you do have eternal life. 

 

There is no doubt about it.  There is no guessing about it.  There is no wondering if you have done the right things or enough good things.  God wants you to know that this great gift does not depend on you or on anything that is yet to happen.  But this selection is a done deal and has been a done deal since before the beginning of time, since before creation. 

 

God wants you to know that it is his will and his purpose that you are his child to inherit his kingdom in every way, shape and form.  You do not have to be like the item on the shelf wondering if you are going to be picked or not, if you are the right brand or price or quality or not.  That has all been done for you – in fact you are, in Christ and by God’s grace, perfect and holy in God’s sight.

 

From the opening phrase of Paul’s letter, God makes it very clear that all is by his will, something that he wants to do.  “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”  Paul speaks of himself, but also of every person God sends to bring his message of love through Jesus Christ.  It is by God’s will that Paul is sent.  It is by God’s will that I as your pastor am sent and so are all other pastors and preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  God wants it no other way but that the message of his love through Jesus Christ be proclaimed to all people of all corners of the world throughout all time.  Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  [Matthew 24:14] 

 

It is God’s will that you are here today, listening to his love for you.  It is God’s will that through your gifts and offerings the message of Jesus Christ be proclaimed not just here at Immanuel but to every neighborhood and street of Des Plaines and throughout the entire world.  It is God’s will that this become as your will, working from within believers everywhere to carry out this mission in our actions, in our prayers, and in our gifts to promote telling others about Jesus so they have the same great joy and come to praise God as you do today.

 

Paul addresses this letter to you, “To the saints (in Ephesus), the faithful in Christ Jesus.”  [v. 2]  When you profess your faith in Jesus Christ, the son of God, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.  He descended into hell.  The third day he rose again from the dead.  He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead,  (Apostles’ Creed, 2^nd Article) you are a saint.  Through faith in Jesus Christ you are made holy and blameless in God’s sight [v. 4] just as he wants you to be.

 

God, from eternity and before the creation of the world, chose you to be his own dear child.  He set you apart at creation, “Let us make man in our image,” God said.  [Genesis 1:26]  No other item of creation was made for the purpose that God made man.  He set you aside for himself only.  He is a “jealous God.” [Exodus 20:5]  He did not want to share you with anyone or anything else then, nor does he today.  From before creation he determined that through his own dear son, he would redeem, that is buy you back from every sin and error, and make you in his image again.  Writing to the Thessalonians Paul again expresses God’s will,  “…because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.”  [2 Thessalonians 2:13]

 

“In his love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and good will – to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in Christ.”  [v. 5]  God’s love is the basis of all of this.  It is not anything that you or I or anyone else has done, can now or will ever do.  God predestined, determined ahead of time, that he would adopt each one of you as his sons, heirs of his kingdom, again of his own flesh.  In sin each of us became sons of Satan and slaves to sin.  Through the blood of Christ sacrificed on the cross you are washed clean of all sins in your baptism.  In this baptism you and all believers in Christ are sealed in saving faith as Jesus, your good Shepherd gathers you up and brings you back with unending love and forgiveness. 

 

Coming to baptism in repentance, you renounce Satan and all his works and trust alone in Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life that he brings.  In baptism the Holy Spirit, working faith in your heart through hearing God’s word, makes you holy and blameless again in God’s sight as he sees Jesus, his one and only and perfect son standing in your place.  All is because he wants it this way.

 

If I were to say to you,  “Next week seven of you will receive a special gift at this service,” you would wonder all week if you will receive that gift or not and by what means you will be selected.  But if I were to say to you, “All who attend this service next week will receive this specific gift I want all who attend to have,” you will come confident that you will receive that gift.  You know today that you are already chosen to receive the gift.  As you believe and follow that faith, coming next week, you know that you will then claim your gift. 

 

From before time, God established that very promise for all who believe in his plan of salvation as he reveals it to all in his word.  Jesus said, “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” [Mark 16:16]  “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. [John 14:3b]  “"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”  [John 11:25]

 

 

Listen again to God’s promise through the words of Peter:  “(To God’s elect) who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-- kept in heaven for you,  who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.  [1 Peter 1:2-9]

 

 

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.   [Philippians 4:7]