Adopted to Belong - the Plan All Along - EIC RG

By Pastor John Hugh Tate.-

Introduction: Adopted to Belong

Welcome everyone. Today we are in the book of Ephesians, chapter one, verses seven through fourteen. In the original Greek, verses three through fourteen actually form one very long sentence, so we have to break it down to help us make sense of it and understand it more clearly.

Recently, we have been talking about church values. These are our values both as individual Christians and as a church family here at EIC Rive Gauche. One of the fundamental values for a believer, and something we are really trying to teach, is the truth that I belong because I am adopted. You could say we were adopted to belong, and that was the plan all along. A value is something you do not always have to explain; it is embodied in the church community. You can feel values when you enter a place. So, what we are aiming for here today and always, whether you are just passing through, or you are here for a year, two years, or long term, is for you to know that to be chosen in Christ means you are destined for adoption in Him.

From this passage, we are going to look at three main ideas today. First, Christians own everything. Second, nothing tops Jesus, meaning there is no substitute for Him. And third, we are ordinary rulers because of His extraordinary kindness.

Christians Own Everything

Let us start with that first point: Christians own everything, or we could also say, Jesus gives everything. This is an interesting statement with very loaded words. When we say the word own, we usually think of material, earthly things, and possessions. So when we say we own everything, we actually can mean it. Let us look at the Scriptures. In Ephesians chapter one, verses seven through nine, Paul writes, "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, that He richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him."

Think about that phrasing: the riches of His grace, and the mystery of His will. We have all spiritual blessings, for all eternity. This is God's Plan A, and there is no Plan B. Consider also Ephesians chapter one, verse eighteen, where Paul says, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what is the wealth of His glorious inheritance in the saints." And in Ephesians chapter two, verses six and seven, it says, "He also raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Finally, First Corinthians chapter three, verses twenty one through twenty three reminds us, "So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come, everything is yours, and you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God."

As Christians, we have an inheritance. It is called everything. Christians own everything. Now, we have a problem, and that problem is our idolatry. We chase after other things. Even as Christians, we do not feel like we have all we need. We believe we need other things to fulfill us. Tim Keller once said that we can see our idols by looking at our nightmares. He asked, what do we fear the most? What if we lost it? What is it that makes our life worth living? What is your nightmare?

For me, I know it is losing my wife and my family. Many of us could easily say that. But there are other things as well, some that we would not readily admit. For a lot of us, it is losing our reputation and how we want to be seen. Losing that can be devastating for us. Thus, even when you say you are united to Jesus, you can be united conceptually, yet not personally. You still do not feel like you have everything. Look at Ephesians chapter three, verses fourteen through sixteen. Paul says, "For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family on heaven and on earth is named. I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being, through His Spirit."

To be adopted means we know who we belong to, and we own all the spiritual blessings for eternity. You are given power in your inner being. To be adopted means we gain the universe. I love movies, and so many good movies feature bad guys whose only goal is to gain the universe. You see this everywhere from James Bond to the Avengers. They want world domination. And the truth of the gospel, as shown right here in Ephesians, is that we already have it in Christ. This is the riches of His glory. That is what strengthens our inner being, making us ordinary people who own everything.

Nothing Tops Jesus

Our second point is that nothing tops Jesus. There is no substitute, or to put it another way, Jesus is above everything. We can easily say the phrase, "nothing tops Jesus," but what does that really mean? Often, many of us say it just because we feel like that is what we are supposed to say, so we do. Ephesians chapter one, verses nine and ten says, "He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He purposed in Christ, as a plan for the right time, to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him."

The goal is to bring everything together, to bring everything under Christ. There are two words here to highlight in the original Greek because it is so important to see their full meaning. The first word is plan. In Greek, it is oikonomia. This means household stewardship or being a good steward. It is God's house, His domain. Everything is His, and He has a plan for it. We see this used again in Ephesians chapter three, verses three through six. Paul writes that the mystery, or the plan, was made known to him by revelation, as he briefly wrote above. He says that by reading this, you are able to understand his insight into the mystery of Christ. This was not made known to people in other generations as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, namely that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. First it was the Jews, then the Gentiles, and ultimately for all peoples and nations. That is the plan, and that was always the plan.

The other word is unite. In Greek, it is anakephalaio. Interestingly, it is found in the New Testament only one other time. In Romans chapter thirteen, verse nine, it is translated to mean sum up. Paul writes that the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. To unite, or to sum up, is to love your neighbor as yourself. It is to sum things up. So here, to sum things up, it is all about Jesus Christ. The summation of things is that the Son of God, with the Father, created a history of redemption, and Christ Jesus is magnified as the sum of all things.

Listen to Ephesians chapter one, verses twenty through twenty three. "He exercised this power in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He subjected everything under His feet and appointed Him as head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way."

He is over all things, and His body is the Church, which fills all things in every way. Amazing. This is the Church, millions of people, across centuries, filling all things. This ties into Revelation chapter three, verse twenty one, that I mentioned last week, which says that we would be seated on the throne. That is also so incredible to believe, and yet the Bible tells us this: "To the one who conquers I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne." To sit on the throne, filling all things. It is amazing to consider.

That is why we have to dwell on these things as we read the Bible. It is difficult to have the capacity to realize them. We are held back by sin and our sinful context in life. We are crippled by anger and sadness, and we just cannot believe these things. Yet if we say the Bible is altogether true, and we do believe that here, then it is true. This is the way it will be. For real joy and happiness, consider this promise from Jesus: I will grant you, insert your name there, to sit on the throne with Me. Over and over again. This is what it means when He says He is filling the universe with Himself, Christ. The universe will be filled with the Church, as the heavens and earth unite. These are the greatest things ever.

In Ephesians chapter one, verses eleven and twelve, Paul writes, "In Him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of His will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to His glory." And then Colossians chapter one, verses fifteen through eighteen, paints such a high, lofty image of Christ. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything."

Nothing tops Jesus. There is no substitute. Jesus is the sum of all things. Jesus can also make all things really simple in our personal lives. He can go from the cosmic to the personal easily. For example, a good summation statement of Jesus for us would be: Love your enemies. If we are honest, it is the hardest command no matter how long we have been believers. You may say, well I do not have enemies. Are you a believer then? Because if you are a real follower of Christ, and you stand for things, we have an enemy. And that enemy will even create other enemies for us in this life. Yet Jesus calls us to love our enemies.

People like Martin Luther King Junior and Gandhi used this to powerful effect, but mainly as a strategy. With all due respect to their accomplishments, they did not grasp the full power of this statement. They viewed it, as do many others, simply as the teachings of Jesus. Yet you have to get into the theology behind it to see its power. Why is it so powerful? Because we were God's enemies and He loved us. Romans chapter five, verse eight says, "But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." So, who are the enemies who did not deserve it? We are.

It is not about how many Bible studies you do or how many mission trips you take. It is about how you love your enemies. God can take away all our bitterness, anger, and insecurities, because that is how God shows up in your life, and that is how we show the world that nothing tops Jesus.

Ordinary Rulers because of Extraordinary Kindness

This brings us to our third point: we are ordinary rulers because of extraordinary kindness, meaning Jesus forgives everything. This ties into the point above, ruling with Christ because of His kindness to us. Ephesians chapter one, verses thirteen and fourteen says, "In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you also believed, were sealed in with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory."

You will rule? You have to be kidding. That sounds crazy. Yet that is what we have. We are so ordinary, but He is extraordinary. We have been told we are special too often. The truth is we are ordinary, and we will rule with Him. Being sealed in Him means being in Him, not only with Him, but in Him, forever. And we will praise Him as we are with Him.

So many people use this idea of praising God, or feeling like they have to praise God, as an excuse to turn away from Him. One example is Brad Pitt. Everyone knows him, and he has some good movies out there. Yet unfortunately, he turned away from his childhood Southern Baptist faith because he thought God was telling him, "You have to say I am the best," and to him, that sounded like a massive ego. C.S. Lewis also, back when he was an atheist, wrote in his meditation on the Psalms at twenty nine years old, just a year before he became a Christian. He wrote that when he read the Psalms and saw God saying, praise Me, praise Me, praise Me, it sounded like an old woman craving compliments. He wanted nothing to do with the God of the Psalms. But then he became a Christian, and he wrote a whole book on the Psalms.

Both of them, and many others, could neither see nor feel the wonder. What we will be praising God for, and what we can praise Him for right now, is His kindness. Lewis later wrote as a Christian that what he never realized was that praise is not an extraneous addition to the enjoyment of the kindness, but the kindness in consummation. He said lovers do not go on telling each other how beautiful they are out of a sense of duty. The pleasure they are having in each other is not complete until it is expressed. That is exactly it.

Ayn Rand also said that admiration is the rarest of pleasures. We admire and we praise. I admire a lot of things. I admire this church. I admire the people here. I admire things in Paris. There are reasons and things to admire everywhere. Yet we were not made for these. They are all pointing to something greater. We were made to go totally outside of ourselves and admire and praise true greatness, and that is the Lord.

Now, real quick before closing. Some think there are contradictions to this security of adoption, often found in several New Testament Scriptures. Just when we start to feel eternally secure in His love, along comes a passage of Scripture that threatens to rob us of our security. First Corinthians chapter ten, verse twelve says, "Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Also, First Corinthians chapter fifteen, verse two says, "I preached to you the gospel by which you are saved if you hold it fast, unless you believed in vain." And Second Corinthians chapter thirteen, verse five challenges us, "Examine yourself to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you fail to meet the test."

Yet these Scriptures are not written to threaten our security in God. It is quite the opposite. They are written to threaten your security in everything else. Everything else but God. They threaten our security in health, family, jobs, money, and education. Thus, the Bible drives us back to the One who is our only true security, God. Jesus is above all else. Sin is an effort to feel secure in anything other than God.

We rely on His extraordinary kindness that He continually gives to us. We deny Him so much and He is still kind, still patient, and still waiting for us. We were His enemies and His love covers our sins. We are ordinary rulers loved by an extraordinary God.

Closing: The Power of the Cross

As we close today, if you have never known this extraordinary kindness or never thought that you were an enemy of God, I want you to know there is no substitute like Jesus. Jesus is inviting you to the immeasurable riches of His grace, which means everything is yours if you surrender control of your life.

I invite you to surrender knowing there is a better God. I invite you to surrender if you feel unworthy before God, knowing that He actually does see you, flaws and all. I invite you to surrender trying to prove yourself as a Christian, and instead remember that salvation was always a gift and never based on you or your good works.

We were enemies of God, but as the beautiful hymn by Kristyn and Keith Getty says: Oh to see the pain, written on your face, bearing the awesome weight of sin, every bitter thought, every evil deed, crowning your bloodstained brow. This is the power of the cross, Christ became sin for us, took the blame, bore the wrath, we stand forgiven at the cross.

Preached by Pastor John Hugh Tate at EIC Rive Gauche. To provide a better reading experience, Artificial Intelligence tools were used to transcribe and lightly edit the spoken text.