Episode Details

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Remsen Bible Fellowship, 06/11/2023

Introduction

Last week we began a short summer series on the topic of biblical hope. What is hope, and why does it matter for your life as a Christian? To answer the first part of the question: hope is a settled conviction of the future fulfillment of the promises of God. Faith is the action of the will whereby you decide to trust. Hope is the result of that trust. Humans plan around hope, we live based on our hopes. And, for the Christian, our hope is to be centered in the person and promises of Jesus; this gives our hope a distinct and life-giving quality. 

As we continue to consider this topic, I want to turn to the book of Ephesians and look at one of the most-dense doctrinal passages in the New Testament. 

Revisiting Inheritance

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 

Here Paul reminds us of the theme we just encountered last week: in Christ we have an inheritance. Three aspects of our inheriting are worth pointing out from verses 11-12:

* We receive this inheritance as the result of God’s election. “Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Many Christians resist the doctrine of election. We want to cling to a notion of “free-will” that doesn’t actually exist in the Bible. The Bible does not picture human beings as free, but as slaves to sin (see John 8, Ephesians 2). If we are to be saved it must be the sovereign work of the God who works all things  according to the counsel of his will. We do make choices, but we are not the root cause. This reality, that coming to Christ is dependent upon the eternal election of the Father, ought to have two effects upon you. First, it should level your pride. We did not come to Christ bearing our own wisdom or might or power or intellectual ability. Before you were ever born, before you chose right or wrong, he chose out of the freedom of his glorious strength, wisdom, and mercy. We have no ground for boasting. The second effect which election should have upon us is to give us great confidence in the loving generosity - the kindness - of God toward us. He had no need in himself which demanded he save us. And yet he chose to. And so we should have confidence - and this will feed our hope - that he who never changes will not change his mind about us.

* The second aspect of our inheritance in verses 11-12 is to our point in this series: this inheritance is received by those who “hope in Christ.” Why is it that we must hope in Christ to receive such an inheritance? Because part of what we believe by faith is not merely that Christ has acted for us in the past, but that he continues to intercede for us today, that there is an inheritance stored up for those whose hope is in him. This inheritance is not for everyone. It is only for those whose hope is in Jesus.

* The third aspect of the inheritance is that, in some sense, we are also God’s inheritance. Notice the end of verse 12: “we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.” We exist as hopers-in-Jesus, not for our glory, but for his. We exist for the sake of his glorious name. He receives sinners redeemed by Christ’s blood into his family as adopted children, and in doing so puts on display not their worth, but his. Those who hope in Jesus don’t simply praise him for what he’s done - we exist as trophies of his grace. We exist to display the love of God in Christ.

That last point matters profoundly for our hope, because if the whole point in salvation is putting the stagge