God has a VERY GOOD plan, one which started out with blessing us with every spiritual blessing, and will result in the praise of His glory. And we have talked about question of choice, the tension that exists between God’s choice and man’s choice and who chooses who. In today’s section we see both. There is a distinct emphasis on God’s choice throughout: HIS will, HIS kind intention, HIS purpose, predestined according to HIS purpose, Who works ALL things after the counsel of HIS will. Paul also says, we (choose to) listen, and we believe - we also have a choice. God doesn’t force us to believe. But we get the clear sense here in this passage that God’s ways are not only unfathomable (who can fully understand them?) - and inscrutable (who can rightly criticize them?) - but they are also inevitable. Inexorable. History marches on - to the beat of God’s drum. The sound of inevitability. Somehow, God works ALL things. After the counsel of His will. To the praise of His glory. We don't understand. But we can (choose to) trust it. Or not...
And God’s plan (God Himself!) is indeed a mystery. Especially to those who are giving Him the heisman in their hearts. To them the very notion of God - some eternal being or higher power. You can hear it when some folks talk about Him, esp when they try to talk to Him. They don’t know Him. They don’t understand Him. He is a mystery. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
I still remember the day when I believed. When I put my trust in Christ and what He did for me on the cross. My freshman year at Virginia Tech. And out of nowhere I am praying now not just to some strange far-off deity, but to Someone I know. He had become my heavenly Father in the truest sense. My prayers were no longer just bouncing off the ceiling. They were being heard and listened to! There was relationship. First-hand knowledge. In my heart
And Paul tells us here that God has made known to us, to believers, the mystery of His will. With ALL wisdom and insight. Wisdom is the ability to apply what you know. It is taking head knowledge and putting it to use. We may have head knowledge. We may know things about God. But what difference does it make in my life and in the world? What Paul is saying is that, God has told us everything we need to know - and He’s given us the ability to understand it and put it to good use. So that’s good news. But this can still all be so mysterious. And I think part of it is because our tendency is to depersonalize our heavenly Father. Even in the church. Even the language here shows it. Look at how the translators have put it.
"The mystery of His will", "according to His kind intention"... This makes Him sound so impersonal. There are two words here which I think are poorly translated. Will, and kind intention. Paul used the word for kind intention back in verse 5 as well. It actually means good pleasure. God’s good pleasure. It’s a much warmer idea. And then the word for God’s will is better translated as want, or desire. For some reason, the Greek word here - thelema - when it is used with people it is usually translated as want or desire. Joseph, when he found out that Mary was pregnant, didn’t WANT to disgrace her by publicly rejecting her. But when this word is used for God, it is pretty much always rendered as “will”. The will of God. "The will of God." Which by itself sounds much more mysterious, doesn’t it? Other-worldly. The will of God. The kind intention of His will. It sounds more detached. More impersonal. Much better I think to think of it as "the good pleasure of His desire". He has made known to us the mystery of what He wants, according to His good pleasure. Our God has a heart!
But the thelema of God. This will of God. That can certainly feel like a subject of mystery for many people, even believers. And the Greek word is describing what a person wants. The wants of God. What does God want? At a certain level, this is not rocket science.
What is the great commandment? And the second which is like it? And the new one? Love (Him), love (our neighbor), love (one another). He wants a whole lotta love. And Paul is telling us here that it was also God’s good pleasure to redeem us with the blood of His Son, because He wanted us to know Him. He wants us! To be part of His family!
But still, even we as God’s people can be at a loss sometimes to understand what God is doing in our lives and in the world. God’s purpose, His plan. We can struggle with the problem of evil, brokenness. Things like hurricanes. And illness. And mosquitoes. And mishaps. And while we know everything we NEED to know, we don’t know everything.
Isaiah 55:7-9
”Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. ”For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
The Hebrew word for ways is derekh. Ways are the paths trodden down by your feet. Collectively, ways comprise a journey. Metaphorically, ways are the choices we make and the life that we live. And we are reminded that when it comes to life’s choices, our ways are not God’s ways… His thoughts are not our thoughts. Not always. His desires are not our desires. His choices aren’t always what we would choose. So high above, they are so much higher than ours. His life and ways are to ours as to that of a flea.
Sometimes even as God’s children we can feel as though the ways of God are actually hidden from us. It can be hard to know what He wants. Hard sometimes to embrace His ways. But from the very beginning, God has endeavored to make His ways known to His people…
1Kings 2:3
“Keep the charge of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn…”
Everything we NEED to know. Sadly, even God’s people quickly turn away from His way…
Deuteronomy 9:16 “And I saw that you had indeed sinned against the LORD your God. You had made for yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you."
Turning aside from God’s way leads to blindness…
Deuteronomy 28:29
“…and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you.”
But God’s plan, His purpose even back then was to one day remove the blindness, remove the veil, and to send a light to shine in the darkness. To show us the way. His way.
Isaiah 42:16
“I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, in paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them and rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, and I will not leave them undone.”
Jesus. “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light…” (Mt 4.16) “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (Jn 1.4) “A Light of revelation to the nations, and the glory of Your people, Israel.” (Lk 2.32) “I am the Light of the world, Jesus said, he who follows Me, who walks in My ways, will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of life.” (Jn 8.12)
The early church was called a sect, referred to as what? "The Way"... And so now it is said of those Who follow this One Who is the Light, in the ways of Him Who IS THE Way, that we have the mind of Christ!
1Corinthians 2:16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.”
But for those who don’t know Christ, there is this darkness, a blinding blindfold, this veil which covers their heart…
2Cor. 3:13-16
…[we] are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
The veil, this mystery of Who God is and what He wants IS TAKEN AWAY when a person turns to Christ in their heart. He has made known to us the mystery of what He wants, His grand purpose - which is what? Verse 10 - The summing up of ALL things in Christ. In the fullness of time. All peoples turning to Christ in their hearts. All of creation being subjected to Him. Every nation. To the ends of the earth! He is both the Way AND the Destination!
This word for time here doesn’t refer to clock time. It refers to a season of opportunity, a
divinely appointed time. A season, for the Good News! For blessing and glory!
Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law…
The hourglass is filling up, moving towards a great day when everything will be summed up in Jesus Christ. The great march of history, from the very beginning of time on down through the ages runs through that hill far away, where once stood an old rugged cross and will one day soon once again welcome the only begotten Son of God, only this time He will come riding a white horse, our coming King, and all things will be subjected to Him, to Jesus. Every knee will bow to Him. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Those who bow their knee to Him in this life will enter the glory of His presence forever. Those who choose to walk in darkness in this life, who fail to bow their knee until that day in the fullness of time? In that day it will be too late for them. Jesus said it would be better to gouge out your eye or cut off your hand in this life than to enter eternity without Him. If either of those would somehow keep you from trusting in Him in this life. Because God is summing up all things in Christ. To the praise of His glory. All things in Christ. And if you are in Christ in the here and now, then you are good to go!
Because In Christ, Paul says, we have obtained an inheritance. An inheritance. We become heirs of God. Literally. Heirs are family, for one. But for God’s people, their inheritance was tied to their derekh, to those places where their feet had trodden. To their ways.
Joshua 14:9 “So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden will be an inheritance to you and to your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God fully.’”
Here’s the thing - when our derekhs, when our ways become God’s ways, when our paths intersect and merge with His, HE becomes the land on which our feet tread. He becomes our inheritance. That was always God’s plan for His people. That He would be their portion. Their refuge. Their rock. That He would be theirs, and they would be His. A people for His own possession. A people who walk in His ways. A people after His own heart. We think it would be nice to inherit some estate, valuable property. Oh no. More excellent, better by far to inherit Him.
1Peter 2:9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…
That’s what Paul is saying in verse 14 - the redemption of God’s possession - to the praise of His glory. God has chosen us, He has purchased us - with the blood of His Son. He gets us - because He wants us. And we get Him. The company of the redeemed. Those who have trusted in Christ, who are merging their heart and their ways with Him. God's adopted sons and daughters. His forever. With Him forever. In His presence… In His presence forever. Excellent!
And as part of His eternal plan, God has given us a way we can know for sure that we are in
Christ, that we have been saved and will one day be in His presence forever. A pledge, a
promise of our inheritance. And that is by the Holy Spirit He has given to us.
Paul says that when we believed we were sealed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise. A seal can indicate both identity (from the King) and security (i.e. "don’t open this"). It’s what Pilate did to Jesus’s tomb - put his seal on it. The Holy Spirit ID’s us as belonging to the King, and He locks us in as such. He is the pledge, He is the guarantee of our inheritance! The sure sign that we are in Christ and that we’ll be in His presence forever! And God promised this…
Isaiah 44.3-5
“‘For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants; and they will spring up among the grass like poplars by streams of water.’ This one will say, ‘I am the LORD’S’…”
John 7:37-39
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
We don’t get the full presence just yet. We’re not face to face with the shekinah glory just yet. For now, we get the partial presence. Christ in you, His Spirit, the hope of glory. We don’t see it all just yet. We don’t get a full frontal view just yet. Just the backside. But even the backside of God’s glory is way more than enough to crank up the work of transformation. It’s way more than enough to give us the power we need to love the Lord and one another and our city and the nations. Everything we need. Living water, streams in the desert, power to live a life that gives glimpses of how good God really is. And we are assured that what we have believed, we will receive. The Holy Spirit of promise in our hearts assures us that God’s promise is true, that one day we will see Him and be with Him forever. Our inheritance. Guaranteed. He will never leave us. No longer do we need to pray like David, “take not Your Holy Spirit from me.” This is a new covenant. A better promise.
John 14:16
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever…”
And this Helper is integral to the fulfillment of God’s plan, the ultimate praise of His glory. You listened, Paul says. To who? Witnesses. Those who first hoped in Christ, before you. Christ-followers who had also been sealed with the Spirit of promise. When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will receive what? To be My what? You are going to tell others what you know about Me. God’s Spirit is given not only as a guarantee of our inheritance but as a catalyst to the spread of the Good News. A catalyst. The necessary power for the spread of God’s blessings. To our neighbors, our city. To those not like us. To those who maybe don’t like us. To the ends of the earth. To all the families of the earth. To the praise of His glory. God has blessed His people with His Spirit - so that we can know - and so that we can tell what we know...!
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