Chosen, Redeemed, Sealed!

Chosen, Redeemed and Sealed

Ephesians 1:3-14

September 22, 2019

Have you ever thought about life in the sense of do-overs? People say hindsight is 20/20, and we would tend to agree . . . it’s always easy to look back and see what we should have or could have done. If you could do certain parts of life over, would you change some things? Would you change what job you took, or who you dated, where you lived, those hurtful words you said, that injury you sustained. Would you change any of that?

It’s one of the reason I think I like golf. In golf, if you’re playing for fun and with friends, we often give one another a mulligan. It means you get a do-over. It’s as if the first shot, which was lousy - - didn’t count.

I remember shooting baskets by myself, especially in the Michael Jordan era. I would shoot and pretend the game was coming to an end and we needed to make the winning basket. The ball always ended up in my hands and I would take the shot and we always, always won. Why did we win? Because if I missed the shot, there was a mysterious time out called by the coach, or I got fouled and got a do-over. Do - overs can be fun.

But, as we live life, we realize do - overs are not reality. We wish we could, but we can’t get redos. We can apologize for hurtful words, we can ask for forgiveness, we can try to do better in the future, but we can’t take back the past.

Well, we’ve been looking at Ephesians 1, and it’s a great chapter, filled with examples of God’s love and grace. Today, and for the next several weeks, we’re going to be looking at so many of the great promises from God to us in this letter from Paul, which he wrote while in prison in Rome.

To give a recap. We’ve seen from Paul the following great news!

God wants to bless us with every spiritual blessing.

We are chosen because we are loved.

We were chosen before the world was created.

We are not condemned.

God considers us - - HOLY and BLAMELESS.

Jesus shed His blood for us

We are forgiven

His grace is lavished upon us.

So, that’s where we’re at. I want to remind you that God chose you to be His. He loved choosing you and He wants you to intimately know Him. So, He doesn’t want a redo.

Maybe you feel that you weren’t always wanted or you question whether or not your spouse would marry you again, or would your boss rehire you.

Maybe you've wondered the same thing about your Christian life. "If God had to do it over, would He save me again?" Maybe you believe you have been such a disappointment to God that He would have been better off not to have saved you in the first place.

The message in Ephesians 1 is the exact opposite. Paul wants us to really believe God chose us, not because He had to, but because He wanted to.

You were part of His plan from the beginning, before there was a planet Earth.

Two times, Paul tells us God chose us. He wrote --

4 God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

11 In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined (CHOSEN) according to the purpose of His will,

I know I’m kind of repeating some of the past 2 weeks, but we need to believe this and know how important it is. Because without believing that God wants us and chose us, then we’re without hope, because then we really don’t believe God wants us. We may think we’re leftovers, but we’re not.

For some, probably most of us at one time or another, it's been a rough journey. There have been mistakes, disappointments and sins along the way, and we’ve all fallen short of God's glory more than we’d like to admit. We have lots of regrets and wish we had do-overs.

But God's love for you has never changed. From the beginning God knew what your life would be like. He knew you would be here this morning. There’s no surprises with God.

So, remember, God loves you, He chose you, He believes in you, He died for you and He forgives you!!

You belong to God, and that will never change.

Ephesians defines our relationship with God in permanent terms. Paul tells us in verse 5 --

In love 5 God predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will,