The Glory That Makes The Church as GLORIOUS As GOD Himself

Now, if that’s true, then we have to say we cannot fathom the riches of His grace. Is that correct? And if that is true, we cannot fathom the riches of His glory, and we cannot fathom the riches of the glory of His grace. Nonetheless, Jesus Christ said, “The glory that my Father has, He has given to me, and the glory which He has given me, I give to you.” Let’s say, Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. These are things I can state to you, but do not come up to me after the meeting and quiz me on them. I am telling you what I know. Sometimes it is not good to tell everything you know. You need to hold some things in reserve. I am telling you everything I know about God’s status before you came along.

I just want you to look at Him. I want you to see light. I want you to see love. I want you to see glory. I want you to see grace. I want you to see Christ. I want you to see God in Christ and Christ in God. I want you to see the exchange of love. But if there’s anything that I would want for you to see right now, it would be that you see how incredible, how surpassing, how unfathomable the riches of His grace and glory are. He counseled Himself and decided to do some things, and what He counseled Himself to do, what He did, was His eternal purpose. A lot of things happened according to…According to…this was according to, and that was according to. This happened according to, and this happened because He did this so that it might end up being…In other words, He speaks of “toward the end.” Toward the end. Toward the end, and the end is according to His will, which is His eternal purpose.

Now then, if you didn’t understand what I said, I sure wouldn’t be too concerned about it, but this I would have you know: He took action on the counsel of His will, and He was 100% in accord with the counsel of His will. He determined that He would do these things toward the end of His eternal purpose, and what is His eternal purpose? Everything we’re going to talk about is part of His eternal purpose. If I had to sum it up in one sentence…I think I would try…But I don’t think I’ll do that this week. We’ll take that some other time.

All right now, brothers and sisters, let us introduce you in your first state. Are you ready? Ephesians 1:4 – Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him, in love He predetermined, predestined us to the adoption of sons through Christ Jesus to Himself according to… Oh my goodness, I left it out. There was something else in God before we came along: kindness. His eternal purpose is, of course, His purpose; that is His intent, and its kind. I don’t know if this helps you any or not, but have you ever been kind of scared at what God’s doing? Of course you have. It is nice to know that God is kind. I’ve often asked, Who do you like better, Jesus Christ or God? And everybody votes for Jesus Christ. You’re afraid of what He’s… Well, I’m certainly in awe of it. I don’t know if I’m afraid of it or not. Personally.

Well, I can only encourage you in this, brother, and don’t ask me to say anything negative here, but He said it was kind. It was out of His kindness. Okay. I’ll start over again. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, which was according to the kind intention of His will. So, when His will said, “Let’s do this, this is what I’m giving you advice about,” it was kind, and now Paul breaks out into that first anthem. He is awed by verse 3. He is awed by verse 4. He is awed by verse 5. He is awed by all of that, and now he breaks out in rapture. I’ve been predestined, adopted, before the foundation of the world, chosen in Him, spiritual blessings, heavenly places in Christ, and he breaks out into praise. To the praise of the glory of His grace. To the praise of the glory of His grace. This is not a praise to God’s great grace. This is praise to the glory of that grace which He has given to us in the Beloved.

Now then, verse 11: Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will. Let me see if I can illustrate this. God got up to leave the room after having been counseled by His own will, and He walked out with a blueprint. He looked at His blueprint, and He said, “This is my purpose. This is what my will has counseled me, and what I have done in verses 3, 4, 5, and 6 has been according to my purpose.” The purpose is greater than verses 3, 4, 5, and 6, but they are part of my purpose, and I have here the blueprint of my own will. Now then, brothers and sisters, verse 12 says something else. Verse 12 jumps over your second state, jumps over your first state, jumps over your third state, and if you have a fourth estate, he jumps over that and comes to an end. To the end. Now, would somebody just kindly tell me what the end is? Go ahead and read it. Now, tell me what it is.

Man, this is a quiet bunch of people. You’re not…come on, brother, do it. Say it. “That to the end that we shall ourselves become praise.” To the end, we ourselves shall be praised. We shall be the praise of the glory, of His glory. Well, I don’t know exactly what that means, but it makes me want to say Praise God. To the end, whatever there is out there that’s an end, it is to the praise of His glory, and we shall be the praise of His glory. I wish I understood that. I wish I could stand right here and explain it to you, but I cannot.

Alright, let’s see what else we have here that has to do… By the way, that is verse 11, and it has a matching verse, which is 2:7, which says, “in the age to come.” Now, I want to come to chapter 2, verse 10. Here are some more of His activities: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Now, I just want you to understand one other thing, and that is that in the time that He was doing what we’re about to discuss here, He made preparations, and His predestining of things, He made some preparations for you and me in the future. We’ll not discuss what those are yet. That will have to be some other time.

I want to talk to all five of these three empty chairs here. (laughter) If you’ve ever heard this passage dealt with, and you probably haven’t, but if you ever have, you will always hear that God chose you before the foundation of the ages. You’ve got to come back to the fact that this letter is written to a body of believers in a city. We have seen the status of God before He does anything, and in some way, He is impelled and compelled by His glory and the riches of His grace to find expression, and now He’s going to make sure that expression comes to bear.

Brothers and sisters, I have no tongue to explain these things to you, but I do want you to listen to me. I have no tongue but listen to what I can say. Here is God before eternity. Here’s Christ in God and God in Christ, and here’s riches. Here are riches and glory and grace, and here are simply riches. Here’s simply glory, and here’s simply grace. And here’s the Son. We have now come to your first state. He establishes your state forever. God the Father says to His Son, “According to the dictates and the counsel of my will, I wish to give you an inheritance. That’s according to my purpose. That’s part of working out my purpose. I wish to give you an inheritance. You’re going to have an inheritance, but I also want your inheritance to also inherit.” So, Christ is going to inherit, and the inheritance is going to inherit, and if that sounds strange to you, let me tell you, brothers and sisters, that is a pattern in God that never breaks. There is always an exchange. God glorifying His Son, the Son glorifying His Father. It is not surprising that the inheritance God gives His Son also has an inheritance. It’s not a surprise to any of us.

Now He says, “My Son, I am calling you. I call you now. This is your calling.” There is no Abraham. There is no Isaac. There is no Jacob. The first calling that ever was was the Father calling His Son. “I call you forth now to your inheritance.” He also made a promise; He promised that His power would back up everything He said. This was also in accordance with His purpose.

Now He says to His Son, “Here is the inheritance you will have.” The Father plunges into Jesus Christ, and He begins to create destiny. That’s not created, but something called destiny comes into being. The Father is deep inside of Jesus Christ. In fact, He is at the very core and center of Jesus Christ. And He takes a little bit of Jesus and makes a mark. He says, “I mark this off.” What is He marking off? He’s marking off part of Himself. A piece of Christ.