Did God Save Me to Call Attention to Himself?
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00:00:04.000 | Over and over in the Bible, it appears that God saves us in order to draw attention to himself.
00:00:13.000 | This is nowhere clearer than in the first chapter of Ephesians.
00:00:17.000 | There we are told that God predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.
00:00:24.000 | Why? To the praise of his glorious grace, verses 4-6.
00:00:29.000 | And again, just a little later, it says that God predestined us.
00:00:33.000 | Again, why? To the praise of his glory, verses 11-12.
00:00:37.000 | And then Paul even says our eternal security is sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit.
00:00:43.000 | Why? To the praise of his glory, verses 13-14.
00:00:48.000 | So why does God predestine us, save us, adopt us, and eternally secure us in order to draw attention to himself?
00:00:59.000 | Here's how Pastor John explained it in a 2010 sermon.
00:01:04.000 | You cannot, you cannot grasp, that is, you cannot experience consciously the love of God for you.
00:01:16.000 | You cannot, apart from omnipotent, divine, supernatural power enabling you to experience it.
00:01:25.000 | Here's a prayer from Ephesians. You don't need to look it up. Just listen carefully.
00:01:29.000 | Chapter 3, verse 18.
00:01:31.000 | "I pray," this is Paul now praying for the Ephesians in the way I pray for you, for myself, for my family.
00:01:38.000 | "I pray that you may have strength to know the love of Christ."
00:01:48.000 | You can't know it without power.
00:01:52.000 | Does that strike you as odd?
00:01:54.000 | You should give a lot of thought to that.
00:01:56.000 | Why can't I know what it is to be loved without divine power?
00:02:01.000 | I'll keep reading that prayer.
00:02:03.000 | "I pray that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
00:02:11.000 | and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge."
00:02:17.000 | The love of Christ, the love of God, surpasses the powers of the mind to comprehend and the powers of the human heart to experience.
00:02:30.000 | It surpasses our fallen capacities to handle with our brain and to experience with our heart.
00:02:39.000 | It goes beyond what you're able to do, which is why Paul is praying and why I pray for myself this way and for you this way.
00:02:51.000 | "May you have strength to comprehend the love of Christ."
00:02:57.000 | Soul strength, heart strength, mind strength.
00:03:02.000 | "May God give this to us now."
00:03:06.000 | Now, in this service.
00:03:10.000 | This is why Paul said in Romans 5 verse 5, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
00:03:25.000 | The love of God pours into you not by any human agency, by the Holy Spirit.
00:03:38.000 | It's a divine thing to know yourself loved by God.
00:03:43.000 | You're not able to on your own.
00:03:46.000 | Now, the question I posed last week was, "Why is it that the Bible reveals the love of God for us, including God's making so much of us?"
00:03:57.000 | Why is it that he reveals his love for us, his making so much of us in ways that constantly call attention to his own glory?
00:04:08.000 | Why does he do it that way?
00:04:11.000 | And the answer is this.
00:04:14.000 | If God didn't do it that way, if he didn't love us in a way that constantly called attention back to his glory as the source, as the essence, as the goal.
00:04:25.000 | If he didn't do it that way, we would be so much more likely to turn the love of God into a subtle means of self-exaltation.
00:04:36.000 | We would use his love to make ourselves the deepest foundation of our joy, instead of himself.
00:04:46.000 | God would become the servant of our slavery to self.
00:04:52.000 | We would take our preciousness to God and make that very preciousness to God our God.
00:05:03.000 | But I argued, God loves us so much.
00:05:08.000 | We are so precious to him that he will not let that happen.
00:05:15.000 | We are so precious to God that God in great mercy will not let our preciousness to him become our God.
00:05:26.000 | We will indeed, hear this carefully, we will indeed through all eternity enjoy being made much of by God.
00:05:39.000 | That will be a profound ingredient in our joy in God.
00:05:48.000 | That he makes so much of his sons and his daughters.
00:05:56.000 | But he will work in us such a holiness, such a sanctification, such a freedom from sin that he will protect us from making that the bottom of our joy.
00:06:15.000 | The bottom of our joy will always be that he's the kind of God who delights in us.
00:06:22.000 | The bottom of our joy will always be that he's the kind of God who makes much of the likes of me.
00:06:28.000 | This grace, this grace will be the apex of my joy, the apex of my praise forever.
00:06:35.000 | It will never terminate here, it will always go back there from him, through him and to him are all things.
00:06:43.000 | God himself will be the beginning, the middle and the end in his love for me.
00:06:50.000 | That is a profound consideration.
00:06:52.000 | That was from Pastor John's sermon from April 25th, 2010 titled "Consider Your Calling."
00:06:58.000 | Consider your calling.
00:07:00.000 | Find the whole message online at DesiringGod.org.
00:07:04.000 | And if you have a favorite sermon clip of Pastor John in a recent or an old message, send it to me.
00:07:09.000 | I'd love to see it.
00:07:10.000 | Give me the timestamp from the audio clip of when it begins and when it ends.
00:07:14.000 | Tell me why that clip has impacted you so much and then give me your name and the closest city to you.
00:07:20.000 | If I use your clip, I want to give you credit.
00:07:23.000 | And just email me all of that information at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:07:28.000 | That's the email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:07:33.000 | And if you would, put the word "clip" in the subject line somewhere and I'll find it.
00:07:37.000 | Easy enough. I'm always interested to hear which sermon clips have most impacted your life.
00:07:44.000 | Well, how important is extra-biblical texts to how we interpret the meaning of our Bibles?
00:07:51.000 | That seems to be the assumption behind the question that's up next time.
00:07:54.000 | Although, the actual question is one about why does the author of Hebrews belabor Christ's supremacy over angels?
00:08:03.000 | It's a specific question, but I think it gives a much broader topic that is very relevant to every Bible reader.
00:08:10.000 | You won't want to miss this one. I'm Tony Reinke and we'll see you on Friday.
00:08:13.000 | Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you then.
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