Praise to the Father for our Position in Christ - part 2
Ephesians 1:5-6 · Randy Peterman · Feb 4, 2018
Ephesians (2018-19), No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026163845321

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

What I was thinking about as I was looking at Ephesians 1, 3 through 14, is that there's a lot of ends, and there's a lot of relationships with those ends, and so I wanted to visualize that. So you'll forgive me for the nerdery that is this mind map, but it seemed like An interesting way. So you get the dark lines are the main connections that kind of triangle into each other. And then there's the lighter gray arrows. So I'm going to go ahead and read all the way through this. And we're going to focus on verses 5 through 6 today. But I'm going to read through Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. And see if you can follow along on the mind map and see how many times Paul intersects those ideas.

So he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. 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 predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us and the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on earth. In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. to the end that we who are the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as the pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."

And you will probably identify there were some pieces that were not arrowed together that could have been, and a few pieces that were even missing, because it was like, man, I can't figure out how to fit all of this into one diagram. So forgive me for my murdery and use of software, but I think it's worth it to kind of call out the interrelationships that are in this long run-on sentence that we're slowly chewing through.

So Paul's introduction in this letter written to the church in Ephesus introduces us to ideas and themes, one doctrine after another. And this was kind of the idea of how do we intersect those doctrines. These doctrines interweave the persons of the Trinity and their relationship with individuals and the bride, the church. So when Roger was doing the introduction, I thought what was a valuable piece that I think, well a lot of it was valuable, I should be careful when I say that, right? One of the things that was valuable in that piece was that there is a repeated idea of being in Christ and to the praise of his glory, and tying to the praise of his glory three times into the three parts of the Trinity. And so there's this interrelationship with the Trinity and our interaction with them that is emphasized here in 1 Corinthians.

But there's another thing that we're going to see, and we'll go into this deeper in a little bit, there's another thing we're going to see throughout Ephesians, and that is that there is a resolution to the problem of the one and the many. Does anybody know what the problem of the one and the many is?

This is a bit of Greek philosophy. It's even political, but not in a way that's going to be upsetting. So the problem of the one in the many is this. When the Greeks were dealing with politics, they had to figure out, do we make laws based on one person and their actions, or do we make laws based on how we deal with the many. And I'm going to bring up something that is a little bit more present and modern. When you hear people talking about gun rights, do you make laws based on the idea that we're going to stop the one person who might be using the gun incorrectly, or do we have the liberty for the expanse of the citizens?

That's probably a very practical, modern example of the one and the many. But as believers in Christ, we are all one in Him. But we are the bride, we're the many, we're the church. And so the problem of the one and the many is resolved in Christ because our new federal head is the one that makes us righteous.

So I know that's a little technical and a little rabbit trail-y sounding, but here as we go through Ephesians, look for the places where Paul is talking about the many, where he's talking about the church, the bride, and the places where he's talking about us as individuals. So as we go through this in verses five and six, keep that in mind. But then when we get after or past five and six, even though Roger last week taught on past five and six, as we go through this, keep an eye on that. Keep that in mind. What's the bride? What's the many?

And then what's for us as individuals? skip down here in love oh man my in love header on my printer didn't work properly so do you see in love it's very faint oh there it is okay it's there okay mine on my printer came out really faint and i thought oh shoot so let's let's dig into the text there so in love how many of you have in love in verse four okay you'll notice in your in your english translation that There are sometimes places, like here in verses 4 and 5, and then in other places later on in this very same section, where it sounds like maybe there's some kind of problem where these things are delineated wrong, but I'm going to tell you something very comforting. And that is that The verse markers that we've put in are modern and arbitrary, and the verse markers that came in with the common usage are not necessarily reflective of where the thought demarcations are.

So we see, in love, that's the very end of verse 4, and it's totally okay. I'm going to suck that into verse 5, and we won't be heretical or changing the Bible. So, building on God's blessing and making us holy and blameless, Paul then expands on these ideas with the manifestations of God's love. So, when we saw in verse 4 that we would be holy and blameless before him, we were in Christ, we were declared holy and blameless, and then in love, the next thought here is this expression of God's love, that we are predestined to adoption. Alright, so Bob went over being chosen before. Remember what do we say about chosen? Let's see if we can remember that. We had some snow. We had a snow day. It's been a couple of weeks.

What do we say about being chosen? Does anybody remember? Okay, we are chosen. Does chosen mean the idea that is sometimes taught in some churches that those people who are not chosen in Christ are chosen to go to hell? Is that what the Bible seems to be saying? Instead, what is the chosen tied to? It's chosen in Christ, right? So if you're in Christ, you're chosen. And the same principle here, he predestined, that's in love he predestined us. Well, if we are in his love, we're predestined to this outcome.

And so we're not trying to do a bunch of gymnastics to try to avoid saying God made somebody go to hell. It's simply expositing what's in the text here. And that's really important to call out because we don't want to say what Paul didn't say. Right. Also, you know, God's very straightforward. He says he's not willing that any should perish. All should come to be. So there's just a ton of verses out there that talk about his focus and it's never to never to send one to hell. That's the last resort. But we want to emphasize that to make sure that we have a deeper understanding of what's going on.

The question that I've got here is, how does love being from God impact our understanding of the following passage? When I say the following passage, let's take a look at Romans 8, 38, and 39. Some of you know that this is one of my near and dear favorite passages, just like pretty much most of the New Testament. If you get there, go ahead and read it out loud, Romans 8, 38, and 39.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Alright, so in Christ we're in love, okay? Why did I cross-reference Romans from Ephesians here?

Why do these things matter? Some people get too stuck up on predestination to the point where it becomes ridiculous. Well, that is a blunt way to say it. I can't disagree with that. I think it's important to recognize that this is in love. And when we look at the Romans passage, in love, God's character creates a system that we cannot be separated from.

An operating system of grace in Christ that we cannot be separated from him anymore. Adam was innocent, right? And then he fell. And he was separated from God. But God has created for us in the New Testament a system once we're identified with Christ to where we cannot be separated any longer. That means that the new life that we have in Him is guaranteed and secure.

And so the emphasis is on the in love part in Ephesians, not on the Calvinistic predestination that people get hung up on so often. I don't know why... I'll be careful, I'm going to not say that. He says, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself If you've been at Holly Hills for any period of time, one of the things that you will note is that when we get to the topic of adoption, there's a lot of things that are cultural to the Romans that are not obvious to us in modern day America. How many of you know somebody who's adopted? I think most people tend to know somebody who's adopted.

We have friends who adopted three daughters from China. I know somebody in Nevada who was adopted and he looks so much like his adoptive parents that you forget that he's adopted. It's one of those things. It's a blessing. I have some friends in Michigan that adopted people. We have other friends adopting people. My brother-in-law and sister are adopting three kids. Adoption is common today but it means something different in the United States than it did in Rome 2,000 years ago. In Rome, adoption matters tremendously. You know what I did? I skipped forward a whole section. Let's pause, hold this thought on adoption, because I skipped forward, which would be really, we'd be remiss to do that.

So when we talked about predestination, I wanted to say that we need to believe and understand sovereignty. Even though God is still sovereign, even though we're not saying he predestined people to go to hell, we're not trying to downplay God's sovereignty.

God is sovereign. His will is exerted and shown. We've talked about that already in this class a few times. It's been a common theme in the main service. And why is it important for us that we believe in God's sovereignty? If he doesn't hold anything together, it's all worthless. Yeah, the value of the Scriptures definitely declines to being worthless if he is not sovereign. He's holding things together, he has a plan, and he's moving things forward. The beauty of God's sovereignty is that it does not negate the personality and personhood of each individual believer.

God doesn't violate our personhood. That's why he can hold us accountable. That's why when we go through 1 Corinthians 3 and he says God's going to burn away all of the stuff that isn't the gems. Is that God's stuff or our stuff that's getting burned away? He's still sovereign. God's sovereignty is there.

But he also allows for our accountability, which is obviously some tension and it becomes a place where theologians have probably wasted more trees than I know what to do with trying to tackle. They write in books and they all have their own special angles on it. But if we take a look at what's here, we see a sovereign God has predestined us to adoption in Christ. Alright, so now we can go to adoption.

I just want to make sure we cover that because it's important to say I'm not downplaying God's sovereignty. So Paul writes about adoption in the New Testament two places or two audiences that have a strong Roman presence. Romans 8.15 and 23, Romans 9.4, Galatians 4.5 and Ephesians 1.5 are all places that Paul writes about adoption. But if you look at where each one of those three audiences are, they're places where there is a strong Roman colony. And the reason why he writes to places where there's a strong Roman colony is that while there is an observance for adoption in the Old Testament that the Jews would still understand there's adoption, it doesn't mean the same thing culturally.

Moses is famously adopted. Esther was adopted. But the law's allowance for adoption is not particularly significant. But the Roman allowance for adoption is very significant. How many of you have seen Ben-Hur? People don't watch Ben-Hur as much anymore, I think. Ben-Hur is a fictional situation where adoption takes place. But there's some key things that happen. Adopted children were first in line for inheritance over biological children. So if I adopted, in Rome, if I adopted another child, even though Abby could be oldest, in our family, the adopted child would carry preeminence.

This isn't on the paper here, but the other thing is that in Roman culture, a father could kill their child at any time in their life without legal consequence. That's pretty gnarly by today's standards, right? Even at my children's worst, I've never thought, well I wish they would die or something like that, right? I wonder if that kept children well-behaved. One would think obedience would be a little bit, well you could enforce it in different ways, right?

But you could not do that. to an adopted child. You could not kill an adopted child. You'd given them a special place that made that not possible. Prior parents' legal relationship was severed. So let's say that that person you adopted had parents and they knew them. If you adopted them, their legal relationship with those parents that you can say, oh, those are my biological parents, but that you're separated legally. You don't have their inheritance, you don't have their name or anything else. You are moved over, completely legally separated.

The old life was considered gone and a new citizen with a new life was created in the records. That's important. Somewhat clear if you're a history buff is Augustus Caesar had an initial different name, Octavian. That's how that chain switched out. It was never put on any statue or anything. It was always Augustus. That's two points away from where I'm at, but yes. All debts were canceled. That's pretty significant.

So Ben-Hur in his fictional story was adopted and he was a slave at some point in time and he became adopted in all of his debts and everything else. Slavery was linked to debt initially. American culture has changed our definition of the way we look at slavery but historically the records indicate that slavery was tied to debt that you couldn't pay. So in this case that was what was going on. So adoption was pretty significant.

So when you read this here in Ephesians, he says that we're predestined to be, or he predestined us to adoption as sons. What's the unique thing about what we just talked about in the singular versus what's here? Sons is plural. When we said we wanted to pay attention to what's the singular and what's the plural in the church, what we find here is that the sons is plural. We have a collective inheritance. Normally with this adoption, with the legal situation, you're talking about one adoption, with one child becoming the preeminent recipient of inheritance. Paul breaks the mold, if you will, by saying we are sons adopted in the plural. So it's a significant variation in that regard. But the adoption came through whom? Through Jesus Christ. So what are the elements of identification that are required for adoption? What are the five elements of identification? We were crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended. Those are our five elements of identification.

The work on the cross made for a new relationship established in identification. Newness of life and type in Christ. If we looked at Romans 5, we see the old life in Adam versus the new life in Christ. How does that tie in? Does this help tie in for you why Paul would use the illustration of adoption? Because let's look back at these things.

Adopted were first line in inheritance over biological children. That would mean, and this is going to be upsetting for the Jews, that would mean that those who were in Christ were ahead of the Jews. The church gets a special place over Israel. A full heir that could not have their position reversed.

We just read that Romans 8.38.39 passage. Their prior parents' legal relationship was severed. We're dead to Adam.

And the old life was considered gone and a new citizen with a new life was created. We have a new life in Christ. Do you see how these ideas build on one another? But if we just look at adoption and we think, oh, I know somebody who was adopted. We miss the richness of what Paul was trying to communicate here. And we've been reconciled. Any debt that we had to God, which our sin was a tremendous debt, right? We've been redeemed. That's paid. That's taken care of. We're made complete and acceptable sons through adoption.

So he continues on, according to the kind intention of his will. There's no alternative way to describe God's character and his care for us. He is loving and he is kind. So in love was the beginning, verse 5. Then he closes verse 5 with, according to his kind intention.

So what's the difference between loving and kind? Any working definitions? Kind doesn't seem as strong as love off the top of my head, just from our usage. And that's one of the things that I kind of consider, is like, oh, well, in kindness, I tend to think of love as relational, and I tend to think of kind as expressive of other sorts of affection.

If someone comes to you and gives you a gift, I think of that as kindness. But a stranger can give you a gift. But love is an expression that's deeper. But they come together in a complementary way. So we find here, according to the kind intentions of his will, it fits with the character of God. It fits inside of the overarching expression of his love.

In the next section there he says, to the praise of the glory of his grace. And this is one of those verses, verse six changed my sense of indebtedness to God and my sense of how sin worked in the life of the believer in a way that I hope that I can pass on to you today and maybe your whole life after this moment or this lesson will be positively improved. Let's take a look at this and make sure I'm not overselling it. So what's our definition of grace at Holly Hills?

We've got to cover it. You know we've got to say it. Who knows it? Do you know it happening off the top of your head? Come on. No, I'm not going to say it. So grace is the unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. We get this definition as a compilation of a few passages that talk about grace. Grace is unmerited and unlimited. And if we looked at Ephesians 4, 7, and 8, which we will, but not this morning. You'll have to just trust me and go read it this week. we find that it's an unlimited gift.

In Romans 5.15, where Christ's gift of grace is infinite, and it is a gift. Grace is a blessing. It is the classical definition of the word charis. The Romans would write the beginning and the ends of their letters, and Paul does the same, where he says, grace to you. It means blessing. But it's unmerited and an unlimited blessing due to the work of Christ on the cross.

Let's just vary. We will reach over to Ephesians 4, 7, and 8. But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. What's the measure of Christ's gift? If we got out a ruler or a weight and scale, how big would Christ's gift be?

It's infinite. It's infinite. And that's the key thing here. Why do we say it's unlimited and unmerited? It's infinite. It's a gift. I didn't merit it. And it's infinite, like the measure of Christ's gift. You have the infinite God of the universe, or the Son, part of the infinite God of the universe, the Son, offers his whole life and gives the whole thing. So grace is the unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. And we want to emphasize that because what we're about to say is really, really, really important. Paul says, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

When is God's grace poured out? When we believe in Christ. when we believe in Christ, and then does it stop being poured out? So in your life, Tom, go ahead. On into eternity. In your life, grace is poured out every moment of every day on into eternity. And what does this say happens when His grace is poured out? God's praised. So what does Satan say happens when you sin?

What does he accuse you of? Anything and everything he can. That's right. And he wants you to feel what? Does he want you to feel that you have been declared righteous? Does he want you to feel that you are in Christ, unseparated? Or does he want you to feel guilty? and he wants you to feel separated from God and he wants you to think I will do better in the flesh next time.

But what did God do to Satan's system that happened after Adam fell? Where we would feel guilty and feel terrible in the flesh. What did God do to it with Christ on the cross? He took Satan's system that said every time I sin I just build debt Right? I owe God something I could never repay Him. My righteousness is filthy rags. And instead, grace is poured out, even when you sin. And when grace is poured out, what happens? God is praised. The praise of the glory of His grace.

So when I look back, and I look at all the mistakes I made, and I feel guilt, does that reflect what Paul understands about my life. It does not. If I look at what Paul is saying here, it means every time I thought, oh no, I sinned, God made a system in Jesus Christ that He was still glorified. It doesn't mean our sin glorified God. I'm not saying that. Please don't walk away here thinking like Paul refutes in Romans 6. Oh, if I sin more, grace abounds. I'm not saying sin more.

But when you stop looking at your sin as a burden, when you stop looking at your sin as the thing you owe God for, when you stop looking at your sin as anything but in light of something God has dealt with, then you can see here, as Paul exclaims in this exciting run-on sentence, that God is praised and He's glorified. And the guilt has no footing. And so the shame that I felt in my life went away. The burden went away because I finally understood how rich grace was and how it changed God's perspective of me and it should change my perspective of me. I could stop beating myself up. And I was really good at it. I was good at beating myself up. I had a skill set I had to throw away.

But I want to emphasize this because When grace is poured out, and that's every time, God is glorified. That means that no matter what step you take in the next day of your life, barring the rapture or the Lord taking us home one way or another, God is glorified.

And so we can stop feeling the guilt and the shame and we can actually focus on our relationship with Him. And that's what he wants, right? Isn't that what God created Adam and had a relationship with him? Adam fell, it severed the relationship. And God restored the relationship in such a way that we don't take credit, but we can focus on the relationship.

Is that revolutionary to anybody else or have you already heard that before? But for me when I first heard it, it was revolutionary. Randy, you could also say that, kind of amplifying that, that when we stop focusing on ourselves and focus on Christ, that unlocks that situation.

Otherwise, if we keep focusing on ourselves, we're always going to find areas where we we have sinned. Because we're looking at the wrong place. We recognize doctrinally that we can focus on the relationship because we don't have to focus on ourselves. But Satan in the flesh always wants us to be looking at ourselves.

How can I do self-improvement? The anti-sinning strategy. And the thing is that I often find with self-improvement stuff where it's really encouraging, right? Joel Osteen, your best self, or whatever it is that he talks about. I know people who love him. They think he's the best because he keeps talking about how they can make themselves better.

I'm like, but if you rest in who Christ made you, you know you can't make you better. So anyways... And actually that's a wonderful day when you realize you can't make yourself better. What a relief that is, right? So the really, really big doctrinal implication on this, I'm at the top of page four, is that what Satan had meant for condemnation, humanity's sin, has been turned by God into something that in Christ has only brought glory to himself. We don't worry, we don't fret, we don't try to earn God's love, but instead we rest in his work on our behalf and grow in our knowledge of that very grace, as Peter wrote in the close of his second letter. Because God took away the eternal consequences of the fall and gave us newness of life. And then he said, just in case that wasn't enough, Then Paul writes about the grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. So what does it mean for God's grace to be freely bestowed on us?

How many other things do you have in your life that are freely bestowed on you? I'm a taxpayer. I get taxes taken out. I get roads. I have civil servants. Aaron is going to make his way into part of that. And so there's lots of things that we do as citizens, but they're not freely bestowed on us, right? The system has to pay for itself. Only God can create something that involves being freely bestowed on us. Completely and utterly free.

In the New Testament our relationship is sealed in Christ and we find here in Ephesians 1.13, if we look a few verses down, that we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. And this should cause us to understand that being blessed or favored is just how God expresses his love to us. That's his character, his love, his kindness. He pours those things out freely bestowing upon us this grace.

And then Paul says something, he says, in the Beloved. And how many of you have Beloved capitalized in your Bibles? So I've heard the Beloved before identified as the Church Bride. the Church, the Bride. Mine is capitalized in my Bible, so I spent some time looking at that and looking at the way Paul has structured the text, and I think it is a good argument that in the Beloved means in Christ. So capital B for Beloved is probably worth it there. If you hold a different position and you say that's the church, I won't fault you for that because you're only in the church if you're in Christ. So either way you take that, I think there's some merit to it being in Christ.

Let's take a look at Colossians 1, 13 and 14 just to make sure. that passage. So let's take a look over there. Colossians 1 13 and 14. For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.

So I think that's a cross-reference. And Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians at about the same time. They're kind of part of a family of letters. And so I think there's some good argument that that's what he means is it's in Christ. So we're in the Beloved. which for us should remind us of the marriage relationship. We're going to look at Ephesians 5 and we're going to see the marriage relationship coming up if the Lord tarries. I'll be honest with you, if the Lord raptures us away, I'm okay with that. We won't get to Ephesians 5 except in a very literal way and that's okay with me. As we study and move forward, you'll notice there are terms and relationships that Paul continues to bring forth, this idea of being the bride and being the family.

So when we think about our identification, is it singular or plural? Is our identification singular or plural? I'm hoping somebody calls me out on that being a trick question. It's not singular or plural, it's singular and plural. Our identification is individual, but it becomes corporate by virtue of the fact that we are all suddenly corporately the bride of Christ. We are all corporately, plural, identified with Him.

So as believers in the Beloved, there is a one another kind of relationship that is also manifested through our relationship in Christ. I can fellowship with you Tom deeply because we're brothers in Christ. So there's a one individual relationship that you have with Christ and an individual relationship I have with Christ. But when the potluck comes down I hope we're eating and I might get to sit next to you and we'll have some fellowship. We'll have some one another. That goes for everybody but I don't know if we can fit all of us at the table with kids and everything. But the idea is that there's this in the beloved stuff that includes being chosen and adopted and inherited and identified together in Christ.

We build each other up in Christ. So this is another theme that we find in Ephesians, where we're going to see twice that he covers the building up of the body inside of the way God structured the church. We learn about God's love in Christ together. In chapter 3, we need one another. I can't learn about love without you, to the fullness that he has expressed himself. And we will complete one another, or we will come together and he will use us to complete one another in him. And we are the bride, loved by Christ together, is Ephesians chapter 5. Everybody remembers the last third of Ephesians chapter 5. The first two thirds are still awesome. There's this idea of the bride.

And then we stand together, the one and the many, as a unit, a military unit in chapter 6. So our identification is individual and it's corporate. And when we look through the rest of Ephesians, I hope you see that and it jumps out of the pages at you. So in conclusion, there are elements of our faith that are individual and other elements that are body related.

Here in this passage we see a combination of those things and we're individually adopted and collectively in the beloved. We're adopted as sons. Individually, you're adopted, you're adopted, you're adopted. And we're collectively in the beloved. We're liberated all to a full life in Christ and the rich blessings of grace and yet collectively we are to seek each other's growth. That's important.

You have grace, you have liberty, and you should help shore each other up in the Spirit, as Galatians 6.1 says.

And then also Ephesians 4.11-12. And then looking to the part of God's manifestation of blessing one to another. This is not a call to works, but a call to abiding, that nothing may hinder us from expressing the very love of God, each one to another. and just because it's there turn to Ephesians 3 17-19 which I will tell you when we co-taught Ephesians years ago I got to teach and it was something that changed again my perspective on the world around me so Ephesians 3 17-19 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts plural through faith and that you plural being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

And I don't know who's teaching that, I don't know if the schedule is scheduled out that far, but I'll tell you, I wouldn't object to teaching that a second time. But this is a rich passage as we take a look at what's happening here in this Paul's run-on sentence ties all these doctrines together. And we're blessed richly and deeply.

And I'm excited that it's together. Any other thoughts before we close in prayer? I think I may have set a record for how fast I taught a class. Normally I'm just a windbag. Randy, back to the Beloved at the end of verse 6. Actually, I want that kind of a rampant trail there.

And this is kind of maybe where folks have taken that to be collectively the body. What's wonderful is because we're in Christ, later on, John will call us the Beloved. And actually, if you go through 1 John, one of the many verses is Beloved, let us love one another. We're going to sing that this morning. So that's why some folks I think have kind of jumped on, well beloved must mean the body. Well, it means both.

Because we're in Christ, we're identified with him, he calls us a beloved, which is even more wonderful. He's a beloved, and he calls us a beloved. It's mind-boggling. That's why I said, I don't care which way you take it, because it really ties into the same thing. But yeah, John calls us the Beloved, and I thought that's a very special... Right, it is a very special word for a wonderful relationship. Yeah, and I think it's... When I was meditating on this, since we have a few more moments, I'll say this.

There's a certain part to our culture and the way we use terms of endearment that the term beloved has kind of died out. We don't use it the same way that I would argue that maybe we could. Maybe in Christian households we should use that more often, I don't know.

But I won't judge you if you don't call each other beloved. We are in February so at least try, right? It's Valentine's Day month, right? No, but we're in the beloved and whether that's meaning just directly in Christ or if we're in the body because we're directly in Christ, either way. It's a special term of endearment that means maybe more. We should consider that. Any other thoughts? Anybody glad that they don't live in the Roman time for adoption? That's pretty substantial. All right, let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your provision for us, that we are, through your love, adopted, predestined to be adopted. And through your love, we are in Christ, and your grace is poured out, and you are glorified, and we are in the beloved. We ask that you would focus our hearts on these things, and we lift up all the prayer requests to you as well. We just thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.