Accepted In The Beloved
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
1/12/2014 PM
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Text:
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Ephesians 1:6
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Psalters: |
397, 428, 187, 277 |
Confession of Faith |
- The wonder.
- ?Accepted? is to make graceful, charming, lovely, agreeable, highly favored (cf. Luke 1:28).
- ?In the Beloved.?
- Every blessing the elect enjoy is always in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
- This is a name God gave to Him, viz., Jesus is God?s Beloved (John 3:17; Matt. 17:5; Luke 20:13).
- No term expresses so perfectly and so completely the relationship between God and Jesus as ?Beloved.?
- Our acceptance in the Beloved expresses the measure the Father?s love toward us.
- To know correctly God?s love, then we must grasp the truth about this Person.
- And we know something of the Beloved?s love for us.
- Put this altogether to learn of the Father?s relationship to you.
- You are loved by God even as He loved His Beloved Son (John 17:23b)!!
- That this is the relationship is made clear in that God gives us the same name in Col. 3:12 and II Thess. 2:13: ?beloved.?
- We have been chosen to be holy and to adoption and are accepted in the Beloved so we might praise the glory of God?s grace.
- Does our profession of the Christian faith reveal itself in our praising God?s grace?
- Salvation is a revelation of the glory of God: ?the praise of His glory as it is manifested in and through His grace.?
- ?Glory? speaks of beauty, majesty, splendor, with the idea of greatness, mighty and eternity. Resplendent radiance.
- The gospel is the proclamation of the glory of God (II Cor. 4:6).
- This teaches us how we should be thinking of our salvation: it fills us with wonder, praise, and amazement.
- The chief end of man is to glorify God, which makes the seriousness of sin to be that it does not give God the glory due.
- God?s work of redemption reveals the riches of the glory of His wisdom (18) and grace.