The reality of God’s affection for his children is truly unfathomable. Before all of creation was ever put into place or was even a thought, God set his sight on our souls. For all of eternity, he purposed to love us and will do so for eternity to come. The very Creator and God of the universe saw us dead in our sins and brought us to life. He has done work within each of us that only he could do. In this video, David Platt explains how God himself rescues our souls, and we have done nothing to obtain this miraculous work.
- Salvation in Passive Terms
- God Chose You
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I have learned to speak of my conversion to Christ in passive terms, meaning I did not convert myself to Christ. I couldn’t. I was dead. I was in the casket. I was in darkness. I was under wrath. And I wanted to be there, captivated by sinful desire. I did not convert myself to Christ. I was converted. God did a work in me that I could not do on my own. That’s the whole point of Ephesians Chapter One, Verse Three. Listen to this.
God Set His Sight On Your Soul
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He…” So He’s doing all the action here. “He predestined us for adoption of the sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed 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 upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in Heaven and things on Earth.”
“In Him, we have obtained, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him and works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in Him were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.”
Ah. Praise God. Now, do you see what He has done? The whole Trinity is involved in this picture. If you’re taking notes, follow this. So what we once were, all these things, dead in sin, doomed to Hell, what did God do? The Father planned our salvation. So He chose us. He predestined us. He’s given it to us. And I want to be clear, brothers and sisters. I can’t explain these words. I don’t wholly understand these words. I can’t fathom all they mean, but the reality Scripture teachings here is that God has set His affections on you and me as His sons and daughters.
God Chose You
That’s what Jesus said to His disciples in John 15. “You did not choose me. I chose you.” Paul says in Second Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14, “We always ought to thank God because from the beginning, God chose you to be safe to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. He called you to this through our gospel that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Think about this. I’m guessing in this room right now there might be some people walking through some challenges, some difficulties, kind of at a low point, in a valley in some way.
And I just want to remind you this morning, those of you who are in Christ in a fresh way, I just want to remind you, especially that low point, just pause for a second. Let the words of Ephesians 1 just soak in. Before the sun was ever formed, before oceans were ever poured out on the land, before mountains were set in their place, before a star ever appeared in the sky, before any of that, God Almighty on high set His sight on your soul. He, from eternity past, purposed to love you.
Ah. Just be encouraged in a fresh way. The God of the universe, His love for you, He saw you in that casket, dead in sin, and He purposed to say, “Life.”
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
