Chosen And Accepted In Christ

What if your identity wasn't based on your performance, your past, or your reputation, but rested on a verdict already spoken by the Father? He chose you, blessed you with every spiritual blessing, set you apart, planned your public adoption, and made you accepted in the Beloved.

We start by confronting a familiar myth that the Father is a distant scorekeeper while Jesus runs interference. Paul won't allow that. Grace precedes peace because the Father moves first. That's why the chapter opens and closes in worship. From there, we explore the phrase that anchors it all, "in Christ." It's not a slogan. It's a transfer from Adam's hiding to Jesus' welcome. Holiness becomes belonging before behavior. Blamelessness becomes a gift, not a performance. And "has blessed" shifts us from begging to receiving, from spiritual scarcity to resting in what's already ours.

We'll also look at the warmth behind weighty words like 'election' and 'predestination'. "Chosen before the foundation of the world" means love is older than your sin and steadier than your feelings. "Predestined for adoption" points to the day when the Father will publicly declare His delight over His children. If you've ever felt like the last pick, this is the reversal you've longed for: accepted in the Beloved, not merely tolerated, but brought into the center by grace.

Along the way, you'll hear stories, grounded theology, and practical ways to live from fullness rather than toward it.

If you're ready to quiet the inner critic and listen to the Father's voice instead, press play. Then share this with a friend who needs courage, subscribe for more grounded teaching, and leave a review telling us which truth you're choosing to live from this week.

Key Themes:

 • Grace before peace and a true view of the Father

 • All spiritual blessings already given in Christ

 • From Adam's hiding to Christ's belonging

 • Chosen before the foundation of the world

 • Holy as belonging, not behavior

 • Predestined for adoption and public honor

 • Accepted in the Beloved and secure identity

If you haven't trusted Him yet, today's your day to trust Him.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Saints And The True Source Of Identity
• 2:40 Grace Before Peace And The Heart Of The Father
• 6:00 Praise Break: Bless The Father For His Gifts
• 9:45 All Spiritual Blessings Already Given In Christ
• 13:20 From Adam To Christ: A New Belonging
• 17:10 Chosen Before The Foundation Of The World
• 21:00 Predestined For Adoption And Public Honor
• 26:00 Accepted In The Beloved: Belonging Secured
• 29:30 Live In What’s True: Trust And Worship

Transcript

Austin Gardner: 0:00

Good to be in the house of God with you. Amen? I am so excited I get to open the Bible with you to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Now listen up. You, we are not who they say we are. We are not who we say we are. Your identity is found not in what you've done, not in where you've been, not in what your work is, but in who the Lord God of heaven says you are. And when he writes Ephesians, he's writing to a church, a local church, a church just like Shady Grove. Just regular people. I mean, you're going to have some really good spiritual ones, and you're going to have some not so spiritual ones. He's writing to people that don't have problems and people that do have problems. And he says in Ephesians chapter 1, I want you to open your Bible, go with me there. He says in verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, we've already gone over this verse, but I want you to notice he's writing to the saints that are in Ephesus. Did you see that in your Bible? He's writing to a group of people in a certain place. He's not writing to church fathers whose statues are on the walls of a church. He's writing to regular church people. And he calls them saints and he calls them faithful. And if you go through, as you go through the book of Ephesians, you're going to find out they got problems. He's going to even talk to them about working. He's going to talk to them about not stealing. He's going to talk to them not about not getting angry. He's going to talk to them about how to work on their marriage problems. But he needs them to know who they are and who he's talking to. And here's the beautiful thing: this doesn't come from Paul. It comes from the Holy Spirit of God. Amen. Now I think I think everybody in this church agrees. We hold in our hands the very word of God. And he calls them saints. And then he calls them faithful. But I want you to notice a key that's going to be all through the book of Ephesians. And it's all through our Christian life. It says to the faithful in Christ Jesus. That's how we are faithful. That's how we're saints. We're not saints because of what we did. We're not saints because of what the church did. We're saints because of what God is doing, has done in us. And He put us in Christ. And in Christ, He made us those saints. Verse 2 says, Grace and peace, grace be to you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you never get peace without grace first. You see, real peace, peace with God, and the peace of God come because God does a work in your life. And so when he writes to that church, he says, he says, just like he was saying to shed grace. Hey, God sends his grace. God is good. God's pouring out his riches on you. And that brings peace. You see? Now I want you to check out something in verse 2 before we go. We get to the message in verse 3. But I want you to notice this. It's grace be to you and peace from God our Father. Now I need you to get clear about how much our Father loves us. God. Somehow we have turned God into a schizophrenic. We think God the Father is kind of rough and tough and a judge and got lightning bolts in his hands. He's about ready to kill us. And Jesus over here on the other side saying, hey, calm down, Dad. Don't kill him. I died for him. Don't kill him, I died for him. Well, that's not true at all. You see, when you see Jesus, you've seen the Father. And what I really love is because so many of us like to romanticize and normalize and make so pretty Jesus. It starts out here, Grace be to you, and grace to you and peace from God, our Father. And we've talked about that. Our Father, he's our father. He's our father. Now, I can't be a mother. Just goes against nature. And you know, when Betty had our children, I didn't feel a thing. Can I get an amen? It didn't hurt me. I didn't agonize. Fact is, she got mad at me. I was helping her breathe because I'm a good husband. And I had her hand my hands behind her back, and they had taught me how to do that breathing junk, all that. And I was supposed to coach her in that. And I was coaching her. I said, breathe, and she said, shut up. I said, come on, baby, breathe. You gotta breathe. And she tried to bite me like a dog. I'm not teasing. I don't know anything about being a mama. I know being a daddy, what y'all laughing at? Because you know she's that bad, don't you? But I would tell you something, being a daddy is a wonderful thing. And and and and and what the one of those greatest privileges a man never gets to have in his life. And here's what he says: he says, I'm your father. You know what fathers are, you know what dads are, you know how great it is for dads. And then from Jesus, and then from Jesus. But I want you to get with me to verse three. Now, I got so much here, we'll never get through it all, but I want you to notice this. Now, this is what I need you to look at and understand. We're here to worship. Hayward mentioned that earlier. We're here to worship God. And when he starts off Ephesians, he's fixing to tell us a whole bunch of wonderful things that he has done for us. Well, he's already done two things. He's already called us saints and he's already called us faithful. He's well, three things. He's already given us grace that brought peace in our life. But he's about to do a whole lot more, but I need you to notice this: blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us. I want you, that word blessed there, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that word blessed is worshiped, thanked, worthy of praise. Because I know me. I know my family that's here, and I pretty well know you, though I don't know you that intimately and that personally, but you are human beings. And so I kind of know what y'all are like. I know your type. I know about your lust and envy and anger and pride. And I know about how we mess up and how we're not what we're supposed to be. And I know that we even have doubtful voices screaming in our hearts, but God is about to do something, and Paul stops the chat. He's only in verse 3 and he said, Ho, ho, stop. Everybody start praising the Lord. Everybody start blessing God. Everybody starts saying, Thank you, God, for what you have done as our Father. Just for the sake of time, run down with me, if you would, down to verse six. And he ends the part we're going to look at today. In verse six, he ends it by saying this, to the praise of the glory of his grace. To the praise of the glory of his grace. He starts off in verse 3 saying, Hey guys, praise the Lord. He's done great things. And he ends up saying, Oh, praise the Lord, praise for, praise him for his glory, praise him for how good he is, praise him for what he has done. Go back with me if you would, now to verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now, I need you to listen closely because I'm really tired of the Father being maligned. I'm really tired of the idea that God's up in heaven like a judge or a scorekeeper, and he's up there going, I'm watching you. I was raised with that. You know what I mean? His eyes are everywhere, bold in the good and the bad. They know. They know. God's keeping records here, and someday every idle word, everything you've ever said is going to be put up on a screen. That's how I was raised. That's how I was taught. That's how I was brought up in them little country churches. And so sometimes you're kind of like, uh, I'd like to see Jesus. I ain't too sure about God the Father. Amen. I know he's pretty rough character. He's almost like a mafia boss. Fact is, if you don't tithe here at the church, you'll tithe at the hospital or the junkyard. Amen. Because God gets his money one way or the other. Amen. That's the picture they gave us. Come on, be honest. But here it says, blessed, praise the Lord, worship be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice what he's done. He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Now I'm going to give you, I hope to get to four, but but watch this. I need you to notice what he's done. How many spiritual blessings has he given us? Could you tell me what the word is? How many? I can't hear you. All. Would you write that down? All he's already given us all spiritual blessings. No, he ain't holding out on you. He's not holding out on you. You don't have to go to him and say, Oh God, come on, I'm begging you. I know you got one more gift you can give me. He's like, if you read the Bible, how many of y'all believe in the word of God? Say, Amen. Look what he says. It says here, hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. I need to call your attention to the verb. Hath blessed. That means has blessed. Already done. I'm not waiting to get my blessings. I got my blessings. Now hold on. You say, well, I don't think I got mine. Well, just because you're blind and not opening your eyes, it don't change the fact that you got your blessings. Amen. Just because you hadn't figured out what God's done doesn't mean God hadn't done it. Just because you haven't realized how much God's doing in your life doesn't mean God's not doing it. It's like somebody deposited a million dollars in your bank account and you're still trying to use food stamps. And you're in there going, I gotta, I don't have any money, I gotta use my food stamps. And and the father's looking at you and saying, I don't put a million dollars in your account. So God has blessed, has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. I gotta remind you where he does it. It's all in Christ. It's all in Christ. I need to give you a little pause here because we to understand the Bible and how it talks about in Christ, you gotta understand that when you were born, you were born in Adam. There's only two big daddies in the world. There's only two races in the world. The race of Adam. That's humans. All of us at one time were in that race. How many of y'all not human? Hold your hand up. Oh, don't do it. Some nut raised their hand and says they're not human, I won't be bothered. Okay. See, we're all human, we're all in Adam. That's what we were born in Adam. When you're a man or a woman, you're born in Adam. You're born natural. When you're born again, you're born in Christ. You move out of Adam, and you move into Christ. You still are human and you still got a human body and you still got some human tendencies, but the facts are you ain't that person no more. No, wait a minute. I know you're you're getting cross-eyed on me. But I married a Ferguson. And she still has that name, last name. Well, she don't really use it, but she still got all that DNA in her. But she became a gardener 52 years ago. And she ain't who she was. Can I get an amen? And believe me, her mother was late for her funeral. Can I get an amen there? Betty's not going to be like that, because I mean, I don't put the gardener whooping on her. Amen. Actually, she got in there this morning like said, are we going or not? I'm like, okay, yeah. But anyway, you you you understand what I'm saying. We're not who we were. Amen. We're in Christ. And he's blessed all of our blessings are on us, not because we're Baptists. I mean, I'm glad I'm Baptist. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, anyway, he blessed us. He didn't bless us because of our morality. He didn't bless us because of our rule keeping. He blessed us because we're in Christ. And who blessed us? The Father blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Verse 4. According to as he hath chosen us in him. There it is again. In him. In Christ, in him. He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Now, I want to real quick, but just because I don't know if how far I get, but I want you to check out He has chosen us. See, all of salvation starts with God. It's a God thing. You don't take steps to get to God. God took steps to get to you. You don't love God to get God to love you. You love God because God already loved you. You didn't earn any points to get merit with God. From the very beginning, human beings are the kind that hide when they sin. And they try to cover their mess ups, Adam and Eve, hid in the garden, embarrassed and ashamed, and tried to cover up their sin. Tried to act like nothing happened. Tried to act, well, well, we're naked. How'd that happen? Ain't my fault? That's what we do. Come on, say amen. We put a mask on. But it wasn't Adam who said, God, is there any way you could help us here? Is there any way you could show a little mercy? It wasn't God, it wasn't it wasn't Adam that thought of that. Adam thought of hiding. Adam thought of running. Adam thought of skipping bail. Amen. Get out of Dodge. But it was God who came down and said, Where are you, Adam? I'm here to help you. I love you. And he goes and kills a lamb and covers the nakedness. It's always God. But then I want you to notice it says here, He has chosen us in Him. He chose us. He chose us before we ever did anything wrong or right. He didn't choose you because of your goodness. Not even the goodness you were going to do. He chose you before the foundation of the world. Not before you were born, before your mama was born. Not before your mama was born, before Adam was created. He already chose you. You are important to him. But you were chosen in Christ. You see, Adam had already thrown away everything God gave him. But Christ fulfilled everything God gave him. Adam said, I'll do it my way. And Christ said, Not my will, but thine be done. Come on, can I get an amen right there? That's how we get to heaven. If we go with our, we go with daddy number one, we're going to be going, I do things my way. You just take a hike. If I need you, I'll call you. That's daddy number one. Daddy number two says, I'm facing a cross and it bothers me and it worries me, and I'm sweating drops of blood, but not my will be done. I love you. And that's how we go to heaven. But we're chosen in him. We're chosen in him. And then notice this: we're chosen that we should be holy. You say, oh, there comes morality. Well, that's not really what holy means. The word holy is not really about morality, it's about being separated to somebody or something. You see, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, God is separate, completely different, far off, nothing like us. And when he made us holy, he pulled us out of the mess and brought us over to him, and he makes us holy. So being holy here, in Christ, we're no longer in Adam. In Adam we're unholy, and Adam we're rebellious. And Adam, but in Christ we're holy. Holy is kind of like being set aside, being pulled out of one thing and set aside for another thing. That's kind of what my buddy Avery over here is doing. You know, he's gone out to Hannah and he says, I'm I'm calling you mine. And the fact is, while we're at it, I'm going to change your name and everything. And uh and and and uh you you you don't belong to your daddy no more, you don't belong to your mama no more. You mine. That's what Jesus did. And that word mine there's like the word holy. And then and then he made us blameless. You know why? Because he took all our blame. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. He took all our blame. He took all your sin and he took it on him, and he took all my sin and he took it on him. That he could take the righteousness and the holiness and the perfection of God and put that on us. He made us holy, he's chosen us. Look at verse 5. He has predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. Now, this happens to be probably my favorite thing that we're going to talk about. I want you to know you're chosen in him, not because of what you've done, but because of what he's doing and choosing you. Can I get an amen there? Already done. Then he predestined you to the adoption. He pre-planned your adoption. Now, you gotta understand, bluntly speaking, you're not adopted yet. You you're headed that way, but you're not adopted yet. You see, adoption in Roman culture was the day that the dad came out publicly and stood you in front of everybody and said, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. He gets everything I have. My name goes on him, my goods go on him, I publicly declare this one's mine. That was what the adoption was for Romans. You realize what God's done? I mean, Andrea has been about to kill herself getting everything ready for a wedding. Well, because it's predestined. We got a date planned, we got a place planned, we got all the details planned, and well, we don't, but Andrea does. The rest of us just gonna show up. But you but hang on. The father looks and says, I like you so much, I chose you. You didn't do anything to be chosen, you didn't do anything to be blessed with all the spiritual blessings, but I did it. And I got a day when I'm gonna let everybody know it. And I'm gonna make it so public. I just want you to imagine this. I want you to imagine the father picking up Hayward and bringing Hayward up here in front. God Almighty, creator God, the God you think of as a mean, ugly judge, but who's a loving father. Brings Hayward up front and puts his arm around him. Everybody take notice. Everybody take notice. My buddy Hayward. It's my son. He gets everything my son Jesus has. He is my son as much as Jesus is my son. He carries my name as much as Jesus carries my name. Fact is, I love Hayward like I love Jesus. Hayward is my beloved and I'm well pleased in him. And you might be going, but what if Hayward might not have done everything he's supposed to do? It don't have anything to do with that. It has to do with the fact that the Father says that about us. Can I get an amen? He's got a day planned, he's got an adoption plan. He's got this wonderful, he's doing all that for you. You see, the world might say, nobody picks you. You know, when when I was in high school, in elementary school, uh I didn't like pick-up sports very much because I never got picked up. You know, they they line everybody up there. And it get down to one or two. I used to just praise the Lord if I was next to last getting picked. Can I get an amen? I mean, at least I wasn't the last one picked. I mean, just ain't the pick and tight. I was always a little bitty guy and scrawny and smaller than my size. And uh, I didn't get picked. But you know what? God looked at me and said, Well, I picked you. I picked you. I chose you in Christ. We're chosen. Not only do you say, I chose you, he said, I chose to bless you with all spiritual blessings. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father above, the Father of lights, in whom there's no shadows and no variableness. He's always good to us. He is always taking care of us. And I want you to go this, I want you to go back to this verse where we're adopted. He predestined us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. And I need you to get this according to the good pleasure of his will. He wanted it. I didn't ask to be adopted. I accepted being adopted, but I asked to be adopted. I could have been left to flounder in the world. I could have been left without it without my father. I could have been left to do things on my own. I could have been left out in my sin. I could have been left out in all that, but he loved me. Blessed be the Father. Praise His glory and his grace. He looked down and said, I choose you, and I'm doing it because I want to do it. You ever said to somebody, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. The Father says, I don't have to. I want to. I like how one of the people that needed healing goes to Jesus and said, If you wanted to heal me, you could. And Jesus responds with, Well, I want to. Amen. He said, I want to. Now come on. He said, I do it according to the good pleasure of his will. I like that. It's a good pleasure of his will. He's like, I really want to. And I get a lot of joy out of it. That's how he feels about you. He is excited about you. He loves you. He's he believes in what he's doing in your life. He's doing the work in your life. Then go down to the number verse 6 here. To the praise of the glory of his grace. What you and I are supposed to be doing right now? Is everyone who needs to be sitting there going, I ain't believe in all this? I mean, how did he get to be so good? He's just writing a group of regular people. He's already called them saints and faithful, and now he says you're chosen. He says that God's picked out a time to adopt you, and he does it because he wants to. And he's got all the spiritual blessings, every blessing, every he's already given it to you. We are rich beyond imagination. We're wealthy. And Paul said, Man, we ought to be thanking God for this. The glory here is not who I am, not what I have, but who did it for me and why he did it. He's just so good. God is good. But then look what he said. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Now you've got to underline, in the beloved. You see, again, it's in Christ. The way it all happens is in Christ. But he's made us accepted. Now, I must admit to you that I have always been a tad on the fearful and timid side. And like if I didn't belong somewhere, I knew I didn't belong there and I acted like I didn't belong there. You'd have looked and said, That guy's a thief. He don't belong here. Because I'd be like, I don't belong here. I have a friend who lives in Florida, and he always told me, just act like you belong. And man, he could walk in. We used to go to hospitals and make hospital visits, and they thought he was a doctor. And I just was his nurse running along behind him. He just knew how to act like he belonged. I never have felt that accepted. I never have felt like I belonged that much. Do you know what I'm talking about? You just don't know if you belong. We're listening to all this, we're hearing about all this stuff that God's done for us, and we're might we might be like, hmm, I don't know if I fit in with all that. Chosen, predestined to be adopted, all the spiritual blessings. I don't know if I fit in, but guess what he did? He said, I made you accepted. Look at it. Read the verse. It says, it says in the verse, wherein he hath made us accepted. I wasn't accepted. I wasn't acceptable. No one would have let me in the room. But you know, it's kind of like in the story Jesus told, he gave us a wedding gown to wear, a wedding robe, a wedding tuxedo to wear into the place. He took us back in the back room and got us all dressed up and ready to go to the party. He made us fit in. That's what he's done for us. And he did all that in Jesus. Now, before I stop today, I want you to understand: if Jesus comes to the wedding party, the whole place erupts in applause. Wow! Jesus is here, the important one is here, the center of attention is here. I'm in Jesus. I'm in Jesus. So when Jesus gets in, I get in. When Jesus gets accepted, I get accepted. Because it's all in Jesus. Now this morning you came to church. You need to go home worshiping. Because you're not who people say you are. You're not who you say you are. You may say, I don't know, I ain't much. And the Father would scream from heaven and say, Do what? I have poured all my blessings out on you. I have made you accepted. I've set up the date. I'm going to recognize you publicly. I chose you. I don't want to hear no junk out of your mouth. Can I get an amen? Huh? So Paul said, I ain't got nothing to say but this. Blessed be the God and Father of Jesus Christ who did all that for us. Amen. Praise his glory. That's where you ought to be this morning. I tell you, it's Ephesians. It's just a regular book written to a regular church full of regular people. Because it's not about how good our church is. Not about how good our pastor is. Not about how good our members are. It's about how good our Savior is. We're going to get to heaven. And we're going to walk in there. And we walk in one day, who knows when. Somebody's going to announce, here's Austin. He is accepted. He was chosen. His big day's coming when he's going to set him on a crown, put a crown on his head, and set him up and say, That's my boy. Our day is planned by our Father. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's done all this stuff. Worship him today. Say thank you to him today, because you and I have received the most wonderful gift. Now, if you haven't received it, you can. Let me tell you this. You say, well, who's that for, everybody? In Jesus. You got to trust Jesus, you got to believe in Jesus. But if you'll just trust Jesus, he'll save you. This isn't a feel-good message. It's just a declare declaring what you got. It's like the car you're driving off the lot when you buy a brand new car. Because in Christ you get salvation. It's in Christ. If you haven't trusted him, today's your day to trust him. And if you're a Christian and you say, I don't feel all that, I'm sorry. That's on you. Because what you got to do is open your eyes, open your ears, and look around, read the truth, and then go, okay, I didn't know that was true. I go again on Tuesday for a scan. And you know, I feel pretty good, but we're going to find out what's really going on. I just gave you a scan. I just gave you a scan. That's who you are. In Christ. Blessed, accepted, predestined to be adopted, forgiven, redeemed, saint, faithful in Christ. Thank Jesus. Father in heaven, I love you. I thank you for the chance I have to serve you. And I pray, God, that you would bring glory to your name and our