It is a precious thing to break bread and remember the Lord. We would not be here; we would not have eternal life; we would not be anywhere, were it not for the Lord Jesus. So we are grateful to gather on the Lord’s Day and remember Him at the beginning of our week.
Today we have a special brother with us to share the Word. We warmly welcome our brother and his wife, and thank them for being here.
Thank you, dear brother.
Yes, I stand before you with much thanksgiving in my heart, dear brothers and sisters, for this wonderful opportunity given and for your openness in welcoming me into your midst. I really appreciate it.
I am coming from Sri Lanka and live in Colombo, the capital city, where we have an assembly. The place where we gather is called the Christian Fellowship Centre, or CFC. We gather there every Sunday to break bread and worship the Lord.
My wife and I have been married for thirty-five years, and together we serve the Lord. We have one son, now about thirty-four years of age, living with his family in Virginia. Whenever we visit the United States, it is our privilege to visit believers as well as our family.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, I will be heading toward Columbus. Beginning Wednesday evening or Thursday morning, we will have what we call a holy convocation, where we gather together as a family of believers, giving thanks to the Lord. We gather for five days in a kind of conference where the Scriptures are explained, and we expect great blessing. We have had this year after year.
I have been visiting this particular gathering since 2012, and it has been a great blessing to me.
I came to know the Lord in 1979, out of Roman Catholicism. That was only a formal religion on my birth certificate, but as a teenager I was an atheist. Yet the Lord, in His marvellous grace, saved me and brought me into His fold and His church through the ministry of Operation Mobilization, led by Brother George Verwer, when the ship MV Logos visited Colombo Harbor.
There I heard the gospel, and I knew that this was something different. I had been looking for this. I was fighting against God, but He is actually alive. That brought great fear and repentance into my heart, and I was born again that night, on March 4, 1979.
Soon afterwards, I was asked to join an assembly in Colombo that had begun in 1941 as a house gathering. In the early years, a missionary fleeing China because of persecution, Brother Daniel Smith, visited Sri Lanka with his wife. He came into contact with this little group of believers and was a great blessing to them.
Thereafter, we also had the blessing of receiving a dear brother from India, who came and visited several times. All these things happened before my time.
After coming to the Lord in 1979, I joined the university and undertook practical training in marine engineering. Toward the end of that four-year period, I began to hear the voice of God through the written Word. Whenever I opened it, there was the persuasion of the Spirit that I must leave everything aside and make myself available for the Lord’s work.
I struggled with that thought as it came again and again. I shared it with the elders, who were good and stable Christian leaders—spiritual fathers. We had one in particular, Brother Alvis, who guided me all the way. Being an engineer himself, he asked me to wait upon the Lord before making up my mind and taking a decision.
Around 1983, I came across two books that made it easier for me to make up my mind. They were written by the same author, Angus Kinnear from England. One was written in India and the other in China.
The book written in India was Monsoon Daybreak, the story of the late Brother Bakht Singh and the beginning of that ministry. It told how the Lord brought them out of traditional Christianity into a living fellowship of worshippers to serve the Lord.
The second book was Against the Tide, a biography of Brother Watchman Nee. A Chinese family in Colombo gave it to me when I visited them for prayer.
I am waiting to meet the author in heaven. By the time I reached England, he had already gone to glory. I want to thank him for taking the time and effort to write these two biographies. When I read those stories, I was so moved. I knew that if you make yourself available to the Lord, He can do marvellous things.
After reading the second book, I went to my spiritual leaders and said, “This is it, brothers. I want to leave my marine engineering career and be available for whatever ministry I may have to do.”
My first ministry was to sweep the floor. I was given a broom, so I swept the floor. Then I was promoted to cleaning the bathrooms, and my second promotion was to drive the car. I became a driver for an aged saint of God who was not able to see and drive properly. That is how I began.
The Lord has been so gracious and wonderful. His faithfulness is such, dear brothers and sisters.
That second book, Against the Tide, is relevant in some way. I wept at the end of the book when I read that Brother Watchman Nee was not able to come back home. His wife was preparing for him to return, but it never happened. It really moved me.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord wants us simply to be available to God for His work.
This morning, I would like to consider God’s plan for you and for me. In Bible terms, we call it the eternal purpose of God. It is of great value to us.
Let us read the first twelve verses of Ephesians 1. Please follow in your Bibles.
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:Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father,
And from the Lord Jesus Christ.Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
In heavenly places in Christ:According as He hath chosen us in Him
Before the foundation of the world,
That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
By Jesus Christ to Himself,
According to the good pleasure of His will,
To the praise of the glory of His grace,
Wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.In whom we have redemption through His blood,
The forgiveness of sins,
According to the riches of His grace;
Wherein He hath abounded toward us
In all wisdom and prudence;Having made known unto us the mystery of His will,
According to His good pleasure
Which He hath purposed in Himself:That in the dispensation of the fulness of times
He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
Both which are in heaven,
And which are on earth; even in Him:In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him
Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will:
That we should be to the praise of His glory,
Who first trusted in Christ.
Gracious, loving heavenly Father, Lord, we are overwhelmed by what Thou hast revealed in the Scriptures concerning Thy eternal purpose for us, sinners saved by the marvellous grace of God.
We pray that Thou wouldst guide us by Thy Spirit and quicken Thy Word in our hearts, that we may see Thy wonderful plan and purpose, Thy eternal counsel. Thou hast said, “My counsel shall stand.” Yes, Lord, we want it to be so.
Reveal these things to us, and help us to be yielded in Thine hands, that we may be to the praise and glory of Thy name, having fulfilled Thy heart’s desire. Accept our thanksgiving this morning. Open Thy Word to us. In the name of our loving Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.
I believe you will agree with me that we wish Paul had used shorter sentences than these. They are quite long and very difficult to understand. But to put them in the right perspective, let us read another verse: 2 Timothy 1:9.
Who hath saved us,
And called us with an holy calling,
Not according to our works,
But according to His own purpose and grace,
Which was given us in Christ Jesus
Before the world began.
God has saved us according to His purpose and grace. Present-day Christianity, dear brothers and sisters, has largely forgotten the purpose of God while emphasizing the grace of God. Grace is essential, but Paul couples the two together in 2 Timothy 1:9: according to His purpose and grace.
We need to know the purpose for which we are saved. Suppose I were at home, fully dressed in a tie and coat, and my wife asked, “What meeting are you going to attend today? Where are you going? You are fully dressed up.” If I said, “I have nowhere to go. I am just dressed very well, looking beautiful, and sitting at home,” that would not be very good.
My wife would definitely say, “Please do not sit in these good clothes. Remove them. Change into your home clothes.” Many Christian believers are like that. They have the garment of salvation; the grace of God has done its work in their lives, but they have nowhere to go. They do not know why God has saved them.
This is a hindrance throughout Christendom, across many shades of doctrinal belief. We find true believers who are saved but do not know the eternal purpose of God. They are wasting their time. The enemy has seen to it that we do not concentrate on the purpose but major on the grace of God.
Oh, how beautiful grace is. We talk about it, preach about it, and enjoy it. But now we need to know the purpose. He has saved us according to His own purpose and grace. If I am fully dressed with the garments of salvation, I need somewhere to go. I must have that aim. That is why I am dressed in this way.
From Ephesians, I want to bring before you a collection of thoughts concerning the purpose of God for you and me—what God purposed before the world began. Only God can do such things. Before the world began, He gave these things to us in Christ Jesus. That is why we call them the eternal purpose of God.
Let us consider the first purpose in Ephesians 1:4.
According as He hath chosen us in Him
Before the foundation of the world.
This is a sentence that the natural mind rejects: God choosing us according to His sovereign will and plan. Man today rejects this idea. But God’s ideas are eternal. It says here, “before the foundation of the world.” He hath chosen us—but the most important phrase is in Him. In Christ, God had chosen us.
This is the first aspect of God’s eternal purpose: those whom He elected, He will save through the sacrificial death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is why, in the first message preached in the church on the Day of Pentecost, Peter stood boldly before the hostile crowd that had crucified the Lord Jesus. He did not merely blame them. Notice what he said in Acts 2:23.
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel
And foreknowledge of God,
Ye have taken,
And by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
No doubt, you took Him by wicked hands and crucified and slew Him. But before they could do that, Peter held God’s purpose before them. Jesus was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
It was not only the foreknowledge of God; it was also the determinate counsel of God. This was an eternal purpose in the heart of God.
Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?
Here am I; send me.
This was not merely a simple conversation between Isaiah the prophet and God at his calling. It was an echo of the same thought from eternity past. The Lord Jesus was willing to come.
Peter clearly establishes this truth: God was responsible for this provision for your salvation. It is true that men took Christ and put Him on the cross by wicked hands, but it was God’s plan.
The first eternal purpose of God concerning us is to save those whom He elected. God wanted to save them to the uttermost. That is why this wonderful story of redemption unfolded.
This raises many questions in our minds, no doubt, because we are human. We do not allow God to be God. We want to have a part in all the affairs God may be deciding and doing. We want to have our own say. But we must understand that God is God from eternity to eternity. He has planned everything. He has every right to choose. He has every right to elect.
The Bible is filled with verses concerning the election of God. That is the first purpose: God purposed in eternity past to save those whom He had elected.
There had to be a way for our sins to be forgiven and for us to have a purged conscience, by which we could come to God and worship Him. That is exactly what God did.
Through Jeremiah, the Lord says:
Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love:
Therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
This is Jeremiah 31:3. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” It does not mean merely that His love lasts forever. When it refers to God, it tells us something about all eternity. God has been loving you even before the foundation of the world. How strong and special that love must be.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is completely out of this world. We have to sit and think about it. Because of that eternal love, God bore in His heart the sorrow of the death of His Son from eternity past.
Is that not so? Yes, He bore the sorrow of the death of His Son from eternity past, because the Lord Jesus was delivered to be crucified by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. He knew it. He had counselled it. He had decided it.
We ask, “What have You done? You say that You love us. What have You done?” This is it: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” There is nowhere in human history where you can see a parallel. How can we human beings, limited to time, understand the wonderful, eternal love of the eternal God?
Because of this, now we are saved. He wanted to save those whom He had elected.
Now let us move on in this journey of exploring the eternal purposes of God. The next verse is Ephesians 1:5.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
By Jesus Christ to Himself,
According to the good pleasure of His will.
Predestination is a word that many believers do not like. Especially in youth camps, this question comes again and again during question-and-answer times. But it is true.
Having predestinated us—to what? This word predestination is always coupled with another thought in the Scriptures: “unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself.”
Some misunderstand this line because of certain translations of the Bible. This adoption is not the adoption of a child from another family, as when parents without children legally adopt a child. It is not that, dear brothers and sisters.
We are not adopted into the family of God in that sense. We are born into the family of God by the new birth, accomplished by the Spirit of God. You are born again into the family of God. You are a legitimate child of the heavenly Father.
But the Bible also speaks of adoption, and Romans 8 explains it. Let us look at Romans 8:23.
And not only they,
But ourselves also,
Which have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
Even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
Waiting for the adoption,
To wit, the redemption of our body.
This adoption is not your entrance into the family of God. That has been accomplished by the spiritual operation of the Holy Spirit. You are born as a child into the family of God. But adoption is something yet to happen.
Paul says that we are waiting for the adoption—the redemption of our body. It appears to speak of a public proclamation of your sonship before God: “This is My son. This is My daughter.” That public proclamation is yet to come.
Jude 1:24 says:
Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory
With exceeding joy.
There is going to be that presentation, dear brothers and sisters. This is the purpose of God: that He wants to present us one day, one by one, as it were on the platform of the universe. The Lord Jesus will present His grown-up sons and daughters.
This is where we are going. This is why we must be careful about our spiritual life. We should do everything possible to live in a good, healthy environment of Christian fellowship. This is why fellowship in the local church becomes so important: that we may learn how to grow in Christ.
We must become sons and daughters, not merely children—fully grown up. Hebrews 2 tells us that He wanted to lead many sons unto glory. Leading many sons unto glory is the purpose of God.
That is why God sent His only begotten Son into this world: that He may lead many sons out of this world unto glory. We must be available to God for His work in our lives, so that there may be transformation in our character.
We must be transformed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us allow Him to work.
Romans 8:19 gives us this beautiful thought:
For the earnest expectation of the creature
Waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
Creation, Paul says, is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. If that had already happened, we could go outside into the garden and announce, “Here we are. The sons of God are here; the daughters of God are here.” But Paul says, no—the creation is waiting.
One day, they will be presented one by one. Let us be ready, for we are waiting for the adoption.
The fuller meaning is revealed in Romans 8:28-29:
And we know that all things work together for good
To them that love God,
To them who are the called according to His purpose.For whom He did foreknow,
He also did predestinate
To be conformed to the image of His Son.
This is it. The actual value in you and me is the image of Christ that we bear in our character. How much of the Lord Jesus Christ is in us? How much of His beautiful, immaculate character can be seen in you and me? This is the most important thing in eternity.
That is how we are going to enter into His eternity. Everything that happens to us today as Christian believers is purposed in this direction: that it may bring into our lives the image and character of the Lord Jesus.
How un-Christlike we are today! This is the charge against us: we are not like Christ in our character.
Consider John 1:14:
And the Word was made flesh,
And dwelt among us,
And we beheld His glory,
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
Full of grace and truth. John says that this was the glory they saw in Him. It was not the shining glory of His face; it was the glory of His character. He was full of grace and truth.
Are we, dear brothers and sisters, full of grace and truth wherever we may turn? God brings us into situations in which He seeks to bring the character of the Lord Jesus into our lives. We realize that we have failed: “My dealings are not gracious. They are not truthful. I need to change. I must amend my ways. I must take the Lord Jesus Christ and His character.”
That is the glory of which God speaks. We are all waiting for shining glory, imagining somehow that everything will be all right at the end. But that is not what God wants us to have. He wants the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ—the beauty of His character.
Read Romans 15:1-7 and identify the outstanding characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ that Paul explains. They are amazing.
The first is this: He did not please Himself. All the time, I find myself pleasing myself—in the church, in fellowship, in preaching, in everything I do. If I am pleased, I think everything is all right.
But our Lord Jesus Christ did not please Himself. That is the testimony Paul brings before us in Romans 15:1-7. It was not pleasant when people called Him a gluttonous man, a winebibber, or a mad person. Yet He did not come to please Himself.
We then that are strong ought to bear
The infirmities of the weak,
And not to please ourselves.Let every one of us please his neighbour
For his good to edification.For even Christ pleased not Himself.
This is an important truth. This is the character of Christ.
The second characteristic is found in Romans 15:5:
Now the God of patience and consolation
Grant you to be likeminded one toward another
According to Christ Jesus.
We find it very difficult to be likeminded with another brother or sister. “I have years of experience. What can the newcomer tell me? The newcomer is supposed to make mistakes all the time. I am not supposed to listen to him.”
But our Lord Jesus patiently and graciously taught His disciples for three and a half years. On the final night, when the Lord Jesus said that those without a sword should sell their coat and buy one, Peter brought two swords and said, “Lord, here are two.” What he seemed to mean was, “One for me and one for You; none for the others.”
All the beautiful spiritual teaching from the mouth of the greatest Teacher who ever lived on earth had seemingly brought so little at the end. Yet the Lord Jesus was willing to work with them. He said, “You are My friends.” We learn humility from that.
The third characteristic is found in Romans 15:7:
Wherefore receive ye one another,
As Christ also received us
To the glory of God.
We are sometimes very exclusive. We can be zealous concerning the truth of the Word of God, but so exclusive. Yet the Lord Jesus was willing to receive people, greet others, receive them, and help them. “Receive ye one another.”
That is the second purpose of God, as I see it in Ephesians 1. He saved those whom He had elected, and then He predestinated us unto the adoption of children—bringing many sons unto glory. We must grow.
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His wondrous compassion and purity;
O Thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
This should be our prayer. I believe we should sing this chorus every morning: “Oh Lord, till the beauty of Jesus is seen in me, renew and refine my nature.” We are filled with ourselves. We must have the Lord Jesus to show to the world.
Then we move on to the third purpose. We are going higher and higher as Paul leads us in Ephesians 1:11.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him
Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.
We are told that we have received an inheritance. God is like a rich father. Before we were born, before we were ever created, God planned to give us an inheritance.
This is an eternal purpose of God. Those whom He has elected, He will save. He will publicly proclaim their sonship one day. Then He will also give them an inheritance to enjoy.
Our minds may immediately go to 1 Peter 1, where we are told that we have an inheritance reserved in heaven. But I am speaking of the inheritance God has given us today, now, to make our spiritual lives rich.
We need to have these riches. We need to know them, show them, and share them with others. Paul later called them “the unsearchable riches of Christ” in Ephesians 3:8.
Paul says, “This is my calling.” God called him to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is what we have to tell and give to others: the unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus.
We cannot help but remember the elder son in the story of the two sons in Luke 15. What a badly mistaken person he was. He said, “Father, all these years I have served You faithfully, but You have not given me even a kid, that I might enjoy it with my friends.”
Here was a poor rich man, unable even to be a blessing to his friends. If they came to comfort him at Thanksgiving because his younger brother had gone away with the money, he might say, “There will be no turkey this Thanksgiving—only vegetables—because my father has not given me even a kid.” Poor man, staying in the father’s house.
This was the reason why the Lord Jesus told that parable in Luke 15. No younger son or elder son physically went anywhere. Both groups were in the audience of the Lord Jesus: the sinners and publicans on one side, and the Pharisees and scribes on the other.
Those who sat with the Bible in the Father’s house could still remain poor, not enjoying the riches. Look at Luke 15:12.
And the younger of them said to his father,
Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.
And he divided unto them his living.
Did you notice the word them? It was not only the younger son who received an inheritance. When the younger son requested his portion, the father divided his inheritance between both of them. The elder son actually received a double portion, according to the custom of the day.
The father divided the whole property into three, giving two portions to the elder son and one portion to the younger. The younger son took what fell to him, went into a far country, and wasted everything in riotous living.
But what did the elder son do? He did nothing. He did nothing with his inheritance. He was still a servant in the father’s house. He could not even make his friends happy because he lacked the enjoyment of his inheritance.
He could not get himself to believe it. This is what has happened to us, dear brothers and sisters. We cannot get ourselves to believe that the Father has given us an inheritance to enjoy and share with others. We live as paupers.
Let me give some examples of the great inheritance God has given us to enjoy now:
Do we have these things? Are we enjoying them? God has given us these eternal riches to enjoy. Where is peace? Where is joy? Where is hope, which is the hope of glory?
Please list them one by one and see what God has prepared for us.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
Neither have entered into the heart of man,
The things which God hath prepared
For them that love Him.
This is the situation, and it is very true. We have neglected these things long enough. We need to get them back and enjoy them. Come into the Father’s house. The Father has given us the double portion of the inheritance as those who sit in His house.
Take them one by one. I have counted at least twelve things that we should enjoy daily, so that we can share them with others and they may notice this kind of joy.
The Lord Jesus said, “My peace I give unto you” in John 14:27. Think of that: the peace that was in the heart of the Lord Jesus. What kind of peace must that have been? He knew all things, possessed all things, was sovereign, had no competitor, and possessed full authority. Yet He says, “My peace I give unto you.”
It is not the human kind of peace. That is why Paul says, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” Everything is in abundance: the riches of His grace and the exceeding greatness of His power toward us.
We need to say a word about the power of Ephesians 1:19. Many today speak about the power of the Holy Spirit without realizing that it is the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ, brought to us by the Holy Spirit and given to us.
Our Lord Jesus said that when the Spirit of God came, He would not speak of Himself; He would receive the things of Christ and show them to us. Everything the Spirit of God gives us today is from the Lord Jesus, brought to us by the Holy Spirit.
When Scripture speaks to us of power, it is the power of resurrection. In fact, that is the only power available for the believer: the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ, ministered to us by the Holy Spirit.
In Ephesians 1, we have obtained an inheritance. Hallelujah! We have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated. God thought about it beforehand: “I will make My people rich.”
When an earthly rich father learns that he is going to have a child, he may begin looking for land, property, and houses. People may ask, “You already have a big house. Why do you want another?” He may say, “I am going to have a child. I am preparing an inheritance for that person who is coming.”
That is how rich fathers on earth act. What about our rich heavenly Father? He prepared everything from eternity past.
So Paul says, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated.” There is also a heavenly inheritance that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, which we will see later. But now we must be fully engaged with the present-day inheritance.
The fourth aspect of the eternal purpose of God is found in Ephesians 2:22.
In whom ye also are builded together
For an habitation of God through the Spirit.
This habitation of God—our becoming the habitation of God—is an eternal purpose. We are being built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
We find this completed in Revelation 21:3:
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
And He will dwell with them.
At the end, when eternity begins, God has found His dwelling place in the midst of His people. This is amazing. This is an eternal purpose. This is what God was waiting for.
“Adam, where art thou?” In the cool of the day, God came into the garden, and Adam was hiding.
The purpose of God can be delayed, but it cannot be nullified. It will be accomplished. Finally, in the book of Revelation, it is fully accomplished.
Today, when we gather together to break bread, remember the Lord, and worship Him, we give the Lord a foretaste of that fulfilment. He says:
Where two or three are gathered together in My name,
There am I in the midst of them.
The theme of the coming conference in Columbus is, “Let them make Me a sanctuary.” Exodus 25:8 says:
Let them make Me a sanctuary;
That I may dwell among them.
Having brought them out of Egypt, God revealed His heart to Moses in the wilderness. He said, “Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.” God has been thinking and planning that He might dwell among us.
Then the Lord Jesus came and said, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Paul brings this before us even more gloriously and practically: “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
We must experience this today. Revelation 21:3 will complete it, but today we must know that He dwells among His people.
When we gather together, we form and build the house of God as living stones. We are built together as a spiritual house, according to 1 Peter 2:5. We are built together now as a spiritual house.
This is wonderful. We are fulfilling the eternal purpose of God.
Let me touch on the fifth purpose, where the expression eternal purpose is specifically mentioned. It is found in Ephesians 3:10-11.
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers
In heavenly places
Might be known by the church
The manifold wisdom of God,
According to the eternal purpose
Which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is something very special and remarkable. God had an eternal purpose. What was it? That the manifold wisdom of God might be made known, by the church, to principalities and powers in heavenly places.
God’s ways are past finding out. He wanted to show His manifold wisdom to the angelic beings through the church.
Today God is teaching angelic beings. We do not realize this. Every move is important, and every step becomes important, because we have become an object lesson to others. Angels are watching. Angels desire to look into these things. Paul says that we are made a spectacle unto angels.
They are looking upon us. God says, in effect, “Come here, angels. Look at My wisdom. Look at My children—through the church.” The principalities and powers include reference to the devil and his angels. They will have no victory when they see the manifold wisdom of God.
How does the church show this wisdom? By recognizing the headship and lordship of the Lord Jesus; by loving one another, preferring one another, submitting to one another, and praying for one another—all those “one another” commands, dear brothers and sisters.
Angels see this, and that is fellowship. We need to be mindful of this. We are exhibiting the manifold wisdom of God to principalities and powers.
This is something God will never give up or bargain away, because it is one of His eternal purposes. Verse 11 says, “According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus.” He wanted to do this, and He is doing it today. We need to know that it is happening today.
Shall we pray?
Gracious, loving Father, we are open before Thee, Lord, this day.
Lord, Thou hast saved us according to Thy purpose and grace. Lord, we desire with all our hearts that Thy purposes may be fulfilled in our lives and through our lives.
Lord, we have looked at some Scriptures today and have just begun to understand, or to remind ourselves, of these aspects of the eternal purpose of God. Wilt Thou bring them right into our hearts today, so that we may be moved, inspired, and motivated by them?
Lord, there is no other purpose for our living than to fulfil Thy eternal purpose in our lives. So here we are, Lord. Help us to be yielded unto Thee.
May the Spirit of God lead us, and may things contrary to this purpose of God be taken out of the way. May we move forward victoriously.
Lord, make this prayer very genuine. We give ourselves into Thy hands with thanksgiving. In the name of our loving Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thank you, brothers.