Robby Sermon Series - Ephesians 1:5 - CHOSEN

Program James like you so much. I'm so grateful for the church in Wilmington from choosing Jeffrey and and James to minister there and give us this opportunity to be remembered him, which is so precious to me and and then even like the message that God gave me sorry of it irreversibly the message God gave me to share is always like beyond answers. I was as I was driving this week down down here this morning I was thinking God if they could only see what you've shown me through my eyes and then I thought, well, even better than that, about like Alicia that they would get a double look at what you show me this week, they would understand how chosen we really really are and along those lines. I know that James has a love for the book, the Pilgrim's progress in your study that book. At one point in time at great length and in that book you know again I get to do that for Christian card I theater which were doing right now. It's always been what one of my all-time favorite books but one Christian himself is on the hill of difficulty. You might recall, he reaches into his bosom and he pulls out his testimony in order to comfort himself for the difficult hill that he saw in the wisdom of that is absolutely phenomenal in that each and every one of us know our individual story how God came after us how he spoke into our life and the different things he's done for us and that is in fact our testimony and we keep it in our bosom, and when we're on the hill of difficulty wherever that may be. It's a great time to pull that thing out and and go over how many times God is come through for me time and time and time again and so it is definitely my prayer and my hope and what I've been praying for is that through what we share today you will add to your testimony that you will hear in my words something that goes. Oh yeah, God didn't do that. God did this.

God did this and is so is you add to that precious testimony in your heart that you be able sometime when you're on the hill, difficulty to pull that out and recall oh yes he did only as he did. He chose, so that the sporadic Jesus, thank you, thank you for John Bunyan's genius but your guiding them with the Holy Spirit.

In prison there to share something that is become so precious to me over the years just that concept of my testimony and and and I pray that you would give us each a clear picture of how you chose us before the beginning of time to be in the beloved that you would be our father and that we we would be your favor and I asked this in Jesus name. See you guys.

I just beyond thrilled that you were studying Ephesians 1 through six. This week is that when I got to do this, and there are some of my favorite passages in marriage and of the full armor which comes at the end was real tempting to go there because I absolutely love those passages but I couldn't get past the one that really is probably the most significant one in my life which is Ephesians 15 which we will get to in a minute before we get there because I was like to start the beginning God knows that Ephesians 15 or Ephesians.

It is understood, almost under the heading of grace, like if I can understand grace goodbye for that. But if I could then Ephesians is going to become a great deal more clear to me and so in order to get a look at grace. It's always a good biblical process to go back to the first place you find it and see what you can find there because in doing that, you can begin to understand what God is getting at and in the case of grace.

It's just like a unbelievable what God shows us here so if you look in Genesis chapter 1 Genesis chapter 6 God of our Lord you turn to Genesis chapter 6 and then look at verse eight.

Just circle that thing like here it is.

Here's the here is the key that unlocks all sorts of mysteries of the Bible and it's real simple verse it says but Noah hit it six mechanism. The rest of Genesis chapter 6 is talking shenanigans. Okay, things have not gone well and so they go through all the stuff the shenanigans of the go on and then it says, but Noah somebody is not muted but that's okay. But Noah found grace, it may say favoring your translation, but the word is grace. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord now there's something to just paint this picture so beautifully.

It's unbelievable to me like number one grace spelled backwards in Hebrew is no little Hebrew lesson for you like if you took the word Noah and you spell it backwards, right, which is hand had none. But anyway, if you do spell it backwards you get no answer. If you you spell millivolt forwards you get essentially the seed of life.

So there almost interchangeable. They certainly are numerically because you may know that in Hebrew. All letters have numbers and so the numbers that would be this way and that way you get the same math equation so the idea of Noah and grace go together and their married because think about this. It's so clear it can be more clear know what was God's favorite in his generation. Okay he picked. You're the guy I mean that you can be more clear of somebody that got picked right because he's the only one they got to survive and all by the way, he is the seed of life and grace is the seed of life there there in a completely interchangeable see no I was God's favorite in that generation, and so he was chosen clearly to go into the ark and get the ultimate baptism coming they got a baptism. Unlike anybody in all by the way the ark was made of wood so was across and was covered in pitch which that word means atonement. So this picture that God is painting here with no is unbelievable of what Ephesians is teaching a course this Paul knew I'm sorry Paul knew this remarkably okay and one little because God is painting this masterpiece trying to show you how much you are chosen tried to show you how much you are God's favorite that he showing you this through the very word grace Noah found favor or grace in God's eyes, and oh by the way, this part is when God's painting this masterpiece. The flood came when Noah was 600 years old. God made the world and how many days six and after that he rested so it was finished and then he rested within when Noah was 600 years old. It was finished and he brought redemption.

He brought up big time baptism and Jesus's sixth word from across is it is finished. See the masterpiece that is painting and oh by the latest identification on 11 six or anointing of the Holy Spirit in Isaiah chapter 11 is the fear the Lord, some big things happen.

There are number six exit number 666 coming up at the end of the book. No accident. Okay.

It is no accident of it's all coming together right right of that's the deal. So as we move back to what return about today. Ephesians chapter 1 it says, in fact it's headed in my Bible, God's glorious grace. It says blessed be God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ was blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be wholly blameless before him. He predestined us as adoption as sons through Christ Jesus. In keeping with the good pleasure of his will to the glorious praise of his grace favor so to know what it's like to be somebody's favorite is to understand grace or to be chosen so want to think back through your life and think one was I chosen well in my case. In 1991 I actually was the general manager Crown Dodge in Greensboro and near the end of the month we had done what they called spot delivery, which was not the most ethical thing in the world but back in those days I was a car salesman and RI was a general manager Crown Dodge anyway and the way this works. Was this girl wanted to buy the Suzuki and so in spite of the fact that she had not qualified through the bank yet we put her in the car before she had qualified for the loan and that's called a spot delivery and so she was in the car as if it was hers and that particular night, she ran a red light and slammed into a state policeman and put him in the hospital yet at the time I work for the crown organization which was in my view, one of the premier automobile organization, and it was run by a very godly man by the name of Royce rental who was a very classy Mandarin wonderful man all sorts and God had placed him very uniquely in my life, no doubt because I would get saved within months of this event so you can imagine that on Monday morning when I come into work. I know that in a big things are afoot because we gotta get this thing straightened out with the police in the spot delivery and all the stuff and I get a call from Risa Sec.

Now Royce has 12 different dealerships across the state. It's a big deal. His office is like the Taj Mahal and I get this call from his secretary, Susan Brady and she says Robbie Royce wants to see in his office right now is like 9 o'clock so I'm figuring the jigs up here no doubt fly make the long trip up the stairway to his office and he had $20,000 paneling back in those days, 1991 I mean this was a first-class office of the set up in his desk way up there now. It it was like talking to God, to some extent from my standpoint and he cannot come in there, you know. And I'm like oh man and and when Susan looks at me, she's just shaking her head like this, like some bathroom so I sit down at the desk in Royce's got to retrieve his lieutenants with him and he says the so Robbie I guess you know why you're here and I said yeah you mean the Suzuki and he looks at me and he goes Suzuki says what about the Suzuki Robbie why you know the Suzuki hit the state policeman that ran through the that we spot the why and he he he goes from like here to hear and he is very car business volatile me and he all of a sudden says this and I can't use because I'm in church the complete vernacular that he used. But he says you mean to tell me that I am fixing to promote the stupidest SLB in the crown organization and I went home and not only am I fixing or promoting, but I'm text to make him in charge of the most profitable dealership in the inquirer in the entire organization which had to be counted on the Volvo in Chapel Hill and so there there I was thinking that this was the end of my career, and the next thing I know I'm given this like job that paid maybe three times what I was making in my other job and and heat literally.

We we jump in his BMW seven car and drive from Greensburg Chapel Hill.

The whole time he's pouring into me the stuff that he wants me to do and to be in order to run his flagship store. I'll never ever forget that they what it felt like to be chosen when you are totally unqualified. Okay, despite like this.

This is just but if you look back into your own life. I think that you will discover as all of us that God chose us in other words, in grace before the foundations of the world anything. Just choose us but he chose us to be his father of the first time I read this I hadn't really no concept of weight predestined to be sons. What exactly does that mean how could we be happy that exactly work and I went to boot camp and leave the give this talk fathered by God, and it was really really helpful. The person pointed out to me something that it never really crossed my mind and I think is really really helpful. He said you know most of us think that God is the backup plan for fatherhood like if your father dies, then God will step in and be the father is the backup plan or if the father leaves the house and there's a divorce God's gonna step in and be the father, he's the backup plan. He goes oh no no no no no no from the before time began. Just like God pick no he didn't pick Noah on that day when he was 600 2599 in Vermont cheapskate. He picked them before the foundation of the earth right and and same with you know before you spot the liver. This is indeed you are chosen okay and so here's the there could not be a better example in this and all the world and my wife if you were to know my wife's family and I say this not wanting to cast any aspersions, but there is not a single member of her direct family that is not spent a significant amount of time in jail and several of them in prison and for not minor crimes and not for crimes they were innocent. There was no you you you would be hard-pressed to look into Tammy's genealogy and find a Christian when Tammy was seven years old. Her father was an alcoholic. He was half Indian.

Right off the reservation.

His mother was a Choctaw.

He married Nelda in front of a pressured situation only know exactly how that went on but now the two is an alcoholic and they were both alcoholics.

Either one of them ever step foot in a church and you know it wasn't unusual for Elven literally to have a knife in Tammy's throat and when she was seven years old.

Her father died of cancer in all of a sudden some people by the name of the blue first they saw this young girl that didn't have a father anymore and so they took Tammy in to live with them during the time of the transition after her father passed. And guess what they did. They went to church every Sunday.

I and so God is painting this picture and he puts these godly people in Tammy's life and they start taking her to church but he's not done. Tammy gets in seventh grade she's just walking to work one day and then by the name of Mr. Marriott drives up would appear completely out of the blue and says would you like to go to church and she goes and he goes you notice your family go to church.

He goes now would you like to go to church out. I'm on my way to church right now. Would you like to go and something I understand from Tammy. He took her to church all through high school by the fact that he was in the choir and he had to leave early to make Tammy's schedule work for the way her mother wanted her to work, etc. etc. etc. so this man went to great personal sacrifice in order for Tammy right to be able to attend church, where she comes to price. I do think it was just asked to think it was just or now realized it when Tammy meets me.

I'm not even close to a Christian all I see is this girl's got this complete faith that God exists. I'm not buying that stuff hardly at all but see between Royce Reynolds and my wife and several other people. God orchestrated in the my life. You see, he's painting this picture of the of the fathers that he is brought into my life and so I was later after I'd given him and gone to the fatherhood talk several times, I got an opportunity to give this to like fathered by God, is to talk and one of the things that you do when you do the talk is you think through your own life your own testimony and you begin to see the men that God put in your life at certain points in order to bring you were to where he's trying to get you. I and and so as I looked at it clearly Royce Reynolds was one of those men that was in my life at a basketball coach spoke in the my Lai volumes in his own way. Ron Hubbard spoken the my life. Okay all these different people that God orchestrated in this painting that is picturing that of choosing me before the beginning of the world. You see he is painting this is painting this picture and and so this week I was I was thinking about it constantly because I knew I get to share this this week I do a radio show with Nikita Cole off you may know, he is the championship wrestling Russian nightmare turned evangelist right and and if you do Nikita's door and he too is father left his mother when he was born and he was brought up in the projects in Minneapolis, Minnesota with no father coming in the project and as it happened, God brought a coach and God brought these people in his life.

And then God brought this Christian family and and here's this guy.

He makes a tease, a world champion wrestler but he wasn't fulfilled in and of then God brought this other people into his life and they invited him to church in the next thing you know, Nikita, and he can point out to you he he he understands his testimony to say these are the men. These are the fathers that God is brought in my life that he has been painting this picture the whole time because he knew what I would need when I would need yes if you got a great earthly dad, that's all the better. He knew you needed that he he knew from the beginning of time, how to set these things in motion so he said all the stuff in motion. I get a chance to study this and so the very first thing that I'm really protect perplexed about as I begin the study that this week is the word foundation of the world. What is that mean to be like Job, in case God asked me know if you know what the foundations of the world.

I'd like to have answered and so II take off study and that word is, as Paul used it in Greek men's over from the Septuagint to Hebrew and I came up with something that I think is just worth the price of the study.

Is the word for foundation and foundation of the world is used throughout the Bible a lot if you just take that until word search the Bible of foundation of the earth, you'll see that it's it's throughout the Bible hundred you know what it is. It's a Sarah it's the seed, the foundation of the world. Well, think about it. Of course you know you rocks are good and we and we like plants and all that stuff. But what what really counts ticking God's heart right you know animals and plants and people. It's all it all comes from seeds and again you know all that seed of faith planted like a mustard seed. Think of the good soil and all these things that God talks about throughout the Bible and all the sudden you begin to think wow some of the foundation of the world is a seed, then the foundation is alive with that roll around in your brain of a feminist, pretty cool thing to think like a man and so he knew as he's making these foundations like in order for you to show up at the time you showed up your seed would have to be inside Adams DNA somehow and Eve in order for that to take place and and then you eat I love you forever. The math on this site used to be tons of genealogy and what blew my mind.

As you have two parents have four grandparents.

I got 16 great-grandparents and about 10 generations back go 13 generations. I bet you 14 generations. There were enough people on the earth to cover how many great great great great great great great great great great grandparents you have, that's how that MathWorks so for you to come along at exactly the moment that you came out like I want to my genealogy. I found that I had this grandmother in New York State like in the early 1700s that you know the Indians used to come in and they killed her husband and they marched her pregnant up into Canada ill and they would tomahawk somebody if they didn't keep up when they were marched them up to Canada as a slave. While that child inside of that grandmother was my great great great-great-grandfather, so she'd fallen behind on that trail going to let know Robbie right when it is one of 80 billion different zillions I can even give you the number of what it would take to get you to show up in the time that you showed up. And so, before the foundation of the world you were number 18 viewers favorite.

He picked you. So is you move on through Ephesians ego support rubbing. So I say well in Ephesians chapter 4 starts to give her some.

So what with starting with verse four pieces so there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called in the hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and one father of all who is overall and through all and in all and so is unsteady in this just to share a little bit of my prayer life with you.

You know I like to wake up in the morning and and and I have a series of prayers that I that I do and then I get to the point raft when I get through those regular prayers and I say okay Jesus word you want to go today and are we going to go study your word you want to study a passage where you want to go and and he actually took me to Ephesians 4, the day before. But on Friday he took me he says I want to look at Romans 828 and I said Romans 828 is gone on neatly.

I just made that up in my head. I didn't really hear you say Romans 828 I just made that up on the top of my head and is light and is very kind Robbie look at Romans 820 Taylor okay well there's nothing to dictate. Romans 828 has got nothing whatsoever to do with Ephesians chapter 4 verse five not Rob go look at Romans 828 now if you look at Romans 828 it says we know that all things come together right now for good for those who led by God and called according to his purpose of this just a couple words, it would seem to be common denominators between Ephesians chapter 4 recommends 828 and course want to jump right out at you even if you have my education is the word all yeah I'm like okay God, that's where you want me to go. Romans 828 you wanted me to discover what the word all means which you know we think we know these things that we decided to go look and so as I told you biblical president as you go the first place you find in the Bible and not unusual you'll find the word all in first book in Genesis, actually. Chapter 3 where he tells Adam that you have all these weeds and all the stuff all the days of your life word all is very encompassing for poor Adam is. That's the first time that we see that were an then came the treasure.

As I looked up the word and I went oh my goodness, look at look at this thing in Hebrew, and it is the home.

It starts out with a letter that is literally the palm of God's hand. Okay, so he's got the whole world in his hands. Well, if phenomenal potential ride because God has a hold of anything.

It can be absolutely amazing. Right.

Apart from me you can do what nothing so if you're in the palm of God's enemy lines. Good.

So all things including all the days of Adam's life are all in all, so as we begin to look at is all in Ephesians right he's telling us that all these seeds all these people in this church, all in the same beloved one body, one body and inside of that oneness is this concept of nullification. In other words, oneness requires that I have to accept that are not the main character in the play right. Christ is not me. So I've got to nullify myself and so all the other people in order to become one to come in the unity I have got to nullify my own ego in order to come into what now is one body, which is all in God the father if that would, if you begin to put this together you go. Okay, so I need to do this because as I really begin to walk like Jesus walked my one of my favorite favorite favorite passages is in John chapter 1 words of Jesus is full of grace and truth. Okay, so if Grace's favor and if so if you're in Jesus's presence. You're like I feel like I'm his favorite III couldn't feel more like better than Royce. Rose made me feel better than even Tammy made me feel when she said I do it up.

In other words, I couldn't feel more chosen.

If I'm in God's presence right that's great well suit through nullification. In other words, I've got to lower my own view of myself, so I no longer the favorite so that whoever is in my presence should feel like I am full of grace like you are my favorite.

I'm no longer my favorite.

You're my favorite. You see, and when you think about the truly godly people that you know when your life. The people that you just man I love to be around a guy could hang around all day long because you feel like when you're around them that God loves me that guys chose me back.

I want his favorites.

You feel this favoring you feel this love in all these things that you feel chosen. You feel accepted, which is exactly what you feel like when you're around Jesus and so by being in oneness. You see ingrates a church will go from 211° to 212 211° is hot, but 212 is boiling.

See the difference is just 1° is just that little bit of Che just that little more nullification of who was Robbie and a whole lot more of who are you right to know your story make you feel chosen make you feel wanted to make you feel like you're part of this accepted in the beloved one body you see. So as I apply all these things back to life. Oh God gave me all this he chose me so that I could share this message with other people and they would feel the same grace that I they would feel his chosen as I and there you have when it all comes together so that this idea of unity is trying to catch God's vision if I could get up every morning and see what God had in store.

What is the potential of all things work together for good.

If they're all in God's hand. Then like the second verse of the 16th Psalm. I love it and I can't get it out of my mind.

It says I have said to the Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from you, which is the same thing same you can do nothing apart from me, but here you have David Long before Jesus said that saying my goodness is not apart from you.

So once you get into, and he gets into you and you become part of that body.

Then all of a sudden you have his goodness, and you can love the unlovable. And that's great. It's one thing to love people that are easy to love right. That's what Jesus taught. Jesus only taught I grace one time. You know that lit up only one time Jesus taught on the subject is full of it. He taught about one thing. If you love people that love you. That's no grace love in somebody that is unlovable right back. That's at the picture that person. It feels like there the outside of that person feels unchosen that person. It feels like nobody cares about spot that I will love on that guy again.

These are these are the things that Jesus was trying to teach us through if were selected and were chosen and we can have this kind Grace's much of an outsider as I am Scientologist car salesman right pretty strange dude, man, and your speaking in the church are you kidding me like James bag figure you're capable of do you could be on the radio like what you know by how did I get that assistance but you you you have something that reflects God inside of you that he chose from before the foundation that we pray, Jesus, thank you for this message and and I pray that we will all look through our lives in see what a masterpiece. You've been painting and that we could be a Mr. Marriott and somebody's life are Buford's that would take that widow orphan girl or whoever it is, and bring in mature torque bring amateur feet, whatever that may look like. Help us to be one body and one spirit and one baptism, all in all, and you will your goodness and we ask that you would flow through us in Jesus name I pray, amen