A panoramic view of the Plan of Salvation through the book of Ephesians.

2016 Hartland Summer Campmeeting: Mission and Purpose of the Remnant Church

<p>A panoramic view of the Plan of Salvation through the book of Ephesians.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Gillian Bethel

The Holy Spirit and You

In 2004, and some of you may remember this, the scientists that had charge of the Hubble telescope pointed their telescope at a black spot in the sky.

The size of this spot in the sky was a grain of sand held at arm's length.

So if you can see on here, and I don't know how well it shows up, it was a tiny, tiny little patch of sky, and they took what is known as the Hubble Deep Field picture.

For 11 days, they pointed their camera at this little patch of sky and took pictures.

And after the 11 days were over, they put it all together, the pictures, and They found this.

Because it was a black piece of sky, it means there was nothing in our galaxy in this picture.

It was everything you see in that picture is a galaxy.

They believe there is approximately 10, 000 galaxies just in that 1 little patch of sky.

Well the reason I'm sharing this is that when I started studying for this talk and I took the topic of the Holy Spirit.

I started looking through the New Testament, and I reached the book of Ephesians, and I never got any further.

It turned out to be a Hubble experience for me to do this.

You know, not that there was nothing there, of course there was something there, but the more I looked, the more I saw.

And I'm sure you've all had this experience when you study the Bible, it's not just the book of Ephesians.

Any part of the Bible that you do this with.

And I found that the book of Ephesians turns out to be a huge panorama of the plan of salvation in time and also in scope.

Because the book of Ephesians takes us way back into eternity past, it takes us way forward into eternity future, and it speaks of salvation at every level from individual human beings right up to the bringing back together of the universe into unity.

That sounds like too much for a sermon, right?

But we are going to look at this big picture anyway.

Because we want to know where we stand in this picture.

Have you ever been to a national park or a state park or somewhere where you were out in nature, you were on a trail and you're not sure where you are and you find 1 of those great big map things with a little red block that says you are here, right?

How much use would that be to you if it was just a little picture with a red dot in the middle that says you are here?

The same with if you're in a shopping mall and you want to know where you are, you need to see the chart of the whole mall, right?

So, in the book of Ephesians, as I was trying to understand where do we fit in and who and what is the Holy Spirit for us, I found that when we look at this big picture in Ephesians, we see things in a whole new way.

Not exactly new, but in a bigger way that gives us a better idea.

So we are going to look at some big themes in the book of Ephesians to see where we stand individually and what or who the Holy Spirit is to us.

So come with me to the book of Ephesians.

This is going to be almost a Bible study.

The book of Ephesians, I don't have time to go through it verse by verse, obviously, so I'm gonna be jumping around.

But I want to pull some things together to try to give you a basis, and then I hope you will be inspired to go away and search more of this out on your own.

In fact, there were times when I was studying this, I would have to get up and just walk around and go, whew, I can't believe this.

It was a little mind-blowing to do this study.

So I hope it will be for you too as I present these things.

Come with me, first of all, to Ephesians chapter 2.

What I'd like to do before we begin in chapter 1 is pull out 3 different concepts for you from the book of Ephesians.

And these are concepts that seem important to our understanding of our topic today.

So let's start in Ephesians chapter 2 and look at verse 4.

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4, and it says, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us.

We always need to begin here with the love of God, right?

It says in verse 7, chapter 2 of Ephesians, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

And then come with me to Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 11.

And here is a concept that I find very intriguing.

This is what kept me in the book of Ephesians actually.

It says, according to the eternal purpose which he, God, purposed in Christ Jesus.

The eternal purpose, Isn't that interesting?

We will be finding that expression comes very often in the first part of the book of Ephesians.

So, I want you to just keep in your mind the kindness of God.

The kindness of God is the love of God in action.

It's also the motive behind the eternal purpose.

And evidently, as we go back to chapter 1, God planned some things for us long before, long before we came on the scene.

Come with me to Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 4, and let's just see how He prepared back in eternity for us to be part of something.

It says, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Way back before the foundation of the world, God planned and chose us.

It says, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

And we're not going to discuss predestination, but predestination implies planning something ahead of it actually happening, right?

Again, God planned to adopt us as children.

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

But here I found that the Greek word that's translated accepted actually means graced.

God graced us in the beloved long, long before we came on the scene.

So these are some things that God planned for us in eternity past.

Let me just read a very short quotation to you from Faith I Live By, page 76, paragraph 4.

Ellen White says, "'So surely, as there never was a time when God was not, "'so Surely there never was a moment when it was not the delight of the eternal mind to manifest his grace to humanity.

So surely as there never was a time when God was not, so surely there never was a moment when it was not the delight of the eternal mind to manifest his grace to humanity.

This means that God has had us on his mind for all eternity past.

Not just, well, I'm going to create the earth, I better start planning now because I know things are gonna go wrong.

But from all eternity, God has had us on His mind.

And He's had us on His mind because of the eternal purpose.

And we need to find out exactly what is this eternal purpose.

So let's look at verse 10 in Ephesians chapter 1.

That in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather together in 1 all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him.

And then let's skip to, well no, I'll just keep reading.

In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, this is our part in the eternal purpose, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things, excuse me, after the counsel of his own will, that we, this is our part in the eternal purpose, should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ.

What does that mean, we are going to be to the praise of his glory?

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The Holy Spirit and You

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