Welcome back to our next lesson in our study of the letter to the Ephesians, and this time we come to verse 5, where we read, Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to good pleasure of His will. As believers, we stand in a twofold relationship to God. And this two-fold-relationship we also see in verse 4 and in 5. Verse 4 was mainly the focus of our last lesson, where we have seen that we were chosen before the foundations of the world, that should be holy, and without blame before Him in love. God wants people to be in heaven. That is a magnificent thought. And maybe we have gotten too used to it. Well see, how is that possible? That people are in Heaven, that they can be the presence of God, in His glory. We have seen that we need His nature. First five will lead us on. Verse 5 will show us that God wants relationship to us. He didn’t choose us as angels or to be as servants before Him. No, He wanted to have us sons before him. And so verse 5 shows us more our relationship with God as Father. We have a relationship towards Him as sons. I will come back to that in a minute, but let me go back towards 4 just for a second, because I just wanted to highlight a few thoughts about that God chooses us or that He elects us. That is something that god did in eternity past, and it is an active decision that he made in sovereign grace. And I think one thing we need to understand here is that God acts. He does not react. Because sometimes you hear the thought that god knew already how we would decide that we will correspond to the gospel and believe in the Lord Jesus and hence, because he knew that already, he chose us. No, it’s the other way around. God chose, God elected and therefore we believe. And I want to just add to that. The thought of salvation or the necessity of Salvation is not the aim of God choosing us. The aim is that there are people before Him. Yes, salvation is a necessity and God knew how to save. He was not surprised by sin. There is the great plan of salvation. But that is no the thought here in Ephesians 1. the Thought is, that God wanted to have people Before Him, if people were to be before him, They must be holy and without blame and in love. We need to understand when it comes to the topic of election or choosing. where we have to do with God’s sovereign will, with His counsels, that we do not go beyond what Scripture tells us, and that, we understand that there are limits to our human logic. Logic is something that is God-given, but there’re limits too it. When it comes to the Godhead, there’s a triune God, three persons, one God. I cannot grasp that with my human logic. That the Lord Jesus was the eternal Son of God, God Himself, and yet fully man, 100% God 100%, man. I can not grasp it. My brain is not made for that. It’s a human brain nonetheless. And even though God reveals Himself there are limits for us. and I think even here we need to be careful and acknowledge and realize that there limits that we cannot grasp these thoughts. I have no doubt that in the mind of God there is perfect harmony in all of that. But for us, there are limits. And why I stress this is because there’s on the one side, as I said already, the sovereign working of god in grace. That is one site. On the other side we have man’s responsibility. These are two separate themes. which stand independently to each other, are presented to us independently and what we as human beings now try to do is we mix them up together and then somehow almost every time we try do that we go beyond scripture. But we need to separate them and leave them where they are. God shows us in sovereign grace that is true. That is what scripture tells us. And yet there’s the responsibility of man to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to repent. Now let’s turn to verse 5, and as we saw already, that shows us that God didn’t want us as servants before Him or as angels, but that He wants to have a relationship to us, as a father to sons. And therefore, He has predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ. That is a wonderful thing and it tops somehow what we see in verse four. Verse four we have seen already that we needed to be made fit for the presence of God. But here we that God delights to have relationship. And this relationship is characterized by having those before Him, where there is a relationship and that those have an insight into His heart. As sons, we are representatives, but also we have those who have insight in the heart of God. We are those, who know what He is interested in. we know about His thoughts. A servant simply obeys. That’s what he does. And sometimes he might even do something without understanding why he should do that. But as sons, we are not servants. We not only simply obey. but we are those who have an interest in the person and the thoughts and feelings of the Father. And may I add, what is the main focus of The Father? What is his main interest? That is, the Lord Jesus Christ, The Eternal Son of God. The final question I would like to raise is how have we gotten into this relationship? and most English translations render the Greek very well here, and we read, predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ. If people adopt a child, for example, this child is given a relationship that is not inherently his. My own children are biologically my children and that is they are inherently my Children. But if I adopt a child, I make it legally my child and give this child somehow the same position as my biological children. but this position that this adopted child now has is not inherently his. My biological children is inherently their position. By birth, they are my children. But an adopted child has come into this position, which this new child, adopted, child did not have before. That is adoption. And that is, I think, also what applies here. We have come into a relationship towards God that’s inherently not ours. When it comes to the Lord Jesus, He is the eternal Son of God. That’s a position that inherently is. He’s the Son God and He always was the son of the God, and he will never stop being the Eternal Son Of God and we will never enter into this relationship that He always had and always will have. But now we are also sons of God, but in this relationships that the Lord Jesus Christ as man had towards His Father in heaven. And in this this relationship has been opened up to the believers. We have come into this now. And that is very wonderful. He will the Lord Jesus Christ will always take the first place. he will. Always have that glory that he would not share with others. But here he has brought us into. This relationship that we are sons of God is the same relationship. That he enjoyed as a man on earth to his father in heaven. We come to the end of this lesson and we have seen that verse 4 deals more with God and His nature and that God has given us His Nature so that we are fit to be before Him. We will be in the house of the Father and We have been made fit, therefore He has chosen us, an active act of God in his sovereign grace. Verse 5 then shows us more our relationship towards the Father. And we are now sons of god by adoptions. Therefore we have already seen two blessings that we possess. Two spiritual blessings in the heavenlies that God the father has given us. May it be that the Spirit of the God helps us to grasp those thoughts as feebly as they are explained, but that we may delve deeper into these thoughts and that these thought may have an impact on us. Most of all, let we worship also and praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.