Ephesians chapter 1 beginning at verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love. He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us and the beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth." May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing of His Word. You may be seated this morning. Well, as we've seen, the Apostle Paul tells us in this song so many things that are the revelation of the mystery of God's will. Everything he says here is something we could not discern on our own because God is transcendent. He's outside of creation and so there is very little of God we could ever discover. Now, of course, as we've said, there are some things that are quite conspicuous about God. As Romans 1 tells us, a reflection of His invisible attributes are evident within creation, within nature, and that's enough to condemn the unbeliever. But beyond that general knowledge of God, anything else that can be known of God must come to us by special revelation. And that's why His will is a mystery until He makes it known. And folks, that's why Christ came, because He's the visible representation of the invisible God, the supreme revelation of the Almighty who dwells, as Timothy says, in unapproachable light. And that's what the scriptures are all about. From beginning to end, they proclaim this gospel of Christ, revealing the God who is beyond our reach. Folks, the unveiling of the mystery of God's will is truly a wonder, and it's the most important knowledge that anyone could ever come to know. Now, we've seen that God's mysterious will is meticulously worked out in the plan He set forth. And we need to understand that God's will aligns perfectly with His plan, and His plan is utterly consistent with the fullness of His will. I mean, folks, that's a difficult thing for us to grasp because we don't have anything to relate to where this is concerned. Listen, our plans are constrained by our lack of power, by our creaturely limitations. There is always something we'd like to do differently, but we don't have the means or the might to pull it off, right? And so we can never achieve everything we would like to achieve. We have to settle for a more workable plan. And even then, our workable plans, the outcome is often quite iffy, right? But where God is concerned, there is absolutely no discrepancy, not a single detail of discrepancy between His will and His plan. His plan is His will and His will is His plan. Paul makes this explicitly clear when he tells us then that God's will, which is fully embodied in His plan, is nothing more or less than His good pleasure. In other words, it's precisely as God would have it to be. And as we read at the beginning of our service, He does as He pleases. So there is no compromise in the path God charted. There is no settling for less in the purpose He determined. There's no concessions in the course He designed. It's the perfect plan for God's good purpose, a plan that accomplishes all that He intends. God has no regrets. Down to the last detail, there is nothing God wishes He could do differently. His plan achieves His ultimate goal, which amazingly is not only to His greatest glory, but to our greatest good. I mean, what a wonder, folks. The Almighty God is none other than our gracious Savior. Only Christianity sees God in this light. We've also seen that God laid out this plan before ever bringing creation into being. And that means that God's plan was complete before the heavens and the earth ever existed. So you see, God didn't speak the world into existence while he was still tinkering with his plan. No. I mean, it may seem like it to us, but rest assured, God doesn't make any adjustments along the way. Anything that looks like an adjustment to us was already planned before the foundation of the world. As Isaiah says, He declared the conclusion of history before the start of history. And folks, from the moment creation came into existence, that means everything, everything that occurs in history has followed that plan with precise and absolute precision. And so the point is simple. God is pleased to have ordained history just as it unfolds. That's hard for us to grasp, but it's true. It's what He willed to do before creating the heavens and the earth. And so God's will is His plan, and His plan is nothing more or less than reality itself. Daniel 435, do you remember what it says? God does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and with the people of the earth. That's everyone. Now Paul tells us that in God's plan, Christ is the one who brings the divine purpose to pass. Before the dawn of creation, God ordained that in the fullness of time, He would send Jesus to reveal not only the mystery of His will, but accomplish all that He ordained for creation. As we've seen then, the fullness of time refers to that moment when all of the preliminaries are finally over. It's the hour when expectation transitions into reality. It's when all of the preparation and strategy and planning come together. The arrival of the long-anticipated moment when an intended purpose is finally realized. It's when things really get underway. That's the idea behind the fullness of time. And in this context, it refers then to a full unveiling of God's purpose and plan that signals the moment when the goal of God's mysterious will finally comes of age. In the Old Testament, it's filled with shadows and preparations and preliminary issues that will lead us up to that moment of the fullness of time when God begins to enact the redemption that He has promised. And so it's at that moment when shadow is overtaken by substance, when promise has to give way to fulfillment, when anticipation finally becomes reality. The fullness of time is when all of the Old Testament rehearsals of redemption are at long last complete and the Redeemer takes center stage. It's the moment of the ages when all that God has planned and all that He has promised begins to be fulfilled. And Jesus is the one appointed to oversee both the revelation of that will and the managing of the outworking of that will. And so Christ's task is described for us here in the text by a Greek word, oikonomia. It's where we get the word economy. It ought to sound familiar. And it refers to the management of a strategy, the implementation of a plan, the administration of a defined purpose. And so, before the creation of the world, God appointed Christ to both reveal His mysterious will and to manage the outworking of His redemptive purpose. Jesus is the administrator who orchestrates the unfolding of God's will. He's the one steering history toward the end that God designed. He not only makes the purpose of redemption known, He actually saves the people God chose. And as we'll see this morning, He's the one who restores the sin-ravaged creation. Lots of Christians are ill-informed here, thinking that we're going off to heaven somewhere and never to see the earth again. It's not true. Because at the end of the age, it's a new heavens and a new earth where we will dwell with Him. He's not abandoning this creation. Not at all. And so we're going to see this morning exactly what Paul says about God's purpose for all of this. Now, as we've seen, Jesus has the authority to administer and manage the outworking of God's plan because He completed everything the Father sent Him to do, and He's been rewarded with all authority in heaven and on earth. As a man who is also God, but it is in His humanity that He earned the right to be conferred with all authority in heaven and on earth. So it is the God-man who sits on the throne of heaven. In Revelation 5, we find that Jesus is the only one in all of creation who could accomplish this. The only one. From the farthest reaches of heavens to the lowest depths of the earth, Jesus, we see in Revelation 5, is the only one worthy to reach forth and take the scroll from the Father's hand. He alone is worthy to break the seal so that the scroll unfurls and the plan for the fullness of time is set in motion. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he will rule until all of his enemies have been undeniably subjected to his authority. This is an important point. Now, I don't want you to make a mistake here. Jesus is in complete control even in this day and hour. He's reigning over the cosmos. Ever since He ascended into heaven and took His place at the right hand of the Father, He has been ruling with absolute authority. But He has not yet made humanity face the reality of His sovereign power. Most of the world doesn't recognize that Christ is at work. Most of them don't recognize that He's here accomplishing the Father's good purpose through the presence of the Holy Spirit within the people of God. They don't recognize and see His reign, even though it's a reality. And you know what? Sadder still is the fact that sometimes, even though we know better, we have a difficulty with it too. I know I do, right? Sometimes we're puzzled by the direction things are going, right? It often doesn't look like Jesus has a handle on what's going on, at least to me, but that's because I don't have perspective. And not only that, I tend to rely on my limited insight and my sin-ridden reason. Folks, understanding the particulars of His sovereign reign is far beyond my pay grade. Nonetheless, here's the point. We have to remember this. We have the assurance of God's Word on the matter. We know that everything that exists is ultimately under His absolute dominion and the time is coming when His reign will be universally recognized. I love that hymn in Philippians chapter 2 where we see this become a reality. It's at that moment that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. At any rate, the point is for this morning is that this fullness of time has already begun. It began with Christ's first coming. It won't be fully realized until He returns. And so, the fullness of time refers to the maturing of God's plan under the direction of the God-man, Jesus Christ. The eternal plan of God centers around Jesus, who in the fullness of time, He came to implement the divine plan and oversee its administration until God's purposes are finally and fully accomplished. Paul continues to elaborate on God's unfolding plan. And the very next phrase of the doxology, God's plan is for Christ to manage the fullness of time in order to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. That's the big picture, folks. That's where it's all headed. That's where everything is ending up. The word unite, it's certainly an acceptable rendering of the Greek because that is the end goal. The end goal is a complete uniting of all things in Christ. However, I think it fails because it doesn't give us any sense of the process by which this uniting is brought about. And the Greek is quite graphic here. The word literally means to gather up and sum up, or to gather up and add up. Now, what does it mean to add up? Well, in mathematics, it's when you gather numbers together, and you unite them into one single number, right? You take all of these numbers, and you list them, and you unite them all, and what you have is the product, right? The sum, the sum total. Product is multiplication, but anyway. I just wanted to make sure Pastor knew I knew that. Pastor taught math for so many years. But at any rate, the point is, is you take all of these numbers and you gather them together, and together they produce the sun. They produce the sum, it's a single number. And so all the numbers are said to add up whenever you arrive at the correct sum. The correct unifying number is calculated, and there you have a representation of all of those numbers. And in accounting, there are two columns that You have entries, every entry is supposed to be listed in each column because there's a debit column and a credit column. And the books are said to balance whenever both columns agree when the sum of both columns come out to be the same. And so if there is an entry that's not accounted for in one column or the other, it's evident because the totals don't match up, right? And that's what we say, it doesn't add up. I can't reconcile these books. It doesn't add up. Well, I want you to think of an accounting ledger this morning, and what you have that I handed out to you this morning is just an example. I don't want you to get caught up with the numbers. The numbers don't mean anything. They're just there to represent entry. But what's important, and you'll see as we develop this, I hope you see it looks kind of backwards probably to any of you who know anything about accounting, but we'll get there in just a moment. But the point is, think about the accounting ledger. On one side is the accounting of God's eternal plan, and on the other is the accounting of Christ's administration. Now, The God's eternal plan side was finished before creation began. And as Steve Bader so aptly put it this morning, God doesn't have an eraser. No, He doesn't have to change anything. He doesn't have to work with the books a little, you know, not at all, not at all. It's written down in permanent ink and it's there to stay. The other side, let's think of it as Christ's administration. Now, right now, at this particular point in time, the books are out of balance. All right? The books are out of balance. Jesus is actually in the process of bringing His column into perfect agreement with God's eternal plan column. It's not a matter of Jesus trying until He gets everything right, because Jesus doesn't have an eraser either. He's not correcting His entries. What's happening is He's making the matching entries as they come about in the time God foreordained. So I want you to know this. Every time there is a matching entry, every moment that passes, there is an entry placed in history that matches the eternal plan. Exactly and precisely and perfectly. And whenever all is said and done, Christ's work will result in a perfect match to the divine plan, entry for entry. At long last, everything will add up. Now, as I said, I'm going to adjust our illustration just a bit this morning. Because I want us to get an accurate picture, mental picture of what the Apostle Paul is saying. And so, just for a minute, think about that phrase with me, to add up. Doesn't it seem a bit strange? I mean, after all, whenever we calculate a list of numbers, we add down, don't we? Sorry, I was taught to do it in school. And when we're finished then, we come to the bottom line. So why don't we add down? Why don't we sum down? No, we sum up and we add up. Doesn't make sense. Well, the phrase sum up is a holdover from ancient times, folks. Over the centuries, we've reversed the process of addition. I mean, at one time, numbers were added from the bottom to the top so that the total appeared at the head of the page. The sum total was the summit of everything that had been added together. And that's why we say things like, it doesn't add up. But our change in procedure, with that, the bottom line is what used to be the sum or the top line. And I'm pointing this out because I don't want us to miss the beautiful picture the Apostle Paul has in mind here. This is what God is doing through Christ. Regardless of what it looks like in any given moment, God is accomplishing His good purpose. Things aren't headed down, they're headed up. The universe isn't destined for extinction, it's destined for eternity. And when all is said and done, Christ will have brought everything in heaven and on earth to a peak, to a climax, to an apex. We will have reached the top, the zenith of God's good purpose. And in creation, we will realize the full blessing of God's grace. Now, another aspect of this, do not miss the extent of this summing up because that is astounding as well. Paul says that God's plan is to sum up all things in Christ. Now, of course, the word all is one of those terms that you probably know from English that has to be defined by the context. All is defined by the context in which it is used. When I say all the people gathered here today, I'm not talking about all the people in the world, right? And so it must be defined by the context. Here's the point. The apostle Paul makes sure to stretch that context to the limit. Notice what he says, this is not simply all things with reference to God's people or all things and even in reference to all of humanity. This summing up isn't restricted to one aspect of creation or another. It includes all that is in the realm of creation. This is what he says, it's all things in heaven and all things on earth. There's no place else to go, right? And so at the consummation of God's plan, there will be no stray elements in all of the universe. They will all have been brought into this column, and they will be summed up in Christ, and nothing will be left out. All of the various lines of the universe will converge into one single point, and that one single point is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything will be brought to its rightful place, and for the first time, creation will finally make sense. creation will finally add up. You know, the twin letter to the Colossians says much the same thing, but in a little different way. In Christ, God is reconciling all things to himself, says Paul in Colossians. Once again, the all in that passage is qualified only by creation itself. Paul says, this reconciling work of Christ encompasses everything, again, things in heaven and things on earth. Now the word reconcile, this is very interesting. It means to set a broken bone. It means to put the bone back in place where it belongs. So can you see how the two terms are different ways of saying the same thing? Sin has made a wreck of this creation. And as Paul says in Romans 1, because of sin, creation has been subjected to futility. Did you know that we are so thick sometimes. I don't know how often people have told me, well, you know, I know I'm sinning here, but it just affects me. Your sin and my sin not only affects myself and yourself and others around you, it affects creation. That's what subjected creation to frustration, to futility. Do you know why the animal kingdom is not what it ought to be? It's because of sin. Do you know why creation is not what it ought to be? It's because of sin. Why are there storms that ravage the earth? It's because of sin. Creation is out of joint. It is out of balance. It needs to be set aright. And man is the one who put it out of joint by his sin. God is the one who pronounced it, but it was because of man's sin. It was a judgment on his sin. And so the cosmos has been fractured. It's been fragmented. It's been alienated from God. And so Colossians says God's going to put it back in joint. He's going to set that bone. And my dad can testify it doesn't feel good when that happens. Oh, but afterwards, this is what he told me. Ah, the day before the surgery, he was in constant pain, and they couldn't keep the pain down, even with morphine. But right after the surgery, while he was laying still and the bone was put back in place, there was the pain of the surgery, but when that subsided, no pain. It's back in joint. So that's what Colossians says. Here in Ephesians, the universe is pictured as broken and scattered. Rebellion against God has brought chaos to the cosmos. But Jesus is going around gathering it all up, taking those shattered elements and drawing them all together. He is healing the fractures. He's reassembling the fragments so that everything will in the end add up. He's uniting all things which will result in a fully redeemed universe that resounds to His glory. So in Colossians, the universe is pictured as out of joint. Things are out of sync. Things are discombobulated. They're out of kilter. And God is setting the broken bone, putting things back the way they ought to be, so that at the consummation of things, the universe will be fully restored. The cosmos will finally take shape, the shape for which it was designed. So folks, This is the truth of what Paul tells us in this passage. This is what Christ is doing. This is His ministry now. We know that He's at the right hand of the Father, that He is ruling and reigning. We also know that He's making intercession on our behalf, as the Scripture says. But did you know that all of that is in service of this great and wondrous goal? Appointed to heaven by the Father before the world began. In His intercession for you and me, He is setting us aright. In His ruling and reigning over all that happens in the world and in the universe, He is setting things right. Of course, as I said a moment ago from my perspective, it often seems that the rubble of this fractured world is just aimlessly drifting on a chaotic sea, doesn't it? It looks like the various aspects of creation are being randomly pushed about from one place to another and often it seems to me as if there's no rhyme or reason or direction to the way the world is going. To us it seems like the world is being more divided rather than united. Doesn't it to you? This is a shattered world of sin, and it looks like that the debris from the brokenness is just drifting aimlessly farther and farther apart, but that's my perspective. It's not true. You know, think about what happens after an earthquake. In order to restore what was destroyed, you have to begin sifting through the rubble, don't you? You have to sort, you have to separate all the debris. You know, whenever the buildings crumble, they usually crumble at least in piles. You look at it, it's a devastated city, but it's kind of neatly all gathered together, you know? And then, whenever the process of cleanup and restoration begins for a little while, it looks like things are getting worse. As they begin to sift through the rubble, and it's being scattered even more than it was. You're making it worse. Ah, but when it's all finished, we see there was a plan, right? When it's complete, you see there was a method to that apparent madness. Well, folks, we don't have that big picture. We don't see the details of our master's plan. And often we can't understand how it will all come together, but it will. And God has sketched out for us the broad strokes of his redemptive work. As for the rest, He's told us to trust Him. We know where it's going. We can't see how it's getting there, but He didn't tell us that we deserve to know that. He didn't tell us He would let us in on that. He says to trust Him. And so we can be assured that He is gathering up all of the disjointed and fragmented pieces of creation, because in the process of what He is doing, He is bringing everything in line with God's eternal plan. He's making creation whole again. You know, whenever I get discouraged, I often think about Joseph. Wonderful story. Most of you probably remember it. He was just one of 12, favorite of his dad. God gave him a dream that he would be exalted and his family would one day bow before him. From the moment he had his dreams, it looked like things were going in the opposite direction. But as it turned out, it was the perfect path for God's good purpose. You know, Joseph was a favorite son, and so he was a bit haughty, a bit proud in the beginning. But after his dreams, it got worse because he began to boast about his dreams to his family. Do you remember that? Even his dad has to step in and chide him. Son, take it down a notch, right? So what happens? His brothers despise him, they trap him, they sell him into slavery. And as a slave, his master's wife falsely accuses him of sexual advances and gets him thrown into prison. So he goes from being a slave to being a prisoner. And in prison, he correctly interprets the dream of some fellow inmates and one of them gets released, the butler, remember? He's Pharaoh's butler, and so he promises to ask for Joseph's release when he gets reinstated, but things are nice for the butler and he forgets all about Joseph, right? And so for two full years, Joseph sat in prison, despondent, dejected, abandoned by everyone. You know, I can only guess that he questioned whether or not his dreams were true, right? Because ever since he had them, it looked as though he was on the opposite path. Joseph was a humbled man, and that's the key. Joseph was a humbled man. But then, after he sat in prison for two years by himself, all alone, without his friends that he'd had before, Pharaoh had a dream. Suddenly, the butler remembered his inmate. And he sent for Joseph. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream, and that very day he was made second in command of all Egypt. And what do you know? His brothers and eventually his father have to come to Egypt and bow before him. Look at that trajectory, folks. He has the dream. He's favorite of his son, of his dad, of all the sons, and his trajectory looks like this. How is that working out? How is this plan coming together? Nobody would have guessed it. Our plans always go like this, don't they? That's our plans. God's plans often go like this. His often go downward because He exalts the humble and He debases the proud. That's what the scripture says. And so Joseph, who but God could bring Joseph from the lowest point of his life to the highest point of authority in the land in one day? Who could do that? Who could take a prisoner and make him the functionary king? That's what he was. Pharaoh was king, but Joseph made all the decisions. He was the king's functionary. He's the one who had the authority. He had the Pharaoh's rod and staff of authority. You see my point. This is the way it's all headed, folks. This is the important point. that in Joseph's life he went from the lowest low to the highest height and suddenly everything in God's plan matched up. Well folks, all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I guarantee you he can turn things around in a moment. I'm not worried about the future of this country or the future of the kingdom of God. I am concerned, but I'm not worried. And that concern should be a matter of prayer, that I pray that we be a steadfast people to our God, that we hold fast to our profession of faith, that we be faithful witnesses of our Savior. But I'm not at all worried that I'm going to foul up God's plan. It's not possible. It's not possible. So the truth of the matter is, despite appearances to the contrary, God is in the process of summing all things up through Jesus Christ. Everything is under the headship of the Savior, and one day, everything will come together in Him. He will restore all things. He will unify all things. He will reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. And what a great comfort that should be. When Jesus has finished His administrative work, when He has gathered everything up and He has restored this world of corruption, everything will be united together in Him. Everything will find its sum total in Him. Everything will find its fullest and most completeness and significance in Him. The whole universe was created for this very purpose. to find its fulfillment in being united with one who brings everything into proper fellowship with the triune God. We don't understand the wonder of what God is doing, but we who do not deserve his presence. He's not just bringing us into his presence. He is bringing us into his presence in an intimate, and wondrous and glorious way. He's bringing us into that ever-circulating love between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He's bringing us that we might be united with Him. This is why the gospel of Christ, folks, is the most important message in all the world. It's the proclamation of the one whose coming is the apex of history. Every other event of human history is nothing more than a footnote. I like history. There are lots of lessons to learn from it, and I appreciate them. I'm fascinated by history. I love reading about the Civil War, about World War II. I love reading about the history of the ancient world and seeing all the great things that have happened and things that have done. But you know what? None of that, that's all stage dressing. That's all stage dressing. It's adornment. Because the only thing that really matters, the apex of all creation, was the coming of Christ and it's His return again because He is the one who brings God's purpose to pass. Everything then before His coming, whether they recognized it or not, everything was looking forward to Him and everything was in anticipation of the coming King. Everything that follows after He has come is under the direction and oversight of the God-man. He is the King of creation who will bring the cosmos to its pinnacle. And folks, do you know this is why the church calendar begins every year with Advent and takes almost half a year highlighting Christ's birth, His death, His resurrection and His ascension. Why? Because it's celebrating the ushering in of the fullness of time when Christ commenced with the unfolding of the glorious plan of God's redemption where He revealed the mysterious will of God and begins to bring about God's purpose in fullness and in reality. So it's the ushering in of the fullness of times which will commence or commenced with his first coming and will consummate with his coming again. And so in closing, folks, you know we could live our entire lives without ever knowing what life is all about. Lots of people do. We could live out our days without any understanding of why creation exists. But God has, in His gracious mercy, chosen to reveal this to us. He wants His children to live deliberate lives in light of His eternal plan. Folks, everyone is under the sovereign power of our Lord Jesus Christ, but He has given us the privilege of knowing that He reigns supreme. He's given us the privilege of knowing that He is redeeming His people and He is restoring creation. He's given us the blessed hope. And in the end, we can rest assured, everything will add up. Everything will come together in Him. And with that astounding perspective, may we live each day as those who rejoice in the fact that our Lord and Savior is administering the fullness of times, bringing about God's purpose that will all culminate in a new heavens and a new earth wherein only righteousness dwells and God's highest glory is the order of every moment of every day. May we live our lives anticipating that day when all is summed up in Christ. What a blessing it is to know that we are one of those numbers who've been put in that column to end up to the praise of His glorious grace. That's the God we serve. And to Him be all glory forever and ever. Amen.