One night this past week, I happened upon a documentary of the building of the Mackinac Bridge and I was duly impressed with the details of the construction of the bridge. For example, some of the facts related to the bridge are as follows:

The only way the bridge could be built was to make sure that the foundational superstructure was enough to handle the weight of the bridge. Just one of the two main anchorages contained over 1800,000 tons of concrete! Construction was begun on the bridge on May 7, 1954 and completed and the bridge was open to the public on November 1, 1957.

As in everything we build, the foundation is critical. That is where Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians once he completes his introduction. He begins laying the foundation of our faith and life in Christ in chapter 1 verse 3: Paul makes it clear that there are three distinct movements that take place in the foundation of our faith:

"How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. ⁴Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

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^{All of this takes place in the Heavenlies. We benefit from all of this in eternity, but make no mistake there are blessings that we can and will experience right now because of what God has done for us. These are fundamental truths which under gird us and form the foundation of our faith, our spiritual life.}

^{We want to look first at the Work of God the Father. We notice that there are two great facts that are related to the work of the Father:}

^{This is the doctrine of election. The essence of this theological doctrine is that God chose us to become Christians and to be in Christ from before the foundation of the World.}

^{We struggle with the concept of election because of the corresponding theological doctrine of free will. For you see, if we are believers in Jesus Christ, we also freely chose Him! And we are not quite sure how these two things go together.}

^{The great preacher of the turn of the last century, Harry Ironsides once had this to say about these two great facts: He imagined it in this way: When we get to heaven and approach the pearly gates there will be a sign over the entrance to Heaven. It will say: "Whosoever will may come." Heaven is open to anyone who will choose Jesus Christ and follow Him. When we walk through the gate and enter Heaven, he imagined that we would see a sign on the other side above the gate which will read: Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world." Whoever enters the gates of Heaven because of their faith in Jesus Christ will do so because God chose them before the world was even created. Both are true facts.}

^{Jesus told us in John 6;44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him." God must initiate the process. Paul tells us that God did that before He even created the World! We are not sure how this can be, but we are dealing with eternal beings for whom everything…past, present or future (to us) is the eternal now. He is able to see the future as clearly as the past}

^{At the same time Jesus told us in Matthew 11:28 "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That means that it is up to us. We can never become Christians until we choose to come.}

^{Both facts are true. We have difficulties in reconciling them with our puny intellects, we can accept them as facts. It is true that God has chosen people like us and then it is also true that people like us must also choose. The good news is offered and unless we choose to believe it and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we will never obtain the new life and forgiveness of our sins that Jesus promises.}

^{That means that we are not an after thought or accidental Christians. He selected us to be members of His family and the second great fact speaks to that issue:}

^{We become members of God’s family…because he wanted it that way!}

^{The purpose of what God has done is that we have been chosen so that we might be holy and blameless.}

^{How should we define the word "holy"?}

^{We all have some interesting ideas about what holiness is. We often see it as some kind of sanctimoniousness. Ray Stedman likens it to a kind of theological de-worming process." According to Stedman the way the word is used in Leviticus, "holy" means "wholeness" and wholeness means "put to the proper use"}

^{When your body works the way it is supposed to you are physically whole. And when your whole being functions the way it was intended to by God, you are holy. (Riches in Christ, p. 27).}

^{Blamelessness is also an interesting concept. Many of us have a difficult time in seeing ourselves as blameless. We know quite well that we are sinners and that our sinfulness could only be dealt with by Jesus death on the cross when he paid the ransom penalty for us to set us free from the bondage of sin and the death that comes with it. We have done many things for which we might properly be blamed. Blameless does not mean sinless. Never having done any thing wrong is sinless. However, we can be sinful and blameless at the same time. How can this be? It can be true when we handle our sin in the right way. When we confess it and seek forgiveness for it we no longer carry the blame for that sin. It is now being carried by Jesus. He takes our sin upon himself and he deals with it.}

^{What did God do? He has given us in Christ sonship status or standing. We have been adopted…leaving one family for another one with a new name, new resources, new relationships. We were of the family of Adam and now we have been adopted into the Family of God with the intention that we become mature, grown up individuals.}

 ^{The Work of Jesus Christ the Son}

^{The Work of the Holy Spirit:The Holy Spirit is the down payment, the earnest money, the guarantee that God will finish what he started.}

^{We are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. What does this mean?}

^{The imagery is obviously that of the ancient practice of sealing documents with wax and impressing the wax with a ring or seal that bears an identifying image. Use of the seal involved two specific ideas: First of all, the idea of ownership The document belonged to the individual who sealed it.}

^{God sent the Holy Spirit into our lives to mark the fact that we belong to Him! 1 Corinthians 6:20 makes it clear that we were bought with a price and belong to Him. The Holy Spirit is the mark of his ownership.}

^{The second idea presented by a seal is that of preservation. You will remember that the tomb of Jesus was sealed by the Romans to secure the tomb so that no one could take the body out without anyone knowing it. The seal means that God will keep us. He guarantees our inheritance.}

^{The Greek word for guarantee is arrabon which means "a down payment" The down payment is a guarantee that there is more to come.. The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that He will finish what He has begun in us. Our earthly existence is not all there is…there is more to come.}

^{The last of the images in this concept of the seal and the guarantee is that it is God who is acquiring the possession. He has marked us out and given us the earnest money and he will come again and claim his purchased possession. This is to be done at the resurrection of the body of the believer. In that day, God will complete the transaction . The Holy Spirit in us is the guarantee of our inheritance, that God will finish what he has started.}

^{There you have the foundation that Paul is clearly laying for us who believe. Remember, what God has started…in eternity past, He will complete one day when Jesus returns and we are raised to be with Him forever!}