“I want you to imagine yourself this morning as an eight-year-old child and you're sleeping, but it's Christmas morning. Your eyes pop open and you realize it's Christmas day and what kind of thrill and excitement is that.

Now I don't know about you, but that was a thrill and excitement of my entire year when I got to open the presents. In the living room as you're waking up on Christmas morning, there are under the tree, six big gifts and those gifts have your name on them. They're for you.

What kind of feelings do you have?

You have a sense of anticipation, a sense of thrill, a sense of excitement and wonder about these things. You have, hopefully, a sense of gratitude and maybe a sense of praise in a way for your parents who got you those gifts. I just want to set it there this morning because this is the intended experience that we have before us in our passage.

Last week we saw four amazing blessings of God's grace.

1. He chose us to be holy and blameless.
2. He predestined us for adoption as children into his family.
3. He redeemed us by the blood of Jesus Christ.
4. He made known to us the mystery of his will, which is that all things are being summed up or united in Jesus Christ, that God is doing this work; he's working out his purposes, and they will be worked out.

All these blessings come by means of our union with Christ—this deep and intimate spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.

We have a relationship with Christ. He is united to us by faith, and this is the gift of God.

Today we're going to encounter two more amazing blessings, and we'll see that those who believe in Christ are guaranteed to receive the final, glorious inheritance of the saints.

These blessings are meant to draw us out of ourselves and draw us into a relationship, a deeper relationship, God. They're meant to draw us into a life of worship of God. We find a God who is all powerful. We find a God who is good and a God who promises good things.

We find a God who is who is faithful and eminently able to do what he promises.

This is the God we encounter this morning—a God who is sure, who is solid, a God who is trustworthy, and therefore words from God that are sure and solid and trustworthy. This God is worthy of our praise, and this God is worthy of our hope. In the end, that's really the purpose of our time this morning is the purpose of our lives, to praise and to find our hope in God.”

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