Sam, Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Providence Podcast. My name is Chris Oswald. I'm the senior pastor at Providence Community Church. So glad that you're listening today. This is part three of a series I've been plodding along in personally called Outgrowing Anxiety.
Now, one of the key pieces of my approach to counseling and with counseling anxiety, dealing with my own anxiety, is to remember sort of teleological things that are important to remember. This is pretty much true of all suffering. You have to figure out what you are for, what suffering is for, so on and so forth in order to sort out anxieties, fears, disappointments, and so forth. A lot of times it just comes down to you thinking that something's for one thing when it's for another thing. And this is really the root of what I was talking about from 2nd Corinthians 4, where Paul calls himself a jar of clay containing the glory of Christ. And it is important that he be a jar of clay that is to be a fragile thing, because all of the cracks and breaks expose the glory of Christ, even his own endurance. Paul's endurance, the fact that he's still all in one piece to some degree, proclaims the glories of Christ. So in that particular case, the resolution to a lot of social anxiety is to think, okay, what am I for? And the answer is, I'm to make Jesus look good. I'm not to make myself look good. That's not my aim. I'm to make Jesus look good. And one of the ways I do that is by being so. Evidently not Jesus. Not in a sinful way, exactly. Although that, of course, brings glory to Jesus as well. But in this sense of just being imperfect, just being flawed, just making mistakes, not knowing things, having a lot more to learn, and so forth. If the light of Christ is inside of you, I need you to trust me to understand that. What will happen when that becomes a part of your life, when you are more vulnerable, when you don't know everything, when you do get confused, when you do make mistakes, when you do sin, all of that is just opportunity for Christ to shine through you. And that's what you are for. You exist to bring glory to Christ.
This idea of teleology, I was thinking the other day when I was just like every other kid learning algebra, thinking, am I ever going to use this? And the answer is no. I almost never use algebra, but I use Aristotle pretty much every day. I do wish there had been more philosophy, more logic in education, and I wish that was true to this day. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so grateful for classical education is we are going to give them the tools that they'll actually use. You say, well, Chris, how do you use Aristotle every day? Well, everything I just talked about, it's just being trained to learn to think about things from a perspective of ends and means, of what are we trying to achieve and how do we get there. I'm thinking through ultimate ends and subordinate ends, which I'll talk about here in a minute.
But anyway, to be clear, you're used to hearing, I mean, I don't mean to trash all of it, but absolutely pathetic, unhelpful discussions on anxiety that don't deal with basic things. But the reality is, is that one of the basic things is your reputation, your appearance, the way people see you. That's all meant to make Jesus look good, not you look good. And that can happen in so many ways in so many circumstances. Whether you're rich or poor or sick or healthy, smart or dumb, busy or have tons of free time, there's ways where you can glorify Jesus no matter what's going on in your life. That's because Jesus is working in all of those things to willing to work his good purpose. And he's going to turn all those things out for not only your good, but for his glory, is what Romans 8:28 says. And so just remembering that you're not, you don't exist for some other means, you exist for Christ is key.
Today I'm going to talk a lot about. Well, I'm going to start talking about Ephesians because I'm supposed to preach this week on Ephesians chapter 1, verses 1 through 14, which I will do. But that is way too beefy and rich passage to just talk about it a little bit. So I'm going to go back through that later on. But one of the things, one of the things that Ephesians 1 says in verse 4 is that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
And what the word holy just means there is conform to his standards. And so I want you to understand like that a lot of social anxiety is an effort to be holy and blameless before others. It's an inversion or a confusion of where you're supposed to be aiming your aspirations. If I am to be holy in this word, holy might have you confused. But if I am to be holy in the eyes of my next door neighbor, I have to conform to his standards, then I am holy and blameless. If I deviate from his standards, then I am no longer holy and blameless in his eyes. Well, a lot of social anxiety is just trying to be holy and blameless in the eyes of people who are not who made us or who we're supposed to live for, or so forth.
6 · Pastoral encouragement preempting listener frustration with the theological rather than therapeutic approach, acknowledging the slow process of truth-saturation and the need for repeated hearing
So, anyway, all that to say, we have so much that we could talk about on this subject of outgrowing anxiety, but a lot of it is actually not therapeutic as much as it is theological, truth oriented. And the reason why it doesn't lock in right away isn't because the truth doesn't work, because the truth doesn't correct or fix. It's just. We're just that leaky. We just have to hear this stuff so much. So don't get frustrated as if I'm talking about purely abstract things here. This is really the pathway. But, you know, it takes a long time for this stuff to settle in and start making a difference in our lives.
7 · Summarizes the methodological approach (philosophical, logical, scriptural, teleological, ontological), warns of the episode's length, and pivots to an extended illustration from It's a Wonderful Life
All right, so that's kind of an introduction to the series itself. Outgrowing anxiety, which I believe needs to take more of a philosophical, logical, scriptural, teleological and ontological perspective. So that's kind of why I'm doing the way I'm doing it. Now prepare yourself, because we're going to go for a while. There's a number of pieces of this particular episode, but I want to start off by talking about George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life.
8 · Extended illustration using George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life to embody the sermon's central claim about suffering's teleology
We all watch it, we quote it, we cry at the end, we say it's one of the greatest stories ever told. The question that we really are supposed to be asking is, are you ready to become George Bailey? That's the basic question. Are you ready to become George Bailey? If you watch the movie closely, Bailey is a man of almost uninterrupted suffering. His hearing loss isn't random. It's the cost of saving his brother's life. His dreams of travel, adventure, success are repeatedly deferred, not because he's lazy or foolish, but because he keeps choosing responsibility over escape. Every time he's on the verge of leaving Bedford Falls, something breaks, someone needs help, or the community he's holding together would collapse without him. George basically just doesn't get the life that he wants, but he does get the life that God wants for him. And, you know, by the time we meet him on the bridge, his anxieties have reached and despair have reached their breaking point. He's exhausted and ashamed, convinced that his life has amounted to nothing. He's feeling existentially like a failure. And he believes that his life has just been so marked with all this loss and it's been so constrained away from adventure and, you know, sort of, sort of the more obvious forms of glory. You know, he's just. He's just weary and despairing. But of course, you know, Clarence shows him the truth. George's suffering wasn't a detour from significance. It was the path of significance. You know, his sufferings didn't make his life smaller like he thought they did. They made it foundational. You know, there's entire lives, entire futures that existed because George stayed when he wanted to leave and he bore loss so that others could flourish. His life, his life was a jar of clay. He was cracked. But the light of God's faithfulness and kindness to Bedford Falls shone through his cracks. And, you know, the insufficiencies of Bedford Falls made a lot of those cracks.
9 · Applies the George Bailey illustration by diagnosing anxiety as rooted in treating comfort, autonomy, and fulfillment as ultimate rather than subordinate ends, and suggests that resistance to suffering may produce chronic low-grade anxiety rather than the acute suffering that forms character and blesses others
So one of the questions that we should start thinking about with anxiety is what if a part of our anxiety comes from treating comfort and autonomy and personal fulfillment as ultimate ends when Scripture tells us their subordinate ends? What if we're constantly bracing ourselves against the very kinds of suffering that God uses to form his family to bless others and to actually redeem the whole world? What if, like a big part of our suffering has to do, or a big part of our anxiety has to do with a resistance to lean properly, masculinely, face first into suffering. And so the consequence of that is a constant suffering of anxiety. It's essentially, we could live a bold life where we get punched in the face and nearly die and lose one ears worth of hearing and have our heart broken six times. And we could live that kind of life full of these big punches of hard life, devastating, nearly suicidal life is so hard. Or maybe that's just the way life is. You have to have some of that. And instead we're creating these comfortable lives where we just microdose the suffering of anxiety every single day. I mean, I don't know. Not all of this is meant to be polemical. I'm thinking about some of this. I do think that our relationship with suffering is not what it needs to be if we are struggling with anxiety.
10 · Reframes the conversation's aim (addressing the relationship with suffering through teleology), cites the biblical principle 'the body is for the Lord' as an example of teleological reasoning applied to physical suffering, and previews the exposition of Ephesians to come
And that's kind of the main scope of this conversation today, is to reframe that. Like I said, you've got to. Almost every, almost every pain point in our lives has some teleology to it. It's like, what is this thing for? I was thinking about some of my church members who are suffering physically and how ultimately you just have to keep reminding yourself, what is this body for? And of course, there's a whole doctrine, the teleology of the Bible, the body is, or the teleology of the body. The body is for the Lord. That's where. That's where our entire doctrinal understanding of the body starts, is the body is for the Lord. Everything flows from that sense. So that's what I'm going to be trying to do today. I'm going to try to weave a bunch of this through. And also I want to share some stuff from Ephesians with you that I won't get to on Sunday.
11 · Introduces Aristotelian categories of ultimate ends (pursued for their own sake) and subordinate ends (genuinely good but serving something higher) as the conceptual framework for diagnosing anxiety's inversion of proper teleological order
You know, that last episode we talked about Paul's jars of clay. And today I want to go one deeper layer and suggest that there's an inversion happening somewhere along the way in our anxious hearts that needs to get straightened out. And to do that, I have to talk about ends and means, which you know is Aristotelian. There are other ways of talking about it. I'm just going to use those two phrases, ends and means, or. And then the other idea is the ultimate ends and subordinate ends. So let me start there. An ultimate end is something you pursue for its own sake, okay? It's the final reason. It's the final goal. A subordinate end is something genuinely good that exists to serve something higher. So a subordinate end, and I will talk about this enough where I think you'll get those categories clear as we work through this. An ultimate end is like the final reason for something. Subordinate ends are lesser reasons that are still good and good accomplishments, but they are leading to something else.
12 · Personal illustration applying the ultimate/subordinate distinction: the speaker's intact family and holy life are subordinate ends serving the ultimate end of glorifying God
So my ultimate end is to glorify God. And I would prefer to do that by having an intact family, a holy personal life. There are a lot of secondary or subordinate ends that I would love to hope are the main way I will glorify God. But again, those things are not my ultimate end. My ultimate end is to glorify God.
13 · Core theological diagnosis of anxiety: it arises when subordinate ends (comfort, safety, control, approval) are elevated to ultimate status, making failure terrifying and uncertainty itself threatening
I think that anxiety often shows up when we take a subordinate end, like comfort or safety or control or success or approval, and we treat it like an ultimate end. And once that happens, you know, failure becomes terrifying. Uncertainty itself feels like a threat, you know, all the time, which is just untenable. You just can't live a productive life where uncertainty feels like a threat. You just can't do it. You will not be able to love, you will not be able to lead, you will not be able to learn. You will not be able to live the way you're supposed to live. If Uncertainty itself feels like a constant threat. And then, of course, on top of that, we've got a bunch of misunderstandings related to suffering and what suffering is for. And then, you know, there's just this idea that God hardwires us to avoid danger and prevent harm, and that's a good thing. But anxiety happens when that instinct is asked to do more than it was designed to do. You know, there's a level which God says, hey, do what you can to avoid hardship. But the anxious heart forgets to hear that one part there. The do what you can. And then after that, there's just a lot you can't do.
14 · Signals the pivot from conceptual framework to scriptural exposition, promising to ground the ultimate/subordinate ends argument in Ephesians 1:1-14
So there's a lot of layers to this. Let me kind of ground all this in the first 14 verses of Ephesians 1.
15 · Full reading of Ephesians 1:1-14 without commentary, establishing the textual foundation for the exposition to follow
Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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 to Himself 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 in 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. In him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory in Him. You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in him, and were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of of it, to the praise of his glory.
16 · Exegetical observation isolating the passage's pervasive language of divine will and decree (chosen, predestined, purpose, counsel) to establish that God's sovereignty is both absolute and purposeful, governed by kind and loving reasons
Now, on Sunday I will talk a little bit about some of this, and one of the things I will discuss is the concept of divine decree. God having his will be done, and having his will accomplished no matter what, simply because he's determined that that will be the case. And so the passage is full of language of God's intention. By the will of God he chose us before the foundation of the world. He predestined us according to the purpose of his will in all wisdom and insight. The mystery of his will according to the purpose as a plan for the fullness of time. Predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. So one of the things is just this. God, and this is a big theme that's coming up on Sunday, is this. God is not only in charge of everything, but he does all things for very clear reasons. I'll get to that in a moment. And those reasons are always kind. Those reasons are always loving in some respect or another.
17 · Pastoral reflection integrating ontology (what you are) and teleology (what you're for) with the preceding exposition on divine sovereignty to ground suffering in the believer's identity as belonging to the God who ordains all things
So one, just like big takeaway. And this is ontology, which I think gets covered more on this subject. But to deal with any kind of suffering, you kind of need to ask what you are and what you're for. And you know, it's ontology and teleology. Ontology is like, what are you? And then what are you for? That's theology. Well, what am I when I'm suffering? I need to know what am I? And the answer is I'm God's. I'm God's. That's what I am. I'm God's. Well, who is God? He's the one who, according to the counsel of his will, has worked out all things in advance to be done as they will be done. Whose am I? I'm God's. Who is God? He is the one who's in charge.
18 · Transition acknowledging the academic density of the material and offering written notes while signaling the shift from ontology to teleology within the Ephesians text
So, you know, there's an ontological glory there. We'll talk about that a little bit more on Sunday. But, but, but also there's just a ton of. Of teleology and kind of aims that God is revealing in this passage. Again, I know this sounds academic, but please, if you have to write some of this down, write it down. Or if you want the notes, just ask me.
19 · Exegetical identification of God's ultimate end (the praise of His glory) stated three times in Ephesians 1 (vv
But there are subordinate ends and ultimate ends. An ultimate end is what is designed for its own sake. A subordinate end is something genuinely good that is desired for the sake of something higher. Ultimate ends are goals that don't go beyond themselves. That's it. You've reached your destination. There's nowhere else to go. Subordinate ends are real goods that serve and support something greater. God's ultimate end, as revealed in this passage and in throughout whole scripture, is the praise of his own glory. God's main goal, his ultimate goal, where there's nothing else going beyond it, is the praise of his own glory. God's subordinate ends are the many good things he accomplishes to bring that glory about. So his ultimate end is to bring Himself glory. And this shows up three times in that passage I just read. Three times. You'll read to the praise of his glory, verse 6, to the praise of his glorious grace, verse 12 to the praise of his glory, verse 14 to the praise of his glory. What is God aiming for with all of his sovereign capacity, all of his wisdom, all of his love, all of his ability to do whatever he sets out to do? What is it that he's chosen to do? He's chosen to do the only thing that would be morally fitting for a supremely good, divine, ultimate good, divine being to do, and that is to praise Himself. Because that's what you would have to do if, if you were the ultimate being. The ultimate being would say, what is the thing that I can praise? And that's a moral imperative of being. And he would have to line up and say, well, that's me. And now I don't mean to suggest that God is constrained to praise Himself, but just that it is fitting for him to praise Himself. And so his main aim throughout all the Bible is clear, to bring glory to his name. You're going to find that all over the Bible there are so many passages that talk about that.
20 · Exegetical discovery that the three 'to the praise of His glory' statements in Ephesians 1 are distributed Trinitarianly: verse 6 praises the Father, verse 12 the Son, verse 14 the Spirit — a unique structural feature revealing the economic roles of the Trinity in accomplishing God's ultimate end
What you won't see, this is pretty cool. What you won't see anywhere else, as far as I know, and I would love to be proven wrong on this, is I don't think you'll ever see another place in the Bible where all three members of the Trinity are set apart to be praised. So I mentioned a moment ago, there are three instances in Ephesians 1 through 14, Ephesians 1, 1, 14, that say, to God's praise. To his glory. To his glory. Well, listen to this. This is crazy. All right, Verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 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 to Himself 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 in the Beloved. Here, the person that fits the pronoun in verse six to the praise of his glorious grace, that's the God and Father. That's God as Father. That's, that's who is there Christ in this section is the instrument that brings that praise about. But the pronoun actually goes all the way back to the beginning of verse three. God the Father is the one who gets praised. Well, now, if you look at verse 11, you've got in him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. Now, whose glory are we praising here? Well, it's Christ's. So that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. And then in verse 13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Well, who's the glory there? Who. Who gets the glory there? The Spirit. So, yeah, I think this is. I don't know of another passage that does it this way. This is pretty remarkable. Here you have the Trinity all working for the praise glory of the Godhead, each in their own economic roles. Praise to the Father, Praise to the Son, Praise to the Spirit. Three in one. I mean, guys, the Bible's just amazing.
21 · Summarizes the ultimate end (God's eternal glorification) before transitioning to the subordinate ends that serve it
Anyway, all that to say that that's the ultimate end, that's the final terminus of all possible ends that are worthy, is that God will be glorified forever and ever. Now, this passage mentions that three times.
22 · Catalogs the subordinate ends in Ephesians 1 (holiness, adoption, redemption, knowledge of God's will, cosmic unity, inheritance) and establishes that these goods serve rather than compete with God's ultimate end
But then it also mentions a ton of other really wonderful things that are secondary or subordinate ends. That we would be holy and blameless before Him. Verse 5, that we would be adopted as his sons. Verse 5. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Verse 7. We have been made known. We've been told the mystery of his will. Verse 9, he is uniting all things in Him. Verse 10. We have obtained an inheritance. Verse 11. So these are all really good things that serve this greater thing. These are subordinate ends that serve the ultimate end. The subordinate ends are conversion, the reconciliation of the world unto Christ, forgiveness of our trespasses, the sealing of the Holy Spirit. There are all these secondary things that God has purposed to do that don't distract him from accomplishing his end result, but actually support the accomplishment of that end result.
23 · Brief structural aside noting that Ephesians 1:1-14 functions as a compressed table of contents for the entire letter's themes
And by the way, just as an aside, these secondary or subordinate ends in this section of Scripture are basically the table of contents for the whole letter. Paul's really just telling us in advance in concentrated form, the major themes he will return to throughout the letter. Our identity in Christ, God's cosmic purpose, the role of the Spirit, the life of the Church. The rest of ephesians from verse 15 on doesn't change the subject. It just slows down and fills in what Paul has said in this long opening sentence in Ephesians 1. But that's, you know, I mean, that's a minor point.
24 · Theological synthesis asserting the hierarchical ordering of ends revealed in Ephesians 1: God's ultimate end governs subordinate ends, and even among subordinate ends there is internal ordering — not all are equally fundamental
The real thing I wanted you to see is that there's. There's structure all the way down. God's ultimate ends, to the praise of his glory, stands over his subordinate ends. To unite all things in Himself, to forgive us, to make us holy and blameless. Those things just lead to and support the ultimate aim, which is to have God's name be glorified and praised. And so when, even when those. And then we can look at the subordinate ends themselves and see that they are even ordered to some degree. They're all equal or they're all wonderful, but they aren't all equally, you know, ordered. I guess you could say.
25 · Transition setting up the re-reading of Ephesians 1:1-14 with a listening task: identify the chief subordinate end among the many goods listed
Amongst all the benefits listed, there's one benefit that stands head and shoulders above everything else. And listen, I'm just going to read the passage again because why not? So, Paul and Apostle, which I want you to do here is I just want you to listen for all the subordinate ends, like all the good things God is doing. And I want you to decide which one is the ultimate of all the subordinates, which one stands at the top of that second category?
26 · Second full reading of Ephesians 1:1-14, this time with the listener primed to identify adoption as the chief subordinate end
All right. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God to the saints, who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 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 to Himself 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 in 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. In him. We've obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be the praise of his glory in Him. You also, when you heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
27 · Exegetical conclusion identifying adoption as the chief subordinate end in Ephesians 1, superior even to forgiveness, holiness, and cosmic reconciliation, because adoption is the primary means by which God secures His glory
Okay, I just read all of those. Which one stands out as the most important? Is it that we are forgiven? Is it that his blood has redeemed us and forgiven us of our trespasses? Is it that we were predestined? Is it that we will be holy? Is holiness the main point, the best of the subordinate ends, the most important of them? Is it that we have an inheritance or that God has shown us the mystery of his will? Is knowing the truth about God? Is that the ultimate aim? Is it that we, you know which one is it? Well, the one that is the ultimate in this list of subordinates is that we are adopted, that we're made his children. Amongst all the benefits listed, one stands head and shoulders above them all. It's not forgiveness, it's not holiness. It isn't even God's plan to unite all things in Christ. It's adoption, the building of a filial family, as the theologians describe the household of God. That's the main way God gets His glory.
28 · Transition asserting that adoption's primacy will be demonstrated from broader scriptural witness, and introducing the upstream/downstream ordering of subordinate ends relative to adoption
And I'll show you in a minute that that's always been stated explicitly in Scripture that the main way God gets His glory is by securing a people for Himself. But that's the main glory. Adoption is the main glory. All these other things are subordinate to that ultimate end or either flow to it or from it.
29 · Cites David Garner's theological work on adoption to establish scholarly authority for the claim that adoption is the chief subordinate end, with Garner quoted as saying adoption is 'the very goal of Christ's coming' and delivers 'the loftiest expression of His glory
So one of the best books I've read in the last five years or so is a book by David Gardner on adoption he goes through. It's going to be more technical than the average person will want to read, but it is actually readable. If you wanted to just try. And you'd have to look up some words and things, but there's really no other book that I know of that does what it does. And it just provides a thorough theology of adoption, of spiritual adoption, and shows that it is the high point of all the subordinate ends. It's the chief way that God glorifies His name. Let me just read some quotes from Garner on this. Adoption is the very goal of Christ's coming. He writes elsewhere, the sending of God's Son and his redemption of those who were under the law, important as they are in their own right, are here a means to an end. The end being who youthesia of the believers. That's the word for adoption. One more the final purpose of redemption on the stage of history is the glory of the triune God. So there he's talking about ultimate ends. The final purpose of redemption on the stage of history is the glory of the Triune God. Yet adoption as filial declaration and filial transformation, that just means familial as filial declaration and filial transformation accomplishes the prevailing doxological purpose of God by securing holy sons by adoption through the dead and resurrected Son, delivering the loftiest expression of his glory.
30 · Uses 2 Samuel 7:22-24 (David's covenant prayer) to show that God's glory has always been pursued by 'making a people for Himself,' with the Exodus narrative serving as paradigmatic evidence that God redeems a people to glorify His name
The summary, the Chris summary of that is God does all sorts of things. They're all really cool. All things are ultimately for the ultimate thing, which is the glory of his name. But making a people for himself has always been transparently. If you're just paying attention, the Bible's central means that God has in mind to bring himself glory. You know, in 2 Samuel 7, God makes a covenant with David. And David understands this piece of it. He understands his role. He feels entirely flattered and undeserving to play the role he's playing, but he understands what God's doing. And in second Samuel 7, verse 22, he starts, he's talking to God. He says, therefore you are great, O Lord God, for there is none like you, and there is no God beside you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people? Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out people before driving out before your people, whom you redeemed from your for yourself, from Egypt, a nation and its gods. The whole lesson of the Exodus is God's doing all these things for his own glory. And that is in large part facilitated by him making a people for himself.
31 · Cites Isaiah 43:6-7, 21 as explicit Old Testament statements that God created and formed His people 'for my glory' and 'that they might declare my praise,' reinforcing the theme that adoption is the chief means of glorification
In Isaiah 43 you have this really explicitly spelled out. God says, bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, who I created for my glory, why did God make a family? Why has he adopted us as sons and daughters for his glory? Later on in Isaiah 43, verse 21, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.
32 · Adds Jesus's high priestly prayer and Acts 15:14 to the canonical evidence that God's glory is pursued by forming a people for His name, confirming the theme spans both Testaments and extends to Gentiles
And then, you know, it doesn't get any clearer than when Jesus in. In the high priestly prayer just talks about this explicitly. He talks about a people who were given to him by the Father, and there they exist to be glorified, or Jesus is glorifying himself in the their existence. Acts 15. God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name, lest we think that this is a purely Jewish thing. Point being, throughout Scripture, God repeatedly states that he acts for the sake of his name, glory and praise by forming a group of people, a family, a household of faith. And that that's the primary subordinate means. And it's spelled out pretty clearly, I think, in Ephesians 1, 4 6.
33 · Returns to Ephesians 1:4-6 to reiterate that adoption is the grand purpose to which all other subordinate ends connect
In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace. All the other subordinate ends mentioned in our passage are connected to this grand purpose.
34 · Introduces the upstream/downstream distinction among subordinate ends: upstream ends (predestination, justification, sanctification) lead toward adoption, while downstream ends flow from it
I think of it this way. There are some of the things mentioned in our passage lead upstream to adoption, and then some of the things in our passage flow out of adoption. So there's upstream ends and downstream ends. So the upstream ends. Predestination, we're told. He chose us, he predestined us. That's leading toward adoption, justification and the forgiveness of sins. That's in that passage too, in verse seven. That's leading toward adoption. Being made holy and blameless, that's the necessary fitness that the sons and daughters must possess to dwell before a holy Father. And we have been chosen to be made holy and blameless before Him. So there's all these things that God is doing to support his glory, to give Himself glory. The main one is to call out and keep a people for himself. And there are things that he does to lead up to that which is he predestines, he justifies, he sanctifies.
35 · Identifies downstream subordinate ends (sealing of the Spirit, inheritance) that flow from adoption once it is accomplished
And then there are things that flow out of that adoption. The sealing of the Holy Spirit referred to in verses 13 and 14. The inheritance mentioned in verses 11 and 14. There's a bunch of inheritance language in Ephesians. I think there's four different references to it.
36 · Identifies cosmic reconciliation (Ephesians 1:10) as another downstream end, citing Colossians 1:20 to establish the Pauline theme of Christ reconciling all things, and arguing this cosmic renewal flows from adoption
And then even this is crazy to me. Even the reconciliation of all things. You know, the text says that God has a plan is for the fullness of time to cause all things to be reconciled or to be dwelling in Christ, to lead to Christ, or to be held by Christ. I think it's kind of the linguistic intent there. And you can see that progress through the rest of Ephesians 1. The fullness of him who fills all in all. Well, this is just classic Pauline cosmology, post resurrection and ascension. He Just talks about the world getting reconciled a lot. In Colossians 1, he says that Christ has reconciled all things to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven. It's really just this idea that he's going to pull all the world together under his authority and make it new. Right. That's the big part of it.
37 · Uses Romans 8:19-21 to argue that cosmic renewal is contingent upon the full realization of adoption — creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God — making adoption logically and temporally prior to cosmic renewal
Well, if you know your Bible well, you'll know that. What are we waiting on for God to make all things new? What are we waiting on for the creation to be lifted out of its curse of futility and be renewed? Well, Romans 8 tells us explicitly. Paul says that in Romans 8 that creation is waiting with an eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God and that it will be set free from its bondage to corruption in the moment when all of God's children become God's children, when. When all those he's predestined to be his are. Are his creation will be renewed. The idea is creation is not renewed instead of the sons or independently of them, it's renewed because of them. When God's family is formed, fully formed, the liberation of the world will happen. It's tied to the public unveiling of those whom God has adopted. Adoption, therefore, stands upstream of cosmic renewal. God restores the world as the fitting inheritance for all the sons and daughters he's gathered into his family through Christ.
38 · Cites Revelation 5:10 and 22 to show that the renewed creation is given to the adopted sons and daughters as their inheritance and kingdom, reinforcing that cosmic renewal exists to serve the family God has formed
And the book of Revelation brings this trajectory to its kind of consummation. The redeemed are described in chapter 5 of Revelation, verse 10 as a kingdom of priests who will reign on the earth with Christ. The final vision declares in Revelation 22 that they will reign forever and ever in God's immediate presence. So the renewed creation even, is not merely a backdrop for salvation, but an arena for, or, you know, a kingdom for the sons and daughters to rule. That's why you have to conclude that the Narnia series was semi miraculous. He even figured that part out. You know, it's just stunning. Anyway, the world is reconciled. The world is brought together and made new, not just because God wants to, but because God wants to give it to his children to rule with him, to dwell in it, to inherit it, to reign with Christ together with Christ over it.
39 · Synthesizes the entire exposition: Ephesians 1 reveals a triune ultimate end (God's glory) served by a penultimate subordinate end (adoption), which is in turn supported by upstream ends (predestination, justification, sanctification) and generates downstream ends (inheritance, sealing, cosmic renewal)
And so, yeah, it's just crazy because when you go through Ephesians 1, you've got ultimate end, which is stated three times in a triune form. All the praise goes to the Father, all the praise goes to the Son, all the praise goes to the Spirit. And then you have, like all these other amazing things he's doing, he's forgiving us, he's making us holy. He's giving us an inheritance. He's sealing us with the Holy Spirit, so forth. And you realize, well, you know, all that's wonderful. And all of that actually just supports this penultimate secondary goal, which is to bring in his whole family to adopt children, to convert those who were once his enemies, not only into his friends, but to his sons and daughters. That's why people like Watson and Calvin and these newer guys like Garner, they rightly identify adoption as humanly speaking, in terms of the stuff that directly affects us. We're creatures, we're subordinate. So we can only be subordinate ends in that respect. But what's the goal? Well, the goal is to make us his. And everything else that's happening is just supporting that or flowing out of that.
40 · Applies the teleological framework to anxiety by answering the identity question 'what am I for?' — not to impress, not to be safe or comfortable, but to be God's child
Now, how does that help anxiety? Well, it answers so many questions that are so important, like, what am I for? Do I exist to impress others? Do I exist to be safe? Do I exist to be comfortable? No. I exist to be God's son. I exist to be God's daughter. That's why I exist. That's what I am. And no. And then it's like, okay, well, what am I for? Do I exist to impress others? Do I exist to be safe? Do I exist to be comfortable? No. I exist to be God's son. I exist to be God's daughter. That's why I exist. That's what I am.
41 · Rejects a passive, sentimental understanding of sonship in favor of the biblical picture of sons and daughters as co-laborers with the Father, which requires risk, suffering, and confident engagement knowing the work is not in vain
And no. And then it's like, okay, well, what do God's sons and daughters do? This is not. See, this is the infant. The infantilization of nominalism would make you cuddle up on your daddy's lap and just abide. But that's not at all what the Bible talks about this. It's not at all how the Bible talks about this. The Bible talks about sons and daughters as co laborers with their father. Well, that's going to require you to get hurt. That's going to require you to take risks. That's going to require you to go out with a sense of confidence as a royal child of God and just like, pay the price, do the work knowing that your labor is not in vain.
42 · Identifies vocational and material anxieties (provision, job security, approval) as the specific manifestations of the teleological confusion addressed in the sermon, and signals more to come on this topic
And so a lot of anxiety, I think, comes in around the edges of questions about vocation and provision and will I have enough? And is my boss gonna like me? Am I gonna get fired? Or, you know, like, there's just so many layers of stuff that surround that as well. And so I'm not done yet. I got a lot more to talk about here.
43 · Concludes by framing the next question (how to embrace rather than fear risk), offering the notes, encouraging reflection, summarizing the central diagnosis (fears stem from treating subordinate things as ultimate), and previewing part four's focus on work, supply, and pain
I want to pause here and say that what we now need to do is say, how can we be people who, instead of being afraid of risk, embrace it. Okay. How can we be people who are, instead of being afraid of risk, embrace it. So we'll conclude this, and I'm actually not even going to get up from my chair. I'm just going to stop this recording and start another one because I want to. I've got it already. But I do know that I probably shouldn't ask you to sit through, you know, like 90 minutes of a podcast. So we'll end this. You can go live your life. Go think about this stuff for a few days. Go read through the notes. If you want them, ask me. I'll give them to you. Read. Get your get your categories figured out. Understand that almost all of your fears have to do with with the loss of subordinate things. Anyway, there's a lot to unpack there, but now we can turn into work and supply and pain and so on and so forth. So we'll wrap this one up and then we'll go back into this topic for part four of Outgrowing Anxiety.