Exhortation

“It was the Father’s good pleasure for the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things,” Paul writes in our sermon text. The Father sends the Son to renew all things because it pleases Him to do so.

Nothing forces the Father. He doesn’t have to conform to any logic or necessity. The Father does what He does because He delights in His Son, and the Son does His Father’s will because He is filled with the Delight of God who is the Spirit.

And the Father does all this to draw us into His good pleasure. He enables us to walk in a manner worthy of Him, so that we please Him in everything. You have done things that displease God, but it is God’s good pleasure to make you pleasing. You have sinned, but God delights to make you delightful.

Our greatest sin is our unwillingness to believe this. We cannot believe God takes pleasure in us. Distrust of God’s good intentions is the sin of Adam, and this is the sin above all others that we must confess and put away.

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

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