The sermon opens a new preaching series in the book of Ephesians, beginning with Paul's greeting in Ephesians 1:1-5. The preacher notes that Ephesians follows a long gap since the church last worked through one of Paul's epistles (Romans, described via Martin Luther as "the purest expression of the gospel," was the last one, studied some five years earlier). Ephesians, he says, quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones, is "the most beautiful and majestic expression of the gospel" — a panoramic vision of God's work in Christ. He frames the whole letter's center of gravity as God himself: knowing who God is, he insists, is not an abstract or impractical exercise but the root from which every practical dimension of the Christian life grows, including how believers face temptation, suffering, and the raising of children.

Rather than rushing past Paul's opening greeting as mere formality — the way modern audiences skip the lengthy preambles of political speeches — the sermon insists that Paul's salutations function as genuine introductions that preview the letter's major themes. The phrase "an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God" becomes the launching point for the sermon's central teaching: a sustained distinction between two senses of "the will of God" that recur throughout Ephesians and the whole of Scripture.

The first is God's Sovereign Will (his decree): God's all-encompassing rule over everything that happens, so that nothing occurs outside his control. The sermon cites Psalm 115, "our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him," to establish that this sovereign will cannot be resisted or thwarted. The second is God's Moral Will (his precepts, law, and commandments) — what God has revealed and commanded, which can be, and constantly is, disobeyed. Confusing these two categories, the sermon warns, breeds theological confusion; keeping them distinct is essential to understanding suffering, sin, and providence rightly.

The sermon then works through several biblical illustrations. In Acts 4:27-28, Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel act against Jesus in ways that plainly violate God's moral will (unjust judgment, murder of an innocent man) — yet in doing so they unknowingly carry out exactly what God's sovereign hand and will had predestined to occur, namely Christ's atoning death. In Galatians 1:13-16, Paul recounts that God had set him apart and called him "from my mother's womb," even while Paul was still ignorant of that purpose and living as a persecutor of the church — sovereign election working through, and prior to, human sin and rebellion, without removing Paul's own responsibility for that sin.

The extended account of Joseph (Genesis) is used to show the pastoral payoff of this doctrine: Joseph's brothers intended evil, but God intended it for good, to preserve many lives — Joseph could only see this in hindsight, and in the meantime his calling was simply to remain faithful to God's moral will (resisting Potiphar's wife, remaining steadfast in prison) while trusting, without yet seeing, that God's sovereign will was at work for good. Similarly, in Job, Satan is permitted — but only within God-set boundaries — to destroy Job's possessions and health, yet cannot touch what God has fenced off; the sermon leans on John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Cancer" to argue that suffering becomes meaningful, not wasted, when it is received as within God's sovereign will, even when its purposes remain hidden this side of eternity. The sermon underlines throughout that God's sovereignty over evil never voids human moral responsibility: Pilate, Herod, and Joseph's brothers are still guilty and accountable, precisely because their obligation is to God's moral will, not to knowledge of his secret decree.

The sermon closes with a personal testimony: the preacher describes his own agonized decision, after Bible college in Perth, over whether to enter formal ministry rather than take over his family's noodle business. Scripture never issued him an audible calling to a specific vocation; instead, he had to test the pull he felt against the moral will already revealed — and discovered his hesitation was rooted in fear of public scrutiny (implying hidden sin he did not want exposed) and fear of poverty (implying practical unbelief, addressed by Jesus' teaching in Matthew 6 about the birds and the lilies). Resolving both fears in light of God's moral will, rather than waiting for a mystical sign of his sovereign will, became the practical way forward. The sermon ends by tying the two wills together: believers are called to know, trust, and rest in God's sovereign rule over all things — including suffering and others' sin — while their daily task and responsibility is simply to obey what he has plainly revealed.

Bible Verses Used

• Ephesians 1:1-5: The sermon's opening text and the launch of a new series; "by the will of God" in verse 1 supplies the phrase that structures the whole message, and "according to the purpose of his will" in verse 5 shows the theme recurring within the passage itself.

• Psalm 115: Cited to establish God's Sovereign Will — "our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him" — as unopposable and total.

• Acts 4:27-28: The key illustration distinguishing the two wills — Herod and Pilate violate God's moral will in condemning Jesus while unknowingly fulfilling what God's sovereign will had predetermined.

• Galatians 1:13-16: Paul's testimony that God set him apart "from my mother's womb" and called him by grace, illustrating sovereign election operating even through Paul's prior life as a persecutor.

• Genesis (Joseph narrative): Referenced extensively ("you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good") to show how God's sovereign will works through others' sin toward a good purpose that only becomes visible in hindsight.

• Job: Used to show that Satan's assaults on Job occur only within limits God sovereignly permits, framing innocent suffering as something God ordains for a good, if hidden, purpose.

• Romans 8:28: Invoked as the summary principle that God works all things, including hardship and others' sin, for the good of those who love him.

• Psalm 1: Cited for the picture of the one who delights in God's law as "a tree planted by streams of water," describing the fruit of living under God's moral will.

• Matthew 6: Referenced in the closing testimony (the birds of the air, the lilies of the field) as the basis for overcoming fear of poverty in submitting to God's moral will regarding vocation.