What does First B Jackson teach about predestination?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on predestination starts by insisting the word not be read in isolation. In the Romans 8 messages, Pastor Ray and Pastor Randy both pressed the congregation to keep reading past verse 28 rather than getting stuck on the predestination language in verses 29 and 30. What God predestined, the text actually says, is conformity to the image of His Son. The purpose behind the call, the justification, and the eventual glorification is that believers would look more and more like Jesus, so that Christ would be the firstborn among many brothers. Pastor Randy was equally direct that the passage does not say God predestined people to heaven or hell. The predestining is about sanctification, about God working in a person's life to shape them into the likeness of Christ.
The Ephesians 1 teaching adds another layer. Walking through the longest sentence in the New Testament, 202 words in Greek spanning verses 3 through 14, Ray has returned to this passage in multiple series and consistently made the same point: predestination is not an exclusive or us-and-them claim. God chose people before the foundation of the world and predestined them for adoption as sons, but the purpose of that choosing is that others would see God through the church. Ray has drawn a line between this calling and the calling Israel failed to live up to in the minor prophets. The chosen are simply a few steps ahead of the people they are called to reach.
Running through all of it is the phrase "by the will of God," which appears repeatedly in Ephesians 1 and which both preachers treat as the hinge the whole passage turns on. None of this originates with the person chosen. The will of God is what accounts for the difference, and the only real question the teaching puts back to the congregation is whether they want to be part of what God is doing by saying yes.
Taught from Ephesians 1:3-14 · Romans 8:28 · Romans 8:29 · Romans 8:30 · Ephesians 1:1-2
The passage taught · Colossians 1:19-20
19 For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him;
20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on the earth, or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- March 29, 2026 By the Will of God Pastor Ray opens Ephesians by sitting with just two verses, showing how Paul's identity, God's will, and the promise of grace and peace set the foundation for everything that follows.
- March 8, 2026 Outside the Envelope: Grace and Peace to You Pastor Ray opens Ephesians 1, showing how God's grace and peace, given through Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit, call the church into His will and purpose.
- February 1, 2026 Nothing Can Separate Us Romans 8 shows that nothing can separate believers from God's love, even suffering, grief, and doubt. Pastor Ray walks through Romans 8:28-39.
- May 28, 2017 Blessed Be God the Father Pastor Ray walks through Ephesians 1:3-14, a single sweeping doxology of Father, Son, and Spirit, woven together with stories from a mission trip to Guatemala.
- July 31, 2016 All Things, These Things, All These Things Romans 8:28-39 explores how God works all things together for good, why nothing can separate believers from His love, and what that means for daily life.