“In Christ We Are Extravagantly Blessed” Part 2, Ephesians 1:1-14
- Senior Pastor Robert Dennison preached this message on January 15, 2023
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Audio Transcript
You can take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians Chapter one. Our youth are gone with Hunter and Leah to the District conference in Green Bay. Mary and I were with them on Friday and Saturday. It was really exciting. They have a great speaker.
They will be in their last session now and things are going to be coming to a head. So as you listen today, you can be saying a prayer for them that as God speaks to each and every one of them, that they’ll be willing to respond to whatever it is he’s doing in their life. Ephesians chapter 1, verses 1 through 14. Continuing from last week when we were talking about In Christ we are extravagantly blessed. I’ll begin reading in verse 1.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will to the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, for He chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before Him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us and the Beloved One in Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him. In him we have also received an inheritance because we were predestined according to the plan of the One who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory in Him.
You were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and when you believed the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession to the praise of his glory. May we pray. Heavenly Father, as we once again look at your word. We thank you that you have blessed us with it, that we have it so readily available, Father, that we can read it here at church, we can read it at home, we can listen to it on our phones, that we can talk freely about it. Father, we ask that you would continue your Work to take your word to all of the world, to all tongues and tribes and peoples, that people that are out there translating it, Father, that you will continue to give them the strength and the understanding that your word might go out to everyone.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. We’ll do a little bit of review from last week just so that we can put everything back into context. Last week we talked about one part of this passage has a lot to do with predestination and election, but it also has to do with free will. And we talked about that.
Predestination, election sometimes seem people to be contradictory to one another. In other words, there’s no way that they can fit together. Well, the definition of a contradiction is the statement of a position opposite to one already made. So that would be like saying men are predestined and men are not predestined. It’s like telling your kids, I’m going to give you a gift.
I’m not going to give you a gift. Those two statements cannot be true. And God, because of his nature, cannot contradict Himself. He can’t be good and bad. He’s always good.
So when it comes to predestination or election and free will, how they fit together, it’s not something that’s completely comprehendable. But we know in God’s mind, because he thinks far above us, it does fit together. So we say it’s not a contradiction, it’s a paradox. And a paradox is a seemingly absurd or self contradictory statement or proposition that if we investigate it or we find an explanation to it, it may prove to be well founded or true. Scripture teaches both of these concepts.
What we can say about God’s Word in regard to this, God’s Word does say that God predestines and elects. But God’s Word also says that individuals must believe and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. And God’s Word says everyone who wants to be a Christian can be on the other side. There we can say for certain that God’s Word does not say these things. God’s Word says nowhere that he predestines or elects anyone to go to hell.
God’s Word does not say that anyone is ever forced to believe and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. And God’s Word does not say that anyone who wants to be saved cannot be saved. Both of these, I mean all three of these ideas are false. So we need to keep this in the balance even within the text itself. Paul balances what he’s saying.
If we look at verse four, it says he chose us. That’s the predestination in him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before Him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself. But then we have the balance of our free will. When we get down to verse 13, it says in him you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
And it says that this happened at a particular time. And it puts the responsibility on the individual because it says this happened when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and when you believed. Scripture never puts the fault on God that people don’t come to him in faith. The fault also always lies on individuals, that we must receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Jesus tells us in John 1:12, 13 that all, not some, but all who did receive Him.
He gave the right to be children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of natural descent or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. We come to faith in Christ when we make a decision based on our own free will. We also talked last week that the emphasis here isn’t so much on predestination, but the emphasis is on the Lord Jesus Christ, all the blessings that we have, everything that is given to us comes through through Him. And so we see, beginning in verse three to the end of the chapter that it mentions over and over, Jesus. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, for He chose us in Him.
And as we read through, it talks about being before him, through Jesus Christ, in the Beloved One, in Him, through his blood, He. It’s his grace. The purpose comes in him, in Christ, in him, in him, in Christ, and in Him. So in all of this that we look at today, we have to remember that all of these blessings come because Jesus Christ was willing to come and live in the flesh. He died on the cross and he rose from the dead so that we might have eternal life.
Let’s go back to the passage now in verse three, where we read that blessed is the God and Father of our Lord, Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Predestination is a comfort to us that God is going to work out our salvation. We don’t have to worry that he’s not going to complete it. But the main emphasis here in the passage is that God has predestined us to have all of these extravagant blessings and he’s inviting us to enjoy them. He’s announcing these things to us so that we can grab ahold of them and understand the fullness of what Christ did for us.
What does Paul mean by spiritual blessings here? Well, we have to think about what we were before we came to faith in Jesus Christ. We were dead in our sins. We were living according to our flesh and according to the body. But when Jesus Christ saves us, our spirit is quickened.
It’s brought to life. And so we have a life over here that’s controlled by the body. But now we have a life that’s controlled by the spirit. And we all know that our body has certain needs. How many of you feel the need to eat?
Ever you feel the need to sleep, you like to breathe. Did you think about that? Today we have all these things that our physical body needs. But when our spirit is quickened to life, there are also needs that our spirit has so that we can have a full relationship with the Lord. And that’s what Paul is emphasizing here today, that God has given us spiritual blessings, everything that we need.
And he wants us to understand that all of these things help us have a right relationship with him. Why is Paul using the adjective every here? It’s because there is nothing lacking in what God provides for us so that we can have a right relationship with Him. Now, there’s a false teaching that goes around, and it’s called the Prosperity Gospel. The Prosperity Gospel, instead of emphasizing spiritual blessings, it emphasizes temporal blessings.
And if you go to one of these churches or you listen to these speakers on TV or on the radio or on your phone, wherever you’re listening, they’re going to tell you, God wants to give you wealth, he wants to give you health, he wants to give you popularity. But all those things are part of the temporal world. God doesn’t promise all of those things to us. And there’s a danger in that because Jesus said that we are not supposed to store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy the money, the prosperity, the things that are promised here. Instead, he says we’re supposed to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves don’t break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. There’s not a single blessing that’s mentioned here in the passage that can mold, that can rust, that can. And none of it can be taken from us or stolen. These are all spiritual values that have more meaning to us than anything that we have in this life now. Does God bless some people with wealth and prosperity?
Yes, we find that in Scripture. Abraham was rich, Job was rich, David was rich. But on the other side, we also have people that, that were great people of faith. No less faith than these Old Testament saints who didn’t have very much. Mary, Joseph, the parents of Jesus, John the Baptist, only had one outfit and it wasn’t up to date or stylish.
He only ate locusts and honey and he had no place to live. These people had and understood the spiritual blessings were what was important. And even though Abraham had physical blessings, it tells us that in Hebrews chapter 11 that he was going to receive an inheritance and he was looking not so much of this world, but he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. The proper emphasis on having blessings is that it’s okay to have blessings on this side that are temporal. But the ones that we really need to appreciate, the ones that we need to look for, are the spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus Christ that are not earthly.
Let’s go back to the text now looking in verse three, we’re going to look at these blessings that Jesus has provided for us. And once again, Paul is talking about predestination, but really he’s saying these things are predestined for you. These blessings are so certain. They’re presents that you have. Now, there are presents that are coming that you can fully count on.
So let’s look at each of these things. The first one is to be blessed. What does that mean? Well, when we’re blessed, it means that God speaks well of us and acts upon us so that we are made conformable to His Spirit. He brings us into a relationship that he desires for us to have in Him.
And so he blesses us with everything that is necessary for us to have a full, joyful relationship with Him. It’s much like blessing your children. You want to speak well of them and you want to provide them with everything so that they can have a loving home and a relationship with you. So it is it that God does with us. And when he talks about being blessed with everything we need to have that, the rest of the passage here tells us all these things that we need to have that Jesus provides so that we can have a right relationship with the Lord Jesus who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ, verse 4, he chose us in Him.
What does it mean to be chosen? It means that God specifically selects each and every one of us not to belong to someone else, but he’s choosing us so that we can have a perfect relationship with Him. After God created the world, he didn’t just leave Adam and Eve there. He came down in the evening each day because he wanted to walk with them, he wanted to talk with them, he wanted to do life with them. And so it is that God has chosen us to have this same peculiar, wonderful relationship with Him.
He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless. Holy means here that God has set us apart in a special way. And he has set us apart particularly to serve him. Just as the tent of meeting and all the utensils, the altar, the priests themselves, they were all holy, meaning they were set apart to. To serve God with their lives.
And God has set us apart in the same way to serve Him. And serving him is the best occupation in all the world. If we go back to Psalm 84, verses 10 through 11, the Psalmist tells us this about working for the Lord. He says, better a day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else being in the courts of the Lord, meaning you’re serving Him. It was better than being anywhere else in the world.
The psalmist said, I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God than live in the tents of wicked people. Even just being at the threshold of the door of God’s palace is better than living anywhere in the most extravagant tents or homes of the wicked. And he gives us the reason, he says, because the Lord is a sun and a shield, and he grants favor and honor, and he does not withhold anything good from those who live with integrity. We’re blessed, we’re chosen, we’re holy. And then we read in the text that we are blameless in love before Him.
That word blameless means that we are completely spiritual, spotless and without blemish. Now again, we’re talking about spiritual blessings here. Because our bodies might not be without blemish today, but spiritually, God is preparing us to be a beautiful bride for Christ. And one day we’re going to be like a bride who walks in in her white dress. She’s gleaming, she’s smiling.
Everything there is about the perfection of that bride, and that’s what God is making us into. Ephesians 5, 25, 27 states this. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that but holy and blameless. The next thing is that According to verse 5, God has predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will and to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the beloved.
The word being adopted here was not a term that the Hebrews used. It was something that was a Roman term. It was a Roman custom that someone could go out and adopt a child that was not biologically theirs. We understand that in our world today. And to be adopted meant that that person now was legally part of that family.
They were socially part of that family. They were to be accepted in every way. But it also meant that that child now was going to conform to his new home. That child was going to conform to the images of his new parents. He was going to conform to the purposes and the interests of that home.
And so it is, when God adopts us, he’s wanting us not only to be his children, but also to look like him and to seek the best of his family. It’s interesting that in Roman legal tradition terms, if you had a biological son that mistreated you, or they brought some shame to the family, or they squandered your finances, you could disinherit that biological son. But if you adopted a child in the Roman world, that child was protected, that they could never be disinherited. So almost it was better to be adopted into a family. It was more certain and secure than it was to be born into one.
Going on to verse seven, it says that we’re redeemed in Him. We have redemption through his blood. That means a ransom was paid for us by the death of Christ. His blood paid the price for our sins so that we no longer had to suffer the consequences. But it also has the idea that this word redeemed would be someone that would go to the slave market and they would see a slave that was for sale up on the block, and then they would pay the price for that slave to come and live with them.
Jesus Christ did that for us. He paid the price so that we’re freed from Satan’s power and that we can come and that we can live with the Lord forever. Redeemed, According to the passage, we’re also forgiven of our trespasses. That means that God picks us up and stands us away from our sins. The sins that we have committed are completely released from us.
It’s like taking a garment that has a stain on it and putting it in your washing machine. And you spray stuff on it, whatever you need to do. When you put pull that garment out, you look for what to have happened. You want that stain to have been released and you don’t want to see it there anymore. That’s what it means to be forgiven.
It also tells us here that he has poured out on us all wisdom and understanding. What’s the difference between the two there? Well, God promises us that if we ask for for wisdom that he’s going to provide it to us. Wisdom is divine knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge practically to our lives in human terms, outside of spiritual blessing is someone that has a lot of head knowledge but they don’t have any common sense. Have you ever met anybody like that?
Okay. In the spiritual sense, we have this wisdom from God that’s combined with the practical ability to apply that to our lives. God promises that to us if we ask for it. Understanding, on the other hand, it’s the ability to govern your life with the wisdom that God provides. In other words, God is willing to give us the understanding so we know how to make decisions about today and tomorrow that all line up with his will and his path with our life.
Go on down now to verse 10 as a plan for the right time to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him. This blessing that we have is that we are united with Jesus Christ. And throughout the New Testament, the picture is a marriage relationship. The special uniting of a husband with his wife is the same way that Christ is pictured of us being united with Him. It’s a lifestyle of permanent commitment.
It’s a lifestyle of full love. It’s a lifestyle of pleasure companionship. It’s a lifestyle where there’s complete exposure, not just of how we look on the outside, but the freedom to share what we think, what we feel, our failures and our successes. And it doesn’t matter what we share and what our partner sees. There’s always guaranteed acceptance.
That’s what we have in our relationship with Jesus Christ that God has predestined for us. But it doesn’t stop there. It goes on in verse 11. In him we have also received an inheritance.
Everything that belongs to the Lord belongs to us. The word here means that the lot has fallen to us. Now we think about the lot falling, that’s rolling the dice and you might win and you might not. But what this really means here is God has predestined how the lot is going to fall to you so that you are guaranteed to be an heir with Jesus Christ. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
He holds all of the universe in his hands. All of it belongs to him, and it’s there for us spiritually. He provides those needs for us in Him. We have also received an inheritance because we were predestined according to the plan of the One who works out every everything in agreement with the purpose of his will. That means that our life is purposeful.
It’s not by accident that anyone exists today. Scripture tells us that every person has been uniquely put together by the hands of God. And he’s done that. He’s given us gifts, talents, resources, skills, our particular body type, everything that he’s given us, he’s laid it out because he has very particular things that he wants us to do in the world. Ephesians 2:10 says, we are his workmanship.
He’s crafted us created in Christ Jesus for good works. We’re supposed to be doing these works, and it says, these are works which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. No one should feel that they don’t have any purpose in their life, because you have plenty of purpose. It’s just a matter of placing your faith in the Lord, asking Him what it is you’re supposed to do.
Verse 12 so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory in Him. You also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth. What does it mean to be sealed? Well, in the ancient world, if you licked an envelope, you didn’t just send it that way, you had to put your seal on it. And when you put your seal on it, the person on the other side was guaranteed.
Yes, this was sent with the approval of this person. It is authentic. It’s real. So it is. Jesus Christ has done with us.
He’s sealed us with His Holy Spirit. God has set his mark upon us as a token that he approves of us, that we are authentically His. And then in verse 14, the Holy Spirit is also the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the possession. To the praise of his glory, we are spirit filled, meaning that he’s filled us with Himself. And it’s like God tells us here, it’s the earnest money.
We don’t have everything yet. We don’t understand all the spiritual blessings we have. But we have enough that we can be confident that because God has given us his spirit, that we’re going to have more when it gets to eternity. So how is it that we should respond to all these extravagant gifts? First thing is it should cause us to love Jesus more.
That’s why Paul emphasized over and over that all of these blessings are in Christ and through Christ and by Christ and with Christ. We should also show our love by living obedient lives. Jesus tells us that we show our love to the Lord by obeying his commandments. And because of all that he’s given to us, all that he’s done to us, in order to show our love to him, we’re supposed to live obedient lives. And thirdly, we should also desire our heavenly home above our earthly home, not focusing on the physical possessions, but focusing on the spiritual possessions that we have in Christ.
Went to a meeting this week and they gave us some mantras. Is it mantra or mantra? Mantra. Has anybody told you, you know, you have a mantra, you get up in the morning and you say this statement, this statement, this statement at lunch, you say, this statement, that statement, that statement. And it’s supposed to make you a better person.
Anybody heard that? So it made me think of the little engine that didn’t think he could get up the hill. Remember what his mantra was? I think I can. I think I can just repeat that over and over.
And that got him over the mountain. Well, here in this passage, Paul is giving us a bunch of different mantras that we as believers can say. These are spiritual mantras. They’re from the Lord and the. And they all answer different needs or feelings that we have in our life.
Suppose you might have a person. He says, you know, I’m just a nobody. There’s nothing special about me. No one looks at me and no one really wants to be my friend. I’m just an ordinary guy.
Well, the mantra here in this passage is that first statement being blessed. Your mantra is, no, I am blessed. I can say today that God speaks well of me and he’s working in my life to conform me to his spirit because he wants me to have a special relationship with him. He desires for me to have him and for him to have me. I am blessed.
The second mantra goes out to the person that says, I’m lonely. I don’t have any close friends to associate with. Paul says, this is what you can say. You can say, I am chosen. God chose me for himself to have a personal relationship with him.
Someone else might say, well, I don’t really add anything to the world. I don’t really have anything I do to help my church or my community. And the type of work that I do is just really insignificant. Paul says, say I am holy God has set me apart from the world to serve him. And I may not understand how it affects the world, but what I am doing is important because God has set me aside for his particular service.
Someone might say, I’m too sinful to have a relationship with a perfect God. Your mantra is, no, I am blameless because God is preparing me to be a beautiful bride for Christ. He’s cleansing me. And he does this through his word and the process of sanctification so that I will one day be presented to him as blameless. Someone might say, I have no family.
I’m all alone in this world. The mantra is, I am adopted. God has made me his child, and I am a child of the king. Someone else might say, you know, I keep having trouble overcoming sin in my life. I keep having these temptations, and I can’t have a right relationship with the Lord.
There’s too much in my life that is keeping me away from him. The mantra here is, I am redeemed. Christ has paid the ransom to deliver me from the power and consequences of s sin, and I don’t have to listen to Satan. Jesus wants to help me pass these temptations. Someone else might say, well, I did a lot of bad things, and I just.
I keep remembering these things that I’ve done in my life, and it just makes me feel like God can’t really love me. And the mantra here is, no, God says, say I am forgiven. I actually stand away from my sin. It’s been placed over there as far as the east is from the west. God has removed them from me.
The blots of sin in my life have been completely washed away. Someone else might say, well, I’m incapable of making good decisions. It just seems like I’m one failure after another. The answer there is, you can say, I am wise because if I ask God, he promises that he will give me divine knowledge and the ability to make practical application of that. Someone else might say, I don’t know what to do with my life on a daily basis, much less a lifetime.
You can say, I have understanding because God gives me the ability to govern my life with wisdom. And then someone might say, I’m alone. I have no one close to me. The mantra for that is, no, I am united with Christ. I am one with Christ in an eternal relationship that’s characterized by eternal commitment, everlasting love, pleasure, companionship, and complete exposure with guaranteed acceptance.
Someone say, I don’t have much. I’m poor and I’m destitute. Well, you might be poor and destitute in this life. But Scripture says I am an heir and I will receive my inheritance one day, and it will be an inheritance that I can never lose. Someone might say, I have no purpose in life.
You can answer back from this passage. I am purposeful. I am not an accident. God has made me with his own hands to do good works that only I can do. Someone else might say, I keep falling away from the Lord and sinning.
You can say, I’m sealed. God has set his seal upon me, and there’s nothing that I can do, there’s nothing that anyone else can do that’s going to separate me from his love. He’s always willing to forgive us of our sins if we confess them. And lastly, someone might say, well, I don’t always feel like a Christian. Is God really going to do what he promised?
And with that we can say, I am Spirit filled. The Holy Spirit is my earnest money. And God is going to fulfill his promise to us in all of this. When we recite these things over and over to ourselves, it should make us love Jesus more. It should make us show our love by living obedient lives.
And it should help us to focus on our heavenly home and desire to be there above all other things. We’re going to be coming.