Ephesians 1 (Part1) :1-10 Our Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Ephesians chapter 1 the book of Ephesians is such a lovely letter we're going to take what I hope will end up being the first fourteen verses here this morning we'll see how that goes but let's read through those and then we'll pray and kind of get into it and see what the Lord has for us it starts this way 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 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 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 stop there let's pray oh thank you Father for giving us your word the glory of this word is just kind of amazing I mean Lord you moved upon Paul to write some pretty incredible stuff here just even in these first fourteen verses we pray that our hearts would be able to receive so give

us Lord spiritual ears help us also to see with spiritual eyes and direct us Lord we ask in Jesus name Amen the book of Ephesians is all about who we are in Christ you know the last book we talked about Galatians that we went through is all about how we are saved and how we trust in Christ alone Ephesians is all about who we are in Christ who you are in Christ and the reason that's important is because we forget we can be pretty forgetful people actually from time to time and and and we forget

who we have been created to be what we have been created to be and we revert back to who we were before we met Jesus and we've all done it we've all reverted back we've begun acting like we used to act living like we used to live thinking like the rest of the world thinks children of a fallen world you know we are no longer children of a fallen world we are not we are not only residents of heaven we are children of God by adoption Paul is going to spend the entirety of this letter

reminding us who we are now that we are in Christ and that is so incredibly important we since we we we often lose sight of that as I said we begin to see ourselves encumbered by sin we begin to look at ourselves as living day-to-day in a pretty rotten world and worse of all we see ourselves as powerless to change anything that's often the way our minds begin to work and the enemy works on us and our circumstances work on us our challenges and problems and then the people of the world begin to Yip and

Yap in our ear and pretty soon we believe the lie that we are who we used to be instead of who God has created us now to be and because we believe that we are in our old circumstances in our old condition we begin to live that way and walk out that sort of a reality and oh my what a miserable existence that is so Paul wrote this letter largely to correct you and I on who we are in Christ and what we're talking about here is giving ourselves or reminding ourselves of a biblical view

of who you are a biblical view because that worldly view isn't going to do you any good and Paul wants to remind us that God is doing something amazing if we would just have faith to see it you know now verses 1 & 2 contain if you look in your Bible with me basically what we refer to as kind of the introduction and it is entirely common the way Paul writes two letters of the day a typical introduction in a letter back then began with the author's name his credentials followed by the recipient of the

letter and then some kind of a greeting of some sort and of course in this case the author is the Apostle Paul his credentials are an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God the recipients are the Saints who are in Ephesus and the greeting is in verse 2 where he says grace to you and Shalom peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ I want to talk for just a moment about his credentials because he says that his credentials are that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of

God we get used to reading that in Paul's letters but we often don't stop to ponder you know what it what it doesn't mean I guess you know Paul was not an apostle by church vote he was not an apostle because he had completed some academic program and got enough accumulated credits to get a diploma and he was certainly not self appointed Paul makes it very clear at the beginning of this letter that he is an apostle by calling his Apostleship he says is of Christ Jesus and by the will of God and that is

so incredibly important no matter who you are and what your ministry may be it is important for all of us to remember that we are called by the will of God to do what we do and the reason it's so important is because trials come along and if we're not sure of our calling if we're not sure that God has called us to do what we're doing then whenever hard things happen difficult things begin to happen we're going to naturally question why am i doing this why am I putting myself in harm's way why am

i banging my head against a wall is was this my idea because if this was my idea I think I need to get a better idea but wait a minute if this is God's idea if this is his calling then I can trust that he's gonna give me the grace to carry out that calling he's going to give me the strength to function in that calling and he's gonna work out these issues you see it all comes down to that whole thing of who's in charge and if I've been in charge of my own life

if I've basically kind of you know like a lot of people in the ministry have made a career out of it you know you hear about that from time to time people making a career out of the ministry and I think oh mercy have you know Lord help them people who make the determination to go into the ministry on their own or to do some kind of ministry on their own in their own power their own direction you know you hear about it if you've read any Jane Austen novels you know that they would a

a father might raise a couple of boys and he would choose one of them to go into the clergy and he would just choose it George Mueller in fact in his autobiography which I think we sell in our bookstore tells about how his father intended him for the clergy to be a clergyman not because his father was a believer or cared anything about George ministering you know for the Lord he wanted his son to have a comfortable living and a clergyman was one who usually in that time he was born in Prussia back in the

early 1800s you know apparently a clergyman was was someone who had a fairly comfortable you know living and that's why his father wanted and encouraged him you need to go into the ministry you need to become a clergyman you know there was nothing about prayer there was nothing about calling there was nothing about you know here's what the Lord wants me to do it's like kinda who's the Lord this is a job it's a career you know for Paul the Apostle it was never a job he was never considered a hireling which the Bible refers

to as someone who's been hired to do a job Paul said I wasn't hired to do a job I was called by the Lord to go into the ministry and again that is so vitally important because when hardships arise and man did they arise in the Apostle Paul's life the only thing is going to get you out of bed in the morning and back into the ministry is the knowledge that you've been called by God I I can tell you in 30-some years of ministry I've quit several times only to a few hours later you

know through prayer remember that oh wait I can't quit because this is a calling God called me I didn't choose to do this he called me to do this and so I can trust him makes a huge difference when I'm talking to a young man or woman who is is asking or questions about going into the ministry first thing I ask him every time is well has God called you and if they say I don't know then I say well you need to go back and have that conversation with your Lord because you better know

because the enemy can sniff out that little bit of doubt and I'm telling you he will he will beat the sparks Audia if he if he senses that's that that idea that you're not sure he will make you sure that you're not called if there's some kind of doubt in your own heart and mind okay enough of that notice the recipients of the letter he says to the Saints who are in Ephesus he calls them the faithful in Christ Jesus the word Saint means set apart one or one who is set apart right according to

the Bible a saint is a believer in Jesus Christ that means that if Paul had written a letter to our church in this day and age he would have said to the Saints who are in Christ Jesus at Calvary Chapel Ontario and he would mean all of us who are in the Lord and this is another way that God is through this letter correcting our mistaken view of who we are wants us to know who you are in Jesus you are a saint and I know that the world has tried to redefine st. the world

defines it as just a good person oh he's a saint that's not what it means Roman Catholicism has attempted to redefine saint merci all the requirements that you have to go through to be a saint the first one I definitely don't like you have to be dead and preferably for five or more years although they've made exceptions on that and then of course there's all these other things that have to happen you know you have to prove a life of heroic virtue there has to be a provable miracle that has happened when someone has invoked

your name in prayer and when these various things line up then these men go into a holy convocation and determine whether you are a saint the Bible knows nothing of that definition a saint is a believer you are a set apart one set apart for who God set apart for what holiness he's correcting our view you see you know like a like a spiritual chiropractor bringing correction getting us back in line with the truth right and then comes the greeting grace to you Karis grace unmerited favor it's a way of just saying may God favor

you apart from your merit and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and then he begins in verse 3 and by the way this is probably completely extraneous information but verses 3 through 14 are one long run-on sentence but that's the Apostle Paul do you know the type the kind of person who talks it never takes a breath Paul was one of those kind of guys and your Bible puts periods in there between verses 3 and 14 in your English translation to make it a little more readable for you and I and

maybe even hopefully a little more understandable but there are none I mean this is a this is one long run-on sentence which can make it a little challenging to teach let me just tell you but enough about my problems 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 stop there the reason I want you to stop there is because this this verse here is what we refer to as the focal point or the key if you underline things in your

Bible I'm not saying you have to but if your spiritual you probably do as a as a low blow this is a great verse to underline because it is the cornerstone of the whole book Paul is going to spend the entirety of the book of Ephesians defining for you and I the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ then he's going to talk about how we walk those out in very practical ways and then at the very last chapter of Ephesians he's going to talk about how we protect these spiritual blessings with the full armor

of God and so this is this is the the jumping point the springboard everything flows from here all right very important that we see that and I want to emphasize here the character of the blessings that are ours look with me again in verse three he says who has blessed us in Christ first of all with every spiritual blessing every spiritual blessing you and I have been given in Christ every spiritual blessing not just some of them all of them every single one but in their spiritual blessings and that speaks of the kind of a

covenant that you and I are in through Jesus all right ours is a spiritual covenant we've talked about this in the past when we go through the Old Testament on Wednesday night we always bring out the fact that Israel entered into a physical covenant with God the Mosaic Covenant was a physical covenant God basically said I am your God you are my people keep my law and I will give you the land I will make you fruitful in the land I will bless you against your enemies no one will be able to withstand you I

will even keep you free from the diseases that were going on in Egypt I will make you fruitful in your child-raising in your crops on and on and on and on it was all physically oriented okay under the Mosaic Covenant that's not the covenant were under we've made that point many many times we are in the new covenant which is as Paul outlines here a spiritual covenant okay he says that God has blessed you and I with every spiritual blessing and this is all consistent with God's Word which foretold in the Old Testament that the

Covenant we are under would be very different from the new one I'll remind you of this on the screen from Jeremiah chapter 31 and I've even highlighted part of the passage the the whole thing says the time is coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant right with the house of Israel in the house of Judah it will not be like the Covenant I made with their forefathers there it is right there again we've looked at this many times it will not be like the Covenant I made with their forefathers why that

covenant was physical ours is spiritual okay very important that we see that here's why over the course of well even my lifetime there have been many occasions when the body of Christ has sought to bring physical elements into our covenant with God and make them part of the Covenant and and by part of the Covenant I mean promises based on our covenant relationship with God through Jesus and what he did for us on the cross for example physical healing let me just say something about physical healing I believe that God heals people physically we're told

in the book of James if anyone is sick among you let them call for the elders the elders will anoint that person with oil pray the prayer of faith over them and so forth we see Paul going around doing it well obviously Jesus began it the rest of the disciples Peter John you know and then we cover the Ministry of Paul there's a lot of healing that went on as the gospel went out so we see that you know God heals here's the error people have tried to make it part of the Covenant it's not

in the Covenant it's not in our covenant god never promised us you know he did with Israel but it was based on obedience it with Israel okay they had to obey God's law which by the way they never did but he said if you obey my law none of the diseases that came upon you in Egypt you know or that K or that were in Egypt will come upon you that was a promise God made to Israel but it was a physical promise we would expect a physical promise with a physical covenant right God never

made that promise to you and I and Christians say oh yeah what about that passage you know by His stripes you bet you are healed people we show our ignorance when we assume that the presence of the word healed always has a physical connotation when you look at the places where that passage originates and is quoted in the word it is always talking about spiritual healing and it's just it you know but we love to quote it I and honestly I would love to believe it you know but ours is a spiritual covenant and again

I'm not saying God doesn't heal I believe he does and if you have a situation for which you you know need a touch from the Lord on a physical level then you need to pray and have other people pray over you and even be obedient have you know and people in joint you with oil and so forth and and trust the Lord I'm not saying it doesn't happen all I'm saying is it's not part of our covenant you can't make it part of the Covenant nor can you make it part of the covenant that God

is going to give you that new car you want or give you the Rays that you want or the house those are physical things ours is not a physical covenant right Paul says bless the Lord who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing the next thing that's important to see about this is where these spiritual blessings are notice he says he's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places oh they're in heavenly places not earthly places again that's in keeping with our spiritual covenant right doesn't mean God can't bless you he can

bless you and he does bless people but our covenant with him is one of spiritual blessings that are kept in heavenly places I want you to see on the screen how Peter talks about this from first Peter chapter one three and four praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ in His great mercy he has given us new birth into a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and check this out and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade kept in for you alright your

inheritance is kept in heaven and by the way that's the best bank you'll ever trust in it's kept in heaven you know it's interesting the physical covenant that Israel had meant that their physical inheritance could be affected by things that could threaten their inheritance to this day to this day Israel's inheritance in the land is overrun by the Gentiles it's still being overrun by the Gentiles it's not completely theirs it's a lot more than it used to be but they still don't have it free and clear they don't even have a temple up in in

Israel there's a there's an Islamic mosque in its place you know so physical blessings physical and inheritance those things can be taken away they can spoil they can fade they can you know but yours are kept in heaven Paul goes on to enumerate the blessings he says in verse 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him and this is another way that he wants you to correct how you see yourself because in Christ he wants you to know that you were

chosen before the foundation of the world and he's going to have whole lot more to say about this but this first blessing that he's talking about here well I guess having our inheritance kept in heaven is a blessing but this first thing that he refers to is about the fact that we've been chosen we've been chosen by God before the creation of the world and that's something God wants you to know you are not an accident you are not a bother you were chosen by him before you ever existed he knew that you would be

and he chose you in him and that is why Paul goes on to say in love he predestined us for adoption 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 or in the one he loves your Bible may say and here we have that word predestined and man has that word given us trouble in the body of Christ hasn't it I mean predestination whole Christian groups have been built on the idea of predestination what it is and

what it isn't what it means and what it doesn't mean but essentially what it means you see is that God exists outside of time you understand that right God created time he is not bound by time you and I are bound by time God is not and and and and so he knows all things he waits for nothing he didn't have to wait for you to be born to know you or to know your life and your eternal destiny he didn't have to wait gee I wonder what this how this was gonna turn out God

never wondered anything and so when the Bible speaks of your salvation from his vantage point from his perspective it says that God foreknew you and therefore he predestined you because he foreknew knew ahead of time ahead for you and mean not for him because he knew he predestined okay for so many people I don't know maybe even the majority of the people the word predestined means fixed in other words for them it means God knew something and so he made it happen a lot of people if you ask them what is the definition of predestination

they would say God foreknew and so it that's the way it's going to happen it's fixed can't change it right and so their conclusion is God fixes our salvation before we're born and then they which isn't horrible because it's essentially you know then but they take it a step further and they say God fixes the condition of lost people before they were born fixes remember fixes means it's set in place by God and then they wrap it all up in the word sovereignty and for the record I want you to know that I believe thoroughly

in God's sovereignty but I do not believe that predestination nullifies one of the greatest gifts that God has given to mankind and that is a free will it is what makes you different from your pet your dog or your cat or your gerbil or whatever you have at home they operate on instinct they don't reason things out and they don't make determinations based on a free will you do and the only reason you do is because God gave you that ability he gave it predestination denies all that in the in the in the definition of

predestination that is carried by so many and that's where I have a problem I don't believe predestination means God fixed it I believe it means that God foreknew and therefore you were predestined but again if you're going to take the position that everything is fixed in terms of your salvation or an unbelievers lost condition and particularly in unbelievers lost condition Man Alive you've got a lot of scripture to resolve that's not going to make any sense I believe let me show you one from on the screen from 2nd Peter 3:9 it says the Lord is

not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness but is patient toward you not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance you know what that passage says it says God is not willing that any should perish in other words it is not God's will than any perish do some people perish well we know they do because jesus said narrow is the road to life and few find it broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go that way so do some people perish sadly yes is it because God

wills them to perish obviously not according to this passage because Peter makes it very clear he is not willing that any should perish it is not his will the problem with the looking at predestination as is as everything fixed is that you literally create this God who creates people says about them I don't want you to be lost but then determines ahead of time that they're going to be apart from their choice and they have no ability to make a determination in the matter they're just lost they were conceived lost you see that's a problem

scripturally that's a problem let me show you another one first John 2:2 he Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world and this passage says Jesus made salvation available to everyone it says he died for the sins of the whole world that makes no sense if God predestined people to be lost apart from any freewill choice of their own jesus said I have come into the world as a light that whoever believes in me may have eternal life he didn't say I

have come into the world as a light that whoever I figured out ahead of time and predestined and fix it for them he didn't say that he said I've come into the world to be a light so that whoever whoever believes need not remain in darkness but can have the light of Life whoever the reason he can say whoever is because he died for whoever not just for our sins but the sins of the whole world okay before the whole predestination term is above is a is a is an after term what I mean by

that is Paul's writing this letter to believers when you talk to believers when you talk to people who are already saved you talk about their salvation in the language of after and what I mean by that is we look at you look at your salvation and you say God knew me from the foundations of the earth even though he knew and I was predestined but when you're talking to somebody before they know Jesus when you're out witnessing to people you don't use after language you use before language and the before languages whosoever will believe will

be saved whosoever will put their faith in Jesus will be saved that's before language you see okay it's it's it's the appeal that we make to people we don't go around saying have you been predestined for salvation because if you have I just wanted you to know you're going to be coming to the Lord I don't know when but one of these days it's gonna happen it has to happen so hang in there but unless of course you're not predestined to for salvation which of course then means you're predestined for damnation sorry didn't mean to

bring up a sore point anyway it's all fixed have a good day oh that would be effective evangelism listen to how Paul words his appeal 2nd Corinthians 5:20 therefore we are ambassadors for Christ God making his appeal through us what do we do we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God that's before language get it that's before language after languages God knew you from the foundations of the earth four languages we implore you be reconciled to God come to him Jesus has made a way right Paul goes on speaking of our spiritual

blessings verse seven in your Bible in him we have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight there's a word in there I love because it tells me that God didn't just forgive us it says he lavished forgiveness on us in that a good word lavished it's even kind of fun to say lavished you know there's just a few words that are fun to say that's one of them so you and I have had forgiveness lavished do

you know why that's important to to understand or to see that word because he's correcting things that the enemy wants to get out of whack people doubt all the time whether or not they're forgiven because and I know that because I talked to people and I asked them do you believe that you're forgiven well I've done some pretty rotten stuff that's the voice of the enemy you know the voice of God is you know how he wants you to see your your position now in Christ through a biblical view and that biblical view is God

has lavished forgiveness on you with all wisdom and insight his wisdom and insight it's been lavished given in a lavish super abundant sort of a way right notice how he did it goes on through his blood and of course whenever we speak of the blood of Jesus you guys know the blood means life remember the Bible tells us in the Old Testament that's why the Jews were forbidden from eating blood they had to they had to bleed an animal you may not in fact God said if you eat blood meat with blood still in it

you're banished from your people why what was he trying to communicate to the Jews way back then the importance of the blood why because the blood is what we offer for sacrifice why because it's a picture of life you drain somebody's blood they're gonna die the life of an animal the life of a human is in the blood right when the Bible says you have been given forgiveness it's been lavished on you through his blood it means through his life through the life that he gave on your behalf and all his points to a life

given the blood okay one more blessing we're not gonna get through all these we'll have to pick it up verse 9 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 this is the next blessing that you have it's a spiritual blessing and it's yours and mine in Jesus and basically what he says is he's made known to you and I the mystery of his will now

Paul doesn't really explain here why that is necessarily a blessing he understood it Jesus actually is the one who explained it do you understand that when somebody takes you into their confidence and they tell you things that they wouldn't tell somebody else that says something about your relationship let me show you how Jesus put it in John 15 verse 15 no longer do I call you servants for why a servant doesn't know what his master is doing he says but I've called you Fran for all that I've heard from My Father I have made known

to you so what does it say about our relationship with God that he has made known to us the mystery of his will speaks of the intimacy of relationship we are not just servants we are friends friends of God you guys that's something that you know we can it comes out of our mouth but we don't have a clue really kind of the depth of what it means you are a friend of God you've ever been reading through the Old Testament like in Deuteronomy and stuff and it'll talk probably more maybe an exodus or something

like that but it'll talk about how Moses spoke with God face to face and of course it doesn't mean a face to fold glory face to face it means that he spoke to Moses in an open unhindered sort of a way didn't go through prophets or dreams or visions he just spoke to Moses as a friend talks to a friend and I've often read the passages and thought wow he didn't do that during that season he didn't do that to anybody else Joshua do you remember what the Bible says after Moses would leave the presence

of the Lord when he got done talking Joshua would just hang out just to just to be close to the trailing glory of God's presence that's that's where he was at that time but Moses different he spoke to the Lord face to face like a man speaks to his friend and I've often read that when I'm going through Exodus and so forth thought wow what a privileged position people that is you're privileged position you speak right to the Father in the name of Jesus you talk directly to him and not only do you talk directly

to him he speaks directly to you and he's telling you things that show the closeness of your relationship he has made known to you mysteries that are not known by others I put a quote on my pastor Paul page on Facebook by Damian Kyle I love this cool he and I'm paraphrasing here but he said the simplest Christian with a Bible knows more about life and eternity and where things came from than the smartest people on the earth put together the simplest Christian with a Bible knows more than the smartest wisest most brilliant people of

the earth put together why because that person with a Bible has been given mysteries God has shared mysteries with you and I and it's a powerful powerful blessing part of the mess we'll end here in verse 10 as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him things in heaven and on earth and this is this is part of the mystery that you and I have been revealed and that is can go ahead and come on up if you would the mystery here is something that you and I know about about

the upcoming Millennial Kingdom the Millennial Kingdom is a 1,000 year period that's going to be upon the earth after the Tribulation Period and during that time he will unite all things in him things in heaven and on earth see the world doesn't know those things you and I have been given the insights into those mysteries right because of our special relationship to him and that is part of the incredible spiritual blessing that we have in Jesus Christ well it's obviously challenging here to stop anywhere in the middle of a run-on sentence even though there's a

period at the end of verse 10 I appreciate the fact they put that there so we can stop here this morning but it just goes on and we will go on as well and talk more about these things next time here in our study of Ephesians but let's go ahead and stand I just want to remind you to be looking for this as we go through this study in Ephesians okay this is all about who you are in Jesus if you've kind of wondered you know who you are in Christ and and maybe the enemies

even throwing out all kinds of doubt your way and so forth that's what this study is largely going to be about and I and I pray that as we go through this study and even complete this study Lord willing that we will walk away built up you know in who we are and that will hang on to that hang on to it you know who you are in Jesus don't let go don't let the enemy cheat you out of that reality who you are in Christ you