If there's any way to tone me down, thank you. We're going to be looking at Ephesians chapter one, please, in your Bibles or on your devices, as they say nowadays. Obviously, I'm adverse to the device, but if you're able to use those things, then Ephesians chapter three. And speaking of technology, there we are.
I'm going to see if I can move these things forward. If not, Stephen will for me, I'm sure. We're going to pick up where we left off last time, and we're talking about the worthy walk, walking worthy. And we'll just try this.
Whoops. What did I do, Stephen? There we are. And we're going to be talking today about the God who has blessed us.
When I announced, perhaps prematurely, that I would be doing a study on the book of Ephesians, I had it in my head that I was just going to proceed on quickly and that we probably cover a number of verses every Sunday and no time at all we'd be through. And I had in mind today to cover the first four, well, the first verses three to six of chapter one. And I started working on verse three. And that's as far as I got.
So I figure in about 25 years or so, we'll be through Ephesians. All right. If I can hang on long enough. Ephesians chapter three, let's read together.
Ephesians, some of Ephesians chapter three, we'll say the first 14 verses, we're not going to get anywhere near those verses, but I think it's good to read them and to just get an overview, right? Flying over the countryside, looking down on what God is going to say. Ephesians chapter three beginning at verse one. Paul in a apostle of Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus.
By the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Now you remember that when we talked about this last time, I'm going to digress for a minute, but when we talked about this last time that in the old manuscripts of this Epistle where it says to the saints who are at Ephesus, it doesn't say Ephesus. It doesn't say anything to the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus. There's no place name given there.
And so we have decided together, we had to vote and we decided together that it would be to the saints at Northbrook. Okay. This Epistle is to us. We want to read it as to us.
In every believer, every assembly should be reading this Epistle as if it is to them. All right. So it is to the saints who are at Northbrook, who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this passage that I'm about to read together with you, verses three to 14, is all one sentence in Greek. I don't know Greek, I'm just told that's the truth. Okay. All one sentence in Greek.
I defy you to read this passage out loud in one breath as if it were a sentence. It cannot be done. All right. But we are going to read it without understanding that as Paul wrote it, as the Holy Spirit gave it, it's one complete statement.
It's going to look convoluted to us. We're going to wander around and we're going to say, oh my goodness, where are we going here? Where are we going? But in God's mind, and I think we'll see as we go through it, it is one complete thought to God and he wants us to get it all in one bunch.
Okay. We'll have to break it up to chew it. It's like a piece of steak. We're going to have to cut it up and chew it up and bite.
But it's all one whole thought from God. Here we go. Verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us to adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In him, in the beloved, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him with a view to administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
In him also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. To the end that we who refers to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory. In him also, you, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with a holy spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory. Amen.
Shall we pray? Lord, that was a mouthful. That was a lot. And we didn't take it all in, I'm sure.
We're not able to take it all in in one mouthful. But we pray that your spirit will guide and direct us into the portion that you've given us to chew today. I want to pray for the sunny school teachers today, Lord, who have the care and the teaching this morning of precious young people. Pray that you will give them wisdom, understanding of patience as they deal with these young souls.
And pray for those who are listening here today, pray for me. God, that I'll be able to communicate accurately what it is you're saying. And I pray that our hearts would be able to respond to what you've said in your word. May the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified.
May his name be exalted. May you, O Lord, be seen to be who you are, O God, the God of love. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right. Now, this is the key verse of the epistle. And we looked at this briefly last time. It says, I therefore, the person of the Lord implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.
This whole series is about a worthy walk. Walk worthy of your calling. And we talk about that calling last time. And we looked at some H's that apply to the calling.
It is a heavenly calling. Our calling is a heavenly calling. And it is heavenly. We saw in Hebrews, verse 1, therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling consider Jesus the apostle in the high priest of our confession or confession.
Jesus Christ is that that one that we're considered that we're to see as our model, to see as our guide, to see as our redeemer. And it's heavenly in its origin, it's heavenly in its nature, it's heavenly in its destiny. Remember I held it that plaque that Joe Paradise had made for me last time. It is a reminder for me every day as I sit down in my little study in the morning and as I open my Bible and as I read and pray.
It is a reminder who I'm to focus on, my heavenly Savior. It is a holy calling. Second Timothy one, nine says, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling. He wants us to be holy.
He wants us to walk in righteousness, doesn't he? It is a high calling, Philippians 3, 14. Paul said, I pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Remember I told you a boy about Boyd Nicholson and his trip to Victoria and how he got on that wrong ferry and he said, I'm an ambassador for Christ and he was able to get off that ferry and get on another ferry.
It is a high calling. We should realize that God has called us to be as next shirt says, a purveyor of good news. In other words, a preacher of the gospel. We are to be a purveyor of God's great good news.
It is a high calling. We are ambassadors for Christ. Ambassador, you put your name in there. An ambassador for Christ.
You might not be on the street corner or you might not be in an assembly preaching. You may be at work. You may be at home. You may be visiting with a friend.
You may be talking to a family member, but you are an ambassador for Christ wherever you are. It is a high calling and it is a hopeful calling. The hope of your calling, Ephesians 4, 4 says, and looking for that blessed hope, Titus 3, 13. It is a hopeful calling.
One wonderful thing it is to know that our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ is coming again to take us with himself. Before talking about an outlining what a worthy walk looks like, God would have us understand the motivation for Seshawak. That motivation is grace. God's grace.
Religion is about man seeking to merit the favor of a reluctant God. That's what religion is. Man doing what he can to try and get God to bless him, accept him. But true Christianity is about unmerited favor.
It is lavished on us. God's favor is lavished on us out of a heart of love. Ephesians, the epistle that we are reading, has two parts. It has our motivation for a worthy walk in the first three chapters and it has the manner of our worthy walk in chapters so God gives us the motivation for the walk first and then he says this is what the walk should look like.
He gives us the reason. God, Paul, if you will, is the writer, expresses the riches of God's grace in those first three chapters and then in the last three chapters he exhorts the recipients of God's grace to walk in a worthy manner. So our motivation is God's grace. Our motivation is not to earn God's favor.
Our motivation to walk a worthy walk is the love in the grace that God has shown to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 1, 3, and 14 tells us what that motivation is. God's grace. He has saved us.
We talked about this yesterday in the men's group. What a wonderful thing it is. Ene brought this up. The marble that we're saved.
If you ever like just now again does it cross your mind what a marvelous thing it is if you say years ago when I lived back in your arm of theory and the assembly group that I was a part of there was a young man there. His name is Larry Dion. If somebody had heard me talk about Larry before, if you've heard me tell this story then you can just doze off for a little while. The rest of you listen up.
Larry Dion, the French man, come from West Pumico. He wouldn't mind me telling you the story. Larry is a Frenchman from West Pumico and Larry, and he wouldn't mind me telling you this too. His nickname was Larry Fu, which means Larry the Fool.
Larry the Fool, the young man that he was, was always getting into trouble. He was just a toothpick, a string bean of a person, but he just didn't know that he was a small person and he would challenge anybody to a fight. He'd love to fight. He'd rather fight with you than talk to you.
That's Larry. But he couldn't beat up. So Larry bought himself a set of weights and he started working out. Pumping iron.
Pumping iron. Pumping iron. And as he grew older and as he developed, Larry changed from being the little string bean of a guy to being a massive muscular mountain of a guy with the same mentality. Still like the fight.
Larry was in fact hired by the people who ran the West Pumico dances to be a bouncer. And he brought with him his friend, Ronnie Porter, who I went to school with. And Ronnie wasn't as big as Larry was huge. Larry was huge.
Ronnie wasn't big, but he was a master of martial arts. So those two guys went into the West Pumico dance hall and that place was renowned for squabbles. You got the French men in West Pumico and you got the English guys from Cape Sable Island and Shag Harbor and those areas. And the Cape Islanders and the Shag Harbors, people would come up to the outside to go to the dance and it would invariably end up in a fight.
So they hired Larry and I hired Ronnie to go there and be the bouncers. And Larry was in his glory. He told me that one time after the dance was over, there were 12 people. 12 guys stretched out on the floor.
Out cold from Larry and Ron. That's who he is. That's who he was. One day, Larry heard the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Somebody with a certain measure of courage approached him and expressed to him that he needed to be saved, that he was lost. And Larry got saved. And Larry began a transformation. It was immediate in some ways in gradual and others.
You know what? Larry didn't even know how to read. He was illiterate when he got saved. He was probably 2021, years of age when he got saved.
Couldn't read. But he got himself a Bible. You know when he learned to read the Bible. And he got together with Christians and they would read the scriptures and Larry learned how to read.
And not only how to read, but he became a student of the Word of God. He studied the Word of God and he became a preacher. Larry Dion. Back in those days, back in the late 70s, early 80s, when we would greet people, we will often say, what do you know for sure?
That's where the way we greet people. Now this is a self-short thing. You guys probably didn't say that here in the sophisticated area of this world that you live in. But we used to say, what do you know for sure?
People would come and approach Larry and say, hey, what do you know for sure? You know what we say? I'm saved. His face would break out in a great big smile.
I'm saved. That's what I know for sure. And then he'd go on to tell him what it meant to be saved. Whoever it was he was speaking to.
And when you're the size of Larry, you know the other guy listens. They just listen. I'm saved. Anybody who asked him, I'm saved.
What do you guys know for sure? Oh yeah. I'm saved. I'm saved.
That's what you know for sure. There's not too many things you know for sure, right? We like to say, well, death and taxes there for sure. But you can add this one.
If you were a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can say, what do you know for sure? All right. It's a little better. I'm going to keep working on that.
I'm saved. I'm saved. That was Larry's password. That was what he said.
And that's how he opened up conversations with people about the Lord Jesus Christ. What do you know for sure? I'm saved. I'm saved.
Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14. These verses 2 and 14, I should say, 3 to 14 are about our salvation. And it should be no surprise to you as you read through this that all three persons of the Trinity are involved in your salvation. Look at this.
In chapter 1 verses 3 to 6, you have a father's plan. If you look at that, you'll see that this is all about the father and his plan for your salvation. I intended to speak on that subject, God's plan for your salvation, but he couldn't get past verse 3. And then in verses 7 to 12, you see the son's provision for your salvation.
What do the Lord Jesus Christ did to save you? In verses 13 and 14, the spirits pledge for your salvation. If you want a different alliteration, the fathers will, the sons work, the spirits witness. That'll work.
You know? Or you could say the father's selection of the son's sacrifice of spirit ceiling. No matter what alliteration you put on, it's all about the three persons of the Trinity working together for your salvation. And whatever alliterative outline you give it, it's a three stanza hymn of praise.
Look at verse the end of verse 6. You see what it says? To the praise of the glory of his grace. Look at the end of verse 12, which is the end of the second part.
The end of verse 12 says, to the praise of his glory. Look at the end of verse 14, to the praise of his glory. Each one of these sections ends up in the praise of God. He is worthy of our praise, right?
The father and his plan, the son and his provision, and the Holy Spirit and his pledge is sealing us all for the praise and the glory of God. So the father's plan is to save us. So verse 3 begins for us, blessed be God. I want to start somewhat of an outline here by saying, I'm going to use three keys.
First of all, we're going to look at the praise worthy God. He is praise worthy. Do you believe that? Another thing we used to say is a lot of times, some of my ex-Roman Catholics, people who had been Roman Catholics who had come to know Christ as a Lord, and you would see them and say, how do you know?
And the first thing you say is praise the Lord and doing great. Praise the Lord, that's praise the Lord. That was always praise the Lord. And that was from a full heart.
That wasn't just something they said. That was from a full heart because they had been redeemed and they knew it. God is a praise worthy God. And if you look at that verse 3, the first word is blessed.
And the word that's translated blessed is a word in Greek. It's pronounced something like this. Yolog Eitos. And Yolog Eitos, I'm probably nowhere near it, but something like that.
It means blessed or praised. The noun form of that word is the word from which we get the English word, eulogy. Yolog Eitos. Yology.
We know what a eulogy is. Last week ago, Saturday, as we had the memorial service for our dear sister Anne, two of our sisters from Northbrook gave eulogies for Anne. They were beautiful and they were appropriate. They were appropriate.
Sometimes people have to scratch their heads when they're asked to give eulogy. They think, what are we going to say? In Anne's case, it's how we're going to get it all squeezed in. And I know that everyone that was at that funeral could have stood up and eulogized Anne.
We might not have done as well as those two sisters did, but we could have stood up and eulogized. We would have spoken well of Anne, wouldn't we? Because of who she is. Wonderful, wonderful sister and the Lord.
We speak well of someone, we eulogize them, and we don't have to wait until they pass on to eulogize them. We can speak well of people, right? It's always good to speak well of people. And in this word, praise God.
Praise blessed be the God. Blessed be God. Praise be to God is the word eulogy. Speak well of God.
God is the Father. God the Father is the praise worthy God. Revelation chapter 4 verses 13 and 14. It says at the end of time, every creative thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying to him who sits on the throne, that's God, and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.
It is the right thing to do. Everything on the earth, everything says there, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in the sea, all things, all creative things. Rightfully giving praise and honor to God. He is the praise worthy God.
Now, I did not grow up thinking this way. I want you to understand this. I did not grow up thinking that God is the praise worthy God. I grew up thinking God is the God to be feared.
And many religious people, many religions in the world, that's who God is, the God to be feared. And I'm not saying we shouldn't respect and reverence God. I'm talking about trembling. I knew that fearing God was essential to me because I knew that God had a thing for sinners.
He had issues with sinners and I knew I was a sinner. And so I was afraid of God. I think that there were two pervasive views of God in the world. And I would call them because I'm just going to give you an illustration.
I'm going to call them the dad version and the mom version. Because in my family, I had a view of dad and I had a view of mom that was different. Dad, who was always good and generous, a loving father, but dad's word was law. All right.
And none of us, excuse me, in our family would defy God. Dad, we lived in respectful dread of his displeasure. Understand that? Does that compute with anyone?
Right. And they don't have to be nasty people. They could be wonderful people. But there's something about one of our parents typically that we say, I'm not going to cross them.
I'm not going to do that. Then there's mom. Right. Different person.
Beautiful, wonderful, good, generous, kind, tender, hearted. Her word was optional. Optional. Right.
Because we knew that mom would probably go easy on us. She'd go easy. And she would. She would.
She'd go easy on us. And so we didn't fear as it were, didn't live in dread of her displeasure. We knew that she would probably let us off with it. So there's the dead view, right?
That says, don't cross God. And there's the mom view that says, he'll probably just let you buy with it. Do you understand that? Does that make sense?
People have that view of God. One or the other. I had the dead view that God was out, watching me. He was the cop hidden, you know, in behind a bush somewhere who was going to, as I sped by in my vehicle, he was going to come out from behind those bushes and chase me down the road.
I lived in fear of coming around the corner face to face with God. Some people, they see God as one or the other of those two characters years ago. There's a television character. His name was Flip Wilson.
There's probably only three people in this room that would be old enough to remember Flip Wilson. Oh, happy to be a part of that group. Flip Wilson. Flip Wilson.
And one of his lines was, God's going to get you for that. God's going to get you for that. God is going to punish you. He's going to get you for that.
Whatever that person just did to him. God's going to get him. And that's the way I viewed God. It was a terrible travesty that I had that mindset about God.
I believe that Jesus loved me. There was a song about that. But I thought God was out to get me. God didn't love me.
And that's a skewed version of God. John, the first John, chapter four, God is love, verse eight. God is love. I didn't know that.
It says, this is how God showed his love among us. He sent his son, his only son, into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice appreciation for a sense. God isn't waiting to clog us to, you know, arrest us and put us in jail.
God loves us and sent his son. Somehow that the connection between God's and Jesus' love for me was slow to be made in my brain. I didn't realize that God was worthy to be praised God. I didn't, but he is.
God, the father gave his only son to die in the cross of Calvary so that I could be saved. That's how much you love me. You love me so much and he loves you so much. Ultimately, you and I are going to speak his praise.
You and I are going to bow our knees and confess who he is. But right now we have the privilege of knowing him as the praise worthy God and praising him right now. Blessed be the God. He is the praise worthy God.
And secondly, not only is he the praise worthy God, but he is also the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm calling him the personal God here, the personal God. Now when you read this, it says here, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That might strike you as it did me a little odd.
The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can it be? How can the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God, and all truly Orthodox believers believe that he is God, how can the Lord Jesus Christ have a God if he is God? How can that be?
Does that conjure up some questions in your head? It did mine. How can that be? So what I'm going to do right now is hand you something that you're going to find very valuable.
I am going to give you a term to tuck away for moments when you want to impress your friends. This is a term that you can use when you're at the coffee machine at work and it can be used. I'm going to tell you the term. It's called the hypostatic union of Christ.
Hypostatic. Isn't that great work? That's one you can carry around with you. And you can use it on your friends when you need to.
Okay? You're standing at the coffee machine, you know? Or you're going for the coffee machine and there's a bunch of people around it. You know you're not going to get your coffee for 10 minutes while you're waiting for everybody to get there's done.
And so you just come up and you say, hey guys, let's talk about the hypostatic union of Christ. And you will have the coffee machine all to yourself. Not a problem. Okay?
The hypostatic union of Christ. Now you can go through the Bible from cover to cover and you're not going to find that word. Hypostatic. It's not there.
All right? It's not even in the Greek. It's not there. It is a term used by theologians to try and help us understand something that's very wonderful about the Lord Jesus Christ.
This term describes the two natures of our Lord. Our Lord Jesus Christ is God, true, and he's also man. And somehow or other, those two natures are joined together in one person. And theologians call this the hypostatic union of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hypostatic literally means to stand under hypo under static to remain in place to stand under. It refers to the substance or essential nature of an individual. So the substance or essential nature of the Lord Jesus Christ is that he's the God man. He is God and he's also man.
Two natures brought together separate, separate, not mixed together, somehow united in this one person. And this is a mystery in our minds, but it is the way the Bible describes him. Two distinct, identifiable, and separate natures in one person. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God man.
As God, the Lord Jesus Christ as the first person of the Trinity, as his Father. And as man, the Lord Jesus Christ as the first person of the Trinity, as is God. The Lord Jesus Christ referred to God in both ways, the Father, God the Father. If you look at this passage of Scripture, John 5, the Lord Jesus Christ is talking to the Pharisees and he said, my Father, calling God his Father, is working until now and I myself am working.
For this reason, therefore the Jews, the religious leaders, were seeking all the word of killing, because he not only was seeking breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God the Father. His own, not word own, is idiose, his own private peculiar individual Father, making himself equal to God. This was blasphemy in the eyes of the religious leaders. Jesus Christ was calling God the Father, his own Father, my own personal special peculiar relationship peculiar to anybody else has this relationship.
He's my Father. But on the cross, in Matthew 2746, the Lord Jesus Christ cried out on the cross, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? You see, when he's talking to the Pharisees, he's talking about his relationship to God, the Father, as his Father, because that's the relationship he had as God.
On the cross, he was bearing the sins of mankind. He was suffering as man, for mankind. And so he cried out to God the Father, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
In John 20 verse 17, when he rose from the dead and Mary made doing came and met him, he said, Mary, go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. My Father and my God, in the same verse, my Father and my God, is part of the mystery of our faith, and of the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God, man, that God is his Father and also his God. But there's something even greater than that. Well, not greater than that, but something that you and I find applicably wonderful.
And that is this, that God the Father is not only the Lord Jesus, God and Father. He's also our God and Father. Mary said to the Lord Jesus, to Mary, go to the disciples, tell them I'm ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. He's a personal God.
He's our God. Yes, because he created us. But he's our Father. He's our Father.
If we had been born again, God is God and God is the Father of all believers. And I want to ask you, is he your Father? He's your God. Whether you want him to be your God or not, he is.
He's your God. But is he your Father? Do you have relationship with him? In order to have relationship with him, you must be born in his family.
You must be born again. Galatians 3.26 says, for you, this is from the amplified Bible. And if you, if you want to read a Bible and take a long time doing that by an amplified Bible. So this is what the amplified Bible says, for you who were born again and have been reborn from above, spiritually, transformed, renewed, sanctified.
So you have amplified Bible just wants to go on and on and on. It's the truth though. This is what this is what it means about you, you, Galatians, you believers, are all children of God. That is your set apart for his purpose and full rights and privileges.
Through faith in Christ Jesus. In short form, it says you are all the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. You see, if you buy an amplified Bible, you're going to be spending a lot of time reading extra stuff. It's good stuff, but it's extra.
All right. We become children of God, how? Through faith in Christ Jesus. God becomes our Father.
How? When we trust Christ is our Savior. And we're born again into God's family. That's how you become a child of God.
That's how God becomes your Father. Only when the Lord Jesus is our personal Savior. All right. So God is a phrase worthy God.
He's a personal God, but he's also the prodigal God. You probably wouldn't think that we'd associate the word prodigal with God, but because we think of the prodigal son, right? We've heard the story of the prodigal son, Luke 15. But he's the prodigal God because the word prodigal has the idea of being absolutely free and spending everything, right?
That's what the prodigal son did. He spent everything. Well, God has done the same thing only in a different way. This is the second time the word blessed is used in this verse, verse three.
He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. He has blessed us. Has God eulogized us? Is that what that means?
Are we praise worthy like he is? The answer to that question is no. But this word blessed is not an adjective as the first word blessed was. This word is a verb.
And it means it can mean to praise or celebrate with praises to bless God, to invoke blessings upon a person. Jesus said bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. To consecrate a thing with solemn prayers as the Lord did with the bread and the fish and Luke chapter 9, right?
He blessed those things. Or it can mean, as it says here, to cause to prosper, to make happy, to be still blessing on. That's what that word means in this context. God has blessed his people.
He has bestowed blessings on us. So we want to talk about the extent and the kind of blessings that God has given us. And I have here a pyramid of blessings. The pyramid of how God puts us together in verse number three.
First of all, there's blessing. And then it says there's spiritual blessings. Every spiritual blessing, every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, and every spiritual blessing in heavenlies in Christ. Do you see how that expands?
That idea, he's blessed us. He's blessed us wonderfully. Let's look at this more closely. First of all, every blessing, every spiritual blessing.
I call this the aggregate of our blessings. It doesn't say that God has given us a spiritual blessing. It does not say that he's given us some spiritual blessings. It does not say that he's given us many spiritual blessings.
It says every spiritual blessing. See that? Every spiritual blessing. Sometimes we get down on our knees or we get in our prayer meeting and we say, oh, bless us.
Bless us, bless us, bless us. This verse here kind of runs afoul of that, doesn't it? He's already given us every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing.
It is a spiritual blessing. And that speaks to the author of our blessings. Not spiritual as contrasted to physical or temporal. Spiritual as from whence these blessings come.
From the spirit of God. In heavenly places, the abode of our blessings. I'm moving on because I have to hear the abode of our blessings. In the heavenlies where Christ is, verse 20 of this chapter, where we are positionally chapter 2 verse 6 that we heard about this morning and where the holy angels are in chapter 3 verse 10.
These blessings have a natural abode, a place of origin, and that is heavenly. They're found in heaven and they're brought to us by the spirit. W.E. Vine says, it is that we saints while still in the body on earth are enjoying some of the blessings which we will enjoy in heaven.
Isn't that nice? We enjoy some of the blessings on earth that we will enjoy in heaven. Not all of them, and then they are in Christ. He's the agent, the means of our blessing.
Not merely through Christ, but because we are seen in Christ. These blessings are ours. Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, we would not have any relation at all to God's blessings. Christians possess every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies because they are in Christ.
So what does it mean to be in Christ? How does one become in Christ? In his commentary on Galatians and Ephesians, Lehman Strauss says the following. The most significant phrase in this, it didn't happen.
My friend Stephen, can you forward that for me? Yes, the most significant phrase in this epistle is made up of two words in Christ. If one is not in Christ, he can know nothing experientially of these spiritual blessings. Now I did a casual count as I read through Ephesians, and I counted 20 times as it references to in Christ or some form of that.
In Christ, in Christ Jesus, in Him, in whom, in the Lord, 20 times that these references were given, all in the first three chapters. This is about being in Christ. One of the commentators said, the whole book of Ephesians is an explanation of what it means to be in Christ. So I'm going to try and answer with you what it means to be in Christ.
God sees all people united together, either in one of two federal heads or one or two representatives, either in Adam or in Christ. Even can you put that forward for me because I don't think this is working anymore. Thank you. First Corinthians 1522, the Scripture says therefore as in Adam, all die, even so also in Christ, all would be made alive.
You see the differentiation there? There is such a thing as being in Adam, and there is such a thing as being in Christ. In Adam, all die. In Christ, all will be made alive.
You and I were all born descendants of Adam. Romans 5, 19 teaches us that as such were born sinners, whereas through one man's disobedience, the many that is all were made sinners. We were all born sinners. When Adam was sinned, we were seen in Adam, and we were seen as he is our representative.
And so we all sinned in Adam. We all inherited a sinful nature. United to Adam as we are, we are all born in sin and separated from God. And so I asked this question when I was teaching in high school classes at Halifax Christian Academy, when I was teaching Bible systematic theology or comparative religions, it was called at the time.
And I was teaching Bible, the Christianity side of that. And I asked the kids in high school, I said, are we sinners because we sin, or do we sin because we're sinners? And just about all of them were like, what? And they were all coming from Christian homes and Christian churches.
And say that again, Mr. Rang. Are we sinners because we sinned, or do we sin because we're sinners? What?
They felt like I was saying the same thing over again, right? I was saying it twice, but I'm not saying the same thing over again. Are we sinners because we sinned? Was that what made us sinners?
Theologically no. We were made sinners by birth. We inherited a sin nature. We sinned because we're sinners.
That's what we are in our nature. We're talking about this yesterday at the men's group. And I mentioned that behind our house back home in Glenwood, there was this old apple orchard. And by the time that I came on the scene, those old trees, they were ancient old trees.
They were still though, because they were apple trees producing pears. No. They were producing apples. They were scrawny old ugly apples, but they were still apples.
Why? Because they're apple trees. They produce the fruit because of what they are or were. They cut down now, but apple trees produce apples because they're apple trees.
They can't help that. It's natural. We sinned because we're sinners because that's our nature. So we're born in Adam is sinners.
We're born separated from God. We're born as enemies of God as his and Romans chapter 5. That's how we're born. We are in Adam.
And we trust Jesus Christ as our Savior. We are taken out of Adam and placed in Christ. Adam was our old federal head. You won't find that term in the Scriptures either.
It's just a term that's used by theologians to try and explain this whole thing. We were under Adam. We lived under his domain as it were. And it was a domain of death.
And we're taken out of that when we trust Christ. And we're brought into a new domain, under a new head. And his name is Christ. And we are in Christ.
Now, that's what it means to be in Christ. Second Corinthians. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, you're going to find us everywhere in the New Testament. He is a new creature.
Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. The old things that were true of reposition in Adam, these things have gone. Our destiny toward hell and our rebellion toward God.
Those things are passed away. New things have come. Now that we're positioned in Christ. Things that make us children of God.
And destined us to eternal glory with God. Those things have come. They're ours now. If you are in Christ, God sees you as he sees the Son.
If you are in Christ, you are as near to God as the Lord Jesus Christ is. If you are in Christ, God loves you just the way he loves his Son. Part of this, him was quoted this morning at the Lord's Supper. As I've rather brought up, prayed.
He quoted part of this. It's a favorite of mine. Mine at perfect peace. Look at it says, by nature and by practice far, how very far from God.
This is us in Adam. Yet now by grace brought nigh to him through faith in Jesus' blood. This is us in Christ. So near, so very near to God.
I cannot near be. For in the person of his Son, I am as near as he. So dear, so very dear to God. More dear, I cannot be.
The love wherewith he loves the Son such as his love to me. That is the blessed position of everyone who is in Christ. Dear to God, near to God, just as his Son is. That's where we are in Christ.
And then, cats me proclaims this. Thanks be to the last verse. Why? In view of that fact, why should I ever careful?
That means anxious be. That doesn't mean my mother always used to say when I left the house. Now you be careful. And that's okay.
That's not what we're talking about here. Why should I ever carefully be? That is anxious, stressed. When such a God is mine.
He watches or me night and day and tells me mine is thine. Everything that the Lord Jesus Christ has and is to God. And it's ours in him. In Christ Jesus, all those things are ours.
The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are the children of God. And the children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ. Christ's riches are our riches. His resources are our resources.
His righteousness is our righteousness. His power is our power. His position is our position. His privilege is our privilege.
His possessions, our possessions, his practices are our practices. We are those things and have those things and do those things by the grace of God because we are in Christ. Because we're in Christ. They are part of the package of our spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.
But only if you are in Christ. So the question is, how do I become in Christ? How does that happen? Listen, you can come to North Revival Chapel every Sunday and Thursdays and every second Saturday and whenever the door is open, you can come and stand on the entryway and wait for the door to open for days if you want to.
And it won't put you in Christ. I won't put you in Christ. You may know, you may come and learn about the blessings of God in Christ Jesus, but you're not in Christ Jesus until something happens, until you experience the new birth, until you come to be in Christ and you say, well, it sounds so mysterious. It's so mystical.
Maybe it is. It is mysterious. It is mystical in a way. But being in Christ is as simple as A.B.C.
and I'm going to give this to you for those of you who may not be in Christ. If I came up to you and said, what do you know for sure? Yeah. Okay.
All right. We got to work on that. But if I came up to you and said, well, you know for sure and you're not able to say, I'm saved. I want to show you how you can be saved.
A.B.C. Admit, first of all, that you are a hopeless and helpless, hell-deserving sinner. Some people call that repentance. Repentance is not saying, okay, I'm not going to do that bad stuff anymore.
I'm going to start doing good stuff now. No. Repentance is a change of mind. It's seeing you for who you really are and seeing God for who he really is and a change of mind.
It will result in a change of direction. Yes, but a change of mind. I see things differently. I admit that I'm a lost sinner.
And secondly, then as a lost sinner, you come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary for your sins. You believe that. You believe what God says. You believe His testimony.
God said that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross. And He rose again to verify the fact that He had accepted that payment for your sins. And then see, you commit your eternal destiny, the destiny to the sufficiency of that gift of God's grace alone. Trusting only in what Christ has done for you on the cross.
Paul was able to say it. I know who I have believed and persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. I know, I know that I'm saved. What do you know for sure?
I'm saved. I'm saved. How do you know that Paul? Because I committed my eternal destiny to Him.
Not to me. Not to what I've done. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9 that it is by grace that we are saved. Not by works, by grace.
We are saved through faith. And that not of yourselves is to get to God. Not of works that anyone should boast. One last point.
You're with me. Can we make it through this? One last point. God, it says, has blessed us.
In verse 3. God has blessed us. So all these blessings, when do we get them? Are they something in the future?
No. They're now. God has blessed us now. Some of those experiences will know better in the future.
But they're ours now. Blessed be God. Worthy of praise and adoration. He is the praise worthy God.
Next one, Stephen, if you don't mind. Thank you. He is the praise worthy God. He is the personal God.
And he is the prodigal God. Is he your God? Yes. But is he your father?
Next slide, please. Is he your father? There's one more slide. Maybe not.
Okay. Go back one slide, Stephen. Go back one slide. Thank you.