An announcement, a set of keys was lost during breaking of red this morning. So if anyone noticed a set of keys sitting around and went, oh, there's a set of keys, they're not mine. If you recall where they are, if you could let Hank Michaels know, someone is looking for those set of keys. Good morning to you.
It is awesome to be with you this morning. Normally, when, for the last while, when I've been privileged to preach in different churches, I always begin by saying, I just want to let you know that as soon as the service is over, I'll have to run out the door because I have to go to work. But yesterday was my last shift at IKEA, so I've got all day. You may smile and clap now.
If you have your Bibles with you, it means to look something up. If you would turn to Ephesians chapter 1 this morning, Ephesians chapter 1. I have some folks that often come where I'm speaking to encourage me. Yes, I spoke on this in another group of believers last week, but as I was meditating on it this week, I felt that we needed to look at it again this morning here.
Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians is one of those books that we often look to. It has much that gives us direction and instruction. So it's a favorite for parents, children, obey your parents.
It's a favorite for children. Fathers, don't exaggerate your children. It can be a go-to for husbands, wives, obey your husbands. It can be a retort for wives, husbands, love your wives, like Christ, love the church.
It talks about prayer, it talks about fighting the battle. And oftentimes we jump to those passages which are good, but it's important to recognize that as the Holy Spirit guided Paul to write the epistle to the church in Ephesus, he begins as he does for a very specific purpose. Because we cannot look at what we are called to do until first we have a grasp of who we are in Christ. When Brother 1 said that when you look at Ephesians, you need to understand that the indicative always precedes the imperative or in normal people language, being precedes doing.
You need to know who you are before you set out to do what you're called to do. So we're going to look at the beginning of the book of Ephesians this morning to see who we are if we are in Christ. Let's begin by going to prayer. Lord, in our God, we praise You this morning because you're worthy to be praised.
We praise You this morning for You are awesome and glorious, for You are the creator and sustainer of all things. Lord, we praise You this morning for You are light and in You is no darkness at all. You are good, righteous, holy, and just. We praise You this morning for You are loving, merciful, and compassionate, and none of these character traits are in opposition to each other.
Lord, we praise You this morning for You hold all things together by the Word of Your power, Your plans are never thwarted, every promise You make will be fulfilled. Lord, we praise You for Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. For He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. Lord, we praise You for Your Holy Spirit, the seal of our inheritance that indwells every believer, leading us to all truth, convicting us of sin and righteousness, our comforter.
Lord, we praise You for Your church that has stood for 2,000 years and You are the undisputed head of it. Lord, we praise You now for Your Word, and we ask now that You will give us eyes to see and ears to hear, minds to understand and most of all hearts to be changed for Your glory and Yours alone in Jesus Christ. Amen. We'll start by reading through chapter 1, we're looking in the NIV this morning, and then we'll go back and break down some of the parts of it.
So first let's just go and let the Word speak. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace and peace to You from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace, that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will. In order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of His glory. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know Him better. I also pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. In order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe that power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, and the power above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come, and God placed all things under His feet, and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. Amen.
We could just take that to heart and stop there, but let's break it down a little bit. So we'll go to the beginning. Paul writing this letter as he's moved by the Spirit. He's writing to the church in Ephesus.
It's a challenging place, Ephesus. Ephesus has a small Jewish community which is resistant to the gospel. This Jewish community which lives in the middle of a large pagan center, an epicenter of particular worship, and so in order to stand against the paganism, the Jews are clinging to the law with every fiber of their being. And then the gospel comes, a gospel that accomplishes and completes the law, and the Jews resist it.
And the Gentiles are rallying saying, no, this is not what we're believing. We have a goddess and we worship it. And then we have the church here in between the two, and Paul writes to them. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.
We start there because he's writing not only to the church at Ephesus, but as the Spirit directs it to all the churches around the bout and to the church to us sitting here today. To the saints in Ephesus and in Dartmouth, the faithful in Christ Jesus. And most of us come across the word saints and we're going to... Because unfortunately over history that term has been taken and it's been used to refer to a particular small group of people who supposedly have had amazing events happen around them and through them, and so they've been elevated to the special status.
And so when we say, hey, you're a saint, I don't think so. But the word saint literally means the consecrated ones, those who have been set apart for a holy purpose. And if you have accepted the saving work of Jesus Christ, you are part of a consecrated people. You are a saint.
And that's important for us to grasp. I had a teacher in seminary, Chuck Nichols, who's gone home to be with the Lord, and he used to always get upset when somebody would say, I'm just a sinner, saved by grace. And he'd go, no, you're not. No, yes, yes, I am.
Yes, I am. Trust me, I've sinned this morning, so I don't doubt that. But I said, the word of God makes a distinction. There are sinners who are those who are outside of the grace of God, who are under the mastery of sin and are slaves to sin.
They sin because they have no choice. That's all of us in our natural state. But when we come to Christ and accept His finished work on the cross, the power of sin over us is broken. We are no longer slaves to sin.
We are slaves to righteousness. And therefore we are saints. And Dr. Nichols used to say, if you call yourself a sinner all the time, what do sinners do?
They sin. He said, if you recognize in Christ you're a saint, what do saints do? He said, no, but we are told that in Christ we have the power through Christ to resist sin, to stand against sin. But if we go around to the mom, just a sinner, that's what I am, that's my default, then guess what?
You're probably going to sin more than you're going to turn and have victory in Christ. So Paul starts by identifying them who they are, consecrated people, holy to the Lord. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This particular greeting is one that Paul often uses because it catches both his audiences.
Because peace was a common greeting among the Jews, and grace, in a form of it, was a common greeting among the Greeks. But for Paul it's more than just a common greeting because it's talking about what we have again in Christ. We have grace, which is that, which is poured out on us, giving us status. We didn't have in ourselves, and we have peace with God.
And when we talk about peace with God, it's not like, oh, I'm sitting by a tranquil brook. It's a peaceful day. No, it's talking about the end of hostility because we were enemies of God until Christ provided a means by which our sin could be paid for. And then we have peace with God.
We are no longer in opposition to God. And Paul in his greeting is reminding of this. You have grace and you have peace in Christ. Then we come to the next part.
Verses 3 through to 14 in Greek are one sentence. Now, I used to teach English and I'm teaching it again, and I used to get essays like this from students that would have a capital letter at the beginning of the page. At the bottom of the page there would be a period and there would be commas scattered about confetti across the page. And my comment, I would often write on them, there are very few people who can write an accurate sentence that's a page long.
You are not one of them. But Paul led by the Spirit here writes this incredibly compound complex sentence that starts in our English Bible at the beginning of verse 3 and goes to the end of 14. There's a reason he does this because he wants us to understand what he's talking about because he's talking about a single subject, a number of verbs, a number of direct objects, and one indirect object. There's one subject and that's the Lord.
And he's going to be the subject through all the verses. He's the doer of all the actions we're going to read. There's one indirect object. That's the receiver.
And that is those who are in Christ. And he tells us the many things that we have in Christ. So let's begin. If you're the kind of person who likes to mark up your Bible, this is a good time to do that.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Everything we need spiritually to live the life God is calling us to do. He has blessed us past tense from the moment that we come to Christ we have that spiritual blessing. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Now, I'm just going to interject here. There are some people that when you come to Ephesians chapter 1, you come, of course, to the P word, predestined. And some people go, I don't like that word. It makes me uncomfortable.
Some people get, oh, I get excited because let's have a debate about what that means. If you are the person who falls in category 1, be comforted. If you're the person who falls in category 2, not happening this morning. In Ephesians chapter 1, it's not talking about predestined as in who, it's talking about predestined as in what?
In Ephesians chapter 1, God isn't talking about which people he's talking about what he is planned to give to the people who come to him. A good way to understand an Ephesian chapter 1, predestined means what did God prepare as our destination? What did God prepare as the destination for each person who comes to Christ? Because he tells us that before the foundation of the world, before the world was created, he determined that those who would come to Christ will be what?
Holy and blameless in his sight. This goes back to our understanding of saints. Do you realize that if you are in Christ Jesus, you are holy and blameless in his sight? When the God of heaven and earth, who is so holy, sin cannot be in his presence, looks at you, he sees you because of the finished work of Christ, holy and blameless in his sight.
That's a hard one for us to wrestle with because we look at our lives and we have memories and we think, oh, I've got that stuff. And as our brother shared some weeks ago, too often we forget the things that God wants us to remember and remember the things God wants us to forget. But God tells us positionally before the foundation of the world, he decided that those who would come to Christ would be holy and blameless in his sight. This gives us that freedom to come boldly before the throne of grace.
God doesn't see us in our sin, he sees us in what Christ has accomplished for us. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace. There's another one that doesn't connect so much with us in our modern culture, but for the Greco-Roman world, adoption was a huge thing. Because there were rights, and one particular right was the right of becoming a Roman citizen.
It was prized in the Roman world because only a small group of people were citizens in this massive empire, everybody else wasn't. And all the rules and rights and privileges went to those who had citizenship. You could work hard your whole life and try to buy or earn citizenship and you may not get it. But if an important person who was a citizen adopted you, you immediately became part of his family and all his rights and privileges were yours.
Everything that that person had earned or possessed became yours by extension. So God is saying through Paul that we come to Christ through the work of Christ, we become the sons of God. And that's not meant to be discriminatory ladies that simply speaking of the privilege in the culture went to sons. But he's saying that all of us, men and women alike, have that same privilege.
Those privileges that God extends are now ours by adoption. To the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given in the one he loves. Because of his love for Christ, that love is extended to us and we are adopted so we are now co-heirs with Christ. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, and accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
I love the word there, lavished. We don't use that very often. I could say, husbands, may I ask your wife, when's the last time you lavished anything on her? I won't put you in that awkward spot.
Because then you could ask my wife that, and it would just get uncomfortable. But the idea of lavished is to bestow gifts and kindness and gestures to so much that it's almost like overwhelming for the recipient. And God is saying this is what your redemption and your forgiveness of sins looks like. And the riches of my grace that I lavished on you, my grace is so sufficient.
There we go, but God, there's this thing. I've overwhelmed it with my grace. But I struggle with this, overwhelmed it with my grace. I've overwhelmed it with my grace so that you're so overwhelmed by my grace, by the forgiveness I've given you through Christ.
If you've accepted that, I've so overwhelmed all you can just go, closest picture I can think of is sometimes you'll see it on Christmas morning. When your children are small and they come down and you have Christmas gifts and they run and they get to the first one. It's like, oh, this is the most awesome thing. And they tear it open.
And it's all so cool. And then suddenly you go, oh, there's this. And then they go to this and they tear it open and it's so cool. And then they go to this.
And here I've seen those times where as a small child and her eldest after opening up gifts from us and from grandparents and from cousins and aunts and uncles, I'm just sitting there and just sort of going, he was happy, but overwhelmed. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what our forgiveness and our redemption looks like. His grace, overwhelming to us. We will never, until we are with him and see him as he is, actually begin to grasp how massive it is that everything, the last present future if we are in Christ has been forgiven and we've been redeemed.
And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. He has given us back our purpose, to have fellowship with God and to be the image and likeness of God on earth. That purpose that humankind struggled with since the fall, what is our purpose? Our purpose was to have fellowship with our God and to be his image and likeness, his ambassadors for claiming the gospel of reconciliation under Christ.
In him, at this point now we switch to, this is Paul and the other apostles speaking, in him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. So in this case it is talking about who Paul is saying we, the apostles, we were chosen for a very particular purpose. Our purpose, being the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. So they testified to Christ and then bringing others to hear the gospel as well.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. Again, Paul is saying, you need to realize something, that when you came to Christ, the Holy Spirit of the living God, second person of the Trinity, indwelled you. And he is the proof, the guarantee that God's word is true, that by coming to Christ he will in no wise cast you out.
The Spirit of the living God indwells his people. The magnitude of that is awesome, because until Christ came, died, rose again, the Holy Spirit could never permanently indwell people. When we read in the Old Testament, we read about how the Holy Spirit would rest upon a person or come upon a person for a particular purpose, but to indwell an individual was not possible until the sin was dealt with. And at the cross, the sin was dealt with.
When he rose again, the proof that the sin was dealt with, so we are holy and blameless in God's sight, so the Spirit can indwell us. For those moments when we don't think that we're worthy, know that the Spirit of the living God testifies with our Spirit, to the praise of his glory. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.
That is the desire of God's heart, that we would know him better. The more we know God, the more we understand this world, the more we know God, the more we understand that when he promises us to provide us a way of escape against temptation, that he's able to do that. The more we know God, the more we're able to see the difference between sin and righteousness, the more we know God, the more we see his heart for the lost. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
He wants the church to know that we have hope in Christ, that will not pass away. We have riches in Christ and his provision for us to carry us each day, and we have power in Christ, for those who believe the same power, like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead. He'd also wear Paul talks, and the other epistles he makes reference to the power, one to know the power of his resurrection. The same power is available at work in the saints.
When he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all, rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in this present world, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything in the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything and every way. So of this section, Paul ends by saying, now realize God has given you hope in Christ. He's given you riches in Christ.
He's given you strength in Christ. But as we move from this, let's conclude this part by recognizing that the focus, as we heard this morning, as we saw this morning, the focus ends on Christ. It's back to him. All these things we have because of who Christ is.
He has all things under his feet. He sits above all powers and dominions and authorities, both now and in the age to come. He is the one appointed to be the head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything and every way. So this is the who we are.
This is the indicative. So as we look at what does it mean? Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church. You look at that, there's been many times I've looked at that passage, and I'm just like, yes, I will try that.
I will step out and I just messed up. So I'll go back and I'll try again. But we recognize Christ is the one who does that for us. It's depending on him.
The authority of the power is his and in him. And when I rest in him and I walk and depend on him, when I say to the Lord, Lord, I cannot love my wife as Christ loves the church and myself. But you have promised me that the riches, that the power, that the hope is available given to me in you. So Lord, I need you to love my wife through me.
Wives to submit to your husbands. Christ can do that. The same one who submitted to the will of the Father can enable you to submit as you need to. For children, masters, and slaves.
We read the commands, understanding first the promise. Ephesians 1 and going into Ephesians 2, that's the promise. This is what you have if you're in Christ. But I need to say if you are not in Christ, if you have not recognized your need for a Savior, none of this applies to you.
It only applies to you when you've accepted the finished work of Christ. Recognized your need for a Savior and accepted him. And then all of this to the praise of the glory of God are yours in abundance. You are a saint, blessed, chosen, predestined, adopted.
You've been given redemption, forgiveness of sins. These have been lavished on you in his grace. He's made known to you mysteries. He's purposed to you.
He's given you hope, riches, power through his strength, the same strength that rose Jesus from the dead. In Christ who sits in glory above all dominions, powers, and authorities. And we are part of his body. And he is our head.
What's it like to go out into this world? As Martin Luther said, in this world with devils filled, the threatens to undo us. We go back to Ephesians 1. I don't go into this world alone.
I go as part of the body of Christ, of which he is the head. He has the power, the authority, the strength. I don't face each day in myself hoping to prove something to God. I go into each day knowing if I am in Christ.
He is already able to do the work. He just wants me to just let him do that for his glory in Jesus Christ. So my encouragement for you today, my challenge for you today is take some time this week among your other reading in Camp Out in Ephesians 1 for a bit. Make a list of these are the things that God has said.
This is what I predestined before the foundation of the world. This is what those who come to Christ will have, knowing that God never lies. So if he says this is what you have in him, then recognize that. And when the world defleshed in the devil, try to tell you otherwise, say, this is what the word says.
So I may not feel it today. Today I may not feel like I have every blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. Well then my feelings need to get readjusted because the facts say I do, if I am in him. So that's my encouragement, my challenge to you this week, meditate on who you are in Christ.
And then from there look at what he calls you to do. Let's pray. Father, thank you for a grace that is overwhelming. Purchase with the blood of your own Son at such great cost, demonstrating your love and your righteousness.
Lord, so often we lose sight of the magnitude of all that comes to us in Christ. That it's not just keeping us from eternal punishment, but it's lavishing grace on us, giving us purpose, blessings, adoption, the seal of your Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray for me, I pray for each one here that knows you. I want to set our gaze on these things that we would see you and we'd see what you've given us through your Son.
And that in him, as you've told us, we are more than conquerors. Or that we would recognize that you have made us holy and blameless in your sight. Or do that work in us. I pray that you would, through your Spirit and your word, overcome those thoughts that we have or the words we hear from others that would seek to derail that.
And Lord, I pray, especially this morning, if there are those who do not yet know your Son, who haven't recognized their sin and their need for a Savior, who haven't accepted what was accomplished on the cross for them and put their trust in you. Lord, that today would be the day they would ask the questions and seek the answers. That today would be their day of salvation, their day of adoption, redemption, forgiveness. This would be their day.
For your glory and yours alone in Jesus Christ. Amen.