The Richness Of Blessings In Jesus (Ephesians 1:1-3) Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD, USA

www.mycrossway.org

View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118

This morning we are beginning a series that I expect will take us through the Summer, unless Jesus comes back first. But I don’t think there is a better and more timely text for us than the Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. Ephesians consists of only six chapters. And in most Bibles it is only four pages long. It contains 155 verses. It will take you only about 20 minutes to read the entire letter aloud. Yet, it is an incredibly powerful letter. Commentator William Barclay calls Ephesians “the queen of the epistles.”

It’s been a long couple of years. I don’t need to remind you of all the difficulties we are facing in this world today, but it is important to remind you because it situates the Word of God into our world and our situation. We’re not studying this in a vacuum.

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"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 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" (Ephesians 1:1–3 ESV)

The idea of blessings has been adopted and overused in our society today. People will say, “I’m blessed” all the time. And they use the term in a way that simply means “Everything is going great.” Really, it’s become synonymous with the phrase, “I am lucky” or “My circumstances have been kind to me.” (MacArthur)

That is a worldly perspective of blessings. That’s not the kind of blessing I’m talking about today. When I’m talking about blessings. I’m talking about the eternal and spiritual blessings of God that are unique and reserved for His chosen saints.

There was an elderly Italian man, laying on his death bed. The man was weak, his breathing was labored and he could barely walk. But suddenly while he laid there laboring to breath, he began smell the aroma of fresh baked Italian fig cookies- His favorite. With what little strength he could muster, he got out of bed made his ways down the stairs in near agony. If it weren’t for the pain, that sweet aroma would convince him that he might already be in Heaven. Entering the kitchen he found on some wax paper hundreds of his favorite, fresh-baked cookies. Maybe he was in Heaven? Or maybe is loving wife of 60 years was giving him one last treat. With what little energy he had, he stretched his arm to pick up a decadent cookie. He almost had the cookie past his parched lips and into his mouth, when his hand was met with the sharp sting of his wife’s spatula. “No!” his wife said, “They’re for the funeral.” (Credit: Shawn Drake, Sermon Central)

The blessings of this world world are fleeting and guarded by worldly people. The blessings of Christ are there for us today and beyond our funeral. These are blessings are eternal, that comes from heaven, and given to us by God. These are not the lies of prosperity.

Most of us, at one time or another, have dreamed about winning the lottery. Jack Whittaker, who won $315 million in a lottery in West Virginia in 2002, told Time magazine, “I wish that we had torn the ticket up.” Since winning, Whittaker’s daughter and granddaughter died due to drug overdoses. Just eight months after winning, he was robbed of $545,000. His life is a nightmare. “I just don’t like Jack Whittaker. I don’t like the hard heart I’ve got,” he said. “I don’t like what I’ve become.”

Nearly all winners struggle suicide, depression and divorce. “It’s the curse of the lottery because it made their lives worse instead of improving them,” says Don McNay, a financial consultant to lottery winners. Even winning a million dollars isn’t considered a blessing.

The kind of blessing I want to talk to you about and what Paul was writing to believers through the Epistle to the Ephesians is the amazing blessings from God to the believer. Once you open your eyes to what God has done in your life and is going to do in your life, you would never think about trading it, even for a million dollars.

“Our thanks are due to God for all temporal blessings; they are more than we deserve. But our thanks ought to go to God in thunders of hallelujahs for spiritual blessings. A new heart is better than a new coat. To feed on Christ is better than to have the best earthly food. To be an heir of God is better than being the heir of the greatest nobleman. To have God for our portion is blessed, infinitely more blessed than to own broad acres of land. God hath blessed us with spiritual blessings. These are the rarest, the richest, the most enduring of all blessings; they are priceless in value.” (Spurgeon)