Ephesians 1 An Inheritance From God Series

Jonathan Newlon

Uniontown Church of Christ

18 April 2020

Ephesians 1: Inheritance from God

Introduction

Have you ever received an inheritance? Perhaps you’ve had a friend or relative leave you something in their will upon their death. Perhaps it was a rich relative and you received a very large inheritance. I’m sure it made you feel special to know that someone thought well enough of you to want to leave you with something after they were gone. I want you to know something, God has an inheritance for us to receive, only we receive it when we are gone from this life. God leaves us an inheritance much greater than any we could receive from someone on this earth, no matter how rich they are! Ephesians chapter 1 tells us all about this inheritance from God. Let’s read it this morning and discuss our coming inheritance!

(Read Ephesians 1)

I. God chose mankind for His inheritance

Notice what God didn’t choose for His inheritance. God didn’t choose animals for his inheritance. This might make the folks a PETA a little bit angry, but in the eyes of God, we are more valuable than animals. This goes against what many say who subscribe to Darwinian theories. They say that man is just another animal. They say there is nothing special about us, but rather, we simply evolve just as the other animals do. In their eyes, there is no difference in value between a monkey and a man.

This simply isn’t true. God values us more than other animals. We are special to Him. Look at what the Lord Jesus has to say in Matthew chapter 6. He is making a point about now worrying because God will take care of us, but there is a mention of our value as well. Starting in verse 25, Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

God chose us for an inheritance, not the other animals. In fact, God chose man for His inheritance before we were even created! Look at Ephesians 1:3-4 where it says, “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.” Now I don’t know about you, but that sure makes me feel special. God hadn’t even created the world yet, not even the foundations of it, and yet He had already chosen us.

It was God’s plan all along for us to live in glory with Him. In the passage we just read, it mentions that we were chosen to be “holy and blameless before Him.” At first, that was in the Garden of Eden. God had created a place for us to be in His presence. In fact, if you look back to Genesis, you see how God would walk with Adam in the Garden and speak with him directly. We were to live in perfection with the Lord, with His presence amongst us.

That was messed up when we failed God. In Genesis 3, we see the story of the fall of man. Satan had tricked Adam and Eve into disobeying the one restriction God had given them: not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the first time, sin and death entered into the world; mankind was corrupted. We turned away from God and sinned, and our inheritance was stripped from us. The good news, however, is that God still loved us. Because God loved us so much, the status quo wouldn’t last. Our inheritance wouldn’t be stripped from us forever. God, in his infinite love, mercy, and grace would do something about our fall.

II. God ordained a way for us to be reconciled to Him and once again receive our inheritance.

God didn’t just let us lay in our sin and be destroyed by it. He didn’t eternally condemn us without giving us a way out. Rather, God loved us so much that he gave us a way to be reconciled to Him again. He gave us a way to once again receive our inheritance. He gave us a way to be called his children.

The way given to us to receive our inheritance was through Jesus Christ. Look at verse 5 of our passage. It says, “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.” Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection is the way that God provided. Through Jesus we are adopted as children of God! Through his blood, our sins and wrongdoings are washed away, and we are reconciled with our Father.