KNOWING WHO I REALLY AM – EPHESIANS 1:1-14
INTRO
Christmas and New Year bring into focus just how much the vast majority of us value our relationships more than anything else. This is a continual source of either our joy or our pain – For at Christmas time we become acutely aware of the pain of relationships we have lost – sometimes through bereavement or family breakdown. And at the same time we celebrate and enjoy the relationships we value.
In fact, our relationships are more important to us than any anything else.
Example Evidence for this, if we need it, can be found in such things as the last messages sent or spoken by those who knew they were about to die in the 9/11 plane crashes. The final messages were all expressions of love towards those they had meaningful relationships with. No-one left a last message to make sure their car was serviced regularly or about maintaining the service contract on the central heating boiler.
POINT
I would go further and say that if we were to ask the question, ‘Who am I?’ we would not find the answer to this by looking at our possessions or to our career. The answer lies in our relationships.
Now that we have reached the dawn of a new year and a new decade we might how can we make the most of the future God has given us?
A good place to begin would be by giving some thought to our relationships = in our ‘be-ing’ rather than our ‘doing’; in who we are becoming rather than what we might achieve.
And what better place to begin than by focusing first and foremost on our relationship with God as our Father. And what better part of Scripture to begin with than Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
READING: Ephesians 1:1-14
QUESTION
How have you begun the New Year?
• Some of us have begun the year with resolutions.
• Others have rededicated themselves to Jesus Christ as Lord.
• Some of us are looking for guidance
• Others for answers to prayer
THESIS The best way to begin is to focus first of all NOT on what we will choose to do BUT on our relationship with God as our Father.
For in this way we may learn not only who we are but also who we can become.
1. WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED BY THE FATHER WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN CHRIST
Ephes. 1:3
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.
POINT
What does this mean? And how does it apply?
John Stott says of this text: ‘every spiritual blessing is a phrase which may well mean ‘every blessing of the Holy Spirit’, who as the divine executive applies the work of Christ to our hearts.
Paul gives some examples of these in here:
Forgiveness, redemption, sonship and salvation, and later in the letter he unpacks this even further including the gifts the Holy Spirit gives.
POINT
These blessings are Trinitarian: We have been blessed by the Father with every blessing of the Holy Spirit in Christ.
POINT
But the main practical point that we should understand is that these blessings are ours NOW.
ILLUSTR/POINT
There’s a song of worship we have sung a few times now that says:
There must be more than this
oh breath of God come breath within
There must be more than this
Spirit of God we wait for you
Fill us anew we pray
Consuming Fire
Fan into flame
a passion for your name
Spirit of God
fall in this place
Lord have your way
with us
It gives expression to our understanding that since the Father has ‘blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ’ that this can yet be applied in greater ways in our lives as individuals and as Fellowship of believers – the Church
APPLIC
For 2010 and for the next decade, what might this mean for us if we resolve just now to press in to God and begin to experience more of the fullness of what it means to have been blessed in this way?
2. WE ARE SET APART FOR A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD AS OUR FATHER
Ephes. 1:4-5
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
POINT
God found pleasure in adopting us.
In NT times children were often abandoned, and some of the early Christians took such abandoned children to into their homes and adopted them as part of the family.
POINT/APPLIC *
Isn't it wonderful to think that when we trusted in Christ as our Lord and Saviour that we also, like orphan children, were adopted into the family of God by our loving heavenly Father.
POINT
Under Roman law, adopted children were given the same rights as natural children. To be 'co-heirs' with Christ to the Kingdom describes what an incredible privilege it is to be a child of God!* For this means that we have as much right to all of the Kingdom as the true Son! And we are heirs WITH Him.
APPLIC
As true sons and daughters of God, God’s intention is that we might live like in a way that is fitting for such family members
= To live lives worthy of our calling
Chosen by him to be holy and blameless
Chosen in order to be to the praise of his glory
POINT
There is a wonderful truth here.
When we heard the Gospel and trust in Christ God was at work!
In fact at that moment God chose us as we responded to Him.
What does this mean?
It means that God does not want us to feel that our eternal security is in our hands. It is in His!
It also means that He saved us. We did not save ourselves.
And God had a purpose in this: That we might be holy and blameless in his sight.
APPLIC
As we look to the year ahead our life is defined first and foremost by this: We are children of God – sons and daughters of God, and it is right for us to seek to live lives worthy of our calling.
3. WE ARE SECURE IN THE FATHER’S HANDS
Ephes. 1:13-14
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, [14] who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.
POINT
God has marked us in ways that make us stand out for him.
That mark is like a deposit that guarantees God’s unfailing promise to complete his work in us.
THE SEAL OF THE SPIRIT
In first century people placed their seal upon documents. It was simply a piece of wax that was put over the seam of a package or document to seal the seam.
Then the author of the document would take their signet(Same word we get signature from) ring and press it into the wax…denoting ownership.
[IT’S LIKE YOUR SIGNATURE TODAY]
POINT
The Holy Spirit is God’s mark upon us.
Setting us apart from this world.
And sealing us or marking us for a purpose.
THE SPIRIT PRESERVES US
The wax seal was considered tamperproof
(Much like the plastic that seals food and medicine packages)
you buy today….Tamper Proof. Because to get the seam
In Greek, the word for "guarantee" is arrhabon and it means "a down payment." (Like buying a house and paying a mortgage)
• The original language is, literally, "...until the redemption of the walk-around."
• This is a reference to the custom of buying a piece of ground and then going out and walking around it.
• When you walked around it, you made it yours. That was the sign to everybody else that you had paid the down payment and that this was now your piece of property.
Modern Greek, this term arrhabon is used for an engagement ring.
APPLIC
Go forward into 2010 with confidence that God the Father has marked you out as special – His son or daughter in whose life God is carrying out a work for his glory.
CONCL
YOU ALSO WERE INCLUDED (Personal application and prayer)
