Lord Jesus, thank You that once we become Your children through trusting Christ, there is a way for us to learn and grow. Help us as we seek to come under Your discipline by establishing good habits in solitude and meditating on Your Word. May we grow stronger so that we may honor You in all we do? We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
What IS the blessings with adoption Involving the Son? EPH.1:7-12?
We see the Wonderful blessings around the Father that are ours in verses 4-6 these blessings center, how that we who are in Christ are: "Chosen by God", to be holy and without blame before Him in love. We are “Predestined by God", to receive the adoption as sons of God. We are "Accepted by God", to be highly favored by Him. How is it that we who are sinners are so blessed by God? "Chosen IN HIM," "adoption as sons BY JESUS CHRIST," "made us accepted IN THE BELOVED." It is only in Jesus Christ that we can receive these wonderful blessings!
This becomes even clearer as we now as we read EPH. 7-12, It is here that Paul develops on the Blessings Involving the Son.
What is the Blessings Involving the Son?
I. GOD HAS redeemed US. How do we define Redemption? It means a freedom that comes as a result made by a payment. It means a release, from the remorse, guilt, penalty, punishment and the power of sin over our lives. We can see the power of sin in JN 8:34 Jesus "I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” RM 7:14 The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. GAL 3:13 “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing.”
Jesus came into the world to set us free. JN 8:36 “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” OUR freedom is THROUGH CHRIST'S BLOOD.
1. The price paid in order to redeem us was the blood of Jesus 1PT 1:18-19 “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”
2. By His death on the cross, Jesus has paid the price to deliver us from the bondage of sin, for which He deserves our highest praise! Rev. 5:9, 12 “And they sang a new song with these words: “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were killed, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And they sang in a mighty chorus: "The Lamb is worthy, the Lamb who was killed. He is worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing."
Do you see now how God could carry out His choice to have a people who are holy and without blame, adopted as sons unto Him, when all He had to work with were sinners? Through the death of Jesus and the shedding of His blood, God was just to "redeem" or "deliver" us from the bondage of sin!
THE APPLE BASKET Author Unknown
One day an elderly man entered into a hospital. He was grumpy from being on medication and the nurses thought him to be insane, as he yelled for his wife to get the apple basket. By the time, they had checked him into his room the nurses were exhausted from the fight he was putting up. "Sir you have to calm down we are doing everything we can for you" they would try to explain. "I don't need your help" the grumpy man would yell, "I want my apple basket". He finally slept. The nurses sighed with relief and talked among themselves whether they should call the hospital psychologist about the old man and his obsession with the apple basket. As they talked and laughed about the situation, the wife came in carrying the basket of apples. They looked somewhat stunned as she asked if she could see her husband and deliver his basket. Sure, they agreed as they watched her slip past into his room. Curiosity consumed them over the next few weeks as they tended to the elderly man. He was eaten with cancer and the doctors had given him no hope of survival. He turned out to be a very calm, happy man once he had his basket. His wife, they noticed, would come in with apples and go out with apples and the curiosity grew even more until one nurse couldn't stand the suspense. One night as he was nearing the end, the nurse sat down in a chair by the wife." May I ask why do you have that apple basket? I just don't understand the significance. “I am an apple farmer by trade he sighed. From the time I was 20 till the day I do die I will forever have my apples." The nurse nodded thinking she understood. He just likes his work, she thought, assured now he was a little bit crazy. As she started to leave, the old man asked her to sit down. "At age 20 I was saved, I accepted the Lord as my Savior." Oh no, the nurse thought. Here comes the lecture on religion. The old man continued. "The day I accepted the Lord as my Savior I got this basket, and each time I had a problem or concern that I could not handle, I put an apple in the basket un-shined." "Why?" the nurse said shaking her head. "Because it reminded me to give those problems to the Lord so He would shine them. See my basket now," he stated. "As my problems disappear so do the apples.” As I get new problems, ones I cannot handle alone, I put an apple in." The humble nurse looked into the basket, only one apple was there. With that, he took a big breath, grabbed his wife by the hand and faded into eternal sleep. The wife paused for a moment and got up from her place to take from the basket the last remaining apple. She whispered in his ear that his reward awaits him in heaven. The nurse stayed still and asked with tears in her eyes, "What do you think his riches will be?" The wife knew what they were eternal life with Jesus Christ. But she could see the concern and sadness upon the young nurses' face, handed her the apple, and said, "The biggest apple pie you can imagine!" That was the day the young nurse was saved, and from that day on she always had a basket by her bed. As seen in Food For Thought.
II. GOD HAS FORGIVEN US 7b-8.
A. How do we Define "FORGIVENESS". It is a release from bondage or captivity. Forgiveness or pardon, of sins is best said in this way: letting them go as if they had never been committed. It is with the shedding of the blood of Jesus that it is possible to be forgiven, so that we are no longer guilty or captive by sin.
B. WHAT HAS BEEN FORGIVEN ARE OUR SINS. The Greek word here refers to unintentional failing or willful wrongdoing. These sorts of things, which we call faults or offenses, or sins or trespasses, that keeps us from being holy and without blame. It is Through Jesus' blood, we can acquire "pardon" from such things, and be "holy and without blame"!
C. THE BASIS FOR BOTH "REDEMPTION" AND "FORGIVENESS" IS by GOD'S GRACE. It is according to the riches of His grace, which He made to increase toward us. Paul told Titus, it is by God's mercy and grace we are made right. This wonderful grace is marked by God in all wisdom. It becomes the ability to apply knowledge to the best benefit, allowing a person to use the most effective means to attain the highest goal. In God's case, His wisdom is often beyond the capability of man to find out on his own. RM 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” With much thought, God has chosen to show His grace toward us!
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more; there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Philip Yancey
III. GOD HAS REVEALED HIS WILL TO US (9-10) "HE HAS MADE KNOWN TO THE MYSTERY OF HIS WILL".
Paul explained this in EPH. 3:5 God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now he has revealed it by the Holy Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. RM 16:25-26 God is able to make you strong, just as the Good News says. It is the message about Jesus Christ and his plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time. But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they might believe and obey Christ.” Making known the "mystery of His will" is due to "His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself" It pleased God in planning to reveal His will to us. Just as it pleased God to adopt us as sons through Jesus Christ. God's "plan" was to be carried out in the period of time when everything is right and ready. GAL 4:4-5
But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own God's "plan" was to "gather together in one all things in Christ." EPH. 2:16 “Together as one body, Christ brought together both groups to God by means of his death, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.”
Col. 1:19-22 “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and by him God brought together everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body. As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”
Grace keeps us from worrying because worry deals with the past, while grace deals with the present and future. Joyce Meyer
IV. GOD HAS GIVEN US AN INHERITANCE in His son. (11-12) "We were made a heritage", speaking of God's inheritance. This inheritance is part of God’s "PREDESTINATION". He "predetermined" that His "sons" would receive an "inheritance"! This is in accordance with God's grand "purpose", who has the power to "work all things according to the counsel of His will" With the final result in receiving this inheritance. So, that we should live for the praise of His glory." That we will be the reason to give God glory.
CONCLUSION
1. In Christ, then, we have every reason to praise God, knowing that: God has redeemed us (7a). God has forgiven us (7b-8). God has revealed His Will to us (9-10). God has given us an inheritance (11-12).
