Ephesians 1:3-10
Have you ever met a young child who has just been to Dreamworld for the first time? Can you imagine what he might say if you asked him how was his time there. He might be so excited that he might answer something like:
Well, guess what, we went to Dreamworld and first we went to the Tower of Terror and it was so fast you wouldnt believe it and we were going very fast on it and we went up and up and up and when you are at the top you are also on the tower that has the Giant Drop which we also went on which was awesome and went we were dropping down you could see everything like the Cylone which is this massive roller coaster that goes so fast and is so scary and cool almost as awesome as the Runaway Reptar Roller Coaster which is also awesome and so fast and you dont sit down in it but you hang underneath the tracks and you see everything like the Claw where you spin around on this wheel and you go upside down even up to 9 stories high and you can see the skyscrapers at Surfers Paradise when you are at the top and it really makes your stomach feel queasy, just like the Wipeout which is smaller but like being stuck in a tidal wave and it was so awesome and I just love Dreamworld it is so exciting there is so much to do and when are we going back again?
He is so excited, he has so much to say! So excited in fact, that he cant stop talking! Theres no full stops in his story, Its just one big long sentence! Today we are going to look at one big long sentence in Scripture. It is written by someone so excited and excited about something much more exciting than Dreamworld! He is so excited he just cant stop writing the sentence has no full stops! It is just one big long sentence. In fact, the sentence is so long that we will have to split the sentence over two Sundays as we go through it!
This sentence is Ephesians 1:3-14, but today will will just look at verses 3-10.
In all the English translations there are full stops in this passage. The translators have made these verses into several sentences. But in the original there are no full stops! It is a 12 verse long sentence! Paul is so excited, he just keeps writing!
If we take the full stops out, as in the original, Ephesians 1.3-14 comes out something like:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ even as God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world for us to be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ for Him, according to the pleasure of His will for the praise of the glory of His grace which He generously gave us in the Beloved in whom we have the redemption through His blood, which is the forgiveness of sins according to the wealth of His grace which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight, having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His pleasure which He purposed in Christ for the plan of the fullness of time to head up all things in Christ - those in heaven and those on earthin Him, in whom also we were selected, having been predestined according to the purpose of the one who accomplishes all things according to the purpose of His will for us to be for the praise of His glory, those who had already hoped in Christ and in whom also you, having heard the word of truth, that is, the good news of your salvation, in whom you also having believed, were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise which is the guarantee of our inheritance for the redemption of His possession for the praise of His glory!
Paul is just so excited that he cant stop. But to understand what he is saying, we need to slow down! So much so, that we will split our study of these verses over 2 Sundays. Today we look at verses 3-10.
These verses contain some incredibly profound statements. They are not just profound, but life-changing. And thats why Paul is so excited and so should we. Lets have a look at what he is so excited about:
Vs 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.
Vs 3 forms the introduction to our section. God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. But what does this mean? What are spiritual blessings? People usually want material blessings. They want a nice house, a nice car, luxury holidays. But this is not what we are promised here. We are promised spiritual blessings and not just some but every spiritual blessing in Christ. What are these spiritual blessings? And how do they compare with the blessings of this world material blessings? We can see, hear and touch material blessings. How can unseen spiritual blessings compare even if we get them all? Let us see! This passage mentions 4 spiritual blessings.
1st spiritual blessing
1.4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Remember last week we saw that we are saints, that is, holy ones. And here we see that we are blessed because God has chosen us to be holy. He has made us blameless in His sight. But we are sinners. Ephesians 2.1 says that we were dead in our transgressions and sins. Our natural tendency is to disobey God. It is to only think of ourselves. How then can we be blameless before God? We are not blameless by human standards, but by a much higher standard Gods standards!
Remember last time I spoke that we said that the root cause of all the problems in the world is our sin. This separates us from God and each other. And here is the solution blamelessness! Holiness! Not by human standards by Gods!
But How can this be? Firstly, how can God regards us as blameless despite our sin? We will look at this more as we progress today. Secondly, how God is gradually changing us to be more holy, which we will look at in the coming weeks.
But for now we need to stop in this verse a bit longer. It contains some very important information. He chose us in him before the creation of the world. Did we choose God, or did He choose us? Remember last week, in his introduction in verse 1, Paul wrote that he was an apostle by the will of God. Most of know Pauls Damascus Road experience. God chose Paul. It was not Paul choosing God. And if we look at our own lives, there are different ways each of us came to faith. And its true that each of us at some stage, made a conscious, volitional decision to come to Christ. But behind that decision was Gods drawing. Before we chose Him, He chose us. In these 8 verses, from verses 3-10, there are 5 words describing that we receive spiritual blessings according to His will. In verse 4, it says, He chose us. In verse 5 it says, He predestined us . in accordance with His pleasure and will In verse 9 it says, the mystery of His will. which he purposed in Christ.
And when did God do this choosing? It says here in vs 4, that it was before the creation of the world! Imagine it before you were born! Before your parents, grandparents ancestors were born! Before the first person was born! Before any trees, animals, the earth even, was created. Before the sun, moon, stars or galaxies were created..God chose you!
And he chose you in love. Now many of your Bible translations have a fullstop after, in his sight, and then start a new sentence with the words, In love. But remember that in the original Greek, this is all once sentence. There is no full stop here. Everything here is linked. It means that He chose us, in love. Today is Valentines Day. How do you know if you are someones Valentine? Is it because you love them? No, it is because they love you! That person chose to love you. There may be various reasons why they chose to love you. God chose to love us, before the creation of the world. And He chose to love you just because He did! He chose to love us with pure unconditional love! This is not fickle love, a love that changes, but rather a love that has been constant, steady, since before the world began! Isnt that amazing! What a spiritual blessing!
So the first spiritual blessing is that God chose us to be holy and blameless, before the creation of the world.
2nd spiritual blessing:
In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
The 2nd spiritual blessing is that He has adopted us! As His children! Notice that in the NIV and some other versions it says adopted as his sons. The words, as his sons are not there in Greek original. In the Greek, it just says, adoption. (Note that in some versions of the ESV it says, In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ.) That is He adopts both sons and daughters.
Now isnt that wonderful? In earthly terms, in most cases, there is a no greater love than that between parents and children. Those of you who are parents theres almost nothing you wouldnt do for your children. And here, God says, Ive adopted you as my children. In fact, we were Gods children by birth. But in our rebellion we turned away. We ran away from home. But He has redeemed us and bought us back, as we shall see in verse 7. He has adopted us adopted the wayfaring child.
Now think about adoption. Some of you may be adopted, and some of you adopted your children. Under law and adopted child has exactly the same rights as a natural born child. And if the adoption handled rightly the love is the same. In a sense this love is even heightened, because an adopted child is actually chosen by the parents. They chose to adopt, to love a child.
We see here in this verse that God has predestined us. That is, He chose us ahead of time, as we have already discussed. He didnt choose us because we were special far from it. He chose us just because He loved us in love He chose us to be adopted as His children! He chose us to share the closest possible relationship that can be a relationship with God, the maker of the universe! Now that is a spiritual blessing to be grateful for! To praise God for!
So let us count our spiritual blessings so far.
1. We are chosen to be blameless in His sight before the creation of the world.
2. We are chosen to be adopted as his children!
But how can that be?
3rd spiritual blessing - 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
In these verses Paul comes to the heart of the Gospel the Good News. God has redeemed us in Christ! What does redemption mean? In New Testament times, slavery existed. A slave was a person who was owned by another person. However, someone could buy a slave at the slave market and then set them free! The Bible tells us that though we were born as Gods children. But then through our disobedience we became enslaved to sin. We became slaves of sin. But He has bought us back, in order to adopt us as His children.
The price of this buying us back was the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. The price was life of Jesus Christ, that is, God the Son. This redemption is deliverance from our sins. And it gives us forgiveness of sins. The Greek word here, translated as forgiveness, means a releasing, a letting go. That means, there is a letting go of our sins, and letting go of the consequences of them. God does this through the sacrifice of His own Son, Jesus Christ God the Son.
And He does this according to the riches of his grace. Remember last week we spoke about grace. Well, here we have it again. What is grace? Its what weve just been talking about. That God chose us before the world was made. Why? Because we were good? Deserving of His love? Because we could give something to God? Because we could help God? No, He just did from love. He adopted us why? Did He need children? Could we help Him in some way? No, we cant help God. He did all this from love. That is grace. And His grace is rich. Look what it says in verse 7 in accordance with the riches of Gods grace. Gods grace is limitless, vast, unending. And does He give us just a little bit of His grace His love? Verse 8 says that he lavishes it on us!
My friends count your spiritual blessings.
1. Chosen to be holy and blameless before the foundation of the world.
2. Adopted as His children.
3. Released from our sins, delivered by the sacrifice of Jesus.
Is there any other blessing you could want?
The world thinks we are foolish. They think we are foolish because we chase after pie in the sky. The world is only interested in material blessing, what it considers is the real stuff.
But think about the material blessings:
- The grand house where the people who live there dont get on.
- The flash car but does it really satisfy?
- The luxury holiday but cant relax because there is no peace inside.
Think about the spiritual blessings
- forgiveness from sins, adoption as Gods child and made blameless in His sight.
What more could you ask for! But there is more! The icing on the cake!
The 4th blessing the mystery of His will verse 9.
The mystery of His will..have you ever wondered what Gods will is does it seem like a mystery? The mystery of Gods will is a key theme in Ephesians. It is mentioned 7 times! But what Ephesians says is that this mystery is no longer a mystery! It used to be a mystery before Christ came into the world. And to those who dont know Him it still is a mystery. But to us Christians, it is not longer a mystery! It is a mystery that has been revealed!
More of this mystery will be revealed as we travel through Ephesians. But for the moment Paul says in verse 10b that the mystery is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
All things in heaven and earth.. just imagine it. When will this happen? Verse 10a says when the times will have reached their fulfillment. That is, it will be sometime in the future. It will be when Christ returns. When Christ came the first time He inaugurated His Kingdom and we received spiritual blessings. He will return and then all things in heaven and earth will be under Him.
Today most people do not recognize Christ they do many things contrary to Gods commands. But the mystery revealed the open secret - is that when Christ returns, not only will the spiritual things be under His headship, but earthly ones too.
So what is the point of seeking material blessings? Firstly they dont satisfy. Secondly, they wont last.
Only spiritual blessings satisfy, and last for eternity. And only those who receive spiritual blessings now, will be eligible to receive material blessings later, when Christ returns.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, what an amazing thing, to be blessed with every spiritual blessing!
What are they? Count them:
1. Chosen to be blameless in His sight before the creation of the world.
2. Adopted as His children.
3. Redeemed, forgiven for our sins.
4. The mystery of Gods will revealed to us that all things on heaven and earth will be under Christ. And we will share in that eternally.
Now, really, what more could we ask for! And why do we receive all these spiritual blessings? What have we done to deserve them? NOTHING! That is grace! It is through His love - His unconditional love. We know that because He chose us before the creation of the world. He chose us before we could have made any choice! He chose us and then He drew us to Him
That is, If he has drawn you to Him. Remember, in verse 1 it says that Ephesians is written to the saints, the faithful in Christ Jesus. So when it says, you here it only means those who are in Christ. Only those who have accepted Christ. Not everyone is chosen. Not everyone has had their sins forgiven. Not everyone has been adopted.
Only those who have accepted Christ.
While this passage makes it very plain that God chose us, other parts of Scripture tell us plainly that we also need to respond. If you are here today and you and not in Christ, if you are not faithful to Christ, and if you want these spiritual blessings, which I trust you do, you need to respond.
The board outside of the church building today asks the question, Are you Gods valentine? If you are already a Christian the answer is yes. But if not will you accept what He has done for you on the cross and accept these spiritual blessings?
Will you repent of your sin, and live for Christ? And receive the best blessings you can possibly have
- blameless in Gods sight
- adoption as His child
- forgiveness of your sins
- eternal life.
And for those of us who are saints, the faithful in Christ what is our response when we start to comprehend these spiritual blessings?
Thanks. Praise. We can join with Paul in verse 3: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we can also respond in awe. Verse 6 says to the praise of his glorious grace!
Brothers and sisters in Christ remember at the beginning what I said. This passage is one big long sentence. Paul is so excited he just cant stop, he cant put the brakes on and there are no breaks!
Next time you think about what God has done for you in Christ, next time you talk about what God has done for you in Christ, will you be more excited than the little kid who went to Dreamworld for the first time? Will you be like Paul, who couldnt stop talking about what God has done for you? Who couldnt stop praising God!
To the praise of His glorious grace!!!
