If I asked you the question: “how do you know something is real?” you might say something like: “It’s real if I can experience it with my senses.” Our idea of the “realness” of something is tied to what our brains tell us based on the information gathered from our senses: touch, smell, hearing, sight, taste, and emotion. In court we consider eyewitness testimony to be one of the best ways of finding someone guilty or innocent of a crime.
But the truth is, our senses, and our minds—deceive us on a regular basis. Here are two examples: why do movies work? What you are seeing are a series of still pictures shown in rapid succession. Why do we perceive that as motion? Because of something called “persistence of vision”. Our brains hold onto the last image just for a moment—but long enough so that if we are shown another image that is relatively close to the one we just saw—our brains will interpret that as motion. But it’s not real, only an illusion of reality.
Our memories: did you know that every time you bring up a memory your brain accesses it off of your internal hard drive and puts it into your brain’s RAM? When you are finished accessing that memory it is once again stored on the hard drive—your sort-of permanent memory—but it has been altered by all of your present experiences and moods. So there is no such thing as perfect memory.
Why do I bring this up? Because the Apostle Paul in writing the book of Ephesians wants to convey to us a reality that is beyond what our normal senses and brains can hold. We as Christians need to understand that what we have in Jesus Christ is, to borrow a phrase: “the real thing.” What we see around us in this age is a mirage, or a temporary reality, that will be replaced with something so much more real—more than we can ever imagine.
The central idea of Ephesians is that it is all about Jesus. And by “all” and really mean “all.”
Take a look at Chapter 1, verses 9 and 10. I mentioned last time that this is the central theme of Ephesians.
Ephesians 1:9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him 10 for the administration of the days of fulfillment—to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.
We’ll get to break this verse apart in a different message. But for now I want us to see that what Paul is saying is that all of what God is about in this universe is bringing everything together in the Messiah Jesus—both things in this reality (earth) and in God’s dimension (heaven).
In fact, if you focus on this verse, the entire Bible pops open. In Genesis, Moses records that God created the heavens and the earth and called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). By Chapter 3 we humans decided we didn’t like the way God made things so we took matters into our own hands. What we really did was pass on our authority over God’s creation to Satan along with our souls in rebellion against God. So from the end of Chapter 3 until near the end of Revelation, God did something about our stupidity—and that something was to send in a rescuer: Jesus the Messiah.
I like the analogy Jesus used in Matthew 13:33 where He said: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into 50 pounds of flour until it spread through all of it.” Bread is flat and boring—but if you put but a small amount of yeast into it, it will spread throughout the entire dough and cause the bread to rise and become something edible.
So with Jesus, it’s like God was injecting this small amount of yeast into a flat and dead world, and that small thing will grow and grow into it fills not only the earth, but also the entire universe with life.
God started with the human soul because that was the last and most important thing God created, but He won’t stop there, and one day this new life will fill the heavens from one end to the other with the life of Jesus.
So as we go through the first 3 verses of Chapter 1 we are going to come upon four very “churchy” words that have lost their meaning. My aim is to restore some meaning to those words so Ephesians can truly impact our lives as we see just what Jesus is and has done for us—as we see the new reality.
1
Right at the beginning, Paul shows us the centrality of Jesus. He mentions “Jesus Christ” or “Christ Jesus” in each of the first three verses.
Paul did not volunteer as an apostle. Paul’s choices took second place to God’s choices. We’ll see that operating also later in this chapter. As Paul was appointed as an apostle, know that you too have been appointed to a purpose. We’ll get into that in Chapter 2.
“Saints” doesn’t mean pious people, but those with a new relationship to God. It means: “called out ones.” You aren’t a saint because you’re good, you are a saint because God called you into relationship through Jesus Christ.
“Faithful” is also translated “believers” in some translations. It is employing trust in God, having belief in Him. It is both passive: having faith or trust, and also active: being reliable. Paul is talking both about the reality that these people put their weight down in Jesus, and that they are reliable in that faith: they are not double minded with one foot firmly planted in Jesus and the other firmly planted in the values of this age. Being reliable in Jesus does not mean you are perfect but that you have made up your mind to follow Jesus. You belong to Him and if His boat sinks you will sink with it.
2
One of the most wonderful parts of being a part of God’s family is that you get to call Him “Father.” Contrary to what others in this age might say, God is not the father of everyone. He is everyone’s creator, but not their father. In John 8:44 Jesus actually said that those who are not a part of His family have their father as the Devil. I know that’s not very PC, but it is simply the truth. We only get to call God Father if we are related to Him, and that only comes through the agency of Jesus sacrifice and our belief, or trust, in that sacrifice.
John 1:12 “…to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name…”
So what does God give us in Jesus? Grace, which means getting something we don’t deserve: God’s kindness and forgiveness, and peace, which is that wonderful new relationship with have with Him. We are no longer at war and in rebellion against God, we are at peace.
3
Here’s where we start to get into the meat of the letter. Verse three begins a rather lengthy sentence in Greek. At 202 words, it is the longest recorded sentence in Greek literature and goes all the way to verse 14.
Our English Bibles break it up into several smaller sentences but as a whole it shows how carried away Paul gets with praising God over what He has done for us in Jesus. Though it might not read that way at first—this entire sentence is all about praising Jesus by telling of all the wonderful things He has done.
The other three words we are going to redefine are contained in verse 3: blessing, spiritual, and heavenly.
Blessing, first of all, is the same root word as “praise”, used at the beginning of verse 3. It is the Greek word euglogeo which means: “to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on.” It means to be advantaged.
Blessing is like the benefit package available to you when you receive eternal life. Blessing would be the feeling you would have if you learned a long lost relative died and left you 500 million dollars. It’s the feeling of anticipation when you are going to visit an exciting new place. It isn’t just what we say when someone sneezes. And it isn’t the kind of “advantage” that comes in this age. It is not money, power, beauty, or health—though it could include those things. The problem with those things is the base motivation underneath—we want to feel secure, not stressed, and have purpose. God gives us those in our new nature, but not through the things of the old nature.
Spiritual too is an overused word. We compare spiritual with material—so material is what is real and spiritual is something ethereal, non-existent, not important. The truth is far different.
Dr. Rick Booye defines “spiritual” as “unbodily personal power.” God is Spirit (John 4:24). But God’s Spirit is actually the source of the material world. Back to Genesis: It was God who created matter. Spirit created matter. So spirit is actually more important and more “solid” than the atoms that make up matter.
Jesus said: “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and truth.” (John 6:63). When Jesus spoke (the verbal expression of His Spirit) things happened: food was created, water walked upon, death and disease banished. We think that when we create things, that we are so cool, yet we are simply re-arranging what God’s Spirit already created.
So we are “advantaged” with “spiritual” blessings in the “heavenlies.” Heaven is not a place a far away or a long time in the future. Heaven is the dimension that God lives in; it is all around us though we can’t see it. When you become a member of God’s family you then have citizenship in both this realm, and the dimension of God—the heavenlies.
Right now it seems we don’t see many of these blessings and we think we’ll get them “when we get to heaven.” Yes, there will be tremendous advantages in heaven—but we also have tremendous advantages right now. They are mostly internal—as God changes our thinking patterns and heals our wounds and cleanses our sins. They are also external as God designs and plans our path in this age so that He is glorified.
We tend to get it turned the other way—we want “blessings” here: health, wealth, power, and beauty. Jesus said: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33). He’s talking about what you need to be able to continue serving Him in this age.
All this happens “in Christ.” You cannot expect these advantages unless you belong to Jesus; unless you are joined to Him. Jesus said in John 17:22 “May they be one as we are one.” In God’s dimension, two people can share the same life—that’s how you can be one in Christ and how God can “bless” you “in Christ.”
So what we see here in verse 3 is Paul beginning this blessing to God for all of the blessings He’s given to us, real blessings, spiritual ones, in Jesus. We’ll learn just exactly what those are in the coming verses.
