“I Am Blessed”
(Eph 1:3-14)
We can read our passage today and it reads like any good section of the New Testament, very nice introduction to the letter he writes to the Ephesian church. But what you can’t get from just reading the English written word here is how absolutely giddy Paul is in writing it. This is one long sentence in the Greek, and to appreciate it we need to understand how we all kind of ramble on without taking a breath when we are really excited.
Paul is so excited in writing this that he just goes on without a breath and doesn’t even worry about punctuation, and he’s a pretty educated guy. In fact verses 15 to 23 are also one long sentence. And this has caused some scholars over time to question if Paul even wrote this letter. But don’t worry, there is overwhelming evidence that he did.
Why is Paul so excited as he sits imprisoned in Rome? Well that’s what we’re going to talk about today. He is feeling so blessed and in awe of God, that he can’t contain it even in writing though he sits in prison. Let me try to give you an idea of how this part begins in a modern kind of way. It might go something like this:
“Praise the Lord, can you believe that he has actually blessed us in Christ with every single spiritual blessing in the heavenly places!” Paul knows who he is and who we are and who God is, and he is utterly amazed by the fact that God would bless us in this way, that this was his plan even before he created the world, can you even fathom that?
So that’s how this letter begins. Now let’s back up a little.
After God created Adam and Eve, he blessed them (Gen. 1:27–28; 5:2). The fact that this blessing was freely given and not earned is something unique to the God of the Bible among other “gods” of other religions. This blessing also gives us a unique view into God’s character and how we don’t have to “manipulate” or “coerce” God for him to approve of or bless us. In fact he gives himself to us, the ultimate blessing.
Actually, Paul says in contrast that we should be blessing God, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing”. “We are to praise God for the unmerited favor he shows us.” As we know from last week, again we must be in Christ in order to receive these blessings.
Just meditate on that for a moment. God has blessed us, favoured us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. There is nothing more he can bless us with spiritually. Of course all of that includes eternal life. Yet is it not true that we often forget those blessings that are forever, and as we get caught up in life, we tend to focus on what He isn’t giving us here in this short blip of an earthly life.
Now I think most Christians truly see what he has given us as superior to anything we could ask or imagine in this life. But more and more in the church, the consumer prosperity gospel is infiltrating people’s minds sometimes very subtly. Jesus is seen more and more as a celestial sugar daddy who we expect to make this life better, and to bless us in worldly ways. And the church as his body is expected to meet our desires rather than to be a place that helps us grow and serve Him.
He does promise that if we live as directed we will have better lives here on earth, but these are not unconditional and they don’t necessarily refer to typical earthly or material blessings, in fact he more often promises the opposite, that as Christians, our earthly life will be more difficult because of our association with Christ, and the hope he speaks of here is not about this life but about the spiritual blessings awaiting us in the heavenly realm, and those that help us get through difficulty in this life. Would anyone really prefer to get all their blessings in this life and then have just death or worse, eternal torment apart from God? Would we forfeit the spiritual and heavenly blessings that await us to have a little more health, a better children’s program, happiness, and money in this life?
So what are these blessings? Paul lists them in the next several verses. The first I want to address is:
1. The Blessing of Holiness (v.4)
Essentially here Paul is saying again that it is God that makes us saints, not ourselves. This means he has made us set apart, pure, morally blameless, and chosen by him. Can we be any of those things on our own merit? Of course not.
Now think about that. The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, no one is righteous, not one. That’s how we are born into the world and why we must have a rebirth. Compared to God we are filthy and pitiful, yet in his mercy, through His Son Jesus, he makes us all those other good things. Now do we feel holy and blameless? I sure don’t very often, but I know that I am nonetheless in Him, and we are to strive to make that our reality, and he gives us the power of his grace to do it through His Spirit.
We are a culture that likes to feel something before we do it. But scripturally, we are to live by faith, which often means believing what God said even if we don’t feel it as our reality yet. The more you believe God has made you holy and given you the divine power to be holy, the more you will have confidence and strive to be holy and have success as a Christ follower. In essence God is saying, “I made you Holy, now trust me and act like you believe me”. But we are not left to do it under our own power.
Second is:
2. The Blessing of Predestination (vv 5, 11)
Now there’s much confusion and disagreement about this one. Verse 4 says he chose us in Jesus from before the foundation of the world that we be holy and blameless. Then in verse 5 it says he predestined us for adoption as children through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of his will.
So what does predestined mean here? Well some strict Calvanists would argue that God has already predestined who will be saved and who won’t. The first thing this makes me think about is Pharoah in the Exodus story. Scripture says Pharoah hardened his heart several times, then God hardened it, but all along it seemed that God knew that Pharaoh would never come around.
I don’t think any of us would argue that the all knowing, timeless God of the universe certainly knows who will accept salvation and who won’t, but this passage kind of makes it sound like He chooses who will and won’t be saved.
Now even if that’s true, I’m Ok with it, because he’s God. I’m not going to question his sovereignty over his creation. But I can’t reconcile that with the fact that God says he does not want any to perish, so there must be some semblance of free will in getting saved by accepting Jesus sacrifice. It must be open to everyone.
The other part is that God is love. He would take no pleasure is causing someone to exist only to know that they are destined for eternal torment, and have no chance of ending up otherwise. Verse 5 says in love he predestined us. So does that mean he only loves a select few? That doesn’t fit with the character of God, unless he specifically creates people who were put here only for evil, to help others learn, but that doesn’t fit with His character either.
Now whether this is true, or whether I just want it to be true, I can’t say for sure. But based on what we know about God from all of Scripture, I believe that this predestination has to do with the process of redemption and salvation that God ordained before he even created anything. Knowing what would happen from beginning to end as if it was all in an eternal instant, this plan was predestined. When Paul says “we”, he is simply talking about the people who have already experienced this predestination. And of course Paul certainly falls in that category. He was murdering Christians, and God out of the blue comes and strikes him down off his horse and blinds him. He’s saying that all who would turn to Christ for salvation and call out to him would be saved through Christ, as Paul says in Romans.
But in Romans 8:29-30 Paul also says that “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, (as we saw a couple weeks ago). And those he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. This speaks of the predestined process after salvation.
So the other thing that is predestined is how we will live after we’re saved. We are predestined to be conformed to His image, once we are in Him, He will do that. So that tells me that if that isn’t happening, there’s a problem. So it’s the process that is predestined more so than the individual people that are predestined, though it seems that sometimes it sure looks like God is intervening.
Aside from Paul I have heard many stories. One is of a woman who hated God, had 666 tattooed on her body as well as a tattoo of the virgin Mary with horns. She loved to bash Mormons especially. So one night when she was drunk her and her girlfriend watched a movie bashing Mormons, but in that movie she heard about the real Christ, that he was a true historical figure, and she gave her life to Christ.
In another one this couple was dabbling in the occult and many strange things started happening in their house. One night a book flew through the air while they were sleeping, and it hit the woman in the head waking her up. It was a Bible that landed open to Ephesians where God says to put on the whole armour of God.
The only reason this Bible was in their house was because the man had helped clean an old ladies house out after she died. He was basically gathering things to be thrown away, but he didn’t have the heart to throw away this old Bible. So it had sat in their house for over 9 years before this night. And on the inside cover that same verse was handwritten by whoever had given this bible to the old lady in the first place.
Now all that sure sounds like there are times when God steps in and predestined someone’s journey. But the fact is that it is always he who calls first, and then we answer.
It also says that we are predestined for the next blessing which is:
3. The Blessing of Adoption (v. 5)
Again this refers to the process of adoption more than the fact that he chooses who he will adopt. To me this is one of the most beautiful of the blessings, in part because our family has been through the process of adoption. So many people have come from families where the father was either abusive or absent. For the first time in history, more children are growing up without their father than are growing up with their father. So this adoption by God is so huge.
Of course to love a birth child is kind of easy, and you have no bones about giving them an inheritance when you die. But to choose to love someone who is not your own flesh and blood, and give them everything that you would give your birth child is amazing.
Not only that, but God chooses to adopt people who don’t really want him, and even after they are adopted for the most part choose to rebel against Him. He knows all that yet he chooses to do it anyway. That to me that is the epitome of real agape love with no strings attached. “I am going to adopt you and I don’t care what you do, nothing can ever separate you from my love. I will discipline you like my own, I have expectations of you, but I will never disown you, you can always come home, and everything I have is yours”.
The real power of this comes from knowing that we will receive everything that Jesus receives. The Bible says we are made fellow heirs with Christ. Next is:
4. The Blessing of Redemption (v.7)
This literally means a ransom. Again, we have gotten ourselves into jail, deserve to receive the punishment of our sin, and God has paid a ransom through his only son for his adopted children, that will cover every crime we ever commit. We are guilty, we are convicted, but because he is the ultimate judge he allows His Son to pay our ransom, to take our sentence upon himself, even though we will most likely reoffend. Of course after a while shouldn’t this make us so grateful and reverent that we no longer want to reoffend?
And this also leads into:
5. The Blessing of Forgiveness (v.7)
Forgiveness is a little different from redemption. In redemption we are still considered guilty. We are out on bail so to speak. But with forgiveness we receive a full pardon. Think about it, your child commits a crime and you go and bail him out of jail. That doesn’t necessarily require forgiveness. You might be very angry, know he is guilty and inflict your own punishment on the kid once you get them home. All you have done is show mercy because you don’t want to see your kid in jail. But forgiveness is a complete forgetting that anything happened, that you will in no way be held responsible for what you have done, and there is no punishment or even mention of it again, like it never happened. That is God’s forgiveness that leads us to:
6. The Blessing of Grace (v.7)
I believe the difference between redemption and forgiveness is the difference between mercy and grace. Mercy protects us from punishment, but grace completely wipes the offence away. Mercy can be shown without love, but grace is the epitome of love. It is the word “charis” which means a gift. Mercy can be shown without joy, but grace includes joy and taking pleasure in us.
The gift of grace is also the power to live as a Christian. Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 15 and in his letter to Titus. In Titus 2 it says this, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”
So grace forgives us, but it also trains us and empowers us, and guides us today. And there he clearly insinuates that grace is through Jesus who appeared to us.
Finally there is:
7. The Blessing of Being Sealed (v. 13)
This one is sometimes misunderstood as well because it has cultural underpinnings and relates to ancient times. This really has to do with what kings do when they put their stamp on things to authenticate them. Most commonly it would be a letter or scroll or something like that where the king would push his big ring into some wax for the royal seal.
It’s also the same as what we see called a sign in the book of Revelation with regards to the mark on the hand or forehead. Satan’s followers have 666 or the number of man, and Christ’s followers have another mark, and refused the mark or seal of the beast. We know from here in Ephesians that the mark Christ followers have is the Holy Spirit, so it’s not necessarily a physical, visible mark, but it’s certainly noticeable spiritually. In essence it is whether we are identified by the mark or seal of man, or the Holy Spirit. The forehead and hands simply refer to our minds and actions.
The Holy Spirit somehow puts a seal of authenticity on us when we are truly born again in the Spirit of eternal life, and though we do not yet have the full inheritance promised to us, it is guaranteed by this sealing To the Praise of His Glory. Once you are really saved, you cannot be unsaved. We can’t lose our salvation because we never got it in the first place. The question really is can Jesus lose a Christian, and no he can’t. He gives us salvation and he does not take it back. No it is a blessing, a free gift, you don’t lose it, but it is possible that you never had it.
In Christ we are blessed to the glory of God, not so that he can glorify us. In fact Paul said in that Romans 8 passage read earlier, that those he has justified he has already glorified. We should reflect and recount the ways in which God has blessed us, and then use that recollection of blessings to encourage us in times of strife or struggles. And this is what we can share with others that will in turn glorify God even more.
We have already received our glory and all the spiritual blessings God can give, now we are to glorify Him, and again this gets back to our identity as God’s image bearers. So in your action plan this week, think of ways you can glorify God because of the spiritual blessings he has given you. How can you communicate to others what he has given?
