Ephesians: Finding our Identity in Christ
Ephesians 1:7-10
Redeemed!
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
2-01–2026
Redeemed
Two weeks ago, we started our study of Ephesians 1 and made it through verse 6. We learned we are chosen in Christ, adopted into God’s family in Christ, and we are extravagantly loved in Christ.
Paul explodes into praise, into a 202 word, doxology because he is so excited about these blessings that God has lavished upon us. He just couldn’t keep inside.
This past week, on Netflix’s reboot of Star Search, one of the contestants sang “Hard Fought Hallelujah” by Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll.
Jelly Roll is one of the judges and I want you to listen to what he does when he gets the opportunity to talk about God’s grace.
[Reel of Jelly Roll]
Can he get an amen here?!
Let me remind you that if you miss a Sunday, you can always watch the sermon on Facebook, Youtube, our website, or read the manuscript on Sermoncentral.com.
Today we are going to continue to count our blessings and learn some more really good news about our identity in Christ.
Please turn with me to Ephesians 1.
Prayer.
Blessing #4: You have Been Redeemed
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.”
This is such good news! What is our greatest need?
Theologian, professor and pastor D.A. Carson said it best:
“If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior. ”
Redemption is a churchy word. What does it mean?
In the Bible, redemption means “release from bondage through payment, freed by ransom.”
We see this played out in the rescue of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. When the tenth and final plague was coming, God told the Israelites to kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts. The avenging angel would “passover” the Jewish first-born.
They were redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
We see redemption in the story of Abraham willing to offer Issac. At the last minute, God stops Abraham and he sees a ram (male lamb) caught in a thicket. Isaac was redeemed by the blood of the lamb.
On a more personal note, and one of my favorite prophets in the Bible, we see redemption play out in Hosea’s marriage.
The prophet Hosea was told by God to marry a prostitute named Gomer. They have three kids in quick succession. None of the kids look like Hosea.
Then Gomer disappears and Hosea finds that she is living with another man and is in bondage to him. Hosea buys his own wife back from slavery.
God says to Israel - that is how you act towards me. You run after foreign gods, you cheat on Me, you get yourself caught in the net of bondage.
And, time and time again, I rescue you. I redeem you. I buy you back.
This is the redemption that Paul is so excited about.
In reality, there are three aspects to our redemption - we have been redeemed, we are being redeemed, and we will be redeemed.
The Essence of our Redemption
We need to be rescued. We are helpless and hopeless to to save ourselves. What do we need to be saved from? From the wrath of God!
In the next chapter of Ephesians, Paul writes:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:1-3)
Our sin separates us from God. Not only that, sin is open rebellion against God. Without redemption, we are enemies of God and His wrath is not only coming, but deserved.
What is the only way to be rescued from God’s wrath? Sin must be paid for and the only payment God takes is a blood substitution. Someone must be willing to pay your debt to buy you back and rescue your from God’s righteous anger.
The absolutely shocking thing about the Gospel is that God, in Christ, sacrificed Himself to redeem us! Jesus died on the cross, in our place, to pay our sin debt and appease the wrath of the Father.
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14)
While many churches today downplay the importance of Jesus’ blood because it might offend someone, we know that it is only through the blood of Christ that we have redemption.
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Romans 5:6-7,9)
And…
“There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:22-25)
So what does that mean? In Him, we have been bought back, through the blood of Christ and this provides forgiveness for our sins!
In a sermon on this passage, Dr. Jason DeRouchie, professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary gives this amazing list:
Like a massive debt that has been absolved, God forgives an ocean of violation and offense… consider the breathtaking scope of sins from which God has redeemed those in the Beloved: addiction, adultery, anxiety, apathy, argumentativeness, arrogance, backbiting, bestiality, bitterness, blasphemy, boasting, carelessness, cheating, coarse joking, covetousness, a critical spirit, cowardliness, cross dressing, deceit, disobedience, dishonoring parents, dissension, division, divorce that’s unlawful, drunkenness, enmity, envy, evil thoughts, faithlessness, fear that’s misplaced, fits of anger, foolish talk or action, fornication, gossip, greed, gluttony, hating God and others, haughtiness, heresy, homosexuality, hypocrisy, idolatry, immodesty, immorality, impurity, insolence, jealousy, laziness, lawlessness, lovelessness, lust, lying, malice, materialism, mercilessness, murder, neglect of God’s Word, occult activity, orgies, passivity, pornography, prayerlessness, prejudice, pride, procrastination, profanity, quenching the Spirit, rebellion to authority, resentment, reveling, rivalry, rudeness, ruthlessness, sedition, seduction, self-harm, selfishness, self-righteousness, sensuality, sexual immorality, slander, sloth, sorcery, stealing, strife, swindling, theft, transgenderism, unbelief, unforgiveness, ungodliness, unrepentance, unrighteousness, unholiness, vanity, witchcraft, workaholism, worklessness, worry, wrath. And this is just a beginning list of what Jesus, God’s Beloved, came to save us from by his blood….The dam has broken, the floodgates are opened, and our once parched, wilting souls are now receiving the unending, ever-replenishing life-giving saturation of saving grace.”
We don’t have to live in guilt and shame anymore. The blood of Christ covers our sins!
John writes:
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (I John 1:5-7)
He continues:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
Isaiah wrote poetically:
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Isaiah also thanks God that He has put “all my sins behind your back.” (Isaiah 38:17)
The prophet Micah writes:
“Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the
transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:18-19)
David proclaims:
“Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits
who forgives all your sins…as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:1-3, 12)
I’ve had people tell me that they have sinned too much, gone too far, to be forgiven. This is a lie from the pit of hell.
We don’t have to live in guilt and shame about our past sins. My life verse is Romans 8:1:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)
Several years ago, we had a group of high schoolers at camp and I looked back and saw one of our senior boys sitting on the floor in the back of the room crying.
Later I was able to talk to him and I asked him to share what was going on. He said, “I’ve sung that song dozens of times but I’be never really heard the words. Tonight, the words exploded in my soul.
“I’m forgiven / because You were forsaken / I’m accepted / because You were condemned / I’m alive and well and Your Spirit lives within me / because You died and rose and again.”
With tears in his eyes he told the group, “I really didn’t get what Jesus died for me until tonight. I always thought that I had something to do with why he saved me. But He saved me, he rescued me, in spite of me. I deserved to be on that cross, yet He died in my place willingly simply because He loves me. That will change your heart once you understand it.”
Do you understand that in Christ, you have redemption, the forgiveness of your sins?
We are being redeemed.
The Apostle Peter writes:
“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (I Peter 1:18-19)
There are two very important dates in your life. The day you are born and the day you figure out why.
He did not create us to live a purposeless life, centered on ourselves, chasing what we think will make us happy.
He created us on purpose, for a purpose, and with a purpose and as we live out those purposes we bring glory to God.
In the 1970s, Alice Cooper formed a celebrity "drinking club” called the Hollywood Vampires. You could only join the club if you could out-drink all members, which included Keith Moon (the Who), Ringo Starr (the Beatles), Micky Dolenz (The Monkeys), Harry Nilsson, John Belushi, and John Lennon (the Beatles).
One by one, he watched his friends die and he knew that he was headed the same direction. He said that their attitude was that of James Dean - “live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse.”
He had it all - sex, drugs and rock and roll. He had more money than he knew what to do with but he knew he was headed for hell. He also knew that hell wasn’t a party but eternal torture.
He wanted his life to count. He entered treatment for alcohol and drugs and has been sober and clean for more than 40 years. He and his wife have been married 50 plus years. He has started several Solid Rock Youth Centers in Arizona that disciples kids and helps them learn how to express their creativity through music.
I want my life to count. Do you? Does your life feel empty? Do you want to live out your purpose?
We will be redeemed
We have been redeemed, we are being redeemed, and we will be redeemed.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us… For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:18-23)
What if asked you to clean all the bathrooms at Soldier Field after a Bears football game? When you are done, I’ll give you 10 dollars. Would that motivate you? Probably not.
What if I told you that when you were done I would transfer 10 billion dollars into your account? Would you concentrate on the chore of cleaning the bathroom or look forward with anticipation to having that much money?
Listen to me - the future’s so bright, we need to wear shades!
There is coming a day, when all you see will be redeemed. Creation will be redeemed. And we will get new, redeemed bodies. There will be no more cancer, colds, or colonoscopies. No more tears, tantrums, or tedium. No more sorrow, sickness, or strokes.
We live in the already / not yet. This is true but it’s in the future. But that truth gives us great hope that we can and will survive this lost and dying world and spend eternity with our Father and our older brother Jesus.
Evidence of our Redemption
“…according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will…”
Do you see that it is “according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us?”
If I asked Elon Musk for some money, and he gave me $20, that would be out of his riches. But if I asked and he gave me one million dollars worth of SpaceX stock, that would be according to his riches.
God is not stingy with His grace.
Remember the difference
Mercy is not getting what you deserve.
Justice is getting what you deserve
Grace - is getting what you don’t deserve.
We were guilty before God and our sin separated us from Him. Because we were cosmic traitors, we deserved justice. But God didn’t give us the justice we deserved. He showed mercy. But on top of mercy, he lavished grace on us by sending Jesus to die in our place for our sins.
In the next chapter, Paul will write
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
We didn’t deserve it. He could never earn it. We can’t hop high enough to earn any brownie points with God’s holiness.
We simply lift our hands and hearts and say, “Thank you!”
200,000 tons of water go over Niagara Falls every minute and it doesn’t come close to the amount of amazing grace God gives us each day!
He not only gives us grace but also wisdom (sanctified common sense) and insight (how to live wisely in the world)
In the section we will study next week, Paul will pray for the Ephesians:
“…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” (Ephesians 1:17-18)
This wisdom and insight will help us understand the mystery of His will that God chooses to make known to us.
Do you know that Elvis is in this room? So is Jelly Roll? And Tammy Wynette?
Why can’t we hear it? Because we need a radio with an antenna. If you have been redeemed you have antennae to not only hear but understand God’s plan.
I shared the Gospel with a friend once and read Scripture to her and she said that I should stop reading because all she heard was Charlie Brown’s teacher. She didn’t have spiritual ears to hear.
What is the mystery? That Gentiles, us!, are included in the Gospel! That God is working His plan out in history to redeem and ransom those that are His.
Professor and pastor Jason DeRoucie puts it this way:
“One evidence that you are redeemed is that you have personally experienced God’s curse-overcoming, universe-reconciling work in Jesus. You’ve seen that Christ is King; you’ve embraced that he is the only Savior; you’ve repented of your sins, have surrendered to him as Lord, and have joyfully affirmed that you are now part of his mission of reconciling the world to God.”
Is this you? Do you understand that you were hopeless, helpless and hell bound but God, in His amazing grace, saved you rescued you, chose you, adopted you, and redeemed you?
The End of our Redemption
“…according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in him.”
As we look around our world it might be easy to think it is spinning out of control. It isn’t.
History is headed somewhere. God has a purpose and plan and it is to exalt His Son and unite everything under His leadership and Lordship.
“For He [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14-16)
This is why He redeemed us:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4)
The Greek is a word picture of a column of numbers. In that culture, when the numbers were all added up, the total would be put at the top of the page.
God’s purpose and plan is to write CHRIST at the top of the page at the end of all history:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-10)
Communion
The elements of communion are meant to remind us of our redemption
The cracker represents His body broken on the cross for you. He died in your place to pay your sin debt. As one pastor put it: Sin must be punished. God will either punish the sinner or the substitute.
The blood represents His perfect, sinless blood:
"And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26-27-28)
