Focusing on Truth – a Study in Ephesians
Lesson Six: “What do I do with my blessing?”
Ephesians 1:11-14
Today, we jump back into our Ephesians series, “Focusing on Truth.” I said in the very beginning that Ephesians is a book of declarations – it declares the truth to us repeatedly. So before we dive further into this book of declarations, let’s make a declaration of our own.
Hold your Bible up and repeat this prayer after me:
Heavenly Father/ thank you for this Bible/it is Your Word to me today;/ I declare with confidence and boldness the following/ I am what this Bible says I am/ I have what this Bible says I have/ I can do what this Bible says I can do/ Today, I’ll be taught from this Bible/So my mind is alert/ my heart is receptive/ As I listen and interact/ may Your Spirit guide me and change me/so that I will never be the same again/By faith I ask and declare these things/ in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
We are just about to wrap up the first chapter in this declarative book. We have seen in the first 10 verses the three blessings that belong to Christians – election, adoption, and authority (get the CD’s to refresh). If you have asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord, than Ephesians clearly tells you that you and I are blessed people. What does it mean to be “blessed”? To bless is to show favor or smile down on. We are people upon whom God smiles. And that is a great thing,
But I want us to focus for a few minutes on what we are supposed to do with “blessing.” I remember as a kid when my mom would watch Jim & Tammy Baker on the PTL club, and Tammy would sing the song, “We are Blessed” – but we found out later that Jim and Tammy greatly misused their blessings. So today I want to focus on the truths in verses 11-14 that will help us learn to live with these blessings the way that God expects us to live. I want us to focus on the truths about these blessings that are very important for us to know, which has been our goal as we go through Ephesians - to focus on the truth. Why is the truth important? Because it is the truth that will set us free, that we allow us to live lives that are filled with joy and pleasing to God.
We focus on the truth in Ephesians, but sometimes the truth might get you in trouble – reminds me of a story - one night a Massachusetts state police officer pulled over a speeding car. The officer said to the driver, “I clocked you at 80 miles per hour.” The driver says, "Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 60. Perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating." His wife was in the passenger’s seat, and without looking up from her knitting, she said, “Now don’t be silly dear, you know that this car doesn’t have cruise control."
As the officer proceeded to write out the ticket, the driver looked over at his wife and growled, "Can’t you please keep your mouth shut for once?" The wife smiled and said, "You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did." As the officer then proceeded to write out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man angrily stared at his wife and said through clenched teeth, "DARN IT, woman, can’t you keep your mouth shut?"
The police officer only frowned and said, "And I notice that you’re not wearing your seat belt, sir. That’s an automatic $75 fine." Getting flustered, the driver responded, "Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket." At which point the wife piped up, "Now, dear, you know very well that you didn’t have your seat belt on? You never wear your seat belt when you drive."
And as the police officer begins writing out the third ticket, the driver furiously turns to his wife and shouts, "WHY DON’T YOU JUST SHUT UP??"? At that point, the police officer looks over at the woman and asks, "Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma’am?" And she says, "No sir, only when he’s been drinking."
The truth will set you free or get you put in jail(!), but we desire to be people who let the truths of Ephesians set us free and change us. The one predominant truth that we have learned so far in Ephesians is the fact as Christians, we are BLESSED with every spiritual blessing because of Christ (verse 3). Christian, do you accept that? Will you go further with me based on that one fact? Today, I want to show you how to live with God’s blessing – you already have it, now you need to use it – so we will talk about “What do I do with my blessing?” Let’s stand and read in Ephesians 1:11-14 (on screen) PRAY. Today I want to give you three ways that we can use our blessings:
1) I can focus on God plan and purpose.
We are people who are distracted and sidetracked and who get off-balance by every little thing that comes down the pike. But when we realize how blessed we are, as Christians, it frees us to focus on God. This is so important because we get focused on everything else but God, don’t we? When things go wrong, we focus on our problems. When things go right, we focus on our prosperity. But when we live as blessed, favored people of God, we are free to focus on God in two specific areas.
a) His plan – vs. 11 (reread)
“He chose us and all things happen according to His plan…” Last week we had missionaries with us who surrendered their lives to the field of Mongolia – and I think, “Mongolia? Who would want to go there! I would have to be pretty focused on God’s plan for my life to realize God wanted me going there! I would have to REALLY question Him – are you sure, God?” Do you ever worry that if you ask God about His plan for your life that He will ask you to do something you don’t want to do? Maybe not going to Mongolia, but maybe working with the teens or children or nursery? Is that you today?
There is the story of a man who was jogging along one day alongside the Grand Canyon, and as he was jogging on a path, all of a sudden the path stopped and the man ran right off a cliff! As he began to fall, the man had enough common sense to grab onto a tree limb that was protruding from the side of the cliff. But he was only dangling, unable to climb back onto the ledge.
So he began to cry out. “Is anybody there? Can somebody help me? At which point, a voice from heaven called out, “This is God. My child, I have heard your cry. Let go of the branch and I will catch you – you only have to let go.” The man thought about this for a moment, and then cried out, “Is there anybody ELSE who can help me?”
You see, God wants you to let go of your branch this morning and trust His plan. What are you holding onto that keeps you from getting involved in His plan for your life? For many of us, it’s fear. We are afraid that if we ask God what He wants us to do, that it will make us unhappy. Truthfully, have you ever felt this way? Look on your sheets at Psalm 37:4-5: “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.” In other words, as you grow in your relationship with God, He will guide you to a place of service that will thrill your heart. Furthermore, He will HELP you to do His plan. Do you trust God, that He chose you and He has a plan? What area of service and ministry can you get involved in today?
But there’s another area that we can focus on because of our blessing:
b) His purpose – vs. 12 (read).
In the first 14 verses of Ephesians alone, Paul 4 times encourages us to praise God. But it is in verse 12 that Paul tells us that one of life purposes is that we should praise our glorious God. We learned this in the 40 Days – worship was one of the 5 purposes of our lives. And we could talk for weeks on end about worship and praise and how we should do it and why we should do it, but the fact is that when we realize that we are blessed, we need to take time REGULARLY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY and praise God with everything we have.
(This section optional if you have time) How do you like to worship? Each of us prefers to worship in different ways. In his book Sacred Pathways, Gary Thomas asks the question, “Since God has intentionally made us all different, why should everyone be expected to love (worship) God the same way? He then goes on to identify nine different ways that people draw near to God.
• Naturalists love God best when they are outdoors.
• Sensates love God best when all their senses are engaged.
• Traditionalists love God best when they are able to stick close to ritual, symbols, and familiarity.
• Ascetics love God best in solitude and simplicity.
• Activists love God best when they are battling injustice and evil.
• Caregivers love God best through caring for those who hurt.
• Enthusiasts love God best by experiencing celebration.
• Contemplatives love God best through adoration and meditation.
• Intellectuals love God best when their mind is fully engaged.
Whatever way you like to worship, the important thing is that you take time and praise God – it is a purpose that He created you for, and that He blessed you for. What do I do with my blessing? The first thing is that I focus on God plan and on His purpose.
The second thing that I can do with God’s blessing is:
2) I will rest in God’s love – vs. 13-14 (re-read)
Now back in verse 3 we read that God is naturally a Bless-er who blesses us with every spiritual blessing – all the blessing/favor we have is because of what God has done through Jesus Christ. We have not earned God’s blessings. We have these blessings simply because God loves us. Verse 13 tells us “when you believed in Christ, God identified you as His own by giving you the Holy Spirit…”
Not only are we blessed – but because of these blessings, God has done something very significant that I want you to realize and then rest in.
a) God has given me an identification mark – vs. 13.
The fact is that when you and I believed in Jesus Christ, we immediately received the promised Holy Spirit. People wonder why the Holy Spirit is significant. Let me give you a few reasons:
• He is the Third Person of the Trinity. In other words, because you have believed in Jesus Christ, you have the presence and power of God in your life at all times because the Holy Spirit lives inside you.
• He carries on the ministry of Jesus Christ – just as Christ guided, comforted, helped, encouraged, taught, enlightened, and revealed many things to the disciples, the Holy Spirit does the same for us.
• He is the identifying mark for believers. Tell about the birthmark on your hand.
Romans 8:16 (on screen) says, “For His Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s Children.” This isn’t referring to Jiminy Cricket and your conscience. This verse is telling you that when you believed in Jesus Christ, God put His stamp on you, His seal, His “tattoo” on you (tell about Chuck Greene’s “Jesus Inside” tattoo.”
b) God has given me the down payment for a much larger promise – vs. 14.
The Holy Spirit is the mark of a believer, but it is also something so much more. Last year, Krista and I were looking for a new minivan. Our old minivan was getting close to falling apart, and so we decided to go shopping. After much searching, we went to a local dealership and discovered the perfect van for us with the right amount of miles and features that we liked. Before we left the lot that day to get things in order, we had to leave $100 to make sure that no one bought out the car from underneath us. What is that called? Downpayment, deposit, earnest. When we actually signed the papers and bought the van, that money was the first installment of the payments that we promised to our credit union we would pay them.
When verse 14 reads, “The Spirit is God’s guarantee,” the word “guarantee” in the NLT (earnest, pledge, deposit) carries along the same idea as when I put down a deposit or earnest money for my van - it is a promise of more to come. “In ancient commercial transactions it signified a “first installment” that pays a part of the purchase price in advance, and so secures a legal claim to the article in question, or makes a contract valid. Our deposit on our van was more than a guarantee of payment; it was itself the first installment of the purchase price. The Spirit is God’s first installment – what God has promised to give us, what He has promised to do, what we have in store for us in heaven – the Spirit is only the beginning of these promises! (Stott, p. 49)
Furthermore, just as a deposit or earnest guarantees that the item I am purchasing will not be taken away, so the Spirit is God’s guarantee to us that HE will keep us – that we cannot be taken away. Because of God’s blessings, I can REST in the fact that God loves me and His Spirit keeps me. There is rest to be found in the fact that my salvation is guaranteed and sealed because of the Holy Spirit.
But there is one more phrase I want you to notice in the middle of verse 14 – “He has purchased us to be His own people.” There is an epidemic of exclusivism in Christianity, where Christians act as if they belong to a special club and that they are better than everyone else. This kind of behavior is seen in religious circles.
Reminds me of the story of a Methodist who died and went to heaven. When he got there, St Peter wanted to show him around and get him settled in. So they went to the heavenly elevator and proceeded to move upward past the levels of heaven. The Pentecostal level was really loud, and the Catholic level was really somber. While they were passing one of the levels, St Peter told the man to be very quiet. When they finally passed, the man asked Peter, “Why did you make me stay quiet when we passed that last level?’ And Peter replied,” Oh, that’s the Baptist level and they think they are the only ones up here…”
But we are also shamefully exclusive towards those who aren’t believers or Christians. We look down at them because they don’t have our morals, and we judge them, and we keep away from them. We isolate ourselves. But verses 14 tells us that God purchased us to be “His own people.” Although I cannot prove it, I can’t help but think that as Paul wrote this, he thought back to when God blessed Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12:1-3 (read).
Abraham was blessed by God to become the father of the nation of Israel. But God states twice in blessing him that Abraham would be a “blessing to others” and that “all the nations of the earth would be blessed through you.” These phrases remind us of the reason that God blessed Abraham and the reason God blesses us as His people, giving us the third thing we can do with our blessing:
3) I will live as an instrument, not only as a recipient.
You are not called to only be a recipient, but you are called to bless others. One of my favorite authors points out that one of the greatest ways that we can turn our blessing into something ugly and abominable is by failing to take our role as instruments of blessing into account, and acting as if we are only recipients. When we choose to believe that we are only to be blessed, and forget that we are to be blessings, we distort our identity as God’s people and we drift away from who we are supposed to be. (McLaren, p. 64)
Many of you are going through the study, Secrets of the Vine. I believe that study will guide you in becoming a blessing to others. Discover how you can be a blessing to others, how you can live as an instrument of blessing.
So what about you this morning – what are you going to do with your blessing? Will you focus on God’s plan – discovering the joy of serving Him? Will you focus on His purpose, which is for you to praise and worship our glorious God in the best way possible? Will you rest securely in God’s love, living and walking in freedom because God’s Spirit is your identification mark and guarantee? And finally, will you be an instrument of blessing, truly living as one of God chosen people?
