YouTube video sermon
Ephesians 1:3-14
Let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to the wonderful letter of Paul to the hagios in Ephesus. Do you remember what the Greek word hagios means? It means “holy,” “set apart,” or “sacred.” It’s the Greek word from which we get the word “saint.” The English word “saint” comes to us from the Latin word sanctus, which is how the early church fathers translated the Greek word hagios. And last week, if you didn’t already know it, you learned that all Christians, all genuine believers, whether you feel like it or not are saints. We aren’t saints because of anything we’ve done, or because of any super-spiritual, super-pious, or exceptionally devoted life we’ve lived, or even because of some miraculous event attributed to us. We’re saints… We’re holy… We’re set apart by God because of what Jesus has done for us. Amen.
Last week, we began a new study in the book of Ephesians and we only got through two (2) verses. Today, we’re going to make it a little bit further, though not a ton. We’re actually going to look at verses 3-14, but in the Greek text those 12 verses are all one sentence. That’s right; what you see in your English translations as verses 3-14 are all one giant run-on sentence in the Greek. In fact, this is the longest sentence in the Bible. Depending on which English translation you’re using, it’s anywhere from 222 words (NLT), 257 (ESV), 266 (NRSV), 275 (NKJV), 273 (NIV), 279 (KJV), to 280 (NASB).
Paul clearly wasn’t taught proper English grammar from Mrs. Howell at Mountain View Elementary School. Because I can assure you this sentence wouldn’t have passed her steely eye. Some of you will recognize the name Dr. David Jeremiah. He’s a pastor, author and radio host for the Turning Point, and in his commentary on Ephesians he tells the story of challenging someone to diagram this sentence. And sure enough, a retired English teacher in the audience took up the challenge and came back the following week with a scroll of paper nearly 12’ long. That’s how packed this sentence is.
Michael DeFazio, professor of New Testament and hermeneutics at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO recalled the first time he ever preached on this text. He was given 25 minutes in his preaching class in seminary and he felt pretty good about how he did. He felt like he stayed within his allotted time, but when he looked to his professor who was holding the stop watch he discovered that he had gone over by nearly 20 minutes. Trust me; we’ll be out of here on time, because if I ever run over by 20 minutes I won’t have a congregation the following Sunday. But there’s just so many blessings of God in this sentence – they just keep coming and coming.
So, let’s begin by reading Paul’s prelude, Paul’s overture, his ode to salvation:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11 In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.
Father, with our Bibles open, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will enable my proclamation of Your Word and our hearing it together. Lord, grant that we might hear from You – the living God – so that our lives may be brought into conformity with the truth of Scripture, and that this time spent before You would be pleasing in Your sight and most helpfully to us, we earnestly pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Every time I read that passage I feel like I need to take a nap. It’s designed to overwhelm us. It’s designed to get us to say, “Would you slow down a little bit, because I’m having a hard time keeping up.” It’s almost as if that was Paul’s response too. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul started writing down the spiritual blessings we have and he couldn’t stop. He starts with those blessings that have their origin in eternity past and finishes with those that find their conclusion in eternity future. In between, is a sequential description of the blessings that Christians can enjoy between the two eternities.
If I had to summarize what Paul is saying in this huge sentence it would be this: All of God has been working through all of time to save all of you. All of God… We see God the Father in the opening. Followed by “in Christ” and “through Jesus Christ” in the middle section, and the Spirit makes an entrance at the end. So, you have all of God. Working through all of time… We have “before the foundations of the world” at the beginning, followed by the “fullness of time” in the middle and an “inheritance” at the end. So, you have all of God working through all of time. Finally, to save all of you… The plural “us” or “we” or “our” or “you” is used 17 times in these verses. So, we have all of God working through all of time to save all of us, who believe.
While there could easily be a sermon on each blessing, we’re going to cover them all in one. So, let’s jump in and consider our spiritual blessings under three headings: Spiritual Blessings in the Father, Spiritual Blessings in the Son, and Spiritual Blessings in the Spirit.
Spiritual Blessings in the Father
The first arena of spiritual blessings come to us through God, the Father, and the first blessing that we have is that we’ve been chosen (v. 4) in Him before the foundation of the world. The subject of God’s sovereignty and choosing, immediately raises questions about predestination and election – prickly topics to say the least. But here’s where I’ve come down on the issue. If words have meaning (and they do), then that is what Paul meant, “He [God] chose us in Him…” We can’t fully comprehend or explain how or why some were chosen and others were not. It’s a mystery. All we can say is that God’s choosing is a matter of His wisdom and grace. And who are the chosen? They’re those that have been drawn by God, the Father, and have had their spiritual eyes and ears opened to the truth of the gospel by the Spirit’s power, such that faith has caused them to trust in Jesus as the sacrifice for their sins.
Sometimes I find it helpful to hear how others have struggled with this reality; so, listen to how the Prince of Preachers, English clergyman, Charles Spurgeon, put it: “I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.”
Or this shorter quote by theologian and seminary president B.B. Warfield, “The marvel of marvels is not that God, in His infinite love, has not elected all this guilty race to be saved, but that He has elected any.”
Regardless of where you fall out on this issue of God’s sovereign election and man’s free will, we don’t proclaim ourselves followers of Jesus Christ in arrogance, but rather humility.
The second blessing that Paul mentions is adoption. Adoption is something that’s near and dear to my family’s heart. My father-in-law was adopted and Melissa and I adopted our oldest son, Jordan, after fostering him for nearly a year.
Adoption begins with a parent’s initiative, not a child’s idea. Before Jordan was even born, he had a mom and a dad praying for him. While Jordan was lying alone at night, he had a mom and a dad planning to adopt him.
And one day, when Jordan was placed in Melissa’s arms he had no idea all that had been done. Completely apart from any initiative in him, to bring him to that point, this precious 11-month-old boy didn’t invite us to come to him to bring him into our family; he didn’t even know to ask for such a thing. No, this precious child became our cherished son because of a love that was entirely beyond his imagination and completely outside of his control. He didn’t pursue us. He was utterly unable to do so. Instead, we pursued him.
Paul begins his list of spiritual blessings with a bang. God chose us in Christ and made sure that we received the status of sons/daughters in His family.
Spiritual Blessings in the Son
The second arena of spiritual blessings come to us through God’s Son, Jesus. There are four of them, and I’m going to have to pick up the pace. The third blessing we have is redemption (v. 7). In his book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, author and theologian John Murray writes, “The language of redemption is the language of purchase and more specifically of ransom… [which] presupposes some kind of bondage or captivity.” We’re freed from sin, both the penalty and the enslaving power. And that’s what Christ did upon the cross of Calvary when He died to pay the debt to sin that we owed.
That naturally leads to the next blessing, which is forgiveness. Forgiveness goes hand in hand with redemption. You can’t have one without the other. To forgive means to give up the right to punish someone for a transgression. “Forgiving the unforgivable is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails” (William S. Stoddard, Wisdom from a Pastor’s Heart). Making forgiveness possible was a major accomplishment in God’s eyes, since it required the sacrifice of blood and the death of His Son, Jesus.
The fifth blessing that Paul mentions is enlightenment (v. 9). “[G]od made known to us the mystery of His will…” You say, “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about?” The mystery known to believers but unknown and not understood by unbelievers is that when the time is right God will bring all things in heaven and earth to a fitting conclusion in Christ who will be the ruler of all things.
The sixth blessing is our inheritance in God’s kingdom. This reaches back to the blessing of adoption. As a result of becoming a child in the family of God, we gain all the rights and privileges of sonship – one of which is becoming an heir. We don’t exactly know what that inheritance is going to be. The apostle Peter describes it this way, “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4). It won’t be impacted by the stock market, inflation, or recession. It’s an inheritance that neither thieves can steal, nor moths nor rust destroy (Matthew 6:20).
Spiritual Blessings in the Spirit
The third, and final, arena of spiritual blessing is ours through the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. It’s in the Spirit that we receive the seventh and last spiritual blessing in the heavenly places – we’re sealed, we’re secure.
This isn’t just theological rhetoric or religious talk; being sealed by the Holy Spirit is a specific act that occurs in time and space. The sealing by the Holy Spirit refers to our security with God in the present. We know we’re chosen by God in eternity past, and that we’ll be secure with God in eternity future. But what about the present? What about now? What about in between those times? What security do you and I have that we’re going to make it through this life faithfully, given all the traps and temptations and pitfalls and snares?
Well, think of it like you would a piece of certified mail. When you go to the post office to send something via certified mail, they give you a special green/white form that actually goes over the envelope enclosure. The information you provide is used by the post office to ensure that the letter or package reaches its final destination, but more than that – you can also request that ID is presented and that your package also reaches the intended person. So, it is with the Holy Spirit.
There’s no doubt you’ve heard people within the church quote the old adage “once saved always saved.” I recently had a spirited conversation with a dear friend of mine concerning this idea. Please keep in mind, like predestination, we can twist this concept and turn it to our liking, or we can seek to understand its proper place in the truths of God’s Word. All I can say is that in order for me to lose my salvation I would have to undo God’s choosing, God’s adoption, God’s redemption and forgiveness, God’s enlightenment, God’s inheritance, God’s sealing and securing of my life for all eternity. As someone once put it, “I would have to undo what God thought, what Jesus bought, and what the Holy Spirit wrought.”
You know, without the Bible, none of us would dare to believe that all these things could be true of us. That we’re children of God. That we’ve been spiritually adopted into His family according to His plan, which existed before the creation of the world. That Jesus has redeemed us, forgiven us, enlightened us, and made us fabulously wealthy in heaven, on both a spiritual and a physical level. And that we’ve been sealed and made secure by the Holy Spirit.
Most of us might respond something like this, “I want to believe all this, but I’m having trouble. You see, I don’t feel like I have infinite worth. How could I? Look at all the things that’ve happened to me. Look at all the things I’ve done. How can God love me with all my faults and all my sins and all my deficiencies?”
Well, it’s like finding gold among the gravel. If you’re not familiar with the gold mining industry, or really any mining or refining industry, the finished product is rarely found on the surface. Remember Jed Clampett shooting at some food and up from the ground come a bubbling crude? Yeah, this ain’t that. There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into unearthing just the smallest amount of gold.
The gold is among the dirt. It’s all mixed up with iron ore, and clay, and bauxite, and other mineral deposits. You dump truck loads of dirt onto conveyor belts that move that gold-impregnated dirt to large containers where it’s mixed with water and turned into a muddy sludge called slurry. They add cyanide and oxygen into the mix that react and suck the gold out of the slurry in a process called leaching. Then the gold is sifted out and thrown into a furnace at 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit with another compound called flux, which gets rid of the other impurities. At this point the molten gold is poured into bars and sent off to another lab where it’s melted down again for one final purification.
God loves us and see us just like we do the gold among the gravel. He knows how to refine us. He’s not finished with us, yet. He views us through the righteousness of Christ. In Christ, we’re “gold in God’s eyes.” So, rejoice in the blessings you have in Christ. Glorify the Father, and give Him praise. Tell others how wonderful He is. Let’s not keep the Good News to ourselves.
Our Father and our God, grant to us that we might begin to understand the magnitude and significance of the blessings that You have given to us. Open our minds to understand and our hearts to appreciate that we might glorify You fully. Until then, grant us the grace that we might live accordingly. Amen.