Blessed with Every Spiritual Blessing

 Paul did not write Ephesians to fix a crisis or to solve a problem.

Instead, he gives us a vision of the church as it truly is. It is a messy Broken community that despite its flaws is mysteriously beautiful because it is rooted in the life of the triune God. And if you've ever been disillusioned by the church, and who hasn't, Ephesians invites you to look beyond the failures of the church and to see a deeper reality.

A people being shaped by God's grace for the sake of the world. The American church often runs off the energy of newness, new programs, new buildings, new revivals, new causes, new converts. But as Eugene Peterson has reminded us. It's often shallow. We often outsource spiritual growth to quick fixes. And while we, as a church, continue to conform to a busy, image conscious, image driven world.

And as a result, the church looks a lot like the world. And yet Ephesians reminds us that the church isn't defined by our efficiency or our perfection. Hallelujah. It is defined by what God is doing. The church. isn't just what we build. It is what God creates, sustains, and redeems for His glory. And this letter doesn't address scandals or controversies.

It immerses us into the depth of God's grace. It's a reminder that the church, for all of its cracks and flaws, is God's idea. And if you've ever been disillusioned by the church, Ephesians is for you. If you've ever thought about walking away from the faith, Ephesians is for you. And if you're still here, despite all of her cracks and failures and flaws, Ephesians is for you.

Because the church isn't about us. It's about what God is doing. And it's a beautiful mess because we are made beautiful because of His grace. Now, last week, we talked about how often we skip over introductions in order to get to the meat, to get to the important stuff. But sometimes the opening lines are packed with meaning, and that's what we saw at the very beginning of the book of Ephesians.

Paul wasn't just introducing himself, he's reminding us who we are and whose we are. And we learned last week that even amidst the messiness, the church is loved by God. It is called by His grace, and it is sustained by His peace. And if you remember anything from last week, it is this, that you belong here.

You belong here. This is your first week at Trinity. You belong here in His church. And you belong here not because you're perfect, but because God's grace makes you His. And so today we're going to move to the next verses in Ephesians. We're going to read verses, we're going to study verses three to six, but we're going to read this long, the longest grammatical sentence in Greek is verse three down through verse 14, and we're going to read it all together.

So if you would stand as I read Ephesians chapter one, beginning at verse three down through verse 14.

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. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

To the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses 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, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven, things 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, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.

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, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. To the praise of His glory. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but God's Word stands forever.

This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated. Father, would You take our hearts affections, our attention spans, our desires, would You reform them and help us to see the amazing beauty that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing, that You chose us before the foundation of the world, that we are adopted into Your family.

Lord, take us to see the beauty of who You are and the gifts You've given to us in these moments together. Father, we pray. In Jesus name, Amen. Have you ever been somewhere so breathtaking, so awe inspiring, that it left you, even for a very brief moment, speechless? Maybe it was standing to the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Maybe it was looking up into the Oklahoma starry sky away from town where it just seems like there are millions of stars you can see. Maybe it's standing at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. And you're just speechless, you're just in awe. That's exactly how Paul feels here in Ephesians chapter one. He is standing in awe of something so big and grand and so beautiful that he can't help but praise God.

And what's so overwhelming for the Apostle Paul? It's this news that God has an eternal plan for you. Not the person on your right, not the person on your left, for you. Before you were born, before the world was made, God had a plan to bless you, to choose you, to adopt you into His family. And this is not, my friends, just a theological idea.

It is the foundation of your identity. It is why you can live with confidence and hope and purpose. And in these A few verses, three through six, I want us to just catch these awe inspiring truths. There are three of them. Number one, you are blessed with every spiritual blessing. Secondly, you are chosen by God before the foundation of the world.

And thirdly, you are adopted into God's family through Jesus Christ. You are blessed. You are chosen. You are adopted. Let us stand before His infinite majesty and beauty and gaze at these things together. Here's the big idea, the sermon in a sentence. If you are blessed, you are chosen, you are adopted, not because of who you are, but because of who God is and His indescribable love for you.

You are blessed, you are chosen, you are adopted, not because of who you are, but because of His indescribable love for you. I wonder if you know that. By the time we walk out of here, I hope you see why Paul is so full of gratitude and why you and I can also live with the same joy and hope and purpose that the Apostle Paul could live with in the midst of prison, writing this letter to the Ephesian church.

Are you ready? Let's dive in. Number one, you are blessed with every spiritual blessing. Paul begins with this very powerful indicative. It is the one Greek sentence upon which everything else after verse three hangs. He says, 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.

Now, notice, English students, notice something important. Paul isn't just talking about blessings that we might receive someday. He says, you have been blessed. It is in the past tense. In Greek, it is the word eulogesis, which comes from the word good, you, logos, word, that you have received a good word, that God has blessed you.

He has given you his commendation. And he has given your, his commendation to you, not sometime in the future, but the fact that Paul writes this in the past tense highlights the fact that this is a completed and decisive action by your Father in heaven over you. Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

And it's spiritual, it is not a material, it is not a thing that you earn. These are blessings that are spiritual, flowing from the Holy Spirit and rooted in our union with Christ. Now, in the Old Testament, you can think of men like Job. When they were blessed, in Deuteronomy 28, you can read about the blessings that come from obedience in the covenant.

They were often blessed with land, or wealth, or children, but in the New Testament our blessings are spiritual, and Paul finds these spiritual blessings worthy of praise. Blessings like forgiveness, adoption, the ability to obey his law with joy because he's given you a new identity in Christ. But what's so interesting to me about the way that Paul starts out the book of Ephesians is where is he writing this book from?

From the smelly, cramped quarters of prison. And yet as though Paul begins to write, and his pen just takes a life of its own. Paul begins to write, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and here he is in prison. He could have complained. He could have moaned. He could have said, I'm the victim.

But he didn't, he just kept writing, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's blessed us with every spiritual blessing. And here he is in prison, having no idea when he'll get out. No idea what is going to come at the end of that sentence. And he's able to rejoice. Listen, what are our spiritual blessings?

What was it that caused Paul to praise God amidst the prison? Well, Ephesians doesn't list them all, Paul doesn't list them all here, but he does give us a glimpse. In verse 7, it says we have the forgiveness of sins. And verse 5, he says that we are adopted into a new family. In verse 13 of chapter 1, it says that we are sealed by the Holy Spirit.

In chapter 2, verse 6, it says that we are given a union with Christ through faith. In verse 14 of chapter 1, we're promised eternal life. These are blessings that can't be taken away. They're not dependent upon your circumstances or how good you feel. They are firm and set in the heavens. Unshakable gifts that come from your relationship with Christ.

But here's the problem.

We chase all the blessings we think are going to satisfy us that take us further from the acknowledgement. that we've received these blessings already in Jesus. We chase the satisfaction that comes from job, of career, from making good grades, from pleasing some person in our life. We just think, if I get this, I will feel secure and significant.

And it's as though we can almost talk about that application of these promises every week in almost every sermon. Why? Because they go so deep in your heart. Some of you, you know, you have struggled with that acceptance since you were a little girl or a little boy. The depth of sin goes so deep into our heart, and we run and we chase after the blessings of our life that cannot satisfy us.

Paul is saying, wake up. In Christ, you already have everything you need. You are not spiritually poor. You are spiritually rich. Imagine if you were to go, next time you go to the bank or to the ATM, and you try to make a deposit and you get the little slip back. And it says in your bank account that there are nine zeros behind a number.

It almost has to like go to the next line. There's so many zeros. You would, you would think, Oh my gosh. You would go inside the bank and you would ask them, say, I got the, is this true? And the person would look at your account and it'd say, Oh yeah, according to your account, there are 10 billion in your bank account.

It would almost stagger the imagination. It would. And yet here we are, Paul is saying to you, quit living like you're in poverty, live like you're wealthy. Now, there are some Christians who love to take this metaphor and say that it means material blessings for you, but it does not necessarily mean material blessings for you.

Which is why some people can live in poverty that would stagger your imagination and yet have a depth of confidence in the gospel that would equally make you in awe and wonder. Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not a promise of financial or material wealth. It is something far greater that you have had your sins removed from you.

You've been made, as the snow illustrated for us this week, your sins have become white as snow, though they were once scarlet. And He not only has forgiven you of your sins, but He has given you His righteousness if you believe. And when you come to the book of Ephesians, He just bathes us in three chapters of all the things that God has done for us.

So that in the latter half of the book, we might therefore go and lead lives that He's called us to live in light of what He's done for us. So here's the question. How do we live like we're really blessed? Well, Trinity, number one, stop measuring your worth by what you don't have. Comparison is a trap. And instead of focusing on what others have, focus on what God has given you.

And next time you feel envy creeping in, ask yourself, Am I focused on temporary blessings or eternal ones? Second, practice gratitude for eternal blessings. Gratitude changes your perspective. This is what Paul felt when he was writing this book in a cramped, smelly prison. Take five minutes this week to thank God for the blessings that he has given you.

Material? Sure. Especially spiritual. Write them down. Stick them on a post it note on your bathroom mirror so you can see them. Jonathan Edwards, when he was a young man, not more than 19, 20 years old, wrote resolutions for how he wanted to lead his life. And Resolution Number 25 says, Resolve to examine carefully and constantly that one thing in me, which causes me in the least to doubt the love of God and to wreck all of my forces against it.

So stop measuring your life, your worth, your wealth, by what you don't have. Practice gratitude for eternal blessings, and ask yourself, third, what am I chasing? Are you chasing approval, success, comfort? Listen, so many of us are running hard. We are running next to each other, and it's though we're in this great marathon that we're running.

We have no idea where it's going, and we're just running, and we look to the person next to us and say, Why are we running? And they say, I don't know. But I'm afraid to stop. And so many of you are so exhausted because you're just running, but you don't know why you're running. What are you chasing? Name it.

And see how the good news of the gospel actually frees you up for not letting the idol control you.

In Christ, you're already blessed. This is Paul's point. You're not waiting for it. You don't earn it. You're not chasing it. It's yours. And when you understand how blessed you are, praise becomes your natural response. That's what we see with Paul in verse three. Now second, you are chosen before the foundation of the world.

Verse four says he chose us in him. You are chosen before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. Before time began, before you took your first breath, your Father in heaven chose you. He didn't just notice you, He didn't just think about you, but He intentionally, lovingly, and purposely chose you.

You are chosen before the foundation of the world. What does it mean to be chosen? Think about some time in your life when you were picked for something. Maybe it was a promotion. Maybe it was for a job. Maybe it was for some role. Maybe it was for a sports team. Being chosen shapes how we view ourself.

And in our world being chosen is almost completely conditional upon what we bring to the table. But it is not so with God. His choice of us is different. It says, Paul says that you were chosen before the foundation of the world. This means that God's choice isn't based upon your performance, or what you bring to the table, your potential, or anything that you could do.

It is based entirely upon His grace. The Greek word for chose is this fun little word in Greek, exalexato. Ex alexato means that it is in the middle passive, in middle aorist indicative, which means he chose for himself. He chose personally you for him. It is rooted in his decisive and unconditional election of you.

This is what Romans 9 is all about. God didn't choose you because of who you are, but because of who he chose for you.

And why did He choose you? Notice what it says next. That we should be holy, that is set apart, and blameless, that is without blemish in His sight. Not because you already were, but so that through Christ you could become holy and blameless. And why is this idea of being chosen so hard to believe? We are used to being chosen for what we can offer, our skills, our performance, our potential.

And our prideful hearts do not like the fact that God simply chose us because we want to earn it. But the amazing good news, friends, is that we could never earn it. And if it wasn't for His unconditional election of us, we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins. Hallelujah. He has given us the joy of His nearness to us because He picked.

Us, as we talked about with the children a little earlier. He chose us, and His choice is not based upon your performance. And if it's not based upon your performance, then hear this good news, it can't be threatened by your failures. If God's choice of you is not based upon your performance, then His choice of you can't be threatened by your failures.

And so we can run and skip and play and enjoy all that He has given to us in Christ, because we are His. He chose you that you should be holy, that you should be blameless, and so we should stop striving for approval. If He chose you before the foundation of the world, you don't need to try to prove yourself to Him.

He sees you. He knows you. And, quite frankly, you don't need to prove yourself to anybody else either. You can be humbled by His grace. And rather than try to prove yourself to others, you can serve them and be friends with them and be normal and just relax.

We can stop striving for approval. We can let God's choice humble us. God's grace reminds us that we didn't earn it.

And, therefore, we deserve it. We can find those people that we look down our noses at, and we can repent. Let His grace humble you. Is there someone that you look down upon for whatever reason? Would you be humbled by the fact that God chose you not because you were special, but because He wanted you to be His for His glory?

And we have the freedom to live like someone who set apart. He chose you to be holy and blameless. Is there any difference between you? and the person who doesn't believe in Jesus, honestly. Is there any difference between us as a community in this wider Tulsa metro area than the Junior League, than Kiwanis, than the business association with which you're a part?

We are set apart, friends. We can live and dance and play and enjoy one another and celebrate because we have every spiritual blessing. We have been chosen by Him. Since before the foundation of the world. And thirdly, we are adopted into God's family. Look at verse five and six. In love, He predestined us, there's that word chosen again, for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with the purpose of His will.

We are adopted as sons. To the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. Think about adoption. For some of you who have adopted or who are adopted, it stirs profound emotion. For some of you who are waiting to adopt, it's deeply emotional to think about adoption. And the word adoption in Greek is the word to set sons in place.

It is literally the word hwios, from son, and tothemi, which means to set. It literally means to bring a son and to place him into a family, to bring a daughter and to place her into a family. And when you become a son or a daughter, you know this, for those of you who have adopted or who are adopted, you get all the privileges and rights of a natural birth.

born child in that family. Your old identity in Christ, your past, your failures, even what others say about you now is completely reframed. You're defined by what God says about you. And He says, you are my child. Adoption is the ultimate declaration of worth. Zeroes behind. That bank account receipt has nothing on the good news that you are an adopted child of the King.

Hallelujah. Some of you watched President Carter's funeral this week. Any of you watch that? You see it? It was moving whenever Stephen Ford got up to give the eulogy. Stephen Ford is the son of Gerald Ford. And you know, Stephen's sister, Susan Ford, lived in Tulsa for a long, long time. And one of the great stories about Susan Ford that she tells is that when she was a teenager in the White House, and her school had, uh, their prom location somehow had complications and got shut down, and she went to her father, President Ford, and said, Daddy, Could we have prom in the East Room of the White House?

And they had prom in the East Room of the White House. And it's, you know, when you're the president, you can't be interrupted. You have a very tight schedule, but only one person can walk into the Oval Office. And it was the children of the president, and Susan would walk into that Oval Office, even sometimes unannounced, and she would talk to her daddy.

You, my friends, are adopted, not by the President of the United States, but someone infinitely greater. The Lord Jesus Christ has called you His brother. The Father has adopted you into His family by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you can cry out to Him, Abba, Father, you are His child. Isn't it beautiful you have access to the Father?

You have a new identity in light of this adoption. And this gives you a totally different purpose. You can now say that you live to the praise of His glorious grace and that your life is meant to reflect God's grace. In fact, you find your deepest contentment in resting in the good news that you were created for His glory.

What is the chief end of man, we ask our children and our adults in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The chief of the man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. You can't lose His approval. So go ahead, O church. Enjoy your Father in heaven. You're an adopted child. You're chosen by Him before the foundation of the world.

And you are blessed in Him with every spiritual blessing. Blessing. Hallelujah. Don't get stuck in the messiness of what the church is. She is a beautiful mess, and He has called us together to be a family, a family that is blessed, a family that is chosen, a family that is adopted. And one brief word before we close on this idea of being chosen, because I know some of you grew up in traditions that didn't teach about God's choosing of His people and still struggle with it.

Every time, including here. that being predestined or being chosen as mentioned in Scripture is always given to Christians to comfort them in the good news that they are a part of God's family. It is never meant to be some source of pride to say, ha ha, I've been chosen. If you say that, it's a question of whether you really are.

It is meant to comfort your heart. Oh, and so receive the balm of comfort that you're blessed, that you are chosen, that you are adopted, that you are His. Let's pray. Father, thank you for blessing us, for choosing us, for adopting us into your family. These truths are overwhelming and we are grateful. Help us to live as people who know that we are loved, that we are secure, that we are called according to your purpose.

Pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Transcript is computer generated.