Rich in Christ -- Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Over the last few weeks we have been on this journey of growing in God’s word in order that we can grow in our witness and we’ve looked at Who Jesus Is, then the last two weeks we’ve looked at who we are to be and we learned that we are to be Mission Minded and most importantly, we are to be In Christ!
So today, I want us to continue on with this journey of growing by looking at Who We Are! We’ve seen who we are to be now I want us to look at who we are. And the reason being is that in order for our witness to be what it needs to be, we need to understand who we are and who we are to be in order that we can talk to those who are like we used to be!
And when this is all said and done, that’s where we’re going to end up. Who We Used To Be!
I know it sounds a little backwards but this is how I’ve felt led to preach it so we’re just letting God lead, Amen!
Now, today we will be going back to the scripture we started in last week, Ephesians Chapter 1. And we are going to set out on journey over the next 3 weeks by looking at verses 3-14 which when looked at in the Greek, are one big long verse! One Theologian said it may very well be the longest single sentence of unbroken discourse in ancient literature!
Some have broken it down into 3 sections with Verses 3-6 describing the will of the Father, Verses 7-12 describing the work of the Son, and Verses 13-14 describing the witness of the Spirit.
For the Believer, this set of scripture that we will be covering over the next couple weeks could very well be the richest in content in all the Bible! Paul explains to us here in this set of verses what God’s master plan was before the dawn of time and how He fulfilled that plan through His Son Jesus and sealed us with His Holy Spirit!
In Christ we are made rich! And that is the title I have given to this set of messages we will be looking at over the next couple weeks! Rich in Christ! And dear friend let me just start by saying this…if you don’t feel rich when this series is all said and done then chances are you don’t Jesus and need to get to know Him!
I want to start today by going over something with you again that I’m not sure if I covered last week or not. When it comes to the Book of Ephesians, some scholars believe that this wasn’t a letter that was written with only the believers at Ephesus in mind but rather some believe that Paul wrote this letter to the Church in Ephesus with hopes that it would make it’s way through all the churches. And the reason behind this claim, is because Paul never addresses a single issue or problem with the Ephesian Church as he does in all his other letters. Rather, in this letter he encourages the believers by helping them to understand what exactly it is that God has done for them!
He looks at what God has done for us and in turn what we should be doing for Him! And as I studied this week with that thought in mind that it wasn’t just a letter for one specific church but rather that it was meant for all the churches, these verses we’re going to look at here today took on an even deeper meaning in my eyes!
So, if you have your Bibles with you please turn to Ephesians Chapter 1, and we’re going to start by reading through verses 3-14 but we’re going to hone in on just verses 3-6.
The Blessing of God — Vs. 3a — “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,”
The Blessing of God — Vs. 3a — “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,”
This very long sentence begins here in Verse 3 with the Blessing of God. It says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The word “Blessed” used here is the Greek word “eulogetos” and it means “to speak well of.” It’s where we get our English word “eulogy” from.
When we discover Who God is and what He has accomplished for us in His Son, we can’t help but bless His holy name. He is worthy of our praise and I believe that’s one of the reasons Paul starts this very long sentence out tphe way he does! We serve a mighty good God today friend and He deserves our worship because of it!
David said in Psalm 34:1 — I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Psalm 106:48 — Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say Amen. Praise ye the Lord!
Tony Evans — Worship is the celebration of who God is, what He has done, and what we trust Him to do!
When we bless God we speak good of Him. When God blesses us, He bestows good to us. We bless Him with words and He blesses us with gifts!
Which leads us to the next part of this verse the Blessings from God! We bless Him because of His blessings on us!
The Blessings from God — Vs. 3b — “who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”
The Blessings from God — Vs. 3b — “who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”
The Appointing of the Blessings
The Appointing of the Blessings
The Bible says here that God “has blessed us.” It doesn’t say that He’s going to but that He has already blessed us!
John McArthur — He has already given us "everything pertaining to life and godliness." He has blessed us already with every spiritual blessing. We are complete "in Him" (Col. 2:10).
The Amount of the Blessings
The Amount of the Blessings
The Bible says here that God didn’t just give us a few blessings but that He’s already blessed us with “ALL” spiritual blessings! The problem isn’t with how many blessings God has given us but rather with how many we’ve taken!
Alexander Maclaren — "We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the bullion vault of a bank and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor?" He said “The limit of the gift is only in ourselves. All has been given, but the question remains how much has been taken.”
In the 1920’s there was a man by the name of Ira Yates and he and his wife Ann had bought a ranch in west Texas. Shortly after buying the property, Ira and Ann fell on hard times and was having trouble paying the mortgage and taxes. Ira, working off a hunch, invited an Transcontinental Oil Company to come out to their property and drill a test hole to see if there was any oil there. In 1926 Mid Kansas Oil Company partnered with Transcontinental and drilled their first test hole on the Yates property. At only 1,000 feet down, they hit a pocket of oil that began to spew uncontrollably into the air! It was so unexpected and they were so unprepared that the only thing they could do to control it was dam up a small canyon nearby that the oil was flowing into to catch it all! This was the first of what would become many wells drilled on the Yates ranch which over the years has produced well over a Billion barrels of oil! At the height of their extraction, there was one well that was producing over 8,500 barrels of oil an hour and over 200,000 barrels a day setting a world record! Ira and Ann Yates became Millionaires literally overnight!
The point I want to make is this, although this all belonged to the Yates, here they were beforehand living in poverty wondering where the next mortgage payment was going to come from! How many Christians today are struggling in this very same area! All the resources are there, we are Rich in Christ Jesus but unlike Mr. Yates, we never take the initiative to go any deeper than what’s right on the surface!
Listen friend, we have been blessed the Bible says with All the spiritual blessings that God has ever ordained and I would encourage you to ask God to help you experience what He has ordained for all those who believe upon His dear Son!
We’ve see the Appointing of the Blessings and the Amount of the Blessings and lastly here I want us to see the Area of the Blessings.
The Area of the Blessings
The Area of the Blessings
In heavenly places — God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. You see friend, when we believe in Jesus Christ our end game changes right? Our citizenship changes. We may be citizens of the U.S.A. of more importantly, if you have trusted in Jesus Christ you are now a citizen of Heaven!
Philippians 3:20 (NLT2) But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.
Ephesians 2:19 (KJV) — Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
You see, that’s why the Bible says in...
Matthew 6:19-21 (CSBBible) — 19 "Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The problem is we so often tie God’s blessings to material things but what we need to remember is that everything on this side will one day be destroyed and as the famous line from the poem by CT Studd says… “Only one life, twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last!”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all “spiritual” blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus!
As we get ready to move on I want you to know one thing…in order to receive these blessings we are talking about here notice where it says you have to be? You have to be “In Christ Jesus!”
We talked about it last week so I’m not going to dive too deep back into this but if you don’t know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior then you will never be able to experience the blessings it’s speaking of here! You must be born again in Christ Jesus!
So we’ve seen The Blessing of God & The Blessings of God and lastly this morning we are going to take a few moments and look at a few of The Blessings Bestowed!
The Blessings Bestowed — Vs. 4-6
The Blessings Bestowed — Vs. 4-6
We Are Chosen — Vs. 4
We Are Chosen — Vs. 4
The word “chosen” is from the Greek word “eklegomai” and means “to choose or select.” The voice of this term implies choosing for oneself and in usage, it is usually choosing one thing among many. This word is used when Jesus chooses his disciples, calling them out to be in his inner circle of followers. We are called out from the world to belong to Christ.
Jesus chose Judas. Judas walked with Christ, talked with Christ, seen the miracles of Christ, experienced the love of Christ but at the end of the day Judas didn’t choose Jesus!
The Bible says in Romans 12:3 that “God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.” You see, God has given every person that has ever been born enough faith to believe in him! It has been instilled within us so that as the Bible says in Romans 1 we will be without excuse on judgment day as to why we didn’t believe! Not a single person will be able to say, “I didn’t have faith to believe!”
And this came to me last night as I was studying…there are some people who claim that God chooses who believes and who doesn’t and therefore God chooses who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Here’s the problem with that train of thought…If God chose a person to go to hell then when they stood there on judgement day they could say, “well God, I never stood a chance! You chose me to go to hell so it wouldn’t have mattered what I did I could have never gotten saved!”
They would have a legitimate excuse! And if God chose people to go to hell then he also wouldn’t instill within them the measure of faith we talked about a minute ago!
Listen friend, we learned last week that it’s not God’s will that any should perish and when you look at the big picture of what the Bible is saying here you can see this plainly!
God chose us ALL before the foundation of the world to be conformed to the image of His Son and therefore “In Christ” we could be holy and blameless!
D.L. Moody — "The whosoeverwills are the elect and the whosoeverwon'ts are the nonelect."
Listen friend, He has chosen you but the question today is this…have you chosen him?
Not only are we Chosen but to deepen this understanding the Bible says next here in Verse 5 that we are Predestined!
We Are Predestined — Vs. 5
We Are Predestined — Vs. 5
The word “Predestined” comes from the Greek word “proorizo” and means “to mark out beforehand.” “To establish one’s boundary or one’s limits beforehand.” Our English word horizon is a derivative of this Greek word. The Christians ultimate destiny or horizon has been fixed by God from all eternity: to be made like His Son. “Having predestined” is in the past tense meaning that God from His eternal perspective sees this process as having been completed already.
He predestined us to be like Christ! Think about it for a second…the Bible tells us that hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, right? If that’s the case, then that goes even further to help us understand that God never intended for us to be there! He intended for us to be saved, conformed to the image and likeness of His Son! Notice what the Bible says next here!
He predestined us unto the adoption as children. The phrase “adoption as children” is the Greek word “huiothesia” and it literally means "to place one as a son". It speaks of being placed in a position of a son or daughter who now possesses the same rights as the parent's natural children. It means to formally and legally declare that someone who is not one’s own child is henceforth to be treated and cared for as one’s own child, including complete rights of inheritance.
Throughout the Greek world the wealthy and influential practiced adoption. Sometimes just a simple declaration in the marketplace turned a slave into a son. It was an ancient remedy used when a marriage failed to produce a male heir. No change in name came, but the adopted son immediately became heir to the entire wealth and position of his adoptive family.
This adoption meant at least three things all of which have spiritual parallels for believers who are now sons and daughters of God...
(1) It brought about a total break with the old family and a new family relation with all its rights, privileges and responsibilities. The adopted person lost all rights in his old family, and gained all the rights of a fully legitimate son in his new family. In the most literal sense, and in the most binding legal way, he got a new father!
(2) The adopted son became an heir to his new father's estate. No matter how many other sons there were at the time or how many were born thereafter, he was co-heir with them. This was not subject to change.
(3) The old life of the adoptee was completely erased. All debts and obligations were legally canceled. The adopted son was regarded by the law as a new person.
Praise be to God as I was thinking about this I couldn’t help but to think about how when we came to know the Lord Jesus Christ we literally became sons and daughters of God’s and in the eyes of the Father we became just like Jesus! God the Father now sees no difference in us and His Son Jesus! Jesus is able to stand in the presence of God because He is perfect and holy and when we become like He is dear friend, that allows us to be in the presence of God as well!
He became like we are so that we could become like He is! Holy and Blameless in the eyes of God! Through Jesus, the writer of Hebrews said in...
Hebrews 4:16 (KJV) — Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Praise be to God, when I put my trust in Jesus, I traded my filthy rags for His robe of righteousness! And now I am Accepted!
We Are Accepted — Vs. 6
We Are Accepted — Vs. 6
The word “Accepted” in the Greek is “Cheritoo” and it means “to pursue with grace,” “to honor w/ blessings,” “to compass w/ favor.”
“He” made us accepted in the Beloved. We didn’t do any of these wonderful things on our own! We were dead in our trespasses and sins, headed for a devils hell and he pursued us w/ grace, compassed us w/ favor & honored us w/ blessings! What did we do? He’s chosen us the only thing we can do to be saved this morning is choose him back!
Someone is sitting here this morning or listening online and you’re headed in the wrong direction. He’s pursuing you, trying to bestow His grace upon you; He’s trying to compass you with favor and honor you with blessings! He’s already chosen you, now He’s just waiting on you to choose Him!
Dr. Harry A. Ironside told this story. A little boy was asked, "Have you found Jesus?" The little fellow answered, "Sir, I didn't know He was lost. But I was lost and He found me."