Ephesians 1:3-6
Praise God’s Glorious Grace
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Ephesians 1:3-6
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Transcript
Welcome to God’s Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.Sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life.
Ephesians chapter one. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians chapter one, and this morning we’ll be reading verses three through 14, but the sermon will focus specifically on verses three through six. You can find Ephesians chapter one on page 1037 of your Pew Bibles. Hear now the reading of God's holy and perfect Word.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Thus ends this portion of the reading of God’s perfect Word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Well, you've just read the second longest sentence in the entire New Testament. Verse three through Verse 14 is one sentence in the Greek, 202 words. And so instead of trying to wrestle that whole giant monster of 202 word sentence, we're gonna break it into three parts over the next few weeks because they all are underneath the real heading of chapter one, verse three. Look with me at chapter one, verse three. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the idea of praise. Now I'm gonna warn you, this is a Presbyterian church and in Presbyterian pulpits, this is like gold for theological arguments. You're not gonna find it in this series, because that's not the point of Ephesians 1:3-14. So if you're waiting and you're excited because you really want to chew on the doctrine of predestination and election and adoption, well, you're not gonna get all the theological intricacies here. But we're just going to do what it tells us to do. Blessed, praise be to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
And so this morning, my prayer, as I've been praying about this all week, has been that your heart might be taken up into the heavenly places as Paul was when he wrote this passage. It’s one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture, in which somebody just has to stop and just praise God for who He is and what He has done. And so that's what we're going to be doing. And that doesn't mean we're gonna understand everything that we'll wrestle over in the next three weeks as we get into this text, because God is just opening up a window. Opening up just a small little sliver of light into who He is and what He is doing. And it is so overwhelming to our souls that we're not going to try to evaluate how every single word is used. But we're just going to hope that the Lord will bring us to this place by the power of the Holy Spirit and we'll just want to praise Him.
And so that's your call this morning is to praise your Father. Praise the Father. Praise the Father, and that starts with praising God for choosing you. Praise God for choosing you. Look with me at verse four. “Just as He chose us in Him,” Him being Jesus, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” God is calling us to something amazing here, He's saying before the foundations of the world. Now, this is God calling us back, God is saying, “Before you were born.”
You need to imagine a time before there were birds in the sky. Imagine a time before these four walls in this room existed. Imagine a time before the pew you're sitting in existed. Imagine a time before the trees were made to make the pews. Imagine a time before the sun was in the sky. Imagine a time before God called up the mountains out of the water. Close your eyes and keep going back before God had put the sun in its place in the moon in its place. Before God had created light and dark, what was there? There was nothing but God Himself. Nothing but the Sovereign Lord in perfection. And in all that nothingness, but God alone in the beginning, God, at that time when there was no time, in eternity past, He looked at you and He said, “She’s mine.” He looked at you and said, “Mine.” He looked at you and He said, “I'm gonna choose that one. You, I’m gonna love. I'm gonna shower you, I'm gonna lavish you with My grace.” And we can imagine sitting there before God, we and we could say, “God, did you choose me? Did you choose me because I was one of the strongest people?” We can imagine the Father saying, “No, I didn't choose you because you were the strongest.” “Oh, but You must have chosen me because I was amongst the most numerous of people.” God says, “No. No, I didn't choose you because you were the most numerous.” Or you might say, “God, You must have chosen me because I was one of the good ones.” God says, “You haven't done anything either good or bad. I'm just gonna love you.”
Why? Why does God, from eternity past, decide that He is going to choose you to lavish His grace upon? Because He is. Because He’s going to. Because in that He’s going to receive the glory and the praise that's due to His name. Because He's going to display in you the riches of the glory of His grace. That as He chooses you for nothing in and of yourself, His grace is magnified.
Why did God choose me? This is what we find in Deuteronomy chapter four. Turn with me in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter four. This question, God answers. Deuteronomy 4:37, “And because God loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, and with His mighty power.” Why did God bring the people of Israel out of Egypt? Because He loved their fathers.
Now, if you know anything about Abraham, it wasn't because Abraham was somehow the best of men. I don't know about you, but if you lie about your wife saying she's your sister so you can give her away to another person, that's probably not the person you want to love. And yet God loves him. Deuteronomy chapter seven, it keeps going, Deuteronomy 7:6-8, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than on any other people, for you were the least of the people; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the house of the King of Egypt.” Why did God bring them out? Because He loved them, and He had sworn that love with an oath. He chose them.
Deuteronomy 10, just turn over one more page. Deuteronomy 10:15, “The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.” God chose to love you. What a beautiful gift that we have here in Ephesians chapter one. That God chooses us, to love us, just because He wants to love you.
First Corinthians in the New Testament, if you go to First Corinthians chapter one, Paul speaks again in First Corinthians chapter one. Page 1013 in your pew Bibles. First Corinthians 1:27, “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame those things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it was written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.””
See, it was not because you were good enough. It was not because you were numerous enough, it was not because you were good enough. God chose you, the foolish, the weak, the lowly, the simple, the humble things of this world. Why? That we might glory in His marvelous grace. Oh, this is good news for you. Oh, this is good news for you. For if it was He who chose you from before the foundations of the world, who can separate you from His love? Can height or depth or width or length? No, nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Man, that is good news. Man, that is gospel hope. I hope that this is sinking deep into your soul that God wants you to praise Him for His love for you, His unconditional love that He has poured out upon you was more than just choosing you.
We praise God because He has made you something new. Praise God for making you. What has God made you? God has made you holy. Look with me at verse four again, “That you should be holy”, set apart for a royal use. Set apart for His purposes. See, you were not made for a common use. But God chose you for a holy use, a royal use, a special use, for Himself.
But you might say, “But I don't feel like it. I don't feel holy. I don't feel special. If God only knew the things that I have done. If God only knew the things that I have said. If God only knew the things that I have seen, the things that I have thought, if God only knew these things, He would know that I'm not holy.” That's not what it says here though, is it? God declares to you that you are holy. So when you struggle in your own soul and you wrestle with the reality of sin in your life and you're dealing with that, “You don't feel holy.” Guess what? It doesn't matter what you feel. It matters about who you are. And God has said, “You are holy.” He has made you holy. He has declared you to be holy. How are you holy? Because you are in Jesus Christ, His perfect Son. When God sees you, He does not see your sin. When God sees you, He does not see your unrighteousness. When God sees you, He does not see the ways that you have polluted your own self. God sees you, and He sees His Son, because you are in Jesus Christ. These are the rich heavenly blessings that God has poured out on you.
But He has not just made you holy. God has also made you blameless. That's what verse four says. Look with me again, “That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” This has a special word in it in the Greek. It's a word that is blameless, that draws our minds back to the perfect animals, spotless animals, the blemish free animals that the Levites, that the sons of Aaron were to take to the altar. And we know from Scripture that it is Jesus Christ who is our spotless lamb of God. It is in Jesus Christ that God has made you blameless. You are without wrinkle. You are without blemish. There's not a black spot on you. There's not a mark upon your soul which God sees and recoils from. No, God sees you as white as snow. Pure, perfect, clean, spotless. You are blameless before God.
This is again what God tells us the promise of in First John 1:8-10 that “If we confess our sins, He,” Jesus Christ, “is faithful,” Jesus Christ is faithful, Jesus Christ is righteous and He will, “cleanse you from all your unrighteousness.” See, God makes you blameless in Jesus Christ. The Father gives you Jesus Christ. He unites you to Jesus Christ. He hides you within Jesus Christ. He washes you with the blood of Jesus Christ. He gives you Jesus Christ’s righteousness. This is the blessing of being a chosen loved one of Jesus Christ, that the Father has lavished His grace, His favor, His peace upon you. He's made us holy. He’s made you blameless.
There's at least three types of people in this room right now. There's at least three types of people in this room right now. There's the self-righteous type. There are some of you in here who might think to yourself, “Well, I'm not as bad as that guy. I wasn't like Saul. I wasn't persecuting the church. You don't know my neighbor, that guy is really wicked. You don't know my sister. She's a thief. You don't know those people. Man, they are with blame, but I was raised in a Christian home. But I listened to my parents. I had a good job, but I am the one who by myself am blameless.” God is telling you right now, “Will you humble your heart and realize that by your own sin you are wicked?” This grace cannot be accepted by a self-righteous heart. Because the prideful person, the self-righteous person looks at themselves and they say, “I don't need the grace of God. Of course God would love me.” But that's bringing glory to self instead of bringing glory to Him. And God will share His glory with none other. So for those of you who might circle there that I am a self-righteous person, pray to the Holy Spirit that you indeed might have a new heart. That you might see yourself as God sees you, and that you might be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Well, there's others of you, who see yourself as too unrighteous. It's the opposite of the self-righteous person. The person who's thinks of themselves as unrighteous, you might say to yourself, “But you don't know my sin. And if God knew the depths of pollution in my soul, there's no way that He would look at me with grace.” The too unrighteous person says, “You don't know the things that I've done in my life. The things that I have committed. The ways that I have thought, the destructive patterns that characterized my life, the path that I have walked, there is no way that God could possibly love me.” To you I say, “Oh, our God is much stronger than you are. That God's grace shines the brightest in the darkest of place and that God loves his children. That He cares for His loved ones and that He chooses the foolish things, the humble things, the lowly things, the broken things, those who think that they are too far gone, them He will display the powerful riches of His grace. If you are those who think that, “Oh, I am too unrighteous. There's no way God can forgive me.” Confess your sin to Jesus Christ and trust in His blood for He will make you holy and righteous and pure.
But there's a third type of person as well. And that's you who do believe this is for you. You who believe that, “God, my soul has been lifted up every time that I hear of this grace.” For you, God tells you, “Praise His marvelous grace. Praise the glory of His grace. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him for His excellency. Praise Him for His peace that He has shined upon you.” Will you praise God for making you holy and blameless? Will you bless the Lord? Will your heart be lifted up as you soak in all the riches of the blessings of heaven that God is looking to shower down and has showered down upon you?
But just in case that wasn't good enough, it keeps going. Look with me at verses five and six, “And God, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us acceptable in the Beloved.” Praise God for adopting you. See, God’s choosing you, God’s predestining you, God’s foreknowledge that you were going to be His child, that you are His child. God was telling you, “You are my daughter. You are my son.” That is your identity. You have been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of Light. You have been brought into the royal family, the royal household of God.
One of my favorite things to do when I do chapel with the little kids, is I love to ask them, “Is God a king?” And they all say, “Yes, God's a king.” I say, “Great! If you're the son of a king, what does that make you?” And they say, “A prince!” “And if you're the daughter of a king, what does that make you?” And they say, “A princess!” This is what God calls us, princes and princesses in His kingdom. God adopts us as royal heirs, that's what Galatians five tells us. We're not somehow like step-children, we’re not somehow orphans out in the world without a father, but our Heavenly Father brings us into His family. He adopts us by His Spirit. He has brought us into His royal household. And He cares for us as heirs of the throne. Imagine just for a second, imagine going to Buckingham Palace. And there, as you come to Buckingham Palace, you stand in front of the gate and those weird looking guards, with their fancy furry hats, look at you, and they don't ever let anyone in, and they look at you and they actually nod. And they open the gates and you walk in. And as you walk down that gravel road, you come and you put your hand on the ordinate handle and the guard at that door looks at you and he nods and you're allowed to open the door and enter into the palace. And as you walk along the plush red carpet of Buckingham Palace, with the rows and rows of chandeliers over your head, you come to the throne room of the king. And you stand there at the throne room and the door is there. And all the grandeur of the palace is before you. And there, from within the throne room, you hear the one sitting on the throne say, “Come. Come in. I've been waiting for you, daughter. I've been waiting for you, son.”
You were bought, brought in as a peasant off the street with rags. And God has put upon you royal robes. God has cleansed you from the filth of the orphanage. And He has declared you to be a daughter and a son of the most high King. He has welcomed you into His presence. That's what this idea here is that we are acceptable in His presence, in the beloved, in Jesus Christ. You are a child of the King. You're a child of the most high God. Oh, if He can be for you, who could possibly be against you? Oh, if His face shines upon you, what grace and peace you can have in your soul. That He loves you. That He cares for you and that nothing, nothing, nothing possible in heaven or upon earth can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. May all praise and glory go to the Father who is in heaven, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. May this be a day, today, may this be a day where your heart is lifted up when you leave here, that you would praise God for His wonderful work and choosing to love you.
Let’s pray, “Oh God, what grace and what love you have poured out upon us. God, you know who we are. Lord, we do not deserve this love. But how great is your Grace and how wonderful is this gift that you have given us in Jesus Christ. Father, please let us latch onto it, let it be our only hope till our dying breath, that we may glory in Your marvelous gift of grace. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website: Sharonrpc.org. We’d love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa 52640. May God richly bless you this week.