Ephesians 1:11-14
What an Inheritance
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Ephesians 1:11-14
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.
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.
Please turn over in your Bibles with me to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter one. You can find the book of Ephesians on page 1038 of your Pew Bibles. And this morning, we’ll be looking at Ephesians 1:11-14. Ephesians chapter one beginning at verse eleven. This is God’s Word. It’s perfect. It deserves careful attention. “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 Word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
This week I was reading an article that came in a magazine and it was amazing, I wish the story was written about my own life, but somebody opened up an envelope at a college and inside that envelope was a letter letting them know that someone had left them 2.4 million dollars. Out of nowhere. The college didn’t know about this. The college hadn’t thought about it. The college hadn’t pursued it. It just came out, that all of a sudden, somebody, one of the alumni, she had died, and she left in her will to the college 2.4 million dollars. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m still waiting for that 2.4 million dollar check to show up at my mailbox.
But the reality is, she worked for an inheritance. And this lady decided, not because the college deserved it or anything, but just to give that inheritance to the college. Well here in Ephesians 1:11-14, God is telling you, “You have an inheritance.” Here in Ephesians 1:11-14, God is telling you, “There is a check. The checks been made out. For the “To” line, it says your name. And at the price, it says “redemption”. And for the “For” it’s for your love.” God has redemption for you. God has inheritance for you. God has written out the check and He’s signed it in His own blood.
And so this morning, as we look at this inheritance, as we look at what God has done in history and what He is going to be doing in history, brothers and sisters, it should lift up our hearts to praise Him. So, let’s get into the text this morning, lets look at what this inheritance is and how this works in God’s plan.
So the first thing we need to see is that God has an inheritance. Look with me at verse 11, “In Him we have obtained an inheritance”. Now, I’m going to argue a little bit against our translation. The word here is a word in Greek that’s only used one time in the entire New Testament. And so, as commentators have wrestled, and as translators wrestled with, “What does this mean that “In Him we have an inheritance”?” they’ve looked a lot of times at just what does this mean in other writings. But I want to take you back to the Old Testament, when this word’s relative was used in Deuteronomy.
Turn in your Bibles with me to Deuteronomy chapter four. Let’s see what God says about inheritance in Deuteronomy chapter four. Deuteronomy chapter four, and we’re going to be in Deuteronomy for a few minutes, so you can go there, page 162. Deuteronomy 4:20. Deuteronomy 4:20, “But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people,” a what? “An inheritance, as you are this day.” Turn over just a few pages to Deuteronomy 7:6-8. 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 any other people, for you were least of all the peoples; 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 hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
And then again, Deuteronomy 9:29. Deuteronomy 9:29, “Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.” Now turn to the back of the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32:8-9, “When the Lord Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.” Catch it now, “For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.”
So in Ephesians 1:11 when we read, “In Him we also have obtained an inheritance,” I’m going to make the argument to you that that would be better translated, “When we were set apart as God’s inheritance.” You were set apart as God’s inheritance. This is what lines up with what we’ve looked at before. God has redeemed you. He’s bought you for Himself. This is what we looked at before, it was the Lord who chose you. It was the Lord who made you His child. It was the Lord who has made you His inheritance.
Have you ever thought about yourself that way? I don’t know about you, but I think God might have gotten the short end of the stick with that bargain. When I look at my own life, I think, “Really? I’m your inheritance? Really? Couldn’t you have done better than that?” But that’s exactly what God does. That’s exactly what He did when He brought out God’s people out of the iron furnace, out from the house of Pharaoh, out of the hand of bondage when He delivered them with His mighty right hand. He made them His inheritance. God loved His people. He chose His people and He did everything to save them, to redeem them, to inherit them as a people for Himself.
You are God’s inheritance. This is a great comfort to our souls. That I am the Lord’s. I am not my own. He has bought me with a price. That when you doubt, “Am I really a Christian?” You can say, “No, I know that I am the Lord’s. He bought me.” When we stumble and we fall on our face again and again, we can take comfort that it is not because we were good enough, but it’s because He was good enough that we are His people. When you are tempted to do as you wish, when we are tempted by our own desires, it is likewise that we’re able to remind ourselves, “I am not my own. I am the Lord’s inheritance. I can’t do whatever I want in this life.” You’re not allowed to go after whatever pleasures you want. Why? Because you are the Lord’s. He owns you. He loves you. He’s cared for you. He’s saved you. He’s redeemed you. You are His. And the heart of the Christian is when we realize that we are His inheritance, our desire is to bring Him glory then. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. We need to relish that we are God’s inheritance.
But the plan gets better than that, that it’s not just by accident, somehow, that you are God’s inheritance. Look with me at verse 11 again. How are we God’s inheritance? Second half of the verse, “Being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.” This isn’t the first time we have found this idea of predestined. In verse five we saw it, “Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” It is God who has looked at you and has loved you. It is God who does everything according to the counsel of His will, who has planned everything in history that you might be His. When the Lord had, before anything happened, chose you, He also predestined, planned everything necessary that you might be His child. Have you thought about that when you’ve read Genesis chapters one and two? When God set the stars in the Heavens, He did it that you might look at those stars and worship Him. When God set the sun in its place to govern the day and put the moon in its place to govern the night, He did so that you might see that and you might worship Him. When God called up the dry land out of the sea, He did that that you might be walking on it right now and hear the gospel and be His inheritance. When God put the seeds in the ground, or created the green plants and He fed every animal and every human for thousands of years now, He has done each and every thing that you might know Him. God who does all things according to the counsel of His will, in the intertrinitarian counsel of God were Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, before time began, knew all things, looked upon you and in His great plan, ordained all things to come to pass that you might know Him. He put you in your family that you might know Him. He put you with the friends that you have that you might know Him. He ordained everything to come to pass that you might be here and you might know Him more. God has made us His people, He’s redeemed us. He has cared for us.
There’s a reality though, isn’t there? We might say, “But there’s so much pain.” Do you know how much pain there is in people’s lives? You know this in your own heart. You know the realities of this world. Really? God made me go through all of that just so that I would be saved? Yeah. Yeah, He did. Yeah, the Lord brought you through that fiery furnace. The Lord brought you out of that house of oppression that you might know the riches of His grace. It was the Lord who has redeemed you.
Just last year, we looked at the book of Ruth. And we think of the book of Ruth, and do you remember chapter one of Ruth? It is nothing but death and depression. It is nothing but hard providence of husbands dying and of children dying and of families being lost and of wealth being stripped away. And what was Ruth left with? “Your God will be my God and your people will be my people. Do not send me away.” It might be that God has stripped you of everything that you love that you might realize that He is the only thing that you really truly need.
Take heart. Take heart, sister. Take heart, brother, that in the darkest of hours, God still has a plan for you. Think about Christ. Christ knew what this was like to face that fiery furnace. Christ knew what it was like to have to go through all the pains and the pressures and the turmoil that came with the cross. Do you think the cross was easy for Christ to redeem you by? Jesus Christ saw the darkness and the blackness and the pain of sin and of guilt as He bore your sin on His shoulders, crying out in that dark of night, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?!” But yet, that is not the end of the story, is it? Because we know that Jesus Christ did not just die upon that cross, but He was raised from the dead.
For those of you in here who might not be Christians, it might just be that God is putting you through this crucible that you might know Him. For those of you who are Christians, the vast majority of you are, I have no reason to doubt that, but for those of you who are Christians, sometimes the Lord grows us in His love for Him by taking away things that we love in this world. Sometimes, the Lord grows us by pruning. And it hurts. I’m not going to lie, it hurts. But when we lose everything, when we realize that there are things that we have loved more than God, when God is pruning those things off, He’s telling them, “You don’t need that. What you really need is Me to have joy. What you really need is Me to have comfort. I will sustain you. I will care for you. I will love you. Don’t rely on the things in this world, but have joy in Me.”
The Lord has planned all things, predestined you, according to the counsel of His will. Do you believe it? Third point, do you believe? Ephesians 1:12-13, look with me there, “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.” There is one way in which we know that we are God’s inheritance, and that is faith. We know that we are God’s people, we know that we are the sheep of His pasture, we know that we are God’s inheritance if we believe. Verse 12, “we who first trusted in Christ”, trust in what? Trusted in the person and the work and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Verse 13, “In Him,” that being Christ, “you heard the word of truth, the gospel.”
You heard the gospel, not just hearing it with your ears, but hearing it with your hearts. There is a type of hearing where people can hear the message, the good news of Jesus and it goes in one ear and out the other. They heard it with their auditory senses, but it never seeped down into their souls. Have you heard the good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners like me and you? Have you heard the good news of the gospel of truth that Jesus Christ was truly born of a virgin Mary, lived a perfect life and died upon that cross of Calvary and lives for your redemption? Have you heard it? Is it the hope of your soul? Verse 13 again, “In whom also, believing,” do you believe? Have you trusted, have you heard, do you believe, is this the reality of your soul? This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 10:9-10, “If you’ve confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Is Jesus Christ your Lord? Do you believe that God raised Him from the dead? If so, you will be saved. Notice in these verses, the gospel of your salvation. You can have it today. It is yours. You have it now. Yes, we look forward to the great day of redemption when our bodies will be raised up from the dead and God will make all things new again. But, you have salvation now.
So for you who are often lonely, you might ask yourself, “How? How do I know that I’m saved?” Do you believe? For some of you, you struggle in your own heart with self-righteousness, and you catch yourself, again and again and again thinking that some how you’re going to be the one earning your salvation. And yet you catch yourself and you say, “Lord, I know that that is sinful, but if I have these thoughts, how am I going to be saved?” Christian, my question to you is do you believe? Do you believe that it is Christ’s righteousness? Do you believe that it is His blood? Do you confess your sin? Do you believe that God is greater than your sin? For you who struggle with the setting sins, and again and again you find yourself falling on your face and you ask yourself, “Am I really even a Christian?” Stop trying to earn your salvation. Christian, do you believe? Do you believe?
For the children, and for the teenagers, is this just truth that you’ve heard your parents say, or do you believe it? Is it something that you actually believe? Is it deep down in your heart that you actually say that “Jesus Christ is Lord”? Do you believe it?
Now, we need to be careful when we say all of this. There is a philosophy out there that says, “Okay, it is this belief. I will be saved if I believe. I am saved because I believe.” No. God did not look down the corridors of time and see that you were going to believe and thus predestine you. No, that’s not how this works. That’s not how this works. God worked all things according to counsel of His will. He united you to His son. He gave you the riches of His grace. He gave you that faith. And out of that union with Christ, out of the riches of His grace, your heart responds with faith. It is not because we believe but because of what He has done and we respond. Our faith is an evidence of belief, not the foundation for salvation.
Then, some people might say, “Ok, I believe. So I can do whatever I want.” No, hold on. Romans chapter ten was clear. Do you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord? Is He your master? Do you follow after His footsteps? Do you adhere to His commandments? Again, not trying to earn your salvation, but someone who is united to Christ, longs out of love to do God’s Word. So no, we’re not saying we’re antinomians, we’re not saying that we’re against the law, we’re not saying we can live lawless lives.
But on the other side, there’s another danger. There’s another danger here, saying that salvation comes by faith alone, if it isn’t based on works, then, again, I can do whatever I want. If God is Lord, then we need to worry about legalism. But on the other side, if we say, “But it’s just about what I believe and not about what I do.” Then I can do whatever I want. Oh, may it never be!
And the fact that when we find ourselves in this position that we’re having to defend this narrow road, this tight rope that we walk in our Christian faith, the fact that we come to this point and we see this tension, should actually give us joy that we’re probably following on the right line here. Because that’s exactly what Paul defended against in the book of Romans. When we find ourselves saying that we are saved by faith alone, by God’s work alone, through grace alone, we’re going to find these ditches on either side of the road. And we must be careful in the way in which we believe and the way in which we walk. So again, I ask you, in the depths of your soul, do you believe? Is Jesus Christ your hope? Is God’s gospel your joy?
And if you are one of those that you answer, “Yes,” Then something amazing has happened. Something of great comfort for you. And so our last point is to take great comfort because God has done something in you and for you. Look with me at verses 13 and 14, “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.”
God has given you the promised Holy Spirit. That is what God has promised to do for His inheritance. This was promised long ago. Ezekiel 36:26-27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit in you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them.” Has God taken out your heart of stone? Has God given you a heart of flesh? Then you have the Holy Spirit. Let me say that again. Let me say that again, because there is a lot of bad teaching about how we know that we have the Holy Spirit. Let me ask you, do you believe in Jesus Christ? Has God taken out your heart of disbelief and given you a heart of belief? If so, you have the Holy Spirit. You have Him. That’s what the promise is here.
And just so that you know that, God tells us in verse 13, “having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” You were sealed. This idea of the seal is a king or someone in authority had a signet ring. And on that signet ring they would have a certain emblem or marking and they would pour wax onto an official letter and they would impress in that wax their seal, showing that their word was behind it, their authority was behind it. Each of you when you walked in today have a piece of paper. And on that piece of paper, you have a wax seal. It just so happens that our business with Schneider Photography, so you have an “S” on it. But go ahead and break open that seal. Break open that wax seal. Just rip it open, it is okay. The same way that that wax seal is pressed on there and you cannot remove that wax seal without ripping apart the paper and damaging it, the same way the Holy Spirit has impressed on your own soul that you are God’s child. That you are His. That you are His inheritance. That He has stamped it on your heart, or as Calvin says, “We can feel it engraved upon our souls.” God has put His mark, His seal of authenticity and ownership upon you that you are His child. And that seal is the Holy Spirit.
But that seal is something even bigger than that. Verse 14, “the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” The word “guarantee” there is not like an extended warranty, right? When I think of guarantee I think of like, “Oh, I guarantee you this car is going to last, the powertrain for 100,000 miles.” That’s what I think of a guarantee. That’s not the way this is being understood here. This would better be translated “a down payment” “a deposit” “a surety”. Some of your translations might even use the word, “surety”. The Holy Spirit, living in you, is God’s down payment that you are His child. And that you are His inheritance.
But it’s even something better than that. It’s even better than that. It’s that God Himself is our inheritance. See, the Holy Spirit is just the first installment of something greater that is going to come. Often when we think of Christianity and we think of salvation, we think of what is to come, we think of that we’re going to have Heaven, or we’re going to have peace, or we’re going to have renewed bodies, brothers and sisters, that’s all just icing on the cake. The cake itself is that you get God. God is your inheritance. Do you see that? We are God’s inheritance and God is our inheritance. The down payment has been placed in your heart. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of that.
And someday you are going to close your eyes. Someday they are going to put you in a box in the yard. Someday you are going to die. But brothers and sisters, when you close your mortal eyes, you will open your eternal ones and God’s face will be shining down upon you. Brothers and sisters, the joy of Heaven is not Heaven itself but it is the God of Heaven whom you will get to worship. It is the God of Heaven in whom you will get to bask in His glory. It is the God of Heaven that you will get to bow before His throne. It is the God of Heaven who will no longer make you feel shame because of your sin, but it will be gone. It is the God of Heaven, in whose presence He will wipe away every tear from your eye and you will be perfectly satisfied with complete joy in Him because you will have Him. You will see Him in all His glory, you will worship with the myriads and myriads of angels, you will no longer suffer from this reality of the life we live in. You will have God and the Holy Spirit is the first installment of that promise.
Brothers and sisters, this is good news. But again, you might say, “That’s great, but I don’t feel it. There are times, Pastor, my heart, man, you make me feel good on Sunday, but on Monday I go home and I don’t feel God’s presence. It’s hard for me to realized this in my life.” Let me tell you, thank God I’m not talking about feelings, but I’m talking about reality. When you don’t feel it, it’s most likely because you’ve taken your eyes off of Him. Let me say that again. It is not about feelings. We do not base our faith upon an emotional or spiritual high, but we base our faith on the historical person and work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that is given to us and the faith that He has given us and that that is reality and it is not about how you feel.
I promise, there are going to be days where you are in spiritual depression. You know what that is like, don’t you? Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it. But even in those darkest hours, this is when we go back to these promises, “That God I know that I am Your child. I know that You’re doing this for my good. I know that You love me. I know that you have given me Your Holy Spirit. God, I believe. Help my disbelief. Comfort me, Lord. Father, please, as I walk through this valley of the shadow of death, let me receive Your comfort that You are with me.” Do you see the blessing of being God’s inheritance? That where you go, He will go. And where you are, He is. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He is your God and you are His people and He has done everything necessary.
Do you believe it? If so, I pray that you walk out these doors here today and that you have something to reach down to in the book of Ephesians, into God’s holy and perfect Word that when you need your heart balmed, when you need the Lord to comfort you, that Ephesians chapter one would not be some dense theology, but that you would see what it is meant to do. Look with me at the last words of verse 14, the same place we started this three week series. Why did God do all these things? “To the praise of His glory.” The Westminster Confession of Faith is so true. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. You get to glorify God forever. You get to bask in His glory, you get to relish in His comfort, you get to know that the Holy Spirit is in you. That you are God’s child, that He loves you, that He cares for you and that He has paid the price for your redemption. Take comfort, Christian. Cling to those promises. Know that He has loved you and cared for you and always, always will.
Let’s pray. “Oh Lord, we thank you, God, for what thoughts are too high for us. Lord, Your goodness is too great and it overwhelms us at times. Lord, we pray that Your Holy Spirit would indeed press these truths deep down in our hearts, that they would be engraved into our souls and that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Father, please do not ever leave us nor forsake us. Father, we pray that we would walk as Your children and that You would conform us to Your image. But, Lord, we pray most of all that, Father, we would find satisfaction that You would receive all the glory. 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.