Ephesians 1 (Part 2) :11-23

This is our second week in Ephesians so, this is Ephesians chapter 1, part 2. You'll remember that last week I told you verse 3 is the key to, really, the whole book. It begins by saying in verse 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.” (ESV) And that's what we're going to be talking about through the course of our study in Ephesians. And we began to read through the first several verses of the chapter. We got through verse 10 and we began to outline some of those blessings. We're going to pick it up in verse 11. Let's read there:

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us this time this morning to dig into Your Word. And as we unpack these verses, we pray for Your Spirit to move in each and every heart that we might hear Your voice above all. Lord, fill us with insight and understanding. We ask this in Jesus' precious name, amen. In the first 10 verses of the chapter, which again we covered last week, we began to uncover some of these blessings, these spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. And I want to put them up on the screen for you so you can remember what we went through last time.  God has chosen us  God has adopted us  God has redeemed us  God has made known to us the mystery of His will We looked and talked about the fact that these are blessings— that God had chosen us. We talked about what that meant; we talked about some of the drama that goes along, unfortunately, with the whole idea of—well, some people have drama. If you notice, there's always some people that have that drama. That's just the way it goes. Anyway, I went back and listened to my message from last week, and I felt like I did a pretty rotten job of explaining why the drama exists, but I'll just remind you again that the Bible says that God chose us, as we read, and that's one of the blessings. God chose us before the foundations of the earth. The Bible also speaks very clearly about our personal free will, and that means that we chose God, or we choose God. And there are a lot of people that—that makes them crazy—they can't go there because they can't understand how God could choose us and we choose God. They figure it has to be either one or the other. And so those people—and that whole idea of choosing is called election, which we believe in. We've been elected, in that sense, chosen ahead of time. If we have been chosen ahead of time, how is it that you and I can then choose God? Well, I want to just remind you of what I said last week. I'm not here to explain the mysteries of God that I can't explain. I can't reconcile those things because I don't necessarily feel like they need to be reconciled. I heard another pastor say I don't reconcile good friends. They're both in the Bible. We have been elected; we've been chosen by grace. And we then, on our side, because of the free will gift that He has given to us, we choose Him. You know what I mean? Just, yeah, deal with it. The other— the next thing that we talked about was that God has adopted us. And if you missed last week, please don't— if you have in your mind the idea that adoption is somehow less than biological connectedness to a family, please understand something about adoption from the standpoint of the ancient world. When you were adopted into a family, your entire life changed, and you were considered, by law, the same as a biological child. There was no difference. In fact, in the ancient world, your name would change everything, and you had as much of a right to anything that came from your parents or grandparents or whatever as natural-born children. That's just an important thing to remember. The other thing we looked at is that God has redeemed us, and, of course, “redeemed” is a marketplace word. You think about it when you go to the store. You buy— to buy something is to redeem it, to redeem its value with money. Jesus redeemed us with His blood, and so it's talking about that redemption, which, of course, carries along with it the idea of the complete and total forgiveness that we have received through Jesus Christ. One of the biggest blessings (well, one of the biggest blessings—not trying to be purposely vague or understated), maybe the biggest blessing, but one of the things which I find Christians struggle with the most: forgiveness— knowing that they're forgiven. Yeah. Incredible how many Christians struggle with the idea I am forgiven. My sins are wiped out. But that's a blessing. That's a biggie. And then we talked about how the other blessing we looked at last week was that God has made known to us the mystery of His will. That doesn't mean that every single mystery that we've ever pondered has been made known to us from the standpoint that you and I know exactly what God knows. That's not the point. The point is what God has revealed to us in His Word has been made known to you and I by the Word through the— through the Word by the Spirit enlightening our hearts, and God has given us tremendous and wonderful insights that help us to live our lives daily. I honestly don't know how unbelievers make it through a day. I honestly don't know. If you're a thinker—and not everybody is, and I get that, but—if you're a thinker and you're thinking through life, and you're thinking, why? And is this all? And why is there death? Why do we have things? Well, the Bible answers those questions. They're mysteries to the world. And they have to come up with their own explanations that have to do with long periods of time and evolutionary processes. All they're trying to do, you guys, is they're trying to struggle to understand. They're getting it wrong, but they're just—but they're trying. Unfortunately, what they've done is they've ousted God from the equation. God, being the creator of all things, has made these things known to us. We know. We know what life is all about; we know what happens after death; we know why we die; we know why our bodies, as we get older, are slowly turning to dust. We understand; we get it. The Bible has explained it. The mysteries have been unveiled for you and I, you see. But not to everyone because not everybody accepts what the Bible has to say. A rich blessing is that we know these things, and we don't become haughty and cocky and that sort of thing because of it. But, boy, I tell you, it sure helps get through the day, you know what I mean? I mean, why people struggle? Why people struggle in life. We understand that we live in a fallen corrupted world. We get it. Anyway, as we continue on this morning, Paul outlines 2 more spiritual blessings, and let me just say, too, that I'm going to come up with a total of 6. Other pastors and teachers come up with more based on, I suppose, the translation, maybe, they're looking at. But I personally feel like the rest of them are explanations of the ones that we're looking at. In verse 11, it goes on to say: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined (as Paul has already mentioned) according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will…” What's the next thing? We'll put it up on the screen for you.  God has chosen us  God has adopted us  God has redeemed us  God has made known to us the mystery of His will  God has given us an inheritance It is that God has given us an inheritance. We sang about that this morning, which I thought was delightful, in one of the songs, one of the hymns that we did. He is our inheritance. Our inheritance. Guys, think about that for a minute. God has given you an inheritance. I would have been happy with an allowance, even a fairly small one, but He has given you and I an inheritance. By the way, the reason I explained about adoption being essentially the same as being a biological child is because of this very point right here: inheritance.

You, as an adopted child of God, are eligible for the same inheritance as the biological, in that sort of a sense, and that's the amazing thing we're going to look at here in just a moment. But let me just pause for just a moment here as we talk about inheritance. This is not an uncommon word in the Bible. In the Old Testament it's mentioned many, many times over and over again through Exodus and—well, beginning in Genesis and all the way through. But every time God speaks of inheritance in the Old Testament—well, I don't know, but every time, most of the time, he's speaking of the inheritance that is promised and then later given to the nation of Israel under the Mosaic Law due to the promise that God had given to Abraham and his descendants. What was that inheritance? It was a land flowing with milk and honey, right? It was a good land. I mean, that phraseology of flowing with milk and honey means a blessed land, but it was still land. It was a physical inheritance, that's the point, right? When we look at the inheritance that God promised to Israel, it's a physical one. What did we start off with here this morning? We started off with verse 3. Right? “Blessed be the God…” who has given us what? Every spiritual blessing that is ours in Christ Jesus. Every spiritual blessing. Ours is not a physical but a spiritual blessing, right? We're now in line to receive this inheritance. What is it? Isn't that the next logical question? If Israel's inheritance was the land, what's yours? What's mine? We know it's spiritual. What is it? We're like waiting. We want to shake the box. Wonder what it is. How do you spell everything? I don't mean to be a spoiler. But, spoiler alert, your inheritance is everything. I know, that may sound weird. That may sound like, phew, that sounds a little pompous. But you know what? I can back it up in the Word of God. Let me show you a couple of passages. First, from 1 Corinthians chapter 3, check this out. Paul writes:

So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Now, Paul wrote this because he was rebuking the Corinthians because they were being sectarian, and weird, and childish, saying—some of them saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, meaning I follow Apollos because he's a brainiac, or I follow Paul because he's the apostle who came and started this church, or I follow Peter because he's the rock, or whatever. And Paul's like, knock it off, you guys. Don't you understand that everything is yours? You're sitting here huddling around little pieces of the inheritance, and saying this one's mine, and what I—my piece of the inheritance is better than your piece. Like, how childish is that, right? He says, it's all yours. And then he goes on way past just the apostles. Look at the things he mentioned: “the world or life or death.” Have you ever thought about death being yours? Not sure I wanted that one, but either way it's ours. But the point is, he says, the present, the future, he says it's all yours. What's your inheritance? Everything. Everything. Check out this passage from Romans 8: “16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then (we’re) heirs —heirs …(with) God and (then check this out, here’s why everything is ours) fellow heirs with Christ.” Notice that here in the ESV he says, “fellow heirs.” If you have a New King James on your lap, it says, “joint heirs with Christ.” Joint heirs. Now, I am one of 4 siblings in my family. I'm the baby, which, of course, means I'm the favorite. But I would expect that if my— if I and my siblings are heirs together of some kind of an estate, which we are not, I would expect that we would all get an equal portion because we're joint— if we're joint heirs. Okay? It speaks of a co-heir sort of situation, right? Does that make sense? Guess who you are: a joint heir, a co-heir, or a fellow heir with? Jesus. That's what Paul says here in Romans 8. You are a co-heir with Jesus, who is the God- man, God made man, God made flesh, which He remains to this day, by the way, and will remain, I believe so, for eternity. And you're a joint heir with Him. Is that amazing or what? Can you imagine an equal portion with Jesus? And what's so difficult for you and I to grasp about that is that we don't really know the fullness of what awaits us as it relates to our inheritance. We don't really have much of an idea. I mean, well, we have an idea, but just an idea. Only that it is going to be wonderful. But now, before we move on to the next little area, I want to highlight one more phrase, and I wanted to be careful not to pass up this phrase. It's in verse 11. Would you look with me again in verse 11? And this is the phrase that I wanted to highlight, this part where Paul says, “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” And that's a really important phrase to think about and to meditate on. And I don't know about you, but when I think about this statement, I derive a great sense of comfort from it, especially the part, “the counsel of His will.” God follows, here's—let me explain it this way. When we make decisions, we can follow all kinds of different counsel. There's the counsel of the world; there's the counsel of our own hearts, the counsel of our own will, the counsel of others. Many times, I don't know which way to go and so I'll go to somebody and say, hey, I really need some counsel. God never asks for counsel from others. The counsel He follows is the counsel of His own will. Okay? God's will literally counsels Him in the determination, and so forth, of His sovereign direction. And this passage says God works all things according to that counsel. All things. His will counsels Him and all things are worked in accordance with that will. And that's why I find this statement to be so incredibly comforting. And that's one of the reasons why Jesus taught us to pray, Your will be done here on earth like I know that it's done in heaven. I pray Your will. Do you know that, as believers, that's one of the most incredible privileges that you and I have? To pray God's will into a situation and to cooperate with His will, to participate in His will being carried out. Don't ask me to explain how it all works because I don't fully understand it. All I know is that He has extended an invitation to you and I to participate in His will, and He follows the counsel of His will. And I think that's pretty incredible. All right, getting back to our inheritance. One of the ways we know this inheritance is coming our way—because we don't have it certainly now, do we? Or at least not all of it. Verse 13, Paul writes:

And that is the next blessing. We'll put it up on the screen for you. Highlight it.  God has chosen us  God has adopted us  God has redeemed us  God has made known to us the mystery of His will  God has given us an inheritance  We are sealed with the Holy Spirit There it is, We are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Very cool. Now this was a term that the Ephesians would have been very commonly aware of because, you see, Ephesus was like many Roman towns—many major Roman towns— a hub of commerce. And people came to Ephesus to buy and to sell and so forth. And once someone purchased whatever they came to purchase, they would seal that purchase by taking wax and then taking something of their unique seal and pressing it into that wax, letting it cool so that henceforth anyone who noticed the supplies there would look and see that seal that was printed on there, and they would understand that this was— this belonged to someone else. In other words, that seal— listen—validated ownership. Okay? The seal validated ownership so that everybody knew that stuff belonged to so and so. And you and I have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Isn't that cool? A crazy thought, isn't it? During the tribulation period, Satan is going to do a counterfeit of this. It's called the mark of the beast, right? Christians write to me pretty regularly and want to know about what is the mark of the beast and is there any danger of us ever taking the mark of the beast? No. Number one, you guys, Jesus is going to come for His church. He's going to take His church away before the tribulation period begins, and that is what's going to mark the beginning of the tribulation period. Because you see we are the salt of the earth. Salt holds back the decay process. It's a preservative. Once that is moved out of the way, there's going to be freedom for the enemy to set up his kingdom in a powerful sort of a way. And one of the things he's going to do as a counterfeit to this work of the Holy Spirit sealing you and I is he's going to seal those who are in him, and that will be the mark, the seal, and it will be a terrible, terrible thing. Of course, anything Satan does is terrible by comparison, of course.

But I want you to see the beauty of how you and I have been sealed because the best Satan can come up with is a mark by which people are going to buy and sell at that time. It's still just a seal, it's a mark. And back in ancient days, again, like I was explaining when somebody bought something and they put their seal on it, that was a thing. It was an inanimate thing. Do you guys understand that the seal by which you and I have been sealed in Christ is not a thing? He is a person. You've been sealed with a person. It is a living seal. It is a powerful seal, right? Or mark. He has marked you in Christ as validating ownership. It's one of the reasons you and I— you can't get another seal, you guys. You already got one, and you've already been marked for ownership. And so don't worry about all that other crazy stuff. But I just—when I think about this, that our seal is a person—but there's another connectedness to this that I think God wants you and I to see. When somebody sealed their belongings back in ancient times, their seal had—it was an emblem, and it usually was something related to their family or their kingdom. Or kings had a seal when they would make an edict or a proclamation to their kingdom; they would write it on a scroll or whatever, and they would seal it with the king's seal, meaning authority, right? But those seals would be an image. In other words, they'd put their image in that seal, and you'd look at it and you'd go, oh, that's the king's seal, or that's Joe Shmoe, or that's whoever. You'd begin to recognize the image of that seal. Here's the interesting thing too. You and I have been sealed with a living image. What is it the image of? Christ. Let me show you some interesting passages. Romans 8:29 (ESV)

That image has been pressed on you as a seal. Right? That you might be conformed to that image. And then 1 Corinthians 15:49: 1 Corinthians 15:49 (ESV)

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust (that’s Adam), we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

See the beauty of this idea of an image; we reflect the image of our Savior. I want you to notice what else Paul says about the seal of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Did you notice, as you look on in those verses, that he says that the spirit serves as not just a validation of ownership, or a mark of authority, but he says it's a guarantee of our inheritance. A guarantee. Your Bible, if you have a different translation, may use something else than guarantee. Your Bible may say earnest agreement or down payment because it means the same thing. The Holy Spirit who has sealed us, who is living inside of us, who has marked us as belonging to God, is the guarantee that He's going to bring the inheritance into our lives that He has promised to do. The Holy Spirit, you guys. Do you understand how important it is to get connected and acquainted with the Holy Spirit? And not in a weird, wacky, charismatic, let's-jump-around-the- room kind of way, but in an intimate, sort of understandable I want to know You, I want to see You, I want to sense You, I want to hear You, I want to follow You. I want the dynamic of the Holy Spirit so real in my life that He is tangible, because, you see, He is the guarantee. When I look at Him and I see all that He does in my life, I see a guarantee of blessings to come, right? It's a guarantee. It's a down payment. You ever had somebody leave money for something that they wanted to buy from you? You put a car or a motorcycle or something like that on Craigslist, and somebody comes over and looks at it and goes, wow, I love that; that's exactly the one I want to buy; just hang on; I'm going to run to the bank and get the money, and I'll be back here in a few hours, and give it to you. And you're like, dude, I don't know you from Jack Sprat, so how do I know you're going to come back? What if somebody else comes in the meantime just after you leave and they offer me more? Okay, all right, I'll show you that I'm earnest; I'll show you that I'm really sincere; I'll put $300 down right here if you'll hold it for me for a few hours while I go to the bank and get the money. You got it. It's exactly what the Holy Spirit serves, at least in this particular situation. To you and I, He serves as this guarantee. There's more coming, you guys. It's way, way more. You haven't even begun to see all the blessings that God is going to bring into your life, but we see at least that sign. And then in the verses that conclude this chapter Paul is going to speak to the Ephesians about how he prayed for them. And he said this—and by the way, if you ever struggle with knowing how to pray for somebody, use these verses here in Ephesians because these are beautiful, verses 15 and following: “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” Now, a couple of quick things here. I want you to notice the things that delighted Paul about the Ephesians. He says, for this reason, because I heard of your beautiful church building, how you paved the parking lot, and got some really comfortable chairs, I now—no, I don't cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Oh, wait a minute, that's not what it says. It says, for this reason, because I heard of your incredibly huge offerings, and your beautiful manicured grass, I now do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you. That's what it says. No, it's not that either. I just think it's really interesting that the two things that Paul points out here that says this is what launches me into prayer for you guys, is, first of all, your faith in the Lord Jesus, and secondly, your love for all the saints. People, may I submit to you that Paul is giving you and I the ingredients of a healthy church? I don't care what the building looks like. I don't care if the parking lot is paved. I don't care if they have a parking lot. I don't care if they have a building. I don't care if they're sitting on the floor. The question Paul really cares about is, do they have faith, and is there faith in Jesus Christ, and is that faith bubbling forth in fruit that shows love for one another? You know what's funny about this—and the reason I highlight it—is because these things get lost in the shuffle. When we're talking about how we're doing, and we're thinking—and maybe not even talking about it, just thinking about it —maybe you're thinking to yourself, okay, how am I doing as a Christian? Maybe you turn on the radio, and you're just instantly, like, convicted. Man, I just need to read my Bible more often than I do. I haven't picked that thing up, I don't think, all week, and it's Friday, and I just really haven't been praying like I should, and I need to get back to church, I've just let other things distract me, and I've been going to church like I shouldn't, and we're doing all these things, right, or we're thinking about all these things, or we're thinking about that that one sin that we just keep following to, that old familiar sin. We look at these things to show us how our Christianity is doing, and what it basically shows is that we're focused on our own performance, and they're just symptoms. They're just symptoms. We do that though. It's like somebody with lung cancer focusing on their cough, got to get rid of this cough. It's like, dude, there's a much deeper, more serious, systemic problem than just your cough. Right? It goes much deeper than that. Paul says, it goes to your faith.

All these other things that you're talking about and you're focusing on that are very performance-oriented and very you-oriented are peripheral matters. Get the issue of your faith in Jesus Christ in order, and these other things will begin to fall into line, you see. Where is your faith? How's your faith doing? Paul says ever since I heard about your faith in Jesus. Whew, I've just been tanked. It's just— I'm excited for you guys, and I haven't stopped praying for you. Your faith is strong in Jesus. Oh, that's just something you and I got to revisit, something you and I got to come back and say, how am I doing? How's my faith doing? All right. Here's how Paul prayed for the Ephesians:

These are very important, guys. These are the things Paul prayed for the church. I assume they're important. He says I pray that you would know the hope of your calling, I pray that you would know the riches of His inheritance that obviously is coming your way, and I pray that you would know the greatness of His power. Aren't those beautiful? Oh, man. When we're praying for each other, like, Lord, I don't know how to pray. Well, my brother or sister needs prayer. How do I pray, Lord? Yeah, I don't know. How about going to Ephesians chapter 1? Father God, I pray, in the name of Jesus, that they would know the hope to which they have been called. I pray, my Father God, that this person would know the riches of the inheritance that is theirs in Jesus Christ through Your incredible blessing and mercy. And I pray, my Father, that they would understand the immeasurable greatness of Your power that is theirs to utilize and to walk in, and that they would no longer sit around getting beaten over the head by the enemy, thinking there's nothing I can do about it, which is often the place that the enemy likes to keep us in. And Paul goes on concerning that power. Look what he says; I'm at the very tail end of verse 19:

What's Paul doing here? He's describing the power that's yours. It is the same power, Paul says, that lifted Jesus out of the grave, that seated Him at the right hand of glory, and that exalted Him far above all things, anything or any person that can be named either in this age or in the one to come. And that's the power, the immeasurably great power that Paul wants you and I to be aware of so that we're not sitting around crying in our soup going, I don't know what I'm going to do; the enemy's just so strong, and we're just all just upset and wringing our hands. And God says, do you understand the immeasurably great power that I have given to you in the name of My Son, the very power that raised Him from the grave I have now given to you. Is it any wonder Jesus said to His disciples, hey, listen, you think I've done some pretty incredible things? You'll do greater things because I go to the Father. Say to this mountain, be removed. They marveled when He cursed a fig tree; He's like, dude, you think that's big? You just wait. We're out of touch with this, aren't we? Let's just face it. And you know what? I pray that—I mean, when I'm talking to the Lord and I'm going through verses like this, I try to be as honest with God as I can possibly be, and I'll sit and look at this passage that talks about the immeasurably great power that is yours and mine in Christ Jesus, and I just tell the Lord right off, God, I confess to you, I know nothing of this. I just tell Him straight out, I'm just totally just—in fact I regularly—you know what I refer to myself in prayer as? Paul the worm. It's a biblical term, trust me. If you read through Isaiah, God's always referring to Israel as Israel the worm. I thought, that's me. I'm like, Paul the worm, back. Okay, just want to talk to you a little bit about this incomparably great power. The worm knows nothing. But I say, Lord, but I want to know, I want to know, I want to understand. Lord, may my eyes be open to see these things. May my heart be able to receive the revelation of these sorts of things. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, look what he goes on to say in verse 22:

Don't ever forget, number one, that God put all things under the feet of Jesus. And do not forget that what it says in the end of verse 22, He not only put all things under the feet of Jesus, He gave Jesus to the church. That's us. He gave Jesus to the church. He's a gift to the church. Jesus Christ is a gift to the church. He has given Him to us. Do you understand the implications of this? The one who has been given universal dominion has been given to us.

The reality of that and the implications of that are mind-boggling. And yet, again, we're sitting around wringing our hands, oh, Lord, I don't know. And the very One who has all authority and power has been gifted to us as the church. You know what it makes me want to do? Makes me want to call upon His name, right? When I see people struggling, when I see issues— you guys come up, would you? You got to give me some music here or I'm going to go on all day. Do you understand? When you look at somebody's issues and problems and whatever else is going on, and you're thinking, what do I even say? Hey, I'm going to bring this to the One who has all dominion. Everything has been placed under His feet, okay? And He is the head of the church, and I am in the church, and He's been gifted to me and to us. Let us—here's the bottom line—let us call upon His name. Right? Let us call upon His name, you guys. Let's call upon the name of Jesus. He has received all power and dominion.