Blessed Be God

Introduction

The goal of our time together this evening in many ways has already been articulated in the songs that Reagan led and the prayer that Scott prayed for us. Our goal tonight is to bless the name of the Lord as we reflect on what he has done for us. So, what I want to do with our time together over the next few minutes is to praise God. To give glory to God for the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. And we’re going to let the Lord speak to us about that salvation and look specifically at the first chapter of the book of Ephesians. If you have your Bible, I’d encourage you to turn to Ephesians chapter 1. We’re going to spend basically all of our time here in verses 3 through 14 of Ephesians 1.

It’s really good to be here. This is a lot of fun when Beth and I get to come and be here from time to time. Of course, it’s extra special for her having grown up here and knowing so many of you all so well, having such close relationships. That being said, many of you are newer and have come in the years that she’s been away. And so it’s always good to be here and meet more people and see people that we feel very closely to. And I will say that it was Thad’s idea that we sit here in Tony and Cherry’s spot. This is not it’s not something on our part, a symbol or anything.

As I have learned very well from Beth and her stories about growing up here. It’s good to see you. It’s good to be here, and I hope that we can profit from our time together looking at God’s word. The book of Ephesians is fascinating, and you may be aware that there’s essentially two even parts to the book of Ephesians. We have the first three chapters that focus on what God has done for us. Or maybe you would say that the first three chapters of Ephesians are about the gospel story. And then the second three chapters four, five, and six, are about what we do, our response, or maybe it’s our story, or how we respond to the gospel. And so I want us to think about that as we open the book.

Paul is really going to emphasize heavily what God has done, and not even just that, what God will do. We’re going to read again Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14. I will tell you that this is a text that has been difficult for me over the years. It’s one of those texts where Paul just seems to be saying a million things in just a few verses. And the things are profound and deep. And so it’s hard to really get a grasp on all the things that Paul is trying to communicate in these verses. So before we read, I will I will just ask and tell you, maybe as we read, just think about the big picture here. What is the kind of the big idea that Paul is trying to communicate?

We will talk about some of the details. We won’t get a chance to talk about some of the details, of course, but think as we read about the main purpose or the main goal that Paul is trying to communicate in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

In fact, you may have noticed that Paul might only have had like three complete sentences in this huge section here. And you may even notice that your translation read differently than the one I was reading from, because even translators have struggled to know where sentences end, where the next one begins, or exactly how Paul is phrasing all this, because he’s packing so much into it. So, how would we go about understanding or breaking apart this opening poem of the book of Ephesians? Well, one thing I would start is by identifying the first line, which seems to be maybe the overarching point. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ Jesus with every spiritual blessing.

You see the emphasis on the word bless or blessing. And I think the second part of that we understand better. We understand how God has blessed us. And Paul’s going to talk quite a bit about how we have been blessed by God or the blessings we have in Christ Jesus. But you notice he starts by saying, Blessed be God. So what does that mean? Well, again, I’m appreciative of the song that we sang earlier. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I think we understand from that song and from the use of that word that to bless God means to speak praises to him. In fact, your translation may even render it that way. Praise be to the God and Father. The idea is that, and that word blessing actually is the word that we would get a word like eulogy from.

And so it’s the idea of speaking good things of, or speaking well of. And so Paul is saying the big picture point here is praise be to God, good things to be said about God, honor be to God, blessed be God who has blessed us and given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And that idea, I think, is further emphasized by the repetition of this phrase. Maybe you caught this as we were reading through, that three times Paul says in this section, in the section of text, to the praise of his glory, or to the praise of his glorious grace in one instance. Three times. Paul says that everything that’s going on here, everything that I’m talking about, it’s for the purpose of giving praise to the glory of God.

And so that’s one thing we notice. Help us to get a grasp, get a handle on this text. We see something else, though. Maybe you also notice this that Paul talks about in this poem the work of each person of the Godhead. And in fact, I think he might be working his way through the three persons here. He begins, obviously, by talking about God the Father and what God the Father has done, the blessings we have in him. But shows that at a certain point he transitions and talks about the beloved, which I think is referring to Jesus Christ. And then he focuses on Jesus and says, In him we have all these things. And then towards the end of this poem, Paul will my circle miss there, I guess.

But he talks about the Holy Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit in God’s great plan of salvation. So I think if we take these things as markers, we may be able to divide the text in this way. That there’s really three sections of this poem. The first of which focuses on the work of God the Father, the second of which focuses on the work of God the Son, and the third of which focuses on the work of God the Spirit. And all of that, of course, is to highlight the great salvation we have. And again, all of that is to give glory and praise to God, to bless his name, because he has blessed us, or all these things to recognize what he has done and praise and glorify and honor him.

1. The Father's Eternal Plan to Adopt Us

So let’s talk about each of these sections and what we learn about each person in the Godhead and how they contribute to this great plan of salvation. First thing we see in the first few verses is that the Father’s eternal plan, the Father’s eternal plan, was to adopt us into his family. You notice the verbs that Paul uses about the Father, that the Father chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that he predestined us to adoption as sons. And all this was according to the purpose of his will, Paul said. You see, in here the language of forethought, of intentionality, that before time began, God had this plan in mind. It has to do with belonging. That’s the idea, I think, behind choosing and adopting.

That God wanted people that belonged to him. God wanted people that were his.

Helps us to see the connection. I think it’s helpful for me to see at least. The connection between love and choosing. Maybe we’ve lost that in our language or in our culture. Our understanding of love is almost like it’s something that happens to us, or something that just kind of comes into us and overwhelms us. But the idea of love in the Bible, especially when talking about God, is much more strongly connected to the idea of choosing. So how God loved us. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that he chose us. He chose us to be his. He chose us to belong to him, to be a part of his family. This was his plan from long before the world was even created. And focusing on this imagery of adoption, I think this is just a profound metaphor.

It’s interesting. I thought about this a little more recently because I have a brother and his wife that recently adopted a little boy, and so I’ve thought more about adoption and talking with some people about it. Isn’t it interesting that the Bible clearly uses the metaphor of natural children, that we’ve been born again, right? So we’ve become God’s children by being born into his family. But the Bible also uses the metaphor of being adopted into God’s family. Because I think those two metaphors maybe bring out some different aspects of our relationship with God. But think about the connection between adoption and some of the ideas that Paul is expressing here. Because again, Paul’s focusing on God’s plan, right? His intentionality, but also his choosing and his love for us that motivated him to choose us.

Unfortunately, and it’s sad, but you know it to be the case, that there are natural children that their parents didn’t plan to have them. Maybe you’re that way, or some of your kids are that way. Much more sad, much more heartbreaking is the fact that there are children that are born, and their parents, their natural parents, don’t love them. Don’t want them, don’t love them, don’t care for them. But a child that’s adopted into a family, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that those parents wanted that child, chose that child, and loved that child. And that seems to be the point that Paul is making about what God the Father has done for us. That we, though unlovable, God chose us. He wanted us.

2. The Son Carried Out the Plan of the Father

And he’s now put in place this plan to adopt us into his family, that we would belong to him. And all this, of course, is to the praise of his glory. To glorify him, to honor him because of this great plan to make us his own. So, how does the son play into this? How does the son Jesus Christ fit into God’s plan? Well, really, I think what Paul is saying is that the Son carried out the plan of the Father. How many times do we see in the gospel story Jesus using that kind of language about himself? He’s like, I only came to do what the Father has willed for me to do. To carry out the plan and the purposes of God. That’s why Jesus came to the earth.

And so Paul seems to be communicating that in Ephesians 1 by saying that the Father had this plan, put the plan in place, and Jesus carried out the plan. Notice what it says that Jesus did or what he accomplished. He accomplished redemption, he accomplished forgiveness. I think those are two maybe different ideas, both of which apply to what Jesus has done for us. I think redemption has the idea of being bought back, right? That we were slaves or belonged to somebody else, and Jesus paid the price so that we could be redeemed and bought back. I was just actually looking today. One of the most powerful Old Testament examples of this idea is Hosea and Gomer. Gomer is Hosea’s wife, but she’s a prostitute, and so after they’re married, if we can imagine this, even after they’re married, she returns to being a prostitute and is enslaved to her master as a prostitute.

But God tells Hosea, and a symbol of what he will do for his people. God tells Isaiah to go back to her master’s house and to pay the price and to redeem Gomer to be Hosea’s wife again. And so God, and through Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ has redeemed us, he has forgiven us. And forgiveness of our debts, forgiveness of our trespasses, as Paul says here. And again, what’s the purpose of all this? Why did he do all this? Well, because this is what the Father wanted. This was the purpose of him. He talks about making known the mystery, revealing the plan. Jesus, when he came to the earth and accomplished all this was just showing us what God’s plan was from the beginning. God said, I’m going to have a family for myself.

I’m going to adopt children to be my own. And so Jesus came to show that, and he came to accomplish that by dying on the cross for all sins. All this to unite everything to the Father. That’s what Jesus accomplished. How does this all fit in? Well, if you think about it, God wants a family for himself. He wants people to belong to him. Well, what state were we in before Jesus? Well, we were dead in our sins. He’ll say later on in Ephesians. We were slaves to Satan because of our sins. We belong to somebody else. We were in no state to be a part of God’s family in our sins and in our trespasses. And so you see how this fits together. Okay, God wants a family for himself, but we had to be bought back in order to even be able to be in God’s family, have access to the Father.

We had to be forgiven of our sins so that we could belong to God or be a part of his family. And so that’s what Jesus accomplished. And we see here in this section, too, a connection between the idea of being sons, which we have been adopted in the first section, and Jesus has given us access now to an inheritance. I don’t want us to miss the connection of the metaphor here. Inheritance is something that belongs to children, right? As a child of a parent, you’re waiting for the inheritance that comes from them. And so, in a similar way, we have been adopted into God’s family, and so now we have an inheritance because we are the children of God. And so the Father put the plan in place to adopt us into his family.

3. The Spirit Is the Guarantee of Our Salvation

Jesus carried out that plan by saving us from our sins. And finally, the Spirit. The Spirit is now the guarantee of our salvation. There’s a couple things going on here. Maybe a couple things that Paul has to resolve. Because if you think about it, there’s a little bit of a disconnect. The first thing is that we see here in the end of the section about Jesus, in verse 12, he says that Christ did all this so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. He seems to be referring to those that heard the word from Jesus and believed in it. And so you might ask, well, what about everybody else? I didn’t hear Jesus. I wasn’t in the presence of Jesus, and so I have not received the message from him, so what about me?

Well, I think that’s where one of the ways where the Holy Spirit comes into view here. Because he talks about the word that has been preached to you also. So we received the word from the Lord. The word’s also been communicated to you who never heard Jesus. Well, how did that happen? Well, that seems to be one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in this passage. The Holy Spirit communicates the word of God from generation to generation after that first group that heard and believed in the Lord. And so Paul points that out. But the other thing that’s interesting is that the other kind of disconnect here is that, well, Paul says that we have an inheritance, but do we really have it yet? Jesus has accomplished this great work, and so now, as God’s children we have an inheritance, but do I have it?

Does it belong to me? Well, he seems to be pointing out that we don’t have the inheritance yet. That the inheritance is not fully ours. And that’s the other place, I think, where the Spirit comes into view here. The other role of the Spirit is that, yes, we do not have the inheritance, but the Spirit is the guarantee of that inheritance. Your translation may render that idea of a down payment or a deposit. I think we understand that language of a down payment or deposit that, okay, I’m going to give you this lump sum, right? It’s not everything, not everything that I owe, not everything that I promised, but giving you this lump sum will give you confidence that I will pay the rest in full later.

We get the idea of a down payment or a deposit. And so, in a similar way, Paul says that the Holy Spirit is the deposit or the down payment for us on this inheritance that we have not yet fully received. Well, how does that work? Well, I think first thing we need to do is think about what the inheritance actually is. Now, I will say that there also may be a variation here. Your translation may render it more as if it’s God’s inheritance. Maybe your translation like mine renders that it’s our inheritance. I think either one could work. But thinking about what our inheritance is, I think it becomes clear looking at the gospel or the Bible story, that the inheritance that we are going to receive is God Himself.

That’s what we are going to receive in the end is that we are going to receive God Himself. The Old Testament, I think it’s Psalm 73. I meant to look this up. The end of Psalm 73 talks about God being our portion, that the Lord is my portion forever. That idea of portion is connected with the idea of inheritance, right? Like this is your portion. Remember all the all the stories in the Old Testament of the portion, the double portion for the sons, right? Waiting on their inheritance. Well, the psalmist says, the Lord is my portion. God is my inheritance. And in 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter will say something similar, saying that we’re waiting for our inheritance, which is reserved in heaven. Heaven is not our inheritance, Peter says.

No, our inheritance is in heaven. What’s in heaven that’s that we’re waiting for? Well, it’s God Himself. And that’s a beautiful thing. I think that one day what God has promised is that we will receive Him.

Every father does, every loving father does for their child is that he gives Himself to that child. And God has promised that He will give Himself to us. But we don’t have that yet. I think we all recognize that. We continue to struggle through this broken and fallen world. We don’t have that inheritance. We don’t have God Himself. Or the other way, I think later on in chapter 1, Paul will clarify that we, in the same way that God is our inheritance, we are God’s inheritance. That He’s waiting to receive us. Either way, that has not fully come to pass yet. But in the meantime, the down payment is the Spirit of God that has been given to us. We use language like that, and maybe the way we use it is a little bit of a cheap rendition of what Paul is expressing here.

But I say, oh, I can’t be with you. You’re going somewhere, right? Like a family’s going to on vacation, I can’t make it. I say, well, I’ll be with you in spirit, right? We use language like that. I can’t fully be with you, but my presence is going to be with you, our thoughts are going to be with you, so on and so forth. Maybe the idea is similar that God is saying, I will bring you to myself. I will give myself fully to you. But in the meantime, I have given you my spirit. And that’s no light thing. I mean, maybe in our example, right? You may be okay, you’ll be with me in spirit. That means nothing. You’re not actually going to be here.

The Spirit of God is a powerful thing. The Spirit of God is God Himself. The Spirit of God is life giving. The Spirit of God is empowering. The Spirit of God is bigger than we can comprehend. And its power and influence is bigger than we can comprehend. And God has given us his spirit as his people. Waiting for the day where he will give us himself fully, when we will receive the fullness of our inheritance and the fullness of our salvation. This seems to be what Paul is, again, the main idea of what Paul is expressing. That this is the great plan of God’s salvation. Again, this is all about him. There’s very little said in here, at least directly about us. Because Paul will get to that later on in the book of Ephesians.

So if you really want to be told what to do and how to live, go home and read Ephesians 4, 5, and 6. But here at the opening of the book, Paul is directing all of his thoughts and all of this focus on God Himself. This is what God has done. The Father planned from before the beginning to have a people that would belong to him, to have a family that he would give himself to. And so he sent Jesus to accomplish this salvation, to redeem us, to forgive us that we could be his people. And as we wait for him, and wait for that inheritance, he has given us his life-giving, empowering spirit, as we wait for our full inheritance and salvation. So what do we take from this?

Conclusion

Let’s close with a couple concluding points here that maybe we can focus on as we close. First one I would suggest is how Paul opens this. First conclusion would be bless God who has blessed us. It’s easy as we do this, you know, religion thing and Christianity thing. It’s easy to make it very us centric, right? That we think about as we read our Bibles, as we pray, as we get together and sing and have lessons. It’s very easy for it to become all about me and all about us. Even if it’s things like what we need to do or things that we want or that we’re looking for. I mean, and those things are not bad, but I mean, I think one thing we learned from the opening of Ephesians 1 is Paul’s focus on giving glory and praise and honor to God.

That all this to God is done, it’s not about you and me, it’s not about us. We are not the important thing here. Now, God has made us important. God has made us special, and that’s a humbling thing. But this is about him. This is all about him. It’s about giving praise and honor and glory to him. And somehow in his grace, he has allowed us to play a special part in this eternal plan. And allowed us to be a part of his family. But all of this is to give him praise, to give him honor and give him glory. So maybe we can think about ways that would show itself. Maybe we need to think about the way we pray. And if we’re really giving God praise and honor and glory as much as we should when we pray, or if we’re just skipping to all the give me, give me, help me things in our prayers.

I don’t know. Maybe that’s something to think about. Maybe it’s something to think about the way we talk about God. How much are we praising and glorifying God in the way we talk? And then, of course, in our lives. How much are we giving glory to God in the way that we live as his children? So there’s plenty of things I think we can extrapolate from this. But again, the focus is not on us. And I’m trying to emphasize, as Paul does, that this is about God. That God has blessed us so that we would turn around and praise and honor and glorify, that we would bless him. So that’s maybe the biggest conclusion that I want us to draw from Ephesians chapter 1. The second one, second conclusion, is clear from Ephesians 1, is that the best is yet to come.

The best is yet to come. I don’t know what you are going through. We all deal with a lot of different things. And we all seem to live our life in cycles or seasons. Where sometimes things are nice and pleasant and comfortable and joyful. And sometimes life is dark and difficult and full of anxiety and sorrow. But either way, I would I would encourage you to reflect on this idea that Paul communicates here that the best is yet to come. Yes, we have been saved by the grace of God. Yes, we have been made the children of God because of his plan, but the best is yet to come. But we’re not there yet. And so I think that might encourage us to not get comfortable.

There are so many blessings of being in Christ. And we feel that, and we and we sense that from day to day.

And the joy that we have in Christ. All those things are wonderful and amazing. But all we have right now is the down payment. All we have right now is the deposit. We’re still waiting on the fullness of our inheritance. The fullness of the salvation of Jesus Christ is still out there waiting for us. So let us not become complacent and comfortable where we are now, but strive to seek after and to wait for the glorious inheritance that is waiting for the sons and daughters of God. And if we’re struggling, then let this be an encouragement and a consolation to us. That whatever it is we’re going through, whatever difficulty, whatever heartbreak, this is not the end of our story. We’re still waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled and to be in a perfect and full relationship with Him.

When all the sorrows and difficulties of this life are triumphed over by the victory of the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. The best is yet to come. Because of the victory that we have in Jesus. That’s the song we’re going to sing right now. Victory in Jesus. And praise God. And let this be a song of praise and glory to God because of what he has accomplished in his son Jesus Christ. And let us seek always to give him glory and praise for his great plan of salvation. This is a warm and welcoming and encouraging group. And so if there’s anything you need, this group is waiting and ready to help you and to love you and to and to assist you in whatever you might need.

Whether you want to join the people of God and join the family of God and be adopted into God’s people, or whether you need help in prayers in some other ways, we would love the congregation here, it would love to help you. But it’s all give glory and reflect on and give praise to God as we sing this song Victory in Jesus. Let’s stand as we sing.