The Blesser and the Blessings
Steve Scoggins / Ephesians 1:3-14 / Feb 05, 2012
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Introduction:
Ephesians 1:3 is a verse that we American Christians really get excited about. We see here that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. That is to say, God has not held back any blessing from us! But if you read this verse more closely you see that the focus is more on blessing the Blesser than rejoicing over the blessings. These verses are more a prayer of praise than a listing of blessings.
That said, let me share with you three truths from these verses.
I. The Blesser is the Triune God.
These verses focus on all three Persons of the Trinity. Note that a certain phrase occurs three times in this prayer of praise:
1:6 — “to the praise of His glorious grace.”
1:12 — “to the praise of His glory”
1:14 — “to the praise of His glory.”
Verse 6 praises God the Father. Verse 12 praises God the Son. Verse 14 praises God the Holy Spirit.
Though it is hard to understand, The Trinity is clearly taught in the Bible. There is one God, but He is seen in three Persons. The one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The “spiritual DNA” is the same for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a way that cannot be seen anywhere else in creation. The three persons of the Trinity love things exactly the same and hate things exactly the same. The same thoughts are in the mind of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are three Persons made of one essence.
The Trinity can be seen on the very first page of the Bible: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image’” (Gen. 1:26). “Us” implies God is more than one. Yet “make” is a verb in the singular form. Thus, a plural noun is used with a singular verb. That’s incorrect grammar. It would be like saying “They was” when you’re supposed to say, “They were.”
Nevertheless, we see that God is one, yet God is three because The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all described in the Bible as divine. It may be hard to understand the Trinity but to deny the Trinity is to forfeit your soul!
II. All three Persons in the Trinity have a special part in our salvation.
1. The Father planned our salvation (1:5).
God’s sovereignty is on display in these passages. We are told that God planned our salvation before He created the world. The fall of man did not catch God by surprise. The cross of Christ was not an emergency response from the Trinity.
Even now, God is working everything according to the plan He laid out: “Having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).
God has also laid out how everything will end. In the fullness of time everything will be united in Christ. This world that has been divided and in rebellion against God since Adam’s sin will be brought into a glorious unity under the Lordship of Christ (1:10). We see this pictured in Philippians 2. There will come a day when “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, those on earth, above earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10).
Everyone living “on the earth.” when Jesus returns will see Him in His glory and humbly bow and declare He is Lord. Everyone in Heaven, “above the earth,” will know of His return and shout with joy that He is Lord. And even those “under the earth,” those in Hell, will at that very moment fall to their knees and declare Jesus is Lord.
One thing you need to know about Hell is that, though it’s a place of horrible physical torment, it is filled with people who have the deepest of regrets. There is no unbelief in Hell. All those in Hell know they have defied the one true God and have rejected the only Gospel. Madelyn Murray O’Hare and Joseph Stalin are no longer atheists. They know they defied the Mighty God. All of them will be on their knees with all of creation when God brings everything to His planned end.
What God has planned will happen because nothing ever thwarts the purpose of God! Evil is not going to win. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord!
One of the blessings of a long life is the perspective gained from what you have seen. For the first 35 years of my life, I lived under the threat of Communism and the Soviet Union. As a little boy during the Cuban missile crisis, I remember practicing getting underneath my desk in case a nuclear bomb fell nearby. My generation went to fight in Viet Nam to stop the advance of Communism only to see South Viet Nam fall into Communist hands. Half of Europe was behind what seemed to be the unbreakable “Iron Curtain.” It looked like atheistic Communism was going to win and God was going to lose.
Christmas Day, 1989 was the day God’s unstoppable purpose was displayed for all the world to see in one of those Communist countries, Romania. Its leader, Ceausescu, had been one of the cruelest Communist dictators. His downfall happened when he ordered the arrest of a Pentecostal pastor. The local Baptist church joined the Pentecostal congregation and made a human wall around the pastor’s house. Even when the Communist soldiers opened fire, the crowds of Christians swelled around the house. Finally, the soldiers refused to fire on their fellow citizens any longer, and that began a chain of events that culminated in Ceausescu and his family trying to flee the country. But he was captured. The Communist TV station that had never mentioned Christianity or God for forty years was now in the hands of the people. The very first free broadcast started with a hymn of praise to God. 300,000 people filled the main square of the capital and their first action as free people was to pray the Lord’s Prayer out loud. They then sang Christmas carols. In all of the history of coups and revolutions, this is the only regime change that happened through Christmas carols!
Don’t be discouraged when you look at the news and see evil seeming to win. God’s purposes will not be thwarted and God will one day win!
2. The Son paid for our salvation (1:7).
The word “redemption” in Paul’s day referred to freeing slaves. Nearly half the population of the Roman Empire lived in slavery. They all longed to be free. A slave could become free if someone paid the price of his or her freedom. Jesus paid the price so that we could be free when He shed his blood for us on the cross.
Let me make sure you understand the implications of this passage. Your situation is much more dire than you imagine. You don’t just have a problem with sin; you are a slave to sin. You need someone to set you free. Jesus paid the price by His shed blood so that you could be free from the slavery of sin. His death unlocked your chains so you can walk away from sin’s power over you.
On the night he was saved, Charles Wesley wrote a song I love called “And Can It Be?” Here is the verse that describes his experience of salvation:
“Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off , my heart was free, I rose went forth and
followed thee.”
Vernon McGee tells a story of a beautiful young slave girl who was placed on the auction block. A man known to treat slaves horribly saw this beautiful woman and began to bid for her. Another man who knew what this wicked man had in store for her outbid him for the slave girl. When he paid the money to purchase the slave, he turned to her and said, “You can go free.” Stunned, she replied, “Since you loved me so much to set me free, I want to serve you voluntarily.”
When you realize the price that was paid so you could be redeemed, you naturally want to follow the one who redeemed you. Our slavery was so deep that it took nothing less than the blood of Jesus to set us free.
A new pastor came to a church in Washington, DC and was met by a couple with these words: “I hope you are not going to preach too much about the blood of Jesus. That seems to be all the last pastor wanted to talk about.” The new pastor said, “I won’t preach too much about the blood of Jesus — because you cannot preach too much about the blood of Jesus!”
3. The Holy Spirit guarantees our salvation (1:13-14).
The Holy Spirit is a guarantee of our salvation because He is God’s seal upon us. A Roman seal was considered unbreakable. If Rome placed a seal on a document or on a door, you dared not open it because to open something sealed meant bringing the wrath of Rome upon yourself. God has set His seal on me through the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life. I cannot lose my salvation; I cannot be taken away from God.
The Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee of our salvation because He is God’s “earnest money” or “deposit.” “Earnest money” is the best translation of the Greek word arabon. When you sign a contract to buy a house, you put down earnest money — a little money that guarantees a lot of money is coming later. By the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life I can experience here on earth a little of what I will experience a lot of later in Heaven. I have already tasted in advance a little of Heaven’s joy and love. I have also had times when through the Holy Spirit I have trembled in the presence of God’s holiness!
III. This Great God has given us great blessings.
I could do a whole series of sermons on the blessings in these verses: As former slaves to sin, we have been redeemed. As sinners, we were forgiven. As spiritual paupers, we have been given an incredible inheritance and future. But let me focus on just one of these spiritual blessings: we have been adopted by God as children with full status.
The thought of us being God’s adopted children is wonderful in itself. We all were once orphans who now have a Father and a family. Here is how one man expressed his appreciation for his adoption as a baby: “Every once in a while, I am asked, ‘What’s it like to be adopted?’ I was two days old when my parents chose me to be their son. Being adopted is an amazing thing. I was taken from a situation that probably would not have turned out well and was given the opportunity to grow up in a loving Christian home. I became a member of a new family. I had a new identity, a new name, a new opportunity, and eventually a new inheritance. I was chosen!
Adoption into God’s family is all of that and infinitely more. Scripture is very clear — a Christian is a chosen child of God.”
Adoption means something special to my family at this moment. Our daughter Rebekah and her husband Will will stand in a courtroom in Ethiopia on March 5th and be named the adoptive parents of an orphan baby boy. A few years ago they heard that there were five million orphans in Ethiopia. They could not help them all, but they decided they could help one. They will soon have in their family a little boy they are going to name “Israel.” This is a deliberate act of love on their parts.
But the concept mentioned here is even greater than the love of being an adopted baby in God’s family. Adoption in the Roman world meant something a little different. The updated NIV translates this verse correctly: “Hepredestined us for adoption to sonship.”
A footnote explains this translation: The Greek word for adoption to sonship is a legal term referring to the full legal standing of an adopted male heir in Roman culture.
A son in the Roman Empire did not automatically get the rights of being the child of his father until the father went to court and legally adopted him as his son. He could not carry the father’s name or receive his inheritance until he was officially adopted as a son.
Sometimes a parent would name as his heir someone other than his biological child. The Emperor Claudius had a beautiful daughter named Octavia. Instead of leaving everything to her, he chose to adopt a young man who was not his relative to be his son and successor, a young man named Nero. Nero carried Claudius’ name and became Emperor after Claudius died. Nero had a problem, though. He fell in love with Octavia and wanted to marry her but was forbidden to because in the eyes of the law he was legally her brother! He had to have the Senate pass a special exemption enabling him to marry Octavia.
The point is, when the Bible says we have been adopted as sons, it means we have full rights as children of God.
A small baby may be the part of a great family, but a baby is not aware of its rights. There was very little difference between Bill Gates’ children and my children when they were born. The only difference was the quality of the blanket and the price of the home they were brought into. Bill Gates’ home is worth $125 million. We brought Sarah home to a 12-foot-wide mobile home. But when they were babies, all they knew was that they were loved and protected. I am willing to bet that Bill Gates’ children have begun to understand what it means to be his children. They are probably treated better when they go to the mall then when my kids go to Walmart.
Friend, if you are a Christian, you are not only a child of God, you have all the rights that come with being a child of God. We bear the name of our mighty Father on our hearts and we share in His inheritance and authority.
Some years ago a young man who was deep into witchcraft tried to scare me. He came to see me and wanted to cast his spells on me and show me his power. I simply looked at him and said, “Son, your power won’t work on me. Do you know who I am? I am a blood-bought, born again child of God!” I am not just a babe in God’s family. I am one who was born again immediately into the status of a child of God with all the rights that come with that name.
Conclusion: How do these blessings become mine (1:13)?
“When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him…” all of these things became yours. You have heard the truth, the Gospel. Are you willing now to trust in the God who gives you these promises and provided this salvation? To believe is to trust. In your heart, say to God, “Lord I believe You planned my salvation, Jesus paid for my salvation, and the Holy Spirit will guarantee my salvation. By faith I take this gift and believe what you said.” Will you say this today?
