Sermon Transcript
From Ephesians chapter 1. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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 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.
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. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
If you wanted to assure someone beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything was going to be okay, what would you tell them?
Would you say something like, it’ll be okay because I will always be with you. I will always love you. No matter what else happens, no matter how crazy the world gets, at least you know you will always have me. Is that what you would say to assure someone?
It’s a nice sentiment. I’m sure I’m sure it’s very comforting in the moment, helpful, great to hear that from anyone. But ultimately it’s not quite true, is it? Because you won’t be with them forever. There will come a day when they won’t have you anymore, or you won’t have them.
None of us can really promise that we will always be there. So while your intent is wonderful, the real assurance you offer is always only temporary. Temporary. Or maybe instead of promising that you will always be there, maybe you would promise, uh, it’s going to be okay because you’re gonna make it. You know, it’s the pep talk, the empowerment speech, like, you’ll get past this, the crisis won’t last forever.
Or maybe depending on what’s going on, you know, maybe you’d say the doctors will figure this out. It’s trust in them, right? The treatment will work, so have confidence. And that might be true, you know, that the person you’re encouraging might power through, or the treatment might work, or the crisis might pass this time. But again, at best, those reassuring words are only temporary securities as well, because if this crisis doesn’t get them, a future one will.
Will. If their health doesn’t fail now, it will fail later. So if you wanted to give someone a robust, durable, real security, what would you tell them? There’s really only one thing you can say: God has you, and he’s not going to let you go. No matter what happens, no matter if your health fails, no matter if this crisis destroys you, God won’t let you go.
He’s in your corner. He’s on your side. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His purpose for you is eternal, and your enjoyment of him will have no end. That’s really the only durable confidence that you can ever give anyone.
We’re beginning a new series today in the book of Ephesians, which will take us to the end of September. Why Ephesians? Because according to our records, we haven’t studied it as a church in at least 15 years, so that’s why Ephesians. And we’re only spending 7 weeks on the 6 chapters which make up the letter, which means we’re going to cover a lot in a little amount of time. It means our Scripture reading each week will be fairly lengthy, but we want you to hear as much as possible of this timeless message.
That was written so long ago. It is so rich in detailing what we have in Christ, who we are in Christ, what we have been given, the treasure we have, the security we have. That’s how it begins. That’s the first 2 chapters. And from there it unpacks, now what?
Since we have such an immeasurably great identity, reward, inheritance, status in in Christ that cannot be shaken, now what? Like, how does that change my Tuesday? How does it change my relationships? How does it change work? How does it change how I live and interact with the world?
Ephesians covers all of that, but we start today at the beginning. We start with unshakable security, and Paul gives us 4 sources of security in this passage. The security of God’s security of God’s forgiveness, security of God’s blessing, and security of God’s power. We’ll look at those one by one. So first, the security of God’s acceptance is that God adopted us into his family.
You notice Paul gets his idea across several ways, verse 4 and verse 5, that God chose us, God adopted us in love before the creation of the world, before we had a chance to do anything right or wrong, wrong, He made us His way back then. And why? Why did He do that? Why did He make us His? Was it because of anything in us?
Was it because we impressed Him somehow? Is that why we’re His? Of course not! We hadn’t even done anything yet! That’s the whole point.
He adopted us not only before we existed but before the world existed. So He didn’t make us His because we’re some bright shining star. We hadn’t done anything to earn it. We hadn’t done anything, period. It was before creation, and God said, I want you.
That makes Christian acceptance different from any other acceptance or religion or philosophy in the world because any other acceptance is ultimately going to be up to your performance, your faithfulness, your humility, how good you are. With any other system, you need to earn acceptance, right? But with Christianity, God adopts us just because it was His purpose to do so, just because He loves us. That’s it. That’s the reason we’re accepted, loved, adopted.
Just because, which if you think about it, just because is the best possible reason to be accepted, loved, or adopted. Think about it. Have you ever had a conversation with someone you love, you know, and that person looks up to you with big doe eyes, or maybe you look at the person while you’re snuggling up, right, and you ask Dear, dear sweet dear, why is it that you love me? Why do you want me to be yours? What’s the best answer to that question?
What do you want the person to say? Do you want the person to say, well, I love you because you’re so pretty, you’re the prettiest out of all of them? Or, I was drawn to you because, yeah, you have a great voice. Your voice was melodious. It was like a siren called to me.
I couldn’t resist. Or, you have a high net worth.
I love you because of your bank account, your position, your influence in the company. You just seem so powerful.
Do you want any trait that you possess to be the reason that you are loved, accepted, wanted. If you haven’t thought it through, you don’t. You don’t want your dear, sweet dear to love you because of any of those reasons. Now, I’m not saying you don’t want your beloved to think that you’re pretty, attractive, powerful. Of course you want them to think positive things about you, but you don’t want their love for you to be based on any of those things.
The problem is, if your beloved loves you because of some attribute of yours, what happens if you lose that attribute? Then you lose their love. And as soon as you realize that, you’ll become inconsolably insecure. If your beloved loves you because you have a high net worth, you’ll immediately start stressing about maintaining that worth. You might lie to keep it.
You might do all kinds of things you never thought you’d do because you’re so worried about losing the thing that makes you lovable. Or if your beloved accepts you, wants you because you’re pretty, you’ll ask, you’ll wonder, you’ll stress, what happens would my beloved find someone else who is prettier? And I hate to break it to you, you, no matter how pretty you are, there’s always someone prettier.
If the reason that you are accepted, wanted, loved is because of something intrinsic to you, you will feel insecure always. The only answer that can give you any kind of security that you will always be accepted is if your beloved says, I love you just because I love you. Even if you were entirely different than you are right now, I would still you. You could lose all your money, I’d still love you. You could be horribly disfigured in some accident, and I would still love you, right?
My love isn’t based on anything that can be lost. It just is.
That’s what you want your beloved to say, and that’s what God says here. In love, he predestined us. He chose us just according to his purpose, not because of anything in us, He adopted us just because he adopted us. Think about human adoption. Husband and wife maybe decide to adopt a child, bring that child into their home, make that child part of their family, and someday that kid asks, why did you adopt me?
Do you know how much of a complex you would give that kid if you said, well, we adopted you because as we were looking through the little portfolio at the agency, you seemed stronger than any of the other kids.
We thought, you know, maybe that meant you’d be healthier. You’d get in— if you got in fights at school, you’d win. That’s why we adopted you, right? If you told a kid that, you would ruin his life. He’d be riddled with issues because he’s either never going to feel strong enough.
He’ll think something like, if I was adopted because I’m strong, you know, I better make sure I’m the strongest in the world. If I lose any tiny bit of strength, then I might be rejected.
Or if he doesn’t feel inferior, he’ll feel superior. Superior. He’ll have incredible arrogance about his strength. You know, it’ll make him intolerable to be around. He’ll walk around all puffed up and be like, pfft, you’re not as good as me.
I was wanted because of this. You weren’t. He will either have insecurity or arrogance, and you know what? It’ll probably be both. He’ll have both insecurity and arrogance.
He’ll bounce back and forth between the two, condemning others and yet at the same time insecure in himself.
Have you met religious people like that who are insecure and arrogant?
They are the people who on the one hand, they look down at everybody else who they don’t believe is as holy as they are, but also at the same time, they are radically insecure and worried if they are holy enough themselves. The reason they are like that is because of their view of God. God. They think they are adopted and loved and chosen because of something about them. They think when they cuddle up to God and ask, God, why do you love me?
He says, well, because you did all the right things. Oh, you attended church, you knew all the books of the Bible in order, because you pray every day, because you stayed out of sin, right? They think that’s why they are accepted, and therefore they feel superior. Superior to anyone who doesn’t do all the things they do, but at the same time, they’re always worried if they’ve done enough themselves.
So listen, Christian, God loves you. God adopted you. God chose you just because he did, just because that was his purpose. It didn’t have anything to do with what you’ve done or how special you are And if you believe that, it will actually provide you with a tremendous amount of confidence because it means there’s nothing you can do to lose it. You could be totally different, you could be an utter failure, and yet you’d still be loved, accepted, adopted, because your acceptance was never based on your performance in the first place.
Your acceptance is just because God accepted you.
Okay, that’s the security of God’s acceptance. You can’t lose it. But you may ask, okay, so God loves me and accepts me, great, but I don’t know if that necessarily means that he always forgives me because I, you know, I could think of plenty of families where I’m sure the parents love the kids, but even though they love the kids, the parents still hold on to some kind of grudge against them. So the kids, they’re loved, but they’re not really forgiven. It’s like they’re accepted, but also they kind of owe some kind of debt for maybe being an embarrassment to the family.
So you say, God loves me, great, but maybe he hasn’t forgiven me. Maybe he’s holding a grudge while also loving me. I’m so glad you asked about that. It sets up our next point perfectly. It brings us to the security of God’s forgiveness.
His forgiveness was purchased by His sacrifice. In other words, just like with acceptance, we are not forgiven because of anything that we have done. We are forgiven because and only because, verse 7, He shed His blood. He paid the price for our forgiveness. Us, which means we do not pay.
We are not the ones who erase the debt between us and God through our blood, sweat, and tears. The debt between us and God is erased by his blood, sweat, and tears, which means God is different than many of the other relationships we have. Because in other relationships, when there is tension in the relationship that we have caused, like it’s our fault, you know, like, hi, it’s me, I’m the problem. When we’re the problem, the person, we’re the ones that have offended someone else, the someone else can make us feel like we need to work off the debt, like we need to grovel for a while. And certainly in other religions forgiveness is absolutely based on being good enough, right enough, long enough.
In other religions you never really know if you’re in good standing or not, if you’ve done enough to work your way out of the debt side of the ledger. But the Christian God isn’t like that. The Bible— the God of the Bible says, yes, there was tension between us. Yes, there was a debt that you created. True story.
But I paid it for you. I bore the cost to fix the relationship, not you. So in Christianity, all the pressure is taken off on the front end. We know where we stand with him. We know where we will always stand with him, no matter what.
No matter what failure is in our future, and there will be many, we will always be forgiven because of what he has done. Because he hung on the cross, your debt has been paid in full forever. So I don’t know if you ever have any of these kind of moments where you feel like you need to earn your way back into God’s good graces, like you need to grovel at his feet, like, like God is holding a grudge against you? Maybe you think you need to give God a little time to cool off before you can ask anything of him again? Do you ever feel any of those ways?
If so, you are trying to pay for a debt that has already been paid.
The debt has already been paid. You are free. You are free and you don’t know it. You’re still trying to serve time in a penitentiary when the gate has been opened. Like, you can walk out.
There are no bars holding you captive. No matter what you’ve done, no matter how disappointed you are in yourself, Listen, in Christ, through his blood, through his sacrifice, you are forgiven. There is never any grudge that God is holding over you. You are never outside of his good graces. That’s the security of God’s forgiveness.
It was bought and paid by him, not by us.
But you may ask, Just because God’s forgiven me, okay, that’s nice, that doesn’t necessarily mean that He is favorable toward me. I mean, if the penitentiary releases us because our debt has been paid, great, we can go back into the world free from penalty, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in the world and favored. We may not need to earn our release, but certainly we still need to earn favor back from society if we’re released. So maybe that’s what it’s like with God. Maybe God is kind of ambivalent toward us.
You know, he’s not against us, there’s no more penalty, nice, but maybe he’s not really for us either. He’s not showering us with blessings unless we earn them, right? Once again, I’m so glad you asked. It’s a perfect question, sets up our next point. The security of God’s blessing is that it’s already given.
It’s not earned. According to this passage, in Christ we are always within God’s blessing. You see verse 3 here? God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Past tense.
It already happened. He is always only favorable to you. He is not withholding some blessing from you until you get your act together. He has already given it. Blessing from God is not based on you being good enough, right enough, long enough.
You don’t activate blessing in your life. It has already been granted. So just like being adopted, just like being forgiven, receiving blessing from the Christian God is utterly different than any other religion or philosophy in the world. Everywhere else, right, we would earn blessing, but with the God of the Bible, we don’t earn anything. We don’t earn our way into his family, we don’t earn forgiveness, and we don’t even earn blessings.
With God, favor is granted apart from our works. We have it simply because we are in Christ. Again, verse 3. One of the core doctrines of Christianity is that God does not treat us as we deserve. God treats us as Christ deserves.
As believers in him, which means, yes, we are free from penalty. But it’s not only that, because Christ deserves way more than being free from penalty. Christ deserves the highest level of favor, absolute infinite favor. That’s what Christ deserves. And we are in him.
We are accounted with him. We are within his status. If you marry someone with money, you became the— you become the same legal entity with that person, pending some prenup, which is against the idea. But it means their money becomes your money, right? You say, what’s mine is yours, because on paper you are one person with the person you married.
You are in them, they’re in you.
Listen, as a Christian, you are in Christ. It is repeated at least 5 times in this passage. Verse 1, to the saints in Christ Jesus. Verse 3, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us in Christ. Verse 4, He chose us in Him.
Verse 7, in Him we have redemption. Verse 11, in Him we have obtained an inheritance. All of that is because we’re in him.
God showers you with the blessings that Christ deserves as if you were him.
God will use everything at his disposable— his disposal to act favorably toward you always because that’s what Christ deserves. Probably a favorite verse for many of us, this is Romans 8:28. Right? God will work all things together for our— okay, it’s the favorite verse of a couple of you. God will work all things together for our good.
All things will ultimately be used for our— hey, you got it that time— which is just another way of saying that all things will be used to bless us. Because that’s what blessing means, right? A blessing is something that adds goodness to your life, that’s used for your good. And if all things will be used for our good, Romans 8:28, then all things will be used to bless us. It’s very similar to what Paul says here in verse 11, Ephesians 1, God works all things according to the counsel of his will.
All things. So even if someone meant to harm us, even if someone intended evil toward us, right, and they succeeded, or whatever they did, it really hurt, it really was painful, it really was tragic. I mean, it was bad.
But God says he is going to weave that tragedy together in a tapestry with all other events that have ever happened in the universe so that the tragedy is ultimately used for our good. In the end, evil will only be allowed to accomplish the exact opposite of what it wanted to accomplish. Evil wanted our final destruction, but God says, nope, you go ahead and try to destroy one of the ones that I adopted. Go ahead and try, evil, but anything that you try to do to one of my children will in the end only be used for their good.
He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Every one. Not some of them, not most of them, all of them. He has given it everything he’s got to show us immeasurable favor all the time, forever, even when we’ve disobeyed him, even if we’ve made our own tragedy, even when we’re suffering the consequences of our own bad decisions. Even then.
Sometimes we’re suffering because someone else did something to us, and he uses that. We just talked about it. But then other times we’re suffering because we messed up ourselves. We’re in pain and it’s our fault. And in those moments, we may be tempted to think, surely God won’t bless me now.
Surely I’m outside of his favor. But he is blessing you. You are within his favor. He uses all things Small Greek lesson, all means all.
He uses all things. He is always only favorable to us. Even when we’ve dug a ditch for ourselves, he’ll use that for our good. If nothing else, he will at least teach us through it. It’s probably more than that.
He’s probably up to 14 million other things that we can’t see, but he’s at least teaching us because if he’s a good father, Father, when we’re straying, it means He’s going to give us more attention, not less.
So, for instance, if God gives you consequences, if you’re feeling the sting of bad decisions, hallelujah! Or if we’re straying from Him and it feels like we’re swimming upstream, it feels like we have pressure that we need to turn around from our sin, if that’s happening.
Hallelujah! It means He’s guiding us toward ultimate goodness. He’s leading us on the path of life. He’s keeping us away from ultimate destruction. That’s a blessing.
Would you want Him to do the opposite? Would you want Him to let you run headlong into sin without any conviction whatsoever, without any remorse, without any increasing need to turn around?
Would that be a good thing? Would that be a sign of His favor toward you? No! That wouldn’t be a blessing. He would be aiding and abetting your demise.
He would be a terrible father if He did that. But God is not a terrible Father. He will always only be favorable to you as a believer in Christ. He has put His Holy Spirit inside of you to guide you all of your days. Paul calls the Holy Spirit inside of us— this is verse 14— he calls the Holy Spirit the guarantee of our future inheritance, which means when you experience the Holy Spirit’s guidance or pressure or conviction, it is one of the ways that you know that you are a Christian.
Before you trusted in Christ, before verse 18, before the eyes of your heart were enlightened, maybe it didn’t bother you at all to participate in all kinds of sin. Sin that would lead to your destruction. Less than honest business practices, or to think of dating as a series of hookups, or to turn a blind eye to the plight of the poor and marginalized— none of that seemed like a problem to you before. You’re just living your life essentially the same as everyone else around you. But then you met Christ.
God adopted you. God lifted you out of that. He was so far surpassingly beautiful and good compared to anything else the world and you began to think, what I really want is more of him. I want to learn more about him. I want to experience more of him.
Like Paul prays in verses 17 to 19, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him awakened in you. Jesus was not real to you before. Now he is real. You’re learning the hope to which he called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance, the immeasurable greatness of his power and the deepest longing of your heart is now for him. That’s the seal on your adoption papers.
It’s the guarantee that we’re in his family. Can you relate to any of that? Would you describe that your heart is drawn toward him? And not that we don’t always stumble and fall in all kinds of ways, but everything else compared to him is getting more and more pale and faint and fleeting. Do you know anything of that?
If so, He has claimed you as His own, and you are more secure, your future is more secure than you could possibly measure or imagine. He has blessed you with every spiritual blessing. He is working all things together according to His will for His glory and for your good, not because of anything you’ve done, just because. That’s the security of His blessing. It’s already given.
You can’t lose it. But you may ask, I have one more question quickly. You ask, okay, so I’m in His family, I’m forgiven, I’m blessed, great, but how do I know that being in Him is really secure? If He loves me just because He loves me, not because of anything I’ve done, Okay, but, but if so, that means I’m only as stable as he is. If I’ve hitched my wagon to him, how do I know that he’s gonna hang on to me?
I mean, I’ve had other people tell me they love me just because they love me, and they’ve left. So how do I know he’s not gonna do that? If my acceptance, forgiveness, favor is in his hands, how strong are his hands? Ends. Is he really going to stick with me?
Is his power enough to bless me and keep me forever and ever? I’m so glad you asked. Great question. That’s our last point: security of his power is unrivaled. Paul says it like this: you want to know the strength of Jesus?
You want to know the strength he has to keep you, to bless you, to bring you to him, to guide you through every up and down life to use everything that ever has or ever will happen for your good? You want to know how powerful He is and if He can pull it off forever and ever? You want to know? Well, here you go. Jesus is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
Jesus is above every name that is named. Jesus reigns not only in this age but also in the one to come. Come, so it is forever and ever. Jesus has all things under His feet. Jesus is head over all things.
Jesus was and forever raised from the dead. It’s Ephesians 1:21-22. That is who Jesus is. That is who has you. That is who has adopted you.
That is who has bought your forgiveness and That is who promises to bless you with every ounce of strength that He has, which means, child of God, you are secure. There is nothing that will ever be able to undo what He is doing for you, nothing, not in this age or in the one to come. He has you. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for what you have provided us in Christ.
Thank you that we have real security in him. Thank you there’s nothing we could do to lose it or to jeopardize it, but it is rooted in you and your power and your unchanging life.
May we trust you you and give you everything as you have given everything to us. We pray those things in Jesus’ name.
