Word of Salvation – Vol. 37 No. 18 – June 1992
Heavenly Blessings
Sermon by Rev. Bruce Gillard on Ephesians 1:3
Reading: Ephesians 1:1-23
Singing: 168, 32, 412, 373.
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters,
Isn’t it fantastic when something good and unexpected happens to us in life? Recently someone shared with me how they unexpectedly received a promotion at work. They moved higher up the ladder, closer to home and more pleasant working conditions. What a blessing when something like that happens, and particularly in these times of high unemployment.
Or imagine that you entered a competition and you won a trip to Day Dream Island, or a friend did, and it was for two people, and they invited you to go along with them? Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I know someone who had that experience recently. What a blessing, we would say.
And yet the Bible, and the New Testament in particular, teaches us that these situations and happenings are not the really great blessings of life. They are not the occasions that should cause us to rejoice most in life. No the really great blessings are the spiritual and heavenly blessings that every true believer has in Christ Jesus.
Take what the Apostle Paul says in the words of our text for today in Ephesians chapter one and verse 3. ‘Praise be to the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’
It was the spiritual and heavenly blessings that were so important for the apostle Paul. The apostle Peter also mentions the same thing in his first epistle chapter I and verse 3. He says, ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.’
The Lord Jesus indicated the same thing to his rather excited disciples who were getting carried away with some happenings in this present world one day, and he said to them, ‘don’t rejoice in these things, but rejoice because your names are written down in the book of life.’ And yet, I think we would all have to agree, would we not, that it is often the earthly and material blessings that do excite us most of all.
How many of us can say that we are like the apostle Paul or the apostle Peter, crying out: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing? Not many of us I think.
Why is this the case? Why are we not more like this? Why don’t we rejoice in the heavenly and spiritual blessings more than in the earthly and material? Well, I think the apostle Paul really answers this question for us here in this first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians. And it simply comes down to this: it is our failure to appreciate and understand better the great things that God has done for us.
Notice that when the apostle Paul has burst forth into this great doxology of praise to God for all these heavenly and spiritual blessings, he goes on to pray for these Ephesians. And what does he pray for? Well, look at verse 17. ‘I keep asking,’ he says, ‘that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.’ And then in verse 18 he says, ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints’, and so on. So there is the problem. It isn’t a problem in the first place of practical Christianity. No, it’s a problem of doctrinal Christianity. We don’t know our doctrine as well as we think we do. Or if we do, then we fail to apply it as we should. That’s the problem. So often we can become impatient with the doctrine, and want to move on to the practical. But you can never really experience the practical, until you master better the doctrinal.
So then what are these spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms that are ours in Christ Jesus? What is the cause and source of such rejoicing for the apostle Paul?
Well, let us briefly notice that he mentions three great blessings that were ours in Christ. There may be more things that he mentions here, but I want to focus your attention on three of them this morning.
1. First of all there is the blessing of election.
In verse 4 we read, ‘For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.’
There is the first great blessing in the heavenly realm that God has bestowed upon all who are in Christ Jesus.
We did not choose him, but he chose us. And he did not choose us because he foresaw some meritorious cause in us. No, we are told that it all took place before the foundation of the world. It was all in accordance with his pleasure and will. Not according to our pleasure and will. Salvation is something that the Lord has done for us. It is his work and not ours. He chose us not because we were good or deserving, but in spite of the fact that we were and are sinful, and weak and full of failures. And yet it pleased him to set his love upon us. He predestined us to be adopted into his family, and to become the children of God.
Now, can you imagine anything more wonderful or blessed than that? What is a trip to Day Dream Island compared to that? Here we were, deserving of nothing but hell and judgement on account of our own sins. But God who is rich in grace and mercy chose us who are in Christ to be his own precious possession.
This makes our position secure and certain because it is not based upon what we can do, but it is based upon God’s eternal choice. No wonder the apostle Paul was so overjoyed, crying out, ‘praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
2. But there is more, much more than that. That’s only the beginning. Paul goes on to mention a second blessing in verse 7. ‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.’ Now the word ‘redemption’ is one of the important words of the Bible, and I think we should all know what it means. It means to purchase or buy back, and involves the payment of a price. We can see that clearly enough here in the words of our text. In him we have redemption through his blood. There is the ransom price. It was the price of the blood. The precious and spotless blood of the Lamb of God, who was slain on the cross to pay for our sins.
The apostle Peter in his epistle says, ‘For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.’
There is the second great blessing. In Christ we have been redeemed and bought back. God the Father has purchased us for himself. We belong to him, and nothing can ever separate us from his love. He owns us twice as it were. We are free now from the devil, free from sin and all its power to condemn us. We will never come into judgement and into condemnation. What a mighty blessing God has given us in his Son! Can anything be compared with that? Every material and temporal blessing on earth will fail and fall away, but this is safe and beyond reach, secure in heaven itself.
3. So then we come to the third mighty blessing that Paul mentions in verse 9: ‘And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.’
You see, God has a great plan and purpose that he is working out for his world. We look at the world and what do we see? We see division between men. We see alienation from one another. Men talk about love and unity and peace, and prosperity and all of that, but we never seem to be able to achieve it. There is always war and conflict and fighting, between nations and individuals. But God has a marvellous plan. And he is working it out. What man cannot achieve himself, God is achieving. He is going to bring about a state of affairs in which there will be true peace and unity and reconciliation. Not only between man and man, but between man and God.
God has been working this plan out throughout history. Ever since man’s fall into sin, He made a promise to Adam and Eve. He separated out one nation, the Jewish nation in the Old Testament times. Through that nation he sent his own Son into the world. And through his Son he is bringing into existence a new community of people, a new society, a new kingdom. It finds expression already in the church of the Lord Jesus. In that community the walls that separate and divide are coming down. It doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is. It doesn’t’ matter what nationality you are. It doesn’t matter how great your failures have been. It doesn’t matter how high or low your IQ is. We are all one in Christ Jesus, and he has loved us, so we begin to show true love for one another. God is at work creating a new world, a new heavens and a new earth, the home of righteousness. His plan is already far advanced, and it won’t be long before Jesus comes again. That’s what we are a part of, if we belong to Christ, and are true members of his church. And, you see, the great blessing that God has bestowed upon us is this: He has made known to us this great plan of his. This is the mystery that Paul speaks about in verse 9. ‘and he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ.’
Imagine for a moment that our Prime Minister had a perfect plan for solving the economic woes of our country. He had a plan to achieve full employment, plenty of jobs for everyone, and abundant prosperity. And imagine he called you on the telephone one day and invited you to come into his office, and told you what his plan was. And not only that, he also said to you: ‘I want you to be a part of this great plan, and help me put it into effect.’ How would you feel? Wouldn’t you feel thrilled and important, to know that he had taken you into his confidence, and made you a part of his great plan?
You see that’s what God has done for us in Christ. He has a great plan to save and remake this world through the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has made the great plan known to us, and he has invited us to be a participant in this great experience of working in his kingdom and bringing about the renewal of the heavens and the earth. We do that by bringing the good news, the message of salvation to those who are lost. We do it by pointing to God’s solution as the only one that has any hope for this world. Communism has failed. Humanism and capitalism will fail. False religion will fail. The only thing that is succeeding and will succeed is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his blood-bought church. Many people today think that the Bible and the message of Christianity is no longer relevant to this modern twentieth century. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is in the church and her message that the only hope for this world is to be found. And God has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure. He has taken us into his office and told us of his great plan, and invited us to belong to him, and the new order and the new world that he is bringing into existence. Do you know of anything that can equal that in this world? Is there any greater blessing that could be bestowed upon us? No wonder Paul cried out: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Conclusion
Why is it so important for us to understand better the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ in the heavenly regions? Let me briefly mention three things in conclusion by way of further application.
It is only as we understand more of what God has done for us in Christ, that we will come to worship him as we ought. Look again at the apostle Paul here. Look at the saints throughout history. What is it that has moved them to praise and worship God? As they gained new insight into and experienced the mighty grace of God at work in their salvation, they praised God.
If we find our worship is a little on the dull side, and our praises lack motivation, then we need to have the eyes of our heart opened so that we can see a little clearer what great things the Lord has done, and then we will praise him as we ought.
The second thing I would mention is this. When we gain more insight into the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ Jesus, and find them a greater source of delight, then the material blessing of life will take second place. When we make the spiritual and heavenly blessings our chief delight, then we have a joy and peace that cannot be taken away from us. The material blessings come and go. One day we may gain a promotion, the next we may be unemployed. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. But we do know this. We know that God didn’t choose us because we were worthy or perfect, therefore he is not going to let go of us now because we are still imperfect. We know that Jesus has paid the full price for us with his precious blood, and we know that God has made known to us His great plan to make all things new, and by grace we are joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus. Therefore, no matter what the changing external circumstances of our life might be, we have the true riches that cannot be taken from us. Think of Paul and Silas and how they sang praises to God at midnight, even though suffering physically and in prison. It is the heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus that not only sustain us in the difficult times but also enable us to rise above them, and still rejoice in the Lord always.
And then, finally, if we make the heavenly and spiritual blessings our chief delight, it will enable us to keep our heart and mind in the right place. How easy it is for us all to get so caught up in the things of this present world, and lose sight of the fact that we are pilgrims here look for a city whose builder and maker is God. To be heavenly and spiritually minded, does not make us of less earthly use. No, it makes us even more useful. Just look at the apostle Paul himself, and the Lord Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised its shame.
May God also open our eyes more and more to see and appreciate the great spiritual blessings that are ours in the heavenly regions in Christ Jesus.
AMEN