Preached in Markham Baptist Church, September 25, 2005

BECOME WHAT YOU ARE! PART 2: YOU ARE RICH!

Who is the richest person in the world? Forbes Magazine tells us that Bill Gates is the richest person in the world with an income of 46 billion dollars. Warren Buffet is close behind him with a modest income of 42 billion. But Forbes Magazine has never read Ephesians 1:3-14 for if they did they would discover that you, a believer in Jesus Christ, are in fact the richest person in the world! Those of you who are in Christ have something so much better, riches that far outshine the measly fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined. Your riches in Christ are so great that they make Bill Gates look absolutely impoverished – 46 billion? You call that wealth? It is a mere trifle compared to what is yours in Christ.

Really? Yes, open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. You will remember how we began our study last week and how I believe chapter 4 verse 1 to be the key verse to this book – it is a verse that essentially says become what you are! And we are now studying who we are in Christ and we discovered that we are saints, set apart for God – not called out of the world but set apart for God to live for him as his missionaries in this world in Christ.

And that’s a difficult task, to live in this world of sin and heartbreak and trouble and horror and loneliness. But this morning I want us to discover two primary truths in our passage –

First I want us to discover that God has given us everything we need to live the Christian life in a difficult world. He has given us every spiritual blessing to meet the task of living in this world for Him so that we can transform this world through His power and might.

You should know that Paul writes this without any punctuation – from verse 3 to verse 14 there are not stops, no commas - it’s like sitting in front of a fire hose! It’s like Paul is so exited that he doesn’t have time to stop. Like a kid with cell phone calling you from Disneyland and describing all that he is seeing – “O, the Jungle Adventure was so cool! And when we got off that ride we went to Space Mountain! Then we went on Toy Story Ride! And then we saw Pluto and Donald and Mickey Mouse!!” This scripture builds like this and we need to read it like that.

Instead we read it – hmmm… it says there we are chosen, we are predestined – let’s stop and talk about that for a couple of months… I’m not saying that we shouldn’t intellectually think of what is being written or that we shouldn’t wrestle with the deep issues of the faith like the sovereignty of God and human free will, but understand that the feeling behind this passage is one of wonder. What I am saying is don’t allow the intellectual questions rob you of the wonder of what is being said. It is written in such a way to raise our hearts in adoration of God so that we say in the end, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing.”

That’s why we read that phrase again and again through this passage – To the praise of His glorious grace in verse 6. To the praise of His glory in verse 12 and again in verse 14 to the praise of His glory. Glory here means magnified – May God be magnified – may He be seen in all the riches He has given us. Paul is seeking to lift God up in praise so that we join Him and say, “Yes, you are great God you have given me everything I need!”

And the second truth I want us to discover is that you are of great worth to God. You are so highly valued by Him – and it really is mind-blowing that He places such high value on us little creatures living for such short a time. But He does - you are of immense worth to God.

Paul’s intention is to drown out the voices of this world. It’s as if Paul’s voice gets louder and louder and he wants to drown out the world’s voices. He says “This is who you are!” God says, “You’re forgiven,” but the world says you’re not. God says, “You are my chosen child,” but the world says you’re not. God says, “You’re headed for a great eternity,” but the world says you’re not. God says, “You are of immense worth” - the world says you’re not. God wants to drown out those voices – those voices that bring discouragement and heartbreak and despair.

Let’s read the passage together.

Verse 3. Praise be to – or blessed be - the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Let’s unpack that for a moment because it is key to understanding this portion of Scripture. Praise be to God who has blessed us!

He has? Yes! Don’t you mean “He will bless us?” or “He may bless us if we make it to the end with a good character? No - the word of God says, He HAS blessed us! It is a done deal.

He has blessed us in the heavenly realms. Underline that phrase because it is repeated several times in this book. It is acknowledging the fact that we live in two worlds. We discovered this last week. We live in this world, but our citizenship is in the kingdom of God (Philippians 3:20), in the heavenly realms where Christ is exalted and sits enthroned at God’s right hand (Ephesians 1:20).

Do you remember how last week we learned that Ephesus is a centre for business and trade in the ancient world? We could say that modern day Wall Street runs down the center of Ephesus. There is great wealth there - the great artistic treasures of the ancient world were stored in the temple of Artemis. Well Paul says, you have great wealth stored in the bank of heaven, in the realm of God.

This is great news because it is in Christ, that means that no one can steal your spiritual riches from you – no one can embezzle you, the government cannot tax it, it will not fade or rot with the passing of time – you have a bank account in the heavenly places that is secure for eternity.

What’s in that bank account? Every spiritual blessing. Circle that word every. It’s a BIG little word. We have every spiritual blessing. Not just a few, not just a couple, but EVERY spiritual blessing. How many spiritual blessings do you have? Every one of them! There are no spiritual blessings that exist that you don’t already own.

God has given us everything we need to live the Christian life.

Some people pray for peace – Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.” (John 14:27) It’s yours already.

Some people pray for the Lord’s presence – Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20) He is with you always.

Every spiritual blessing is yours now! Our trouble is not owning it, but possessing it.

In the movie National Treasure, Nicolas Cage goes on a search for a vast, amazing treasure that’s been hidden for hundreds of years. Using a map on the back of the American Constitution and a series of clues left behind by America’s founding fathers he must evade the bad guys he eventually he finds the treasure – And do you know where he finds this amazing treasure? Buried deep beneath a church in Philadelphia. And as I watched it I thought if only the people of that church knew that their church was sitting on top of billions of dollars worth of treasure. We should start digging! But not in the ground, but into Scripture. If we only knew what belongs to us! Ephesians 1 seeks to tell us.

Well, what does belong to us? What are the riches that are ours? Paul lists 8 of them here – it is not a complete list but what a list.

First, verse 4 – “you were chosen before the world began to be holy and blameless.” You were chosen. What a gem this truth is. If we possessed no other treasure from God than this we would be wealthy! God actually chose you. He had His eye on you and chose you for His own.

Now all sorts of intellectual questions arise at this point – one of which being – “how can God choose me? I thought I chose God?” And it is true, you did choose God, but it remains a fact that long before you choose God He chose you. He had His eye on you and chose you for holiness and blamelessness before the creation of the world. Simply because sin entered the equation didn’t change His intent. You have been chosen and God has and does want you for His own.

I’ve experienced this very thing. Long before Janet ever noticed me, I noticed her. I chose her long before she finally came around to choosing me. So with God.

He chose you to be holy, that is, set apart for Him, not to live separated from the rest of the world but to live for Him in the midst of the world.

And He chose you to be blameless. It means that you are blame less, without spot or blemish.

Are you holy and blameless? Yes! If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are holy and blameless - that’s how God sees you. He has made you a person who is without blame. Does that mean that you are without sin? No. But it does mean that we are without blame for the sin you have committed and confessed because Jesus Christ has died on the cross for you and me.

This is such great news and it changes everything. For my quiet times I am reading through the Psalms and I was reading Psalm 18 the other day and it says there:

“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I have not done evil by turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.”

And I read that and thought – who can talk like this. Who can actually read this in the first person? And then I got into this study of Ephesians and realized I can - anyone in Christ can talk like this! We are blameless before God and He has rewarded me according to my righteousness. To be sure all my righteous deeds are like filthy rags to God, but I have a new righteousness – the righteousness of Jesus Christ and He has become my righteousness and because of that I am blameless in His sight! So we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Here’s the second blessing – verse 5 says that we have been adopted as God’s children through Jesus Christ. Now, I’m not skipping over the word predestined in our text because I am afraid of it. I have dealt extensively with the topic of election and predestination in a sermon last January and I know that you will talk about in your small groups. Just let me say that predestination is not a truth designed to make us be angry with God. It is a truth for believers to fall ever more deeply in love with God. He values you that highly, that before the creation of the world He decided for you. It was out of love that God predetermined that you would be His child.

In the ancient Roman world an adopted child had all the rights of the adopted family. They lost all their old rights of their old family and gained all the rights of their new family.

What family did we leave? Adam’s family. You left the family of Adam and Eve, tainted by sin and locked in death and were adopted into God’s family.

Here’s a song (sung to the tune of "The Addams' Family) for you to sing to remind you of how we were once part of Adam’s family:

“When they ate the wrong fruit

God had to give them the boot

Our hearts all spring from their root

From Adam’s family

Adopted as God’s children

Because of what Christ has done

The bonds of sin are broken

In Jesus’ family.”1

You are no longer a Lurch – you are no longer a Mortisha! You have been taken out of Adam’s family and have been put into Jesus’ family!

How did all this happen? Here’s the third blessing – verse 6 – to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves. We have been given grace - that is, His favour. Unearned, unmerited because of His love for us. All the riches we have are from Him and because of Him and for Him – to the praise of His glorious grace! So when people look at us and see God’s grace at work in you, God gets the praise!

Notice verse 8 where Paul speaks again of God’s grace and notice He says that God’s grace has been lavished on us! We do not just have a little bit of God’s grace, but it has been lavished on us.

But more the fourth blessing. Verse 7- we have been redeemed and forgiven. To be redeemed means we have been purchased. God has bought us.

Now some would say, why do I need to be adopted and redeemed or purchased? Wouldn’t adoption be enough? No – adoption costs. We need to be purchased, we need to be bought and we are – and the cost – well it cost you nothing – but it cost Jesus Christ His blood. O, thanks be to God that He would purchase us and pay the price so that we can live in His family now and forever.

And we have the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness means to take away. And that’s what has happened when you placed your faith in Christ God has taken away your sins.

Do you see how we have been given everything we need to live the Christian life? We do not need to strive to be accepted by God we’ve been chosen from the creation of the world. We do not need to become clean so that we can approach our holy God - He has made us clean in through faith in Jesus Christ.

He’s done it all for us. I would love it this morning if those of you who have striving and working and trying to live the Christian life would leave this place that you no longer need to do that – but go out of here rejoicing that God has done it all for you and all you need to do is trust Him!

Fifth blessing verses 9 and 10– And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure. That word mystery means a secret that has been hidden but now revealed. Eugene Peterson translates it as a “plan that we’ve been let in on.” In Romans 16:25 we read that this mystery has been hidden for long ages past but now revealed. So Paul is saying up till now we have not had the whole story, up to this point when a prophet has prophesied when he has gone back home, sat down and scratched his head and said, ‘Something’s missing here.” When Moses received the law he went back to his tent sat down and said, “Something’s missing here.” There is a mystery involved in this but now says Paul that mystery has been revealed. And that mystery is that all things in heaven and earth will be brought together under one head, even Christ. In other words there will be a day when every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. God is going to sum up everything in Jesus Christ. So we read in Revelation 10:7 - “In those days when the seventh angel is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished just as He announced through His servants the prophets.”

What kind of blessing is that? Doesn’t that give you security? You read the morning newspaper and you say to yourself, I don’t know where the world is headed! I really don’t know what’s going to become of this world. Well folks, stop saying that – because you do know God tells you where the world is headed – all of human history has one goal - Jesus Christ. That’s where it’s all heading, straight towards Him!

Sixth blessing – you have been chosen as an inheritance - verse 11! The NIV has a poor translation at this point and the NRSV is better it says that In Christ we have obtained an inheritance – and you will notice that there is a tiny letter “c” there telling you to look down at the bottom of the page and it gives an alternative reading there – We have been made an inheritance. So which is it – have we been given an inheritance or are we an inheritance? And the truth is that the Greek allows for both interpretations. And certainly Biblically speaking both are true. We have been given an inheritance and we have discovered that in this text but also we are an inheritance.

That is really cool. You think of an inheritance and usually we think of something very special, something we treasure, whether we inherit a family heirloom from some great Aunt or inherit our parent’s possessions, an inheritance is of great value. And you think, what can I give God – you can’t give Him land, or wealth, but you can give Him yourself. So when you say, “Jesus, I want you to be part of my life,” and give yourself to God you are giving God His rightful inheritance. You are His inheritance. God sees you as His greatest riches! When we’re looking at these spiritual riches of how God is working in our live,s we need to remind ourselves that we’re the crown of His creation. He sees you and I as His greatest riches! God has chosen us as an inheritance.

Seventh blessing verse 13 – you were included in Christ. I spoke of this last week. When God looks at you, He sees His son Jesus Christ.

Eighth blessing verse 14 – we have the guarantee of the Spirit. It says there that we are marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. A seal in ancient days was used to mark ownership. Rangers put their seal on their cattle, loggers put their seal of ownership on logs as they sail down the river to the mill - all of this so that when the sheep, the cattle or the logs get mixed with others, one can quickly tell what sheep, cattle or log belongs to another.

And not only are you sealed with the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit is a deposit of what is to come. The Holy Spirit is God’s “down payment” to you. You say, how can all this be true, how can all these promises God gives me be trusted? And God gives you His Holy Spirit as a down payment, saying, “You can trust me, the life you experience now in the Holy Spirit is but a foretaste of what is to come.”

Do you see? You have been given everything you need to live the Christian life. You have been chosen, adopted, redeemed, he has revealed his plan to you, he has put you in Christ and He has put his very Spirit in you. You have everything you need to lead the Christian life. There is nothing you need to try to get from God, nothing you need to win from God, you have everything you need. It’s yours what you need to do is live in the light of it.

One of our greatest needs – is to know that we are of worth. And this passage tells that while God gives you everything you need, He affirms that you are of immense worth to Him. He chose you, He adopted you, He let you in on His plan, you are His inheritance.

Thanks be to God for the glory of His grace.

ENDNOTES:

Tom Holladay in a sermon delivered September 28, 1994 Purpose Driven Publishing. Copyright 2004.