Blessed, Spiritual Blessing

It's good to see the congregation filling up, I suppose, with some of the students coming back, and also, I hope, with some visitors. One of the encouraging things when a church has settled its calling of a new pastor is that those who are looking for a church are more prepared to come. see how the land lies. So Muriel and I want to assure you that our prayers continue for you as a congregation and we rejoice in God's leading of you to call Keith Goad to be your new pastor. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 1 and we read from verses 1 to 14. Ephesians 1, 1 to 14. All an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and 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 with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory. So reads the Word of God, the Lord blessed to our understanding by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray. O God, our gracious Father in heaven, help us to recognize afresh that what we say to you in our praise and in our prayers is not as important or as holy as what you have to say to us through your word. Help us then now as we come to your word. that we might have the spirit of Samuel who prayed, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. We have a glorious text to meditate on this morning, Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. I don't know if you know, but chapters 1 to 3 are Paul's exposition of this very verse, just as chapters 4 to 6 are his exposition of chapter 4, verse 1. where he says, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called. And putting these two verses together, chapter 1 verse 3, chapter 4 verse 1, Paul sums up his aim in writing this letter to the Ephesians. He wanted to move them to the godliness outlined in chapters four to six by showing them the greatness of God's blessing in chapters one to three. Because godliness has to do with our relationship to God. And the godliness that Paul outlines in chapters four to six is a life of service that brings praise to God. Because our heart is in it. Godliness is not a merely formal and external kind of service, but a service that comes from a heart. that is filled with grateful love for God's gracious blessings to us. So let's meditate on this text in verse three. It's a doxology, an ascription of praise in which we bless God because He has blessed us. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. As we ponder the blessings that God has blessed us with, I want you to notice, first of all, the realm in which it is experienced. God has blessed us, says the Apostle Paul, in the heavenly places. And the word places, you notice, is in italics, because it's not in the original text. Literally, the Greek reads, in the heavenlies. It's one of the key phrases of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and it occurs four times. Here in verse three, Paul tells us that God has blessed us in the heavenlies. In chapter 2, verse 6, he tells us that God has raised us up and made us sit together. He has united us in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. And chapter 3, verse 10, he speaks of the angels, the principalities and the powers who are moved to wonder and marvel at the grace of God at work in the church. And then in chapter 6, verse 12, he warns us of the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies against whom we must wrestle in the good fight of faith. It's a key verse. And the question is, what does the apostle mean by these words, in the heavenlies? Does he mean somewhere far away? No, I don't think so, because until the day we die, you and I are firmly entrenched, body and spirit, on the earth. I don't believe the apostle is thinking in spatial terms at all. No, if we would get his thought, We must define the heavenlies as a realm in which we have contact not only with God and Christ and the angels, but also with demons. Because as these four texts show us, the heavenlies are where they are. Wherever God is present to bless us, and wherever Satan is present to tempt us. In other words, the phrase, in the heavenly, simply refers to the realm of invisible but abiding spiritual reality where God blesses us and the devil tempts us. It's all around us, you see. God has blessed us, says Paul, not just in the physical realm of sight and sound that will pass away, but essentially in the spiritual realm that will abide forever. The phrase is Paul's way of bringing out the truth, that although the blessings of salvation cannot be put under a microscope, they are nevertheless real. and abiding. That's the first lesson we draw from our text. The realm in which God has blessed us as believers in Christ is the realm of invisible, abiding spiritual realities that surrounds us. The second thing I would ask you to notice is the relationship in which God's blessing is enjoyed. God has blessed us, he says, in the heavenlies in Christ. As we read through the epistle, we find Paul specifying blessing after blessing that can only be obtained in a relationship with Christ. In verse 4, he speaks of us being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Verse 7, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Verse 13, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." That is to say, God's gift of the Holy Spirit that guarantees our salvation is only found in Christ. Chapter 2, verse 5. God has made us alive together with Christ. And verse 7, He has raised us up from spiritual death in Christ. In other words, regeneration, or the new birth. is God's blessing only in Christ. Chapter 2, verse 10, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. And verse 14, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been made nigh by the blood of Christ. So this is the relationship in which every spiritual blessing from God is given. We must be in Christ to enjoy them. But what does it mean to be in Christ? The answer of the New Testament is that our spirit must be united to Christ's Spirit by a commitment of faith in which we surrender our entire lives to Him. To be in Christ is to be as vitally connected to Him as the branch is to the stem of the vine, and as the body is to the head. All God's blessings flow through Christ to us. And it's absolutely important to understand this. This is where it all begins. If you or I are not spiritually united by faith in a living relationship with Jesus Christ, then none of the blessings of salvation can be ours. To be in Christ makes all the difference, my friends, between eternal loss and eternal gain, between heaven and hell, between life and death. So that's the second lesson to be gained from our text. To enjoy the blessings of God's salvation, we must put our faith in Christ. We must commit our lives by faith to Jesus Christ and be vitally and spiritually connected to Him so that He lives in us and we live in Him. Before I go any further, I must ask, are you united to Christ by faith like that? Amen. Vitally connected so that nothing can separate you from Him. Well, the third lesson we glean from verse three has to do with the essence of God's blessing. what it consists of. Now, as I have already intimated and hinted at, the essence of God's spiritual blessing in Christ is salvation. In chapter 1, verse 13, Paul says, In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. And in chapter two, verses five and six, he says, by grace you have been saved and raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ. The blessings of God in the heavenlies in Christ are due to an act of grace, sheer grace, in which God saves sinners who don't deserve such kindness. That is what grace means. It's mercy and kindness shown to the undeserving. It is God taking the initiative to save men and women who couldn't save themselves. Now, we today use the word salvation in so many senses that we are prone to lose sight of the essential gravity of meaning behind this word. Because to save someone, essentially, is to rescue them from some grave danger or imminent disaster. And we ask, well, what is the danger from which God's spiritual blessing in the heavenly saves us? And the answer is from the consequences of our sin, from its guilt and its condemnation. Take the threat of God's condemnation that our guilt and our sin has incurred. How does God save us from that condemnation? Well, in chapter 1 and verse 7, Paul says, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. That's the way God saves us from condemnation. providing a way to forgive our sins, to pardon us. And friends, our sins can only be forgiven if the just penalty which they deserve is met. And that penalty, scripture says, is eternal death for our body and our soul in hell. And that is precisely the penalty that Jesus bore when he died on the cross for all who believe in him. He took our place and he received in his own body and soul the full punishment our sins deserved. It was in that sense that he redeemed us. He was condemned so that we might be acquitted. He forfeited his life to pay the penalty to save ours. And as a result, chapter 2, verse 3, we who were by nature the children of wrath, who had nothing better to look forward to than God's wrath, we were pardoned. Children of wrath we were. But now, says Paul, God has saved us from that, and by contrast, and oh, what a contrast it is, He has adopted us as His sons and daughters to be His heirs. Chapter 1, verse 5, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ Himself according to the good pleasure of His will. Now, to appreciate what Paul is saying, we need to remember that in his day, people adopted adults, not babies. For if a rich man was coming towards the end of his life and he had no natural heir to which he could leave his wealth, he would look for someone outside his family worthy to be his heir. But as we have already seen, the startling thing in salvation is that God in his grace has chosen people who are not of proven worth to adopt. God has adopted wrongdoers. God has made rebels his enemies, his heirs. What amazing grace. It's grace greater than our sin. But friends, it doesn't stop there. Having adopted us, Paul says in verse 6, God has made us accepted in the Beloved. That is to say, just as acceptable to God as His Beloved Son. For God is not a man. He's not like you or me, who are capable of loving our adopted children less than our natural children. God does not love His adopted children in Christ less than He loves His only begotten Son. Jesus Christ, as the Nicene Creed says, is very God of very God. Begotten not made, but the Father does not love us any less than he loves his own natural Son. I mean, it boggles the mind, doesn't it? Indeed, it is the sheer glory of this that makes our Lord pray towards the end of his high priestly prayer in John chapter 17, Holy Father, I pray that the world may know that you have loved them as you have loved me. I say this is the spiritual blessing with which God has blessed us in the heavenlies, and its essence is salvation. For although he found us guilty and hostile in our sin, he set his love upon us and made us his adopted sons and daughters and heirs. And even now, friends, though you and I are still prone to sin and our service to Christ and to God is so shoddy, because of Calvary, God loves us no less. than he loves Jesus. Next, I want you to notice from verse 3 the completeness with which God's blessing has been given to us. For God, says Paul, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. What does Paul mean by the word every? Does he mean every spiritual blessing that you and I can think of or imagine? Well, that would be great, wouldn't it? But it wouldn't be enough. After all, our poor, finite, fallen minds are not able to ascertain all that our true spiritual needs are, or what our true spiritual needs are. Such a task can only be entrusted to God, who not only knows thoroughly what our spiritual needs are, but is both willing and able to meet them. Paul surely means then every spiritual blessing that God himself knows we need, and that far surpasses our thinking or imagining. Indeed, Paul clearly states this in chapter 3 and verse 20 when he commits us in prayer, I quote, to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think. The completeness of God's blessing is further emphasized and guaranteed in these first three chapters by its connection with His infinite riches. He has blessed us out of those infinite riches. Chapter 1, verse 7, in Christ we have redemption according to the riches of His grace. Chapter 2, verse 7, He speaks of the exceeding riches of God's grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. In chapter 3, 16, he prays for us to be strengthened with might in the inner man according to the riches of his glory. I say, God's spiritual blessing of salvation has to do with the greatness of His riches in glory. There is nothing partial about it. There is nothing temporary about it. It has been given to us with a completeness that will endure forever and ever. And now in the fifth place, five points to the sermon and the last one is the most important. The manner in which God's blessing has come to us. God, dear friends, has blessed us according to a perfectly and carefully thought out plan. And I say that because that is the implication of the past tense of the verb that Paul uses. God has blessed us. And by his use of the past tense, he is saying that the whole plan of salvation is already as good as done. Because, you see, God is sovereign. And when God purposes to do something, nothing can stop Him from carrying it out exactly as He originally planned. What He has resolved to do in eternity past, He will certainly accomplish in time. Nothing can hinder any part of His predetermined purpose from being carried out. Nothing. Of course, it hasn't been fully worked out yet or consummated yet. We still wait to be glorified and made perfect Paul can still speak of it in the past tense as if it has already happened. And twice in this chapter he speaks of it as having been predestined. What then is this plan of salvation? What is involved in this plan of salvation? Who are involved in this plan of salvation? Well, Paul sets it out before us here in its fullness in these eleven verses, the next eleven verses from verse three. It's a plan that begins and ends with God. Verse four. It begins with God, who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. And it ends, verses 6, 12, and 14, with everything in the end, in heaven, contributing to the praise of the glory of His grace. And Paul, in these verses, specifies what all three persons of the Godhead have done and are doing in working out this great plan of salvation. The Father choosing us for salvation, verse 4. The Son purchasing our salvation with His own blood, verse 7. And the Holy Spirit sealing and guaranteeing our possession of that salvation, verse 13. Now, in the remaining minutes, I want you to think about the three roles of the Godhead in our salvation. We begin with the work of God the Son, in whom, verse 7, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Now, I have already said that the work of Christ was to pay the necessary ransom to free us from the guilt and the penalty of our sin, so that Jesus paid that debt when he died in our place on the cross and experienced the God-forsakenness of hell for you and for me. And if we ask, why did God the Son do that? The only answer that Paul can give is in Galatians 2, where he says, the Son of God loved me, and he loved you, and he gave himself for me, says Paul, and he gave himself for you. And if we ask why he loved such sinful, undeserving wretches like ourselves, we can only reply, because his father set his love upon us before the foundation of the world. In Jeremiah 31, God the Father speaks of His everlasting love. He says, I have loved you with an everlasting love and drawn you with loving kindness. And because God is one God, both the Father and the Son loved us from the very beginning, when there was nothing to call forth their love. Only the reverse. Thus Paul can say in Romans 5, God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is our hope and this is our glory. We live, like Paul, by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. Now, let's look at the work of God the Holy Spirit. If the work of God the Son was to procure, to purchase salvation, then the work of God the Spirit is to apply it, if you like, to sell it to us today. Verse 13, In Christ you also trusted. Well, how did you come to trust in Christ? Only through the Holy Spirit. In Christ you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. It's the Holy Spirit's work to convict us of sin and to draw us to Christ. Jesus said, I will send him to you and when he has come he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. So, when the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, and many Jews refused to believe in Christ, Stephen accused them of resisting the Holy Spirit, because that's his work, to convict sinners and bring them to Christ. They were resisting the Holy Spirit. But to the 3,000 who were convicted, Peter said, Repent and believe, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit convicts of sin, and then He comes into our hearts to save us. And He saves us not just for time, but for eternity. Without the Holy Spirit indwelling us as our helper, we will lack the power to live the Christian life. But with Him as our helper, our salvation is secure, which is why Paul goes on to say in verse 13, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. That is to say, God's gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell us is a seal or mark of divine ownership which guarantees that we will be kept safe until Christ returns to claim His purchased possession. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. He bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and He enables us in our intercessions to cry to God and pray, Abba, Father, our own dear Father. That's His work of sealing. Now, to be sure, there is more to the doctrine of sealing than that, because assurance can be lost. Indeed, assurance of salvation ought to be forfeited when a Christian backslides into persistent unrepentant sin. And if an unrepentant backslider is unconcerned about his or her spiritual condition, I want to say it is not the Holy Spirit who is giving them assurance. The Holy Spirit only gives assurance of salvation to those who are faithfully following Christ, who keep on daily repenting of their sins and believing in Christ. Of course, sometimes the witness of the Holy Spirit, the assurance of the Holy Spirit is going to be stronger than at other times. But friends, at no time will a committed Christian lack assurance of their salvation. That is what Paul is saying in verse 13. The work of God the Spirit not only regenerates and sanctifies a Christian, but also assures him or her of salvation. Now, lastly, we come to the most difficult work of the three to understand. The work of God the Father in election. However much You and I may try to wiggle out of it. Election is what in our hearts we really know it is. God's sovereign right to select some, but not all, for grace and for glory. Just as it is our sovereign right to select some for adoption, but not all. Moreover, the Bible makes it clear that those whom God has not chosen have no wish to be chosen, no wish to come to Jesus Christ and give up their sin in order to follow Him. In fact, they are only too happy to be left alone so that they can get on with their lives without any interference on the part of God. God offers eternal life to whoever will believe in Christ, but they persist in their unbelief, because worshipping God in heaven forever and ever is the dullest life they could ever imagine. In other words, damnation is all of man. Sinners only come to Christ in faith Sorry, I should say, it is their determined preference and choice to stay on that broad road that leads to destruction. Conversely, however, salvation is all of God. Sinners only come to Christ in faith. Because God, in his mercy, before the foundation of the world, chose to draw them freely to Jesus Christ. At great and infinite cost to himself, God chose to love and save us despite our ill-desert. It's a miracle of grace, I say, which should forever humble and thrill us. Election, friends, is not something to puzzle over, but something to give thanks and praise for. That's how we think of our spouse's love, isn't it? She could have chosen many others, but she chose me, wonder of wonders. And it's something you and I never get over, do we? Well, that's how we should think of our relationship to God. especially if we want to experience the comfort of God in the doctrine of election, which is a difficult doctrine to say the least. But the old illustration is still the best. When the gospel comes to a sinner, It is as if he or she is invited to go through a door into a large banqueting hall. And over the door on the outside are written the words, Whosoever will come in, come. And when he or she goes through the door, they enter this sumptuous banquet of salvation. And then, as he or she looks back at the door through which they have come, they see written on the inside, chosen in Him, before the foundation of the world. That is how our salvation has come to us. And as I say, it should call forth not just praise from our lips, but also grateful service. from our lives. May your response and mine be that of Robert Murray McChain when he wrote these words in one of his fine hymns. Chosen not for good in me, wakened up from wrath to flee, hidden in the Saviour's side by the Spirit sanctified. Teach me, Lord, on earth to show By my love, how much I owe. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for this poor rehearsal of the great spiritual blessings that are ours in the heavenlies in Christ. Thank you for blessing us with these great spiritual riches out of your riches of glory. And Father, we pray that if there is someone who is unsure of the salvation, who is not confident that they have become an heir of these great blessings, we pray that You will continue by the Holy Spirit doing your gracious work of drawing them to Jesus Christ until at last they fall at his feet, cast themselves upon his mercy, and cry to him for salvation. To us, our Father, our prayer as already intimated is, help us on earth to show, by our love, how much we owe for your salvation. Hear our prayer, for Jesus' sake. Amen.