He Giveth and Giveth and Giveth Again!

Ephesians 1: 5- No 3

I have this opinion. I don’t know if it is true.

Those who are taught do this or make sure you are doing the right things or God will be mad at them or even lose their salvation, live less holy lives.

And those who are taught grace and election and that there salvation is secure and there is nothing we can to merit salvation or keep it, live holier lives.

In my opinion when we concentrate too much on what we should be doing as believers, the less secure we feel and the more we sin.

But the opposite is also true the more I concentrate or meditate on the grace of God, the more Godly I become.

Those who are worried that grace will produce an attitude of license to sin don’t understand either human nature, the principle of the law or the power of Grace.

Now I am repeating myself.

If I am saved by grace and all my sins are paid for past present and future, then I can do anything I want.

A true believer never sees grace like this nor does this person have a clue as to what God has done for them.

Grace, to true believers overwhelms our hearts with Love and Gratitude.

I. The work of the Trinity

1. Verse 3). Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1), who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

What are those Blessings? We will see that the whole Godhead, the Trinity is involved in those spiritual blessing.

I am going to give you big theological names but they are good to know them.

A. The Father electing. Vs4 God the Father is the source of every blessing we enjoy. So this is what God did.

1. Election He chose me before the world was created.

4.) just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

So when you feel arrogant of your faith remember it was God who chose you. We do not do the choosing. Left to ourselves we would never choose God.

OH thank you God for choosing me! How humbling.

This is the doctrine of election and right doctrines should produce right behavior. Wrong teaching brings wrong ideas about God and thus wrong behavior

So I must say this beware and make sure you test all that I say, I am not perfect yet! I am just a man with limited knowledge.

Slide 2. Sanctification: His choosing always includes a choosing to holiness and blamelessness 4.) just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

Two type of sanctification Positional and progressive

I am reminded of the illustration of the man who by inheritance was the owner of a very successful bank. But he did not know it. He wandered the street like a beggar while all the time was in fact wealthy. The idea is for us to get our life to look like our position.

To live holy as we were preordained to do and it will come as we contemplate and meditate on the grace of God. Our focus is on the God and not the work. Our focus is in being faithful to spend time in prayer and the study of the word of God. At the same time we do that God will make our spiritual way prosperous.

You say impossible. God says this is what I have called you to. He changes your heart to be like His. He gives us a new nature. The problem then becomes for most of us getting what I desire in my inner man to work out in the outer man.

I say I love God but am so easily pulled away by my flesh.

But if you think you cannot change you are wrong and don’t understand the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. You see we are changing. The Holy Spirit’s job is to reproduce the life in Christ in us.

So as long as you look to your own self for that possibility, forget it. But if we will look to God to do the impossible, we will grow and we will become holy and blameless.

As far as God is concerned, we are holy because Jesus paid for all of our sins past present and future. Holiness is both positional and practical. Our position is as saints our walk is one of becoming more like Him daily. The Bible is clear that our walk needs to match our calling. So,

Don’t be like the children of Israel who looked at the impossible giants in the land and then failed to enter into the rest of God, who died in the wilderness never seeing the land of promise. The Christian life is a life of faith that means trusting no matter what.

3. Foreknowledge: His choosing is not based on previous knowledge.

a. Rom 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,

a. This foreknowledge has a sense of intimacy in it. It is like fore-loving and deliberating counsel. God had deliberated to bring Jesus to the cross before the universe began.

What kind of God chooses based on previous knowledge? What kind of love is that?

That’s not really choosing anyway.

No, God out of love predestined us, chose us to be His before the world was ever created. We are selected before based on His fore-loving.

It is a choice of Sovereign Grace, not based on any merit of our own or a peek down history looking to see who will believe.

It is unconditional selection.

In love (5) He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

Rom 8:30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

4. Grace: His choice is not based on our merit

Tit 3:4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,

Tit 3:5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

You see we are totally depraved. There is none that seeks after God no not one all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Tit 3:6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

Tit 3:7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

5. Adoption: He gave us all the rights of an adult children way before the world was created.

In love (5) He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

When you are a foster child you really have no right to an in heritance. God has not brought me into His family to just care for me but to given me all the legal rights as an adult son

1. And it only cost me $50 dollars

(6) to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us (His Grace) in the Beloved. (He graced us with His grace)

6. Redemption and forgiveness: I was bought back by God

(7) In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace (8) which He lavished on us.

2Ki 5:13 But his servants came near and said to him, "My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?"

2Ki 5:14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Ki 5:15 Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant."

2Ki 5:16 But he said, "As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none." And he urged him to take it, but he refused.

2Ki 5:26 But he said to him, "Did not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants?

2Ki 6:20 As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, "O LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see." So the LORD opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

2Ki 6:21 As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, "My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?"

2Ki 6:22 He answered, "You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master."

2Ki 6:23 So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.

7. He let us know a great mystery.

This mystery was that God was going to bring into one body Jews and gentiles and make a new man, a new society if you will.

In all wisdom and insight (9) He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him (10) with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

8. We are getting an inheritance

In Him (11) also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will,

We have been given all this by His own pleasure and will not by ours, but that doesn’t mean we were not active in this Eph 1:12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

Eph 1:13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed

Those are some great blessings from God.

1. Chosen before the world was created

2. Not based on previous knowledge but by His kind intention

3. Not based on our good works or merit or even our class or nationality

4. He adopted us

5. We are redeemed

6. He let us in on His secret

7. We get an inheritance

The dream of lost identity: I was in front of this group to justify buying a computer monitor. I didn’t know who I was. There was my boss with me and he didn’t seem to help.

I want you to know that though you may not act perfectly saintly, regardless you are a saint, a child of God, a child of the King

How secure are you?

How appreciative are you?

How blessed are you?

How thankful are you?

So there really nothing for us to do to earn it or merit it and but to just rest in His love. And allow Him to have His way in your life.

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B. The Son Redeeming

How do I get all these blessings from the Father? They come through believing on His Son

In 14 verses there are 15 or so verse referring to Christ. You see we are believers or saints who are in Christ. We are in Christ that is what the real meaning of baptism is that we are planted together in Christ; we are united with Him. We are immersed in Him; we are in Christ.

Before we were in Adam’s family a fallen humanity, now we are in Christ’s family, a redeemed family. It is in the Beloved hat we have all these blessings of the Father.

1. Chosen. Chosen to be His and to be holy and blameless

(4) just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

He chose us not just to become believers be to become holy and blameless. Blameless is to have a good reputation.

This is the work of God in us. This is God’s work, we just need to co-operate with Him. This is not human works. It is the work of God in our lives.

2. Redemption

(7) In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace (8) which He lavished on us.

Redemption what is it? Redemption is to “buy back” I guess the most used illustration that I remember is the story of a boy who had made a really nice sail boat, but the wind got a hold of it and he lost in the lake. Years later he went into a pawnshop and low and behold he saw his boat, He could just say this is my boat he had to buy it back.

We are God’s children but we went astray and God is buying us back with the price of His own blood. And when we trust in Him we receive forgiveness.

3. Forgiveness

Psa 32:1 A Psalm of David. A Maskil. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!

In Him the Jewish believers became God’s children and in Him the gentile believers became God’s children.

In Him (11) also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will,

(12) to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory

C. The Spirit sealing

8. The we were given a pledge

Eph 1:12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

Eph 1:13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,

Eph 1:14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Eph 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

Eph 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

So who and what does that make me?