REMEMBERING OUR RICHES 2021
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Introduction
Introduction
-{Ephesians 1}
-Suppose you’re walking along the streets of a big city and you see a man living in box on street. You want to help the man, so you begin a conversation with him. You want to get to know him, so you ask him some questions.
You ask, “What’s your name?” And he replies, “Well, I don’t remember.”
You ask, “Where are you from?” He answers, “I don’t remember that either.”
You ask him, “What happened to you?” And again the reply comes, “I don’t remember that either.” He goes on to say, “All I know is that one day I woke up lying in the street with a big headache. I don’t know who I am, where I’m from, what I used to do. So, I’ve ended up living in the streets.”
You offer to help, so you begin to look through the man’s effects. You take his picture with your smart phone and use one of them fancy face-recognition apps to see if it can help you identity the guy.
After all the digging around, you put the pieces of the puzzle together. The man is Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chair of Amazon.
You tell him, “Man, you’re Jeff Bezos. You’re one of the richest men on earth. You’ve got mansions and cars and planes and all sorts of other stuff.”
The problem is that he has amnesia. He is rich, but he doesn’t know he’s rich, so he can’t enjoy the riches that he has.
-Wouldn’t it be sad if you had all those riches, but you completely forgot that you had all those riches and you’re living well below what you truly possess.
~As strange as that sounds, most Christians live their life that way. Christians are immensely rich, but they are living well below their spiritual means.
-You might be thinking, “You say Christians are rich, but my bank accounts say otherwise.” But that’s not the riches I’m talking about. If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you are immensely rich in the eternal sense. Spiritually, you possess everything your need—you lack nothing. But most of us have forgotten about the spiritual wealth that God has given us.
-By your position in Christ and the spiritual possessions He freely gives, you have all you need for a victorious Christian life, but we might live defeated lives because we forgot who we are and what we have. And so, today, I want us to remember our riches and live in victory in light of those riches.
-We just celebrated Thanksgiving, and now we are going into the Christmas season. What better time than now to be reminded of the things we ought to be thankful for, and the gifts that God has so freely given.
-In our passage, Paul tells the Ephesian church how blessed they are in Christ and gives ideas about the kind of riches we have. It is a great reminder for us that God has blessed us in Christ, and we are able to live in victory because of those blessings.
READ Ephesians 1:1-3
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 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,
-Paul begins with great praises to God. He says, BLESSED BE GOD! That word BLESSED means to be inherently worthy of praise. Why is God worthy of praise? Paul says it’s because God BLESSED US IN CHRIST WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING. God has shown unmerited favor on us and showered us with gifts and riches.
-But Paul doesn’t say that God has blessed us with some spiritual blessings or a few spiritual blessings. He says God has blessed with EVERY / ALL spiritual blessings. God has given us every single blessing that we need for victorious Christian life (in our position and in our possession).
-Paul says to the church as a whole and to all Christians individually, God has made you rich (not in the usual sense of the term). But he goes on to describe those riches and I want us to consider those riches—a point of thanksgiving during the Thanksgiving season, and a reminder of the types of gifts we receive from the Christ-child born on Christmas morning.
1) Our riches are spiritual, not material
1) Our riches are spiritual, not material
-So, just for fun, I looked up Jeff Bezos’ net worth. As of November 18th, his estimated net worth is over $226 billion dollars. He is considered the richest man in the world. Let’s face it, the guy is stinking rich. And that’s exactly how the world sees him.
~And yet, with all that money and with all that stuff that he has, he doesn’t even come close to the riches that a Christian possesses. If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you are richer than Jeff Bezos.
-You might disagree with that but it’s because we are measuring wealth in the wrong way—we’re thinking materially. We begin thinking in terms of material things we have or don’t have. In America we think that the more stuff we have the richer we are, so we try to accumulate more stuff to satisfy ourselves (or so we think). But, in light of eternity, stuff doesn’t make you rich.
~What good is it to gain the whole world and yet lose your own soul. If Jeff Bezos doesn’t repent and believe in Jesus Christ, all his stuff don’t matter. He is poorer than a street urchin in India without Christ.
-Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with stuff. I have stuff, you have stuff, you may have gone Black Friday shopping to look for stuff, but our stuff doesn’t make us rich. Paul says that God has BLESSED US WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING. This is partially in contrast with the material, and partially a reminder of the source, because it also speaks of the Holy Spirit Himself. We are blessed spiritually because we are blessed with the Holy Spirit and all the benefits of being indwelt by God.
-If you think your stuff is neat, how much better is the fact that Almighty God is within you with all His power and honor and glory. If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit indwells you and lives a powerful spiritual life through you. Everything that you need for a successful, satisfying Christian life is yours.
-Now, if you don’t have the Holy Spirit that means you’re not a Christian and don’t have eternal life, and you are truly poor. Paul says:
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Romans 8:9 ESV)
~But listen, if you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the One who created the universe, sustains the universe, and owns every single thing in the universe, dwells within you. Can you imagine being any richer than that?
-One author stated this:
The real measure of our wealth is how much we’d be worth if we lost all our money.
~If you’re a Christian, you can lose all your material things and still be richer than anybody else on the earth because your riches are spiritual and not material. Paul also has this to say about our riches:
2) Our riches are heavenly, not earthly
2) Our riches are heavenly, not earthly
-What does Paul say? God has BLESSED US WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES
~Paul is speaking about the transcendent world of the spiritual, especially in the place we call heaven where God’s throne is located and from where Christ rules. Our riches come from the throne of God, not from the puny planet earth.
-We can’t look at the earth and the things of the earth and think that our riches come from here. If we are born-again Christians, this world is not our home, we are just passing through. We are actually citizens of heaven and that is where our eternal riches of inheritance are located.
-Unbelievers look to gain all that they can from their short stint on earth because that is all they have. All they have is right here in the right now. Jesus calls them CHILDREN OF THE WORLD because that’s all they have to live for. They try to store up all they can right now because when they die they have nothing in the next world (except wrath and judgment and torment)
-But that’s not the Christian. We know that our true treasure and riches are centered in heaven with our Savior. That being the case, that is where our attention and affections ought to be centered. Paul says this:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1–3 ESV)
~Put your mind and thinking where your true riches are (invest yourself and your time and your energy and your resources where your true riches are)—in heaven with Christ.
-So, let’s imagine I am super rich and all of my riches come from stock that I have in McDonald’s—I own millions of stocks in McD’s. How silly it would be if every morning I look at the online news and all I look at is stock in Burger King and Wendy’s, but I completely ignore McDonald’s, and then for lunch every day I go to Burger King and for dinner I go to Wendy’s but I never visit McDonald’s. My riches are in McDonald’s and yet I completely ignore McDonald’s. Everything I am doing is completely self-defeating.
-Yet, how many Christians whose riches are in heaven live their whole life building into this world, investing into this world, and completely ignore the heavenly.
-I don’t care how much money and stuff you have on this earth, if you’re a Christian and your wealth is in the heavenlies, wouldn’t it benefit you to invest in the heavenly…in the spiritual?
-Listen to what Paul has to say about what Christ did for us in the spiritual and heavenly:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV)
~Jesus, God the Son, left the glory and riches of heaven, took on human flesh with a poor family on earth, and died in our place on the cross. For what? So that we could build an earthly empire? So that we could invest our time and resources on things of earth to gain earthly riches?
~No! Christ died for us so that through Him we would be rich in the things of the heavenlies. If your time and effort is spent trying to build for yourself earthly riches, you are poor because you have forgotten where your true riches come from. If you are a Christian, they are in the heavenlies.
3) Our riches are in Christ, not self
3) Our riches are in Christ, not self
-We humans love to pride ourselves for our independent spirits, that we can do all things by ourselves and for ourselves. We boast that we don’t need anyone else for anything but can do it by ourselves because we’re innovative and smart.
-But that is a real dangerous place to be. There is nothing we can do independently from God. This is true in every area, but especially the spiritual area because if we think that we can find the riches of heavenly glory all by ourselves, we will find ourselves separated from the very one we claim to be searching for.
-Paul said that God BLESSED US IN CHRIST. That phrase packs so much. It is the key phrase in the book of Ephesians and one of the key phrases in all of the Bible—IN CHRIST.
~Within that little phrase we see Jesus as the only means of salvation and blessing, the instrument used of God for salvation and blessing, and the location where we have to find ourselves for salvation and blessing.
-This might be the most important point. It reminds me of the #1 rule of real estate: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. And the same goes for the spiritual—your spiritual location means everything.
-Think of it this way. Right now you are in the Harvest Baptist Church building. After the service, you will walk to your car and be outside of the Harvest Baptist Church building. Now spiritually, when you are converted by faith and repentance you are placed in union with Christ in such a way that God sees your location as always being in Christ. But unlike the Harvest Baptist Church building, once you are in Christ you never leave. You are always in Christ.
~So, when God sees you, He sees you covered with Christ and your sins are taken care of by Christ. Your legal standing before God is one of righteousness because you are in Christ, the righteous one. But if you are not in Christ, if you are outside of Christ, you are lost.
-In the spiritual realm you can only be in one of two places—you are either in Christ or outside of Christ, you are either saved or lost, according to Romans 5 you are either in the First Adam or you are in the Last Adam.
-In Christ you are rich, outside of Christ you are poor. So, if you are outside of Christ it doesn’t matter how many cars or stocks or mansions or dollars you have—you are poor. Only in Christ is there true riches.
-You know, around the world there may be some who are IN CHURCH or they are IN SUNDAY SCHOOL or they are IN THE BIBLE or they are IN CHRISTIAN HOMES, but they are lost and separated from God because they are not IN CHRIST. And until you surrender to Him by faith and repentance, you will always be on the outside and poor.
-You are only a true Christian when you are in Christ, and then you possess those spiritual, heavenly riches and can have the victorious Christian life God wants for you. And if you are a Christian, don’t forget the riches that you do have, and give thanks for them, and praise Him for these marvelous gifts.
Conclusion
Conclusion
-I’ll close with this:
Scientists learned that ducks soon imprint after birth, meaning that they attach to and act like the first thing that they see after hatching from the egg—whatever they see is what they think they are. And that’s fine because usually they first see mama duck.
~But sometimes it also backfires. There was a mother collie dog that found a duck egg, watched it, and it hatched. The duckling saw the collie and thought that it was its mother so it followed it around, ran to it for protection and slept with it through the night. The duckling spent the hot part of the day under the porch with the dog. When a car pulled up the driveway, along with the dog, the duck would run out from the porch quacking viciously at the car, trying to peck at the tires. The duck thought that it was a dog.
-Christians sometimes act differently than what they really are because they forgot who they are and what they have in Christ. Too often we live for the material when we are rich in the spiritual. Too often we live for the earth even though we are citizens of heaven. Too often we live for self when our new location is in Christ. My prayer is that we remember who we are and the riches you possess.
-Now, it’s all well and good that I described these riches in that way, but you might be wondering what the riches actually are that we have in Christ. That’s the neat part, they are too many to list here and now. And here is the fun part, you get to look for them and search for them in Scripture. It’s like a treasure hunt. You get into Scripture every day and you learn exactly how rich you really are, and then you decide that you are going to live according to those riches.
~Immerse yourself in the Word, learn who you are in Christ, and choose to live like it because everything that the Bible says is true about people who are in Christ is true of you if indeed you are in Christ.
-Christian, maybe you live defeated because you forgot how rich you are. Come to the altar and pray God reminds you of all your possessions in Christ.
-But maybe there are some here who are still spiritually poor because they are not in Christ…