Blessings from the Father

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Well, the passage we’re going to study this morning brought a story to mind, but I just got the strangest, overwhelming feeling that I’ve told the story before. Well, I take that back. I know I’ve told the story before, but I get the strangest feeling I’ve told the story here before.

I don’t remember doing it, but you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You know the feeling. So if I’ve told the story, if you’ve heard it before, you’ll just have to forgive me.

There was a trip that my family and I took a little mini vacation a couple of years ago where we decided we were going to go down to Texas and spend a few days and just do a few random things, kind of base out of a hotel in Fort Worth and go do some various things. And my kids are very much into dinosaurs, especially Benjamin, but all of them. I don’t know if Carly Jo likes them or not.

But the ones who were around at that time really loved dinosaurs. And so we had sort of planned that trip around. I mean, they have gone on enough trips where I have dragged them to some wide spot in the road where something happened hundreds of years ago.

And we go look at stuff like that that interests me. I thought, we’re going to plan a trip that they’ll like. And so we had planned on going to some dinosaur-related things.

There’s a little town a little way southwest of Fort Worth that has a creation museum and has some dinosaur tracks down at a riverbed. Some of you may have been there for this. We ended up going to both of those in one day.

We planned on making it two different trips. But when we realized how close they were together, we said, well, there’s no point in driving all the way back out here two days in a row. We’ll just make both trips together.

and we’d only planned to go to the museum, so we were not dressed for a hike down to the dry creek bed in Texas in July on that white sandstone, sun beating down and beating back up on you. It was just miserable. But we knew Benjamin especially was going to love these dinosaur tracks.

And, Charlie, I can’t remember if you were pregnant or if we just had Charlie. Okay, so it was either she, I couldn’t remember in the story if she was pregnant and trying to hike down to the riverbed or if she was pushing a stroller down to the riverbed. Okay, so we had Charlie and she was pregnant with Carly Jo.

So nobody was having a good time. That’s the point here. Nobody was having a great time, but we knew, and like I said, none of us were dressed for a hike, but we knew it was going to be neat when we got down to the dinosaur tracks.

The hike down was miserable, but we knew that was going to be cool. So we got down there to the dinosaur tracks, and I’m explaining to Benjamin what made these big footprints in the sandstone. And he sees one of them, and he says, that’s neat, what’s next?

I won’t lie to you. I won’t lie to you. Strapping him to the top of the vehicle to go back to the hotel went through my mind as what could be next.

Oh, I was so mad at him. Come to find out later, that’s not exactly how he meant it. But it came across very much as, yeah, this was neat, but so what have you done for me lately?

You know, and we run across people with that attitude. Sometimes we can even have that attitude. Well, this was nice.

That was great what you did for me five minutes ago. But what have you done for me lately? We can even have that attitude with God if we’re not careful.

I mean, we realize that God has blessed us, but what’s he done for us lately? When in the scriptures we can see that God has blessed us abundantly, everything that we have, every good thing that we have is a gift from him. James said that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights who does not change like shifting shadows.

God is a God who gives good gifts. And you may be sitting there this morning saying, well, what has he given me?

well it appears you all have clothes to wear and vehicles to get here food to eat we have air to breathe none of us are turning blue right now these are all gifts from God we did not make those things happen I know sometimes we like to think we’re self-sufficient well I worked for everything I’ve got who gave you the legs that work who gave you the back who gave you the brain and the hands and all the things to be able to work with every good and perfect gift is from God and you know he gives these he blesses all of us in abundance with these things I know sometimes we don’t feel very blessed we think about all the things we don’t have all the things that we would like to have we have to realize too though that the poorest of us here are still some of the wealthiest people in the world and god has blessed us abundantly whether we serve him or not he’s blessed us abundantly jesus said he causes that the father causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the and the unrighteous.

God blesses the whole world with his gifts. We can still easily fall into that mindset. God, I know you’ve blessed over here, but what have you done for me lately?

We can forget about how abundantly God blesses us. And his greatest blessings that he gives us are his spiritual blessings. I’m not just saying that because I’m the preacher and I’m supposed to talk to you about non-material things.

I really believe that because God can bless us with material things and guess what? We have a great life and then we go into eternity separated from him and it won’t matter how great our life was. The spiritual blessings are going to last a whole lot longer than any material blessing.

That’s why I think the spiritual blessings are the greatest blessings that he gives us. And the last thing that we want to do is get so focused on the material things that we lack or even non-material things that we lack in this life to the point where we ignore the abundant spiritual blessings that God has given us and start thinking, well, God, what have you done for me lately? I don’t have this.

I don’t have this. My children act like this. God, what have you done for me lately?

Well, the truth is God has done a lot for us. And Ephesians chapter one deals with a lot of these spiritual blessings. Over the next three weeks or so, I want to take some time to look at the blessings that God gives us, the blessings of salvation that are spelled out in Ephesians chapter 1.

A lot of times we think of salvation as just, okay, I got saved and now I’m going to heaven. That’s salvation. There’s so much more to salvation.

There’s so much more to the blessings of God in salvation than just heaven. Although it seems inappropriate to say just heaven because heaven, heaven is, from the descriptions in scripture, heaven’s going to be amazing. But even as amazing as that is, there’s still more, and there’s still more for us here and now in terms of these spiritual blessings from God.

So we’re going to spend some time in Ephesians chapter 1 looking at these spiritual blessings. And Ephesians chapter 1 really is Paul spending some time praising God, spending some time praising God for his spiritual blessings. He’s writing to the church at Ephesus, but he’s writing about what God has done.

It’s a lot like when we sing songs of praise for what he’s done for us. Paul’s writing his praise. He’s writing to the Ephesians and talking about how amazing, how incredible God is for these blessings that he’s given.

Today, I want us to look at verses 1 through 6, and in particular, we’re going to focus in on verses 3 through 6 and some of the blessings that the Father gives to the believer. Now, in each of these three weeks, we’ll look at the different persons of the Trinity. We’ll see the blessings the Father gives in salvation.

Next week, we’ll see the blessings the Son gives in salvation, and we’ll see in two weeks, Lord willing, I mean the schedule can change, but we’ll see in two weeks the blessings that we receive from the Holy Spirit as a part of salvation. This morning, we’re going to start in verse 1, go through verse 6. It says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will to the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the beloved one. And what we need to understand here to begin with, he’s going through this list of things that the Father has done, these blessings that accompany salvation, and we need to understand from the get-go that the Father has blessed us abundantly in salvation.

It’s not just one thing he’s given us. There’s a whole package of blessings, of spiritual blessings, that accompany salvation. And Paul wants God to be glorified in the church at Ephesus for that.

He says, blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some translations will say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Either way, he’s invoking a blessing upon God. God has given us these gifts. God has blessed us in this way.

And because of this, God deserves all the praise that we can offer him. Now, God deserves all the praise we could offer, whether he’d ever done anything for us or not, just because of who he is. But this gives us all the more reason to praise him, to glorify him, to bless his name because of what he’s done for us.

We need to understand that the Father blesses us abundantly in salvation. In verse 3, it says, He’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. now think about that phrase for just a moment every spiritual blessing in the heavens consider what it would be to to be in the throne room of god okay to see god in throne we’ve talked about that a little bit on wednesday nights in revelation 4 and isaiah 6 to see to get this glimpse of god on his throne and see him in all his glory and all his power and to understand all the blessings that are within his hand to give and you can’t limit the hand of god so if we could theoretically see all this and we could theoretically make a list of all the blessings that God has to offer, all the spiritual blessings that God has to offer, everything that’s within his power to give.

Paul says he’s blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. He has given it to us. Everything there is to give spiritually, he has given to us in Christ Jesus.

He’s given it to us. Now, I want to be very clear. There are several places where I’m going to tell you today, I want to be very clear on what this is saying and what this is not saying.

I may not use that exact terminology. But when I say God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, I am not talking about a name it, claim it, faith, where you just say, oh, God, I want you to bless me with a Mercedes. Now, is that a spiritual blessing?

Come on. You might think it’s a spiritual blessing until you see what it’s going to cost to insure that thing. Right?

No, I’m not talking about wealth. I’m not talking about you just name it and you claim it and God will make you healthy. No, I’m talking about spiritual blessings, the things that lead to us being more like Jesus Christ, the things that we know are God’s will for us to have.

And Paul said he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ Jesus. He’s given it all to us. Now, these blessings include, I don’t think for a minute that this is the whole list, But he gives us some examples of the blessings that the Father’s given us in salvation.

He says, and we’re going to take these one at a time, he says in verse 4, the Father chose us. Here’s another area where I want to be very careful. Because people have different ideas about what this means.

As a matter of fact, I was working on this message one day this week. It got time to go home. I got in my truck.

I plugged in my phone for my podcast, listened to one of my favorite Bible teachers, Alistair Begg, who was preaching on this exact passage, and I thought, well, there’s an odd coincidence, and he was talking about his belief that God has chosen some people for heaven and some people for hell. I want you to understand, I’m not trying to put anybody down for a difference of opinion. I love listening to the teaching of Alistair Begg.

I love listening to John MacArthur. They both believe something along those lines, and I don’t see that in scripture. I understand why they see it.

But as I read it, that’s not what I understand it to be saying. So I want to be very careful that you understand when I say he chose us, actually I didn’t say he chose us. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said he chose us.

I don’t believe that that means he chose some people for salvation and some for damnation before the foundation of the world. Now, I absolutely believe God knew who would be saved and who wouldn’t. God knew who would take advantage of the mercy that he offered, but I don’t believe that God, before the world began, said, yeah, I pick you, I pick you, no, you’re out of luck, no matter what you do or what you believe, I’m not going to let you believe.

I don’t understand the scriptures to teach that, okay? I understand a lot of people do, and some of them are way smarter than I am, but I’m not accountable to other people I listen to, I’m accountable to God and how I understand his words. So that’s what I’m going to tell you.

I do believe the Bible teaches that he chose. I do believe the Bible teaches election. The Bible teaches predestination.

Both of those concepts are taught in this passage. But I understand them differently than those guys do. And by the way, I’m not alone in that.

There are others who believe this way. But I don’t believe when he says the Father chose us in verse 4 that he’s saying the Father said, and you go to heaven, and you go to heaven, now you’re in hell, and I’m making sure not to point directly at anybody when I say that. I don’t believe that’s the kind of choosing that he’s talking about.

In a very simple sense, it says he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. I believe that in reading that phrase, the emphasis is not on the us, but on the in Christ. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. I read this week where somebody was using the example of a team and coaches to explain this concept.

It made a lot of sense. So as we’re talking about these things, I believe the choosing and the election, if you want to think about it in terms of team Jesus, those who belong to him, those who are going to heaven, those who are saved, if you want to think of it in terms of team Jesus, I believe that election in the Bible and God choosing doesn’t refer to who is going to be on Team Jesus. It refers to the fact that God is going to have a Team Jesus.

Predestination, I don’t believe, says God said ahead of time who was going to be on Team Jesus, although I believe he knew. I believe predestination means what God’s plans were from before the foundation of the world for what he was going to do with Team Jesus. Does that make any sense at all?

Some of you? Yes. Okay.

When he said he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, the way I understand that choosing is that God chose us in the sense that he was under no obligation to have any kind of relationship with any of us, and yet he chose to. God did not have to save anyone, but God made the choice that he was going to save us in Jesus, in Christ Jesus, And he made that decision before the foundation of the world. What is the choosing?

I believe it was to have anything to do with any of us and to offer salvation to any of us. Because if we understand, he was under no obligation to save us. He did not owe us that salvation.

He didn’t owe us any of that. It was just because of his goodness and his kindness and his mercy that he chose to offer salvation. So again, there are some brilliant people who think that God chose individuals.

As I read this, I understand it to mean God chose to offer salvation. The emphasis is not on the us that he chose, but the emphasis is on the in Christ being what he chose. And he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world to redeem a people to himself.

Now, why is that a spiritual blessing? Because again, you go back to the concept that God didn’t owe us salvation. When we sinned, God could have easily written us off and he would have been totally justified in doing so if he’d looked at us and said, oh, you like your sin so much?

Fine, rain on you, as my grandfather used to say. I’m done with you. God would have been completely justified if that had been his response to our sin.

But instead, God chose to show mercy and offer salvation. That’s a spiritual blessing because that is a gift that we did not earn or deserve that God gave to us simply out of his kindness. The fact that he was willing to have anything to do with any of us.

The fact that he chose to have a people for himself. The idea of choice here stresses the kindness of God, that he was willing to have anything to do with us at all. So you need to know this morning, if you’re a believer, if you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior, you need to understand what an amazing thing it was that God chose to offer salvation to you when he was under no obligation to do it.

I need to move on from that because I could easily spend all morning trying to explain that. But in the same verse, verse 4, one of these other blessings is that the Father declares us holy and blameless. Show of hands.

Anybody in here holy and blameless? I mean, in our behavior. I know somebody’s going to say, well, the Word says we are.

I get that. I get that and good on you for standing on God’s Word. But in our behavior, anybody in here holy?

Keep them up. Anybody blameless? No, we understand we’re not.

We understand in a behavioral sense we’re not. And yet God’s word tells us that in a legal sense, in a positional sense, God has said you’re holy and you’re blameless because I’ve declared you to be. It’s like a pardon from the governor or a pardon from the president.

Does it mean that somebody wasn’t guilty of the crime they were convicted of? No, they absolutely did it. Behaviorally, they are guilty.

But as far as the law is concerned, clean slate. And he declares us to be holy and blameless. That means that we are in the court of God’s justice, we are declared not guilty.

That sin can no longer be held against us. And holy goes even a step further and says we have been set apart and we have been marked as belonging to him. And what this means is for him to declare us holy and blameless, it means that our standing with him is not dependent on our behavior.

That doesn’t, I’m not telling you go wild and behave however you want. We’re talking about that in the book of Jude on Sunday nights right now. That doesn’t mean go, go sin as much as you want because it’s under the blood.

That’s, that’s a, that’s a good indication. You may not have actually ever been born again, but it means that because he’s declared us holy, we can look at it and say, you know, I messed up the other day and my behavior says that I am that sin. My behavior identifies me with that sin, but the Word of God here, which has more authority than what I think, has said, no, you’re holy because you’re His.

He’s declared you blameless. He’s declared you holy. He said you’re mine, and you’re not guilty.

How many of you want to stand before God and be fully liable for the consequences of everything you’ve ever done? if you’re facing that isn’t it a relief to be told by God’s word by God himself you’re not guilty because you’re mine I make that point again because I want you to understand why that’s such a blessing that God would look at us and say you’re holy and you’re blameless and we see in verse four the father loves us he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before him. Now, this before him means in his sight or in his presence.

God doesn’t just love us from afar, but because we’re in Christ, we have a relationship with the Father who loves us. Do you deserve the love of God? No.

I’m not saying that to be mean to you. I don’t deserve the love of God either. I rebelled against him.

I disobeyed him, but because he’s loving, he loved us anyway. And he doesn’t just love us from afar. He invites us into this relationship with him.

He invites us into fellowship with him. This is a loving relationship. And he looks at the believer.

Again, we go back and talk about that sin, how behaviorally we’re not holy, but he’s declared us to be holy. And here we see that he looks at us as believers in Christ, and he sees just somebody that he loves. He doesn’t see all the sin.

Now, that doesn’t mean God’s fooled. The Bible says he chooses to remember our sins no more. There’s a difference between forgetting and choosing not to remember.

God knows it happened. He’s just chosen not to hold it against us. The Bible says he’s put our sins as far from us as east is to the west. He looks at us and he sees the righteousness of Christ and where we often feel like God looks at us and all he sees is our sin.

I’m telling you today, if you’re a believer in Christ, scratch that. I’m not telling you. The Bible’s telling you that if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ this morning, you may feel like God looks at you and just sees your sin.

God looks at you and sees the righteousness of Christ, and he sees a blood-bought believer that he loves. I don’t know about y’all, but I find this exciting. We see in verse 5, another of these blessings, the Father adopts us.

He adopts us. He brings us right into his family as sons and daughters. Again, he didn’t have to do that.

He was under no obligation. Nobody twisted his arm. It’s just because he is loving and because he is a father.

And so he has chosen to show us love and he’s chosen to relate to us as a father. And I love the story of the prodigal son. And I’ve talked about it so much.

I hope you’re all familiar with it. But the boy goes off and basically tells his dad, I wish you were dead, and blows his inheritance on all kinds of sin imaginable. And when he comes to the end of his rope, he realizes there’s no other option for him but to go back to his father and beg to come back as a servant, and he doesn’t even deserve that.

The father doesn’t receive him as a servant. The father receives him back as a son. And for us, humankind, we have positioned ourselves as the enemies of God by rebelling against him.

And it would be gracious and merciful beyond all belief for God even to welcome us back as servants. But he goes a step further and he welcomes us into his family as sons and daughters. You and I did nothing to earn that.

That was a blessing. That is a spiritual blessing in salvation from a loving and gracious and merciful God. He welcomes us into his family.

And when it says predestined in verse five, I believe that means it’s always been his plan to adopt the believer into his family. That was the whole purpose of everything. That was the whole purpose of salvation, to bring us back into the relationship.

Now I know we say, wait, what about heaven? Wasn’t heaven the purpose of salvation? No, the purpose of salvation is a restored relationship with God.

Heaven just means we get to continue that restored relationship with him in eternity. Heaven is a location. The purpose of salvation was to reconcile us to God.

And it has been his plan. It was predestined. It was his plan all along that he wouldn’t just save people, that he wouldn’t just forgive people, but that he would open wide the doors of his household and he would welcome in these former enemies, not just as servants, but as sons and daughters.

That was his plan all along. As a believer, you have the incredible spiritual gift of having been adopted. And it says in verse 5 that it was according to the good pleasure of his will.

This reminds us that it was not because of anything we’ve done to deserve it. He does this just because it’s who He is, and it pleases Him to extend that grace to us. And then the final blessing on this list is in verse 6, where it tells us that the Father lavishes grace upon us.

That word lavish means to be extravagant in giving it, to layer it on. The way I used to pile my plate before Charlie and I started Weight Watchers, I would lavish the food on the plate. Y’all know, you’ve been at the potlucks here.

Just lavish it, not being stingy. You know, God is not up there in the Weight Watchers of Grace counting the points and weighing the grace and saying, have I given them too much? No, God’s just heaping it on.

Do you realize that? God is not stingy with His grace towards you. God will give you more than you’ll ever need, and then He’ll double it, and then He’ll add some more on top of that.

Time’s infinity. God delights in showing grace to His people. He’s never stingy with grace toward His children.

Again, I don’t believe that this is an exhaustive list of every blessing that is within the hand of God to give in salvation, but these are some that Paul has outlined here in the first chapter that the Father gives us. That believers are blessed in abundance with these spiritual blessings. But we need to understand that salvation and His blessings are only available in Jesus Christ. As you read through this, you cannot separate these blessings from Jesus Christ. Look back through the list that he’s given us here.

God’s word tells us over and over that Jesus Christ is the one who provided these things for us. Verse 3 says the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. Verse 4 tells us the Father chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Verse 5 tells us the Father adopted us as sons through Jesus Christ. And verse 6 tells us the Father lavished grace on us in the beloved one.

Now that means Jesus. If you’re a believer this morning, never delude yourself into thinking that you earned all these blessings from God yourself. Never delude yourself into thinking that you have these spiritual blessings because of who you are and what you’ve done.

It’s all because of what Jesus Christ has done. and the blessings of salvation are in him. Now, if you’re not a believer this morning, if you’ve never trusted in Christ, if you’re here as a seeker this morning, then on the other side of that coin, you don’t want to delude yourself into thinking that you ever could do enough to earn these blessings of salvation from God.

There’s not enough you could do. The blessings of salvation are available in Christ. He provided all of it. How does he provide all those blessings?

He died for our sins and He rose again. The sin that separated us from God, Jesus Christ died to pay for every one of those sins and He rose again so that the Father could forgive us and that we could exchange that sin for the righteousness of Christ that the Father now sees. All of the blessings of salvation are in Him and through Him.

And further down in this chapter in verse 13, it explains how we receive those blessings. It says that we’re in Him. If you’re wondering, what does it mean to be in Him if these blessings are in Him?

We’re in Him when we hear the gospel and believe it. When we hear that Jesus Christ died as the only one to pay for our sins in full, that He was that once and for all sacrifice so that our sins could be forgiven. He’s the only way we can be forgiven and we can be cleansed.

So He suffered and bled and died to pay for our sins. And then He rose again from the dead. And that now God offers this salvation as a free gift paid for completely by Jesus.

That we simply have to believe we can’t earn it or deserve it on our own. And trust Him to provide it. Some of you may need to do that today.

Some of you may need to come to that point of realization that you’ve sinned against God and Jesus is the only way you can be forgiven and be restored into a relationship with the Father. And if you feel that distance from the Father, you know you’ve sinned, you’ve disobeyed Him. and you know you need to be reconciled to the Father.

You know you need His forgiveness. You want these spiritual blessings that Ephesians talks about. Then this morning, if you understand that Jesus Christ died as your only Savior, as your only hope, you believe that He proved it when He rose again from the dead, you realize you can’t earn it or deserve it on your own, it’s all Jesus, then this morning, if you believe, if you believe in your heart that Jesus is that one and only Savior for your sins.

You can talk to God this morning. You can acknowledge your sin. You can trust Christ. You can ask God’s forgiveness and you can be saved.

Some of you may need to do that this morning. And in just a moment, we’ll stand and we’ll sing a song together as we close out the service. You’re more than welcome to come forward.

If you’ve got questions or you’d like to talk with somebody, I’d be glad to talk with you. We have others who’d be glad to talk with you, but also right where you are in just a moment. You can talk to him and ask his forgiveness.

As a matter of fact, if you know what you need to do, tune me out and deal with him now. Well, I finish up the message with everybody else. But for those of us who have trusted Christ as our Savior, we need to realize that all of these blessings are things God gives us abundantly.

In Jesus Christ, we need to remember these blessings, and we need to remember where they came from. So if you’re a believer wondering what to do with all this information, Number one, it gives us incredible reasons, additional reasons to praise God for what He’s done for us. But also, it’s a reminder that our relationship with God is nothing to

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