Every Blessing. A 5 part series on Ephesians 1:3-14 Ephesians 1:3 reads 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. EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Then the Word then goes on to list specific blessings which fall under this category of ‘Every Blessing’ Today: The First spiritual blessing is that God chose you to be holy and blameless. (1:4) Paul was writing this to a young church whose former lives included every form of painful sin that one could encounter. They’d made a mess in every area you can think of, child sacrifice, orgies, prostituted themselves, cut themselves in worship of a carved idol, the list goes on…all things that are extreme measures to fill the emptiness in their hearts, things that are traumatic, and things which left them completely wounded and warped. And in their dirtiest moment, God set his eyes on them and said “I have chosen them to be holy and blameless.” And when God speaks a word it is finished. So in that exact moment, they were holy and blameless. There was no striving that needed to be done, There was no fixing, no earning. God simply said “I see you. I see your pain and your emptiness, I see your striving, and I have chosen you. No longer are you left to yourself, no longer are you dirty, but you are mine, you are set apart, and your track record is clean [blameless] by my blood. In the middle of your sin and filth I choose you." Part 1 Today: Predestined For Adoption (Eph. 1:5) Children who have been adopted have also experienced rejection, and rejection on the deepest level from the very people who are supposed to love them most. They know what it is to have been left. God has always had it in mind to give belonging. The Ephesian church that Paul was writing to, was a whole bunch of adults, who were really just broken children inside, that hadn’t experienced family or belonging, but instead they had only experienced the rejection that worshipping idols brings. Idols not far off from idols our society has today. Instagram, sports, food, jobs, reputation, money…anything you love more than you love your Maker. Idols that tell you that if you fall into them, if you love them, they’ll love you and serve you back, and then proceed to eat you up, spit you out, and trample you in the dust; left. Papa gives real love, and He gives belonging. He had it in mind before the beginning. You have always been predestined to be brought in by adoption, as a son now, as a daughter. You have a family, and a really kind Father. Welcome home. Part 2 Today: Redemption Through His Blood (Eph. 1:7) Redemption [n] : To buy back. (Specifically referring to slavery) In the beginning God created the earth and it was good and beautiful. It held land, sea, amphibians, mammals, birds, humans, trees, plants, seasons, night and day. It was good and beautiful. Humans were made in God’s image, and God LOVED them. He loved them so much that He created them to have perfect union and communion with the triune God. He pursued them, he walked with them every night, at dusk, and they spoke of things far and wide, deep and glorious. One day, being deceived by Satan himself, they chose to walk away from God, with a new found fear that God may have been holding out on them the whole time. And death entered the scene. Darkness, angst, deception and injustice, and the worst- separation from the One whom their soul loved. And God let them go, he let them walk away. Because love is not love without choice. And the depth and width and length and glory of a Father wept bitterly, and was grieved. So grieved by the separation was He, and so sovereign and kind, that he himself sent his own son, an extension of his very own self, to be scourged and crushed by the weight of a choice and its consequences. He did not place on to his bride whom he loved, the weight of what she had done, but took it himself, and BOUGHT BACK WITH HIS OWN BLOOD, what was ALREADY HIS. He didn’t have to do this, Satan is under God’s authority, and no matter how far humanity had roamed, it could not have walked out of the hand of God. Even Satan himself is in the hand of God, even when Adam and Eve chose to walk away, they were still his, because he made them. But God came, walked in the dust and bought with his own blood what was already his, to show that He loves, and He redeems. In the book of Ephesians, the church was in the midst of so much spiritual slavery, amidst mystery cults, divination, and Greco-Roman mythology, they were slaves to the next thing that told them it would fill them. Greco-Roman gods were fickle and completely unpredictable, leaving a fearful humanity to walk on eggshells afraid for what disaster may befall them next on account of someone's bad day on Mount Olympus. They were running, working, striving, worshipping all the things that were empty empty lovers, desperate for freedom, and gasping for a breath of real love. In this God says, “I have bought you back from slavery. No longer do you need to serve these things. I love you and I have bought you (who were already mine since time began) back to me, with BLOOD. With blood I have paid and it can not be undone. Do not be afraid of being left, I have made you mine and proved myself by the cross. You do not need to keep striving, no need to keep running around like it all depends on you. I have freed you from such slavery.” What a relief. Part 3
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