Sermon - Ephesians 1:1-7 - Littleby Baptist Church - September 2, 2018

This morning we are going to start a new series. This one will be a little different than we have done the last couple of months. As much as I like topical messages, I believe it is very important that we make sure we dig deep into scripture and walk through books of the Bible. This morning we are going to start a walk-through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

Paul wrote this letter while on house arrest in Rome to be shared with the believers in Ephesus and other churches in the area at that time.

Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1. 

Ephesians 1:1-3

“1 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. ³ Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.”

We see that the letter is written to ‘faithful saints’. The saint part tells us that the letter is for people who have already accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The faithful part tells us that they are doing what they can to live their lives in a way that honors God.

In Verse 3 Paul sets the stage for the first section of the letter. He jumps right in and tells us that if Jesus is our Lord, we need to be praising God the Father. We need to praise Him for allowing us to connect with Jesus, praising Him that we are a member of His family. We need to praise Him for the gifts He has given us.

If you notice in this verse, it talks about how we are blessed with ‘every spiritual blessing in the heavens.’ Too often we think about God blessing us with things in this life. Safety for our loved ones, a good job, healing, provision for our family, and so many other things that we pray for on a regular basis. We should pray for these things and ask for God to bless us with them, but regardless of the outcome. Regardless of whether we had safe travels on a recent trip, if we got that job we really wanted, if our body still hurts, or even if we don’t know how we are going to pay the mortgage, we need to be praising God.

Our praise to God is not based on what happens on this side of eternity, but for the gifts He has given us. Our praise should be based on the truly important things, like how God made it possible for our sins to be forgiven. We should be praising our Lord for the fact that if we believe we are saved, we should praise Him with all of our might for allowing us to join His family, and our praises should be eternal for the eternity we get to spend with Him.

It is hard to praise God sometimes. Which is why we need to remember that regardless of the joy or despair in our lives, that we are praising God for those ‘spiritual blessings’. Our praise should not come from our immediate situation, but for our eternal reward as followers of the One and Only Lord and Savior.

Ephesians 1:4-6

“⁴ For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. ⁵ He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.”

Sometimes people get stuck on phrases such as ‘he chose us’ or ‘He predestined us’ and miss the real meaning of these verses.

To truly understand what we are being told here we need to expand from ‘he chose us’ to ‘he chose us in him’ and instead of ‘He predestined us’ we need to keep reading where it says, ‘He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself.’

When we look at the full statements, we can see that God the Father chose to save us through our Lord Jesus. He chose to save all who have been adopted into His family through Jesus’ sacrifice. Any choosing, predestination, adoption, is done based on individuals becoming members of the family of God through the sacrifice given by the ‘Beloved One’ Jesus Christ. You could say that God chose to spend eternity with you in hopes that you will choose to accept the amazing gift of eternal life He has offered to you.

Ephesians 1:7

“⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”

Through the blood of Jesus, we have been redeemed and forgiven. We tend to spend a lot of time talking about how we are forgiven of our sins, but when Paul is telling us that we have been redeemed through Jesus blood it means more than forgiveness. If we have been redeemed, we are no longer sales to our sin, we have been given the gift of freedom.

Galatians 5:1

“For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Jesus sacrificed himself so that our sins may be forgiven, but it does not stop there. Through His life, death, and resurrection He has set us free from anything we have been a slave to. Jesus’ gift to us not only erased the sins in our ledger, He made it possible for us to walk way from those sinful ways.

I know a man who has struggled with alcohol and drugs for many years. He has had periods of time when he was able to remain sober but always seem to slide back into his old ways. As a believer His sins were forgiven but he was still a slave to his sin.

Each of us have things in our lives that keep pulling us back down into the mire. Alcohol, drugs, pride, envy, lust, greed, to name a few. Sin comes in many forms and every one of us struggles with them in one form or another. Whatever your sin is, Jesus died so that all your sins would be washed away, and He rose from the dead to set you free.

The guy I mentioned struggled for years and one day finally cried out to God. He asked for these things to be taken from him once and for all. He knew that God’s plan for him was more than being an addict. He knew God did not want him to continue to hurt his family and friends. He knew that Jesus had died for his sins and embraced the fact that he was not only forgiven but redeemed. He debt was paid. He was no longer a slave. He was set free. He turned from his addictions and has since left them behind.

John 8:36

“So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.”

I do not know what everyone here struggles with, but I do know that all of us struggle with something. We need to embrace the fact that through the work of our Lord Jesus we are no longer slaves. We have been given the gift of redemption. Whatever sin we struggle with, what ever has enslaved us, Jesus has set us free. If Jesus has set us free, we are truly free.

Blessings,

Robert