Almost three years ago, I received a call on a Saturday night from Pastor Nate letting me know that he was sick and might not be able to preach the next day. And he said he would confirm that the next morning. At 730, Sunday morning, I got the call. He was sick and I was up to deliver the sermon. At that time, I had nothing ready. I had never preached here at this church. The thought of preaching had not even entered my mind. Thankfully, I'd been studying the book of Ephesians, so with lots of prayer, I dove into Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14 extemporaneously. This was the first time I'd ever preached here at Harvest. Needless to say, I was nervous, but God enabled me to deliver an 18-minute sermon. Since that time, Pastor Nate and I have had an agreement. that I would seek to always have a backup sermon ready, just in case there was ever a need again. So when he asked me to preach twice while he was on vacation, I prayed and asked God what I should preach about. Now, I already had that sermon a couple weeks ago. I mean, I was supposed to deliver that last winter, but we got snowed out. So in God's providence, I delivered it two weeks ago or three weeks ago. And it just so happens that when Nate asked me, I happened to be just ending up the study of Ephesians again. So looking back over my notes, it came to me that I really needed to deliver a much more complete sermon about the blessings Paul discusses in chapter 1, verses 3 through 14. And just as a side note, in the Greek, verses 3-14, is one big long sentence. So, let us read those verses together. Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3-14. In the Pew Bible, that's on page 1169. So, Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3-14. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Christ Jesus to himself according to the kind intention of his will. to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to the kind intention which He purposed in Him. With a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. In him also we've obtained an inheritance, having predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 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, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. Paul starts out with a word of praise. That little word blessed, it can mean happy or it can mean praise. In this case, it means praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And as we read this passage, you may have noticed a repeated phrase, to the praise of His glory. Now that's repeated three times. When we think about all the blessings that God has poured out on us, His children, we really should have no choice but to praise Him. We were lost in our sins, dead in our trespasses, and yet He loved us and saved us. In verse 6, when Paul speaks of God's kind intention of His will and our adoption, he just bursts out in praise and glory to God's grace. And in verse 12, he speaks of our hope in Christ, that it would be to the praise of His glory At the very end of this one long sentence, Paul lists up praise for our redemption. We are to be praising His magnificent glory. And as we will see, there's lots to praise God for in these verses. God the Father has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Now, in this one short section, we're going to see nine nine verses, or nine blessings. And these blessings, this is not prosperity gospel preaching. These blessings, while they may have physical manifestations, they are primarily spiritual in nature, as you will see. And just think about the little phrase, in Christ, that is repeated so often in these verses. To be in Christ means that we are part of his body. If you are born again, you are part of the body of Christ, and He is in you. We will see various iterations of this term throughout this passage. We see the term in Him, we see this multiple times, in the Beloved, and of course in Christ. And the term in Christ is the opposite of being in Adam. When we were born again, we were taken out of Satan's kingdom and placed in God's kingdom. We were literally saved from God's wrath. In just these few verses, we will see nine blessings from God. The first blessing mentioned in verse 4 is, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the world, before the world was even created, God had you in mind. Yes, you. He had you in mind. And as it says later in chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God. Don't you love it when the Bible just jumps out there and says, but God. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive with Christ." And just to make it perfectly clear, God tells us in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 2, For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Your faith, your salvation is a gift. It's a gift. A gift from God. It's not the result of your own actions. God made a conscious decision to make you alive in Christ. He didn't just look down through time and see you choosing Him. We don't find that concept anywhere in the Bible. We were dead, dead in our transgressions and our sins. Dead women and men don't make decisions to choose Jesus. Now, don't get me wrong, we still are required to make decisions. Will we repent and believe? Will we be obedient? Will we make the choice to follow Jesus where He leads us? and many more decisions. So we do have to make decisions along the way. And in Romans 9 verses 15 and 16 we read, For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whomever I show compassion, so that it depends not on the person who wants it, nor the one who runs, but on God who has mercy. Your salvation depends solely on God and His mercy. God chose you. He chose you not because you were something special or had a unique talent that God needed. No, He chose you out of His vast array of mercy and love. He gave you the ability to see the truth of the gospel. God will use your talents, maybe talents you never realized that you have, for he says, we were, quote, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. That's from chapter two, verse 10. He chose you out of his great mercy and love for good works. What those works are is different. And each one of us, each one of us who are saved, whether those good works, whatever those good works are, God chose you. And he chose you to do good works. He opened your heart and mind to comprehend that Jesus died for your sins and gave you his righteousness so that we can come to God. And it being part of Christ's universal body, we each have a part to play. God has given us, each one of us, a gift or gifts to serve the Lord and to serve the Church. You can read more about that in chapter 4 of Ephesians. God chose you in His love. He chose you in His love. We cannot take credit for our own salvation. Maybe you came to Christ over time. Maybe it was a one-time event. Whatever your situation was, It was God working in you, working in you to remove that heart of stone and replace it with a heart that can and did receive the gospel. And let us not forget the rest of verse four. He chose us that we would be holy and blameless before Him. Because we have the righteousness of Christ, God no longer sees our sins. Oh, we still sin occasionally. I can attest to that. Guilty. But Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved. He paid that penalty. And over time, we are being sanctified, made holy and blameless by the action of Christ, by the Spirit of Christ within us. That little word holy expresses moral purity. And the word blameless has the meaning of our being free from the guilt of sin. We are being sanctified. Now, look at the blessings we find in verse 5. This is our second blessing. We have been predestined to the adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to himself. That word predestined has the meaning of something that was previously ordained, previously ordained or previously decided. Because of Jesus' perfect life and His suffering and dying and resurrection, God placed His love on you to be His sons and daughters. What an amazing blessing. God chose you to be saved, yes, but He also chose you to be His daughter and His son. Just think about that. That's why we call each other brother and sister. It's not just some Christian ease, but it's because we are truly the sons and daughters of God Almighty. If you are born again, you've been adopted by God the Father. This Father is perfect. He's a perfect father. He has your best interests in mind. He listens and hears your prayers. As it says in Romans 8.15, quote, for you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba, Father. Ever do that? Ever just cry out, Abba, Father? That little word, Abba, is Aramaic, and it literally has the meaning of affection for your father. You might say it could be interpreted daddy, but Abba, father. Because you've been chosen by God and adopted by Him, you can go to Him with confidence and love. It was a kind intention of His will to adopt you. And it was and is to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. That's verse 6. God placed His unmerited favor on you, His grace. He placed that on you. He chose you. He adopted you. He enabled you to come to Him as your Father. All of this because of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection. And for this we are to praise Him. And note that word freely. Freely. Your salvation is a gift from God. It is not the result of your efforts. Now, look at verse 7. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. In this one verse we find three blessings. Blessing number three. we have been redeemed. Redeemed from what? We have been bought off the slave block of Satan by the blood of Jesus. Jesus came into the world with the sole purpose of redeeming a people for himself. And blessing number four, by his blood and sacrifice, our sins are forgiven. That's a wonderful thing. Just to think about that that all all my sins all your sins are forgiven and Blessing number five it's according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us He lavished his grace on us When you think back and consider that Jesus paid the price for all your sins, be they simple sins like lying to your parents or more egregious sins like adultery or murder, no matter how old you were when you were redeemed, you had piled up so many transgressions and sins that the only Jesus sacrifice could pay for them. There was no way you could be good enough. No way you could be good enough to redeem yourself. God lavished His grace and mercy on you. He bestowed His grace and love on you in generous or extravagant quantities. And blessing number six, He made known to us the mystery of His will. That's verse nine in chapter one. Paul explains this mystery in chapter three of Ephesians. in chapter 3, verse 6, to be specific that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and members of the body, fellow partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel. Gentiles, non-Jews, are now part of the body of Christ. Before Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, God's chosen people were just the Israelites and those who converted to Judaism. But now it is God's kind intention, which He purposed in Jesus, to bring people of all types and nationalities into His kingdom. And this mystery was spoken of by the prophets of old. So it was known, but vaguely. Until Jesus came, lived, died, and was resurrected, this was not clearly seen. Although now when we look back at the prophetic writings we can see Jesus Christ the Messiah clearly because we have the revelation of Jesus. So what blessings have we seen so far? You've been chosen by God. We've been adopted by God. He has blessed us with His grace which He lavished upon us. We have been redeemed by Jesus' sacrifice. Our sins have been forgiven. Every single event recorded here has been by the will of God. If you take a moment in your quiet time, just meditate on these things. We're all different. You can all look back at your life and see who you were before Christ. You can see who you were before Christ. And God has blessed you with all of these things. And there's more. There's more. In verse 11, we find two more blessings. Blessings number 7, we have another point of predestination. It's God's purpose, His will, to give us an inheritance. And that inheritance, which is blessing number eight, is an eternity in heaven with God, which can never be taken away from you if you are truly His. And blessing number nine, your inheritance has been sealed, locked up tight, sealed with and by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been given as a pledge of our inheritance. been given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession. That's you. You are God's own possession. To the praise of His glory. God's own possession, that's you if you are born again. That pledge is a guarantee. It's a down payment. It's a down payment for our future in heaven. That inheritance has been predestined according to God's purpose, that He works in the counsel of His will. And did you notice the Trinitarian flow of these blessings? Because of the awesomeness of these various blessings, you may have missed the action of each member of the Trinity. God the Father has blessed you with every spiritual blessing. He has chosen you to be saved. He has predestined you for adoption. And by the action of God the Son, Jesus paid your ransom price. He redeemed you. He paid for the forgiveness of your sins. And God the Holy Spirit has sealed you. Your inheritance is locked up. No one can take that away from you. No one can take that away from you. And the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us, you, when you are born again. His indwelling enables you to grow in Christ, to understand the magnitude of these blessings, and so much more. Each member of the Godhead is a part in your redemption. This is God's will for you. It is for His glory. Now I've expounded upon just nine of the many blessings that you find in this letter. And believe it or not, there's a total of 26 blessings that I've identified. I'm going to just go over them with you. from the rest of this letter. I mean, yes, number one, we were chosen. Number two, he predestined us to adoption as sons. Number three, we have redemption through his blood. Number four, we have forgiveness of our trespasses. Number five, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. Number six, he has made known to us the mystery of his will. Number seven, we have obtained an inheritance. Number eight, we have been predestined according to the purpose of his will. And number nine, we were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now there's a whole bunch more in the rest of this letter. Number 10, he has poured out his great love with which he loved us. Chapter two, verse four. God has poured out his great love. I mean, Romans 5.5 says, God, through the Holy Spirit, has poured, poured His love into your heart. You have the love of God, if you are born again, you have the love of God in your heart. And you can pour it out. It's a never-ending supply. Blessing number 11. He's made us alive together with Christ. Chapter 2, verse 5. You are alive. Yes, our physical body will check out someday. But we will be with Christ forever. We will be with Him forever. And blessing number 12. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. That's chapter 2, verse 10. Those good works, you know, may be something as simple as washing the windows on the spring clean-up day, or teaching Sunday school to the young'uns downstairs, or helping out somebody, taking a meal to somebody, praying for somebody. You've been destined for good works. What those are, we each have to find them out as we go along. Blessing number 13, He Himself is our peace. Chapter 2, verse 14. It's hard to think about this, but you, we, were at war with God before we came to Christ. Now, you don't think of that, I mean, we weren't actually fighting, you know, not like we strapped on a machine gun and went out after Him. But because of our enmity, because we didn't love Him. We were at war with Him. But we now have peace through Jesus Christ. Number 14, we have been made one with Christ and every other believer. Chapter 2, verses 13-19. We have been made one. We are part of God's body. We are part of His household. We are part of the temple of God. That temple of God is not this building. It's you all. We are all part of the temple of God. If this building were to disappear tomorrow, hurricane came through and wiped it out, the temple of God would still be here. It would be here in you. Number 15, you are fellow citizens with the saints who are of God's household. Chapter 2, verse 19. And blessing number 16, you've been built into God's own temple and dwelling place of his spirit. Chapter 2, verses 20 and 22. And number, blessing 17, we have boldness and confident access through him, through faith in him. Chapter 3, verse 12. You can confidently go to God and present your request to him. you can confidently go to God, boldly go to God, and present your request to Him, and talk to Him. And number 19, we have the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, chapter 4, verse 3. And blessing 20, we've been uniquely gifted by Christ Chapter four, verse seven. And blessing 21, we've been equipped for God's work to the building up of the body of Christ. Chapter four, verse 11 and 12. You may not realize it, but we each, you each, have a responsibility of building up the body of Christ. That may be as something as simple as praying for somebody. It may be something as simple as just encouraging a brother or sister. Encouraging them. It may be something as simple as just giving them a hug and telling them that you love them. But we are all being equipped for God's work to the building up of this body. Of this body you have been equipped to build it up. Blessing 22, we are being taught by Jesus Christ Himself. Chapter 4, verse 20 and 21. Now, it's not as though Jesus stands in your prayer closet and starts talking to you, but yet He does. He does through the Word of God, through this book. If you are spending time in this book, you are being taught by Jesus Christ. This is God's Word. It's not just Paul's Word. It's not just Ezekiel's Word. This is God's Word to you, and He's there to teach you. To teach you. Blessing 23. We are being created in the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Chapter 4, verse 24. That old woman, that old man, that sinful person has been done away with. You are a new person in Christ. You are new. Yes, we still stumble and fall, but hopefully it becomes less and less as the time goes on. You are a new person in Christ. Blessing 24. Now you are the light of the world. That's chapter 5, verse 8. This world is a dark place. If you listen to the news, if you pay attention to what's going on, it can be as, you know, it's darkness. A waitress was killed up in Berlin for no good reason. All those people down in Texas, swept away by a flood. This is a dark world, but you, my brothers and sisters, are called to be light and to bring that light of Jesus Christ into this world. Blessing 25. We've been given instructions and resources to make all relationships with others that God intends them to be. That's chapter 5, verse 21 through chapter 6, verse 9. That can be husband and wife. There's instructions for husbands and wives in that section. There's instructions for children and parents, and parents and children. And while it uses the term master and slave, it really has the image in today's society of employer and employee. So all these relationships We are being given the resources and instructions to make them work, to make them work, because you are in Christ. And number 26, finally, we've been given God's full armor to make us invincible against the demonic forces. Chapter 6, verses 10 through 18. You have the power of God. Both offensively and defensively. You have the sword of the Spirit and you have prayer. And you have shields and helmets and such. God's armor makes us invincible to the demonic forces. Yes, you have to pray. Yes, you have to be aware. But the power is there for you. And when you come to Christ, you receive all these blessings and more. But these are the 26 I find in the book of Ephesians. And in verse 13, we find a snapshot of what it takes to be saved from God's wrath. Quote, in him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed. To be saved, we must hear this message, this message of truth. That hearing can be in the form of a gospel track or having someone lay it out for you verbally. In either case, we must believe the truth that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. He is the very Son of God. This truth. God is perfectly holy and good. We are not. Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Because of our sins, our trespasses, we are set up for God's wrath and eternity in hell. Romans 6.23 teaches us about the consequences of sin and what God is doing. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But God sent Jesus from heaven to live a perfect life as a human being. He sent Jesus to suffer and die on Calvary, taking your place. Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved. Romans 5, 8 declares, but God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Now, if God is working in your heart today, You just have to believe this message and repent of your sins. As it says in Romans 10 9, quote, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. You will be saved. And Romans 10 13 says it again, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. then all these blessings will be yours. Is God working in your heart today? Has he revealed himself to you in this passage? Have you been made aware that you are at enmity with God and the only way to rectify that is by believing and repenting? Are you ready to confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead? If so, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. If so, today is the beginning of your new life, a glorious life. All these blessings we've been talking about are now yours. Romans 5.1 has this wonderful message, quote, Therefore, since we've been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Thank you, Father. Thank you for pouring out your grace and your love and your mercy on your children. We thank You for adopting us and making us sons and daughters. We thank You, Lord, for choosing us, even though looking at who we are before that choice, there's just nothing there, Lord. But You chose us and have been changing us. We thank You for all that You are doing. And if there's anyone here, Lord, who is just now making that that commitment to Christ who's having that heart of stone replaced with a heart of flesh. Please help them, Lord. Please help them to come forward and talk to me or the person who brought them and just confess that Jesus is Lord. He is Savior. Please, Lord God, we ask that you would bless this church body. Please, there are lots of hurting people here. Please, Lord God, we ask for your blessing upon them. And Lord God, please watch over us and protect this church. We ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.