Well, good morning. Thank you to the choir. For those of you who are seeing me walk up as the choir came in, don't worry. I am not joining the choir. Not because I don't think it's a good thing, but I just think it's in everyone's best interests and for everyone's good, excuse me, that I don't join the choir. But thank you indeed. That was just really helpful, isn't it? Because we're going to come to the Lord's table in a few moments time after we've looked at God's word together. I need God's help, you need God's help as we look at Ephesians chapter one, so let's all pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the reminder that we see in front of us and that we've just been hearing about the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. The reason we're here is because of him, Lord Jesus, thank you that you came to this earth to redeem us. Thank you for the Holy Spirit who calls us to know you. And Lord, we pray for your Spirit's help right now. Please would you help me help all of us as we consider the truth of your faith. in the extraordinary expanse of everything. And it makes you think as you're confronted by such a tremendous view of your own mortality. Maybe you've not had that at the Grand Canyon. Maybe you've been out on a starry night here in Pennsylvania. We love the big sky here. It's great. And to look up at the stars and think, wow, it's extraordinary, isn't it? But sometimes we think about why am I here in a completely different kind of a way. Maybe we found ourselves in a new place of work and we're thinking, I'm completely out of my depth here. I have no idea what's going on. Now don't worry, I do have an idea of what's going on here, okay? Sometimes. But there are moments, aren't there, where we feel completely out of our depth and we're asking, what am I doing here? Why am I here? What's my purpose? And then there are times where we're simply questioning the reason for our very existence. Let me read to you something I read this week from a national newspaper. Someone wrote in with these words. This was from the 2nd of February, 2022. Quote, since I've been working from home during the pandemic, I can't stop questioning my purpose in life and why we are all here in the first place. Have you any suggestions as to how to deal with this or what might help? Ultimately, I know nobody has an answer to this question, which makes it all the more difficult. Now, as followers of Jesus Christ, those who believe in the true and living God, we'd say, actually, there is an answer. But nevertheless, I reckon sometimes all of us, whether we'd say we're a follower of Christ or not, can kind of identify with what that letter says. Even in a church, what am I doing here? Why is God called me? What's my purpose? Please turn with me to Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians chapter one, and this morning we're gonna try and answer that question. Ephesians chapter one, I'm going to read verses one through to 14, but this morning we're going to spend most of our time simply looking at the first six verses. is found on page 1,241 of the Bibles in front of you. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed 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 upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. Now you will remember in the context how we saw last week, Paul has been encouraging us to realize our connections in Christ. Connection to God, connection to one another through Jesus Christ. He's the one who connects everything from our point of view. And here Paul encourages the Ephesians to bless the one who blesses us in Christ. To bless the one who blesses us in Christ. As I say, today we're going to look particularly at verses three through to six. We may not actually get the whole way through all of that, don't worry. But you might well know that verse three through to 14 is one long sentence in Greek. There are no punctuation marks. There are no periods. John Stock jokes, if you're looking for apostolic reasons for having no punctuation in your writing, here it is. Paul simply cascades one sentence after the other. Words tumble out of his mouth in praise. You can almost imagine his little amanuensis, his little scribe, writing furiously as just one thing comes out from after the other. They're not random words. They actually build on one another. And to try and talk about this is so difficult. Commentators describe it as a cosmic painting, verses 3 to 14. Or a snowball tumbling down the hill, which just gets bigger and bigger and faster and faster. Or a horse galloping along a beach. Or an eagle soaring over a majestic view, looking down on everything. And in its freedom, just thinking about which way they're going to go next. all surveying the grandeur that they see below them. Others think of it like a diamond and compare it to a precious jewel. And you know, well, I don't know too much because I don't have much, but nevertheless, if you hold a big precious jewel in your hand and you turn it in the light, you can see different angles to the beauty as the light comes through the different fractals. So commentators just run out of words to know how best to talk about this sentence. As I say, it's a very complex, it's a very dense sentence, and there are parts of it which are very hard to understand. This stretches our understanding to the limits. It's meant to. Why? Well, we'll talk about why in a second or two, but can I just encourage you If, and my temptation will be to do this, is to kind of lapse into what I would call the Charlie Brown School of Church Attendance. You remember Charlie Brown whenever he was in school and the teacher would be at the front and you couldn't actually, some of you are actually doing it already, you couldn't hear the teacher's words, you just heard this wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. And Charlie Brown and Linus and Peppermint Patty were all there. Their eyes were glazed over and they were all kind of going, yeah. There is a temptation when you get to a Bible passage like that to do that kind of thinking. Don't go there. We're just gonna think about two huge aspects of this. Now, somebody else has compared this to trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. We're gonna look at two drops, okay? These are my two headings for this morning. Bless God because he has blessed us in Christ. And secondly, bless God because he has chosen us in Christ. Bless God because he has blessed us in Christ. Bless God because he has chosen us in Christ. So that's the first heading then, bless God because he has blessed us in Christ. Do you see verse three? 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. Now, even though Paul's purpose is to encourage the Ephesians how they understand their purpose in life and how they fit into this world, he starts with God. He eulogizes, he praises, he blesses God. And you'll notice if you read through these verses, you may have picked it up, the entire Trinity is involved. It's alluded to there in verse three. But if you look through, you can see how God the Father is described in verses four through to six. How Jesus Christ and what he does for us is outlined in verses seven through to 10. And then from 11 through to 14, Paul talks primarily about the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the entire Trinity is involved. Theologian called Alec Mateer, or Mateer, used to say this, God is the hero of the Bible. God is the hero of the Bible. This book is about our God. God is the prime mover in everything that Paul talks about here. Just look at that paragraph again. Verse 3, God has blessed us in Christ. Verse 4, he chose us in Christ. Verse 5, he predestined for adoption to himself his sons. through Jesus Christ. Verse eight, he lavishes his grace upon us. Verse nine, he makes known the mystery of his will. God is the one who does these things. It's all about God. God is the focus. God, God, God does this. And here I reckon we need to recognize that this is where we start to find our purpose and our meaning. When we start with God, Not with me, myself and I, not with Twitter, not with Snapchat or what other people or even me are saying, it's with God. And here we have God's apostles speaking God's words about the eternal God engaging with finite human beings. And connected to all of this is of course this term which you've maybe heard before, in Christ. Jesus Christ is mentioned in these opening verses 15 times. 11 times in verses 3 through to 14, this phrase in Christ or in him or through Christ or through him is talked about. And it means that all the benefits and all the privileges that Jesus has are now ours when we trust in who he is and in what he has done. It's a bit like a few years ago. I was on a flight travelling from Seattle to the UK, and it was a British Airways flight, and it was one of those occasions, not dissimilar to a few weeks ago, when the entire eastern seaboard of the continental US had shut down. So people were actually travelling west to go east. And as a result of that, Seattle Airport was in pandemonium. I got to the check-in desk. I was there with my rucksack on my back, and the guy took my ticket, and he went, Mr. Kennedy, you've already checked in. I went, no, I haven't. My bag's on my back. And he kind of played at the computer for a little airplane when the chief steward appeared at the front of the area where I was. He went, Mr. Kennedy. He was Scottish. I remember it very vividly. He said, Mr. Kennedy, no, no, no, no. You're in 1A in first class. Who was I to argue? I mean, really. So I went down the spiral staircase. Excuse me. I went down the spiral staircase into the nose cone where first class was, and there, sitting in first class, was Mr Kennedy. He was already there. Now, as far as I can work out, he was an executive who'd bumped up my seat under his name. So I said to the steward, Mr Kennedy's already there. And he pointed to another free seat and he said, well, you may as well just sit there then. Who was I to argue? I sat down with my John Grisham. I was so scared. He came up to me. He said, would you like a drink from the bar? I said, what have you got? He said, well, what would you like? It was awesome. I was like a kid in a candy store. I didn't sleep all the way from Seattle all the way back to London. This great moment where I was enjoying all the benefits, all the privileges of being in first class on British Airways was because of someone else. Who they were and what they had done. See the connection? In Christ, we enjoy every spiritual blessing. because of who Jesus Christ is and because of what Jesus Christ has done and what God has done in and through Jesus Christ. The term that's sometimes used to describe this is union with Christ. We're united to God, connected to God because we are in Christ. Our lives are hidden in Christ, in God. and the blessings we enjoy in Christ or you'll see there in the spiritual dimension. Notice verse three that it's every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now that is the unseen but equally real spiritual dimension where God and where both good and evil spirits both dwell and where the risen Jesus is now ruling. You actually see that a little bit later on in Ephesians chapter one. Look down with me to Ephesians one verse 20. If your neighbors nodded off, give them a quick nudge there because this is really important. We are told here how God wants us to know God's power. Paul prays that we might know God's power. According to the working of his great might, verse 20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Five times that phrase comes up in the book of Ephesians. We'll see more about what it means as the weeks go on. But folks, we need to recognize that this Christ is the one who gives us God's blessings. Jesus who rules over absolutely everything. And that's where my plain illustration is very limited because the blessings that Paul talks about here are spiritual. They're not material. One commentator makes this point very well. In the Old Testament, the blessings of God were seen often in terms of material growth, blessings of the land, blessings of family, blessings of blessing. These may be blessings God gives to us today, But the New Testament experience of blessing is spiritual. It's no less real. But that means, therefore, that there's no need to go looking for a second blessing, because we have been given every spiritual blessing in Christ. We'll see what some more of those blessings are in the weeks to come while we're forgiven. how we have God's Spirit living in us. But verse three is almost like the umbrella to the rest of this chapter or this paragraph. And we need to therefore make sure that we praise this God. We say thank you. We bless him and honor his name and give him the glory that is his due. Which leads us to the next heading. We bless God because he has blessed us in Christ. Secondly, we bless God because he has chosen us in Christ. Now, when we read verses four through to six, and particularly verse four, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, some of us get concerned. It raises important questions. Didn't I decide to choose to follow Jesus? How does this fit with what Paul's talking about here? A few things to say in response to that. Remember, Paul is talking from God's perspective, first and foremost. This is about how the eternal God has blessed us in Christ. This is a limited illustration, but imagine that this lectern is a timeline. This here at the beginning is the start of time and creation. It's talked about in Genesis. Here we have... the book of Revelation and at the end of Revelation how we're told that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead and make everything new in the new heavens and the new earth, but this timeline carries on then over to eternity. We can't quite see it here, but this is our existence right now, okay? With me so far? Cool. Okay, but at some point in this timeline is us. Let's say it's here. Can you imagine if a big finger fell on the table church right now? Anyway, this is us right now. And at some point, we hear the good news about Jesus, the gospel, and we believe it. And that's what Paul talks about in verses 11 through to 14 of our reading. And specifically, look at verse 13 with me. In him, Paul says to the Ephesians, you also, when you heard the word of truth, that's the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Now this is sometimes referred to as effectual calling. at the moment when we hear and believe and decide to follow Jesus. But you'll notice verse three starts with the eternal God, the creator God, the one who made everything in time and space that we can see, including you and me, and including what we would now call history as we understand it with our finite human brains. He exists outside of this finite universe. He also dwells within this finite universe. And Paul asserts that he has known us before the foundations of the world. Why? Because of who he is. And why does he choose us then? Well, because of who he is. And he's chosen us, end of verse four, into verse five, in love. Remember, there are no punctuation marks here. That in love could go in either way. It's equally true, because God is a God of love. And some people might object to this and say, well, here are three objections. I'm sure you might have more and can come talk to me afterwards, but why do evangelism then if God knows who are his anyway? That's one objection. Another is, couldn't this kind of breed a spiritual elitism? You know, that kind of frozen chosen crew who think they're better than everybody else? And then there's another bigger objection still, which is why bother behaving if I already belong to God? What's the point of it all, really? Let's think about those three questions very briefly. Why do evangelism if God knows who are his already? Well, remember the answer is verse 13. When we hear the gospel message and decide, yes, it's true, that's when my real choice to follow Christ happens. As they say, that's effectual calling. And this is the moment when God's election, his eternal plans intersect with time and space, and God's choice is real, and the choices that we make to follow are real, against the backdrop of his eternal sovereign plans. Someone famously suggested to think of it a bit like one of those doors you get on one side, it says, We have Jesus saying, come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. That's Matthew chapter 11. And then on the other side, Jesus is saying, as we go through that door, words that Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. That's from John 6, 44. Those two things are equally true. You can extend the illustration a little further and say the door is in of itself a gift from God. This is deep stuff, isn't it? This stretches our thinking. But rather than thinking, therefore, that this is a disincentive for evangelism and outreach, it's actually an incentive because this is God's sovereignly ordained way in which it's going to happen, how people come to faith through the gospel. Paul holds both of these things in tension within the one paragraph. And that helps us deal with the second objection. Doesn't the doctrine of election breed a kind of superiority? But we're told, verse four, that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, before we or our parents or our parents' parents had any say in the matter. There's no choice that we make that God hasn't made already, and there's no behavior that we can do to earn his favor. He's chosen us. Now how does that work? Part of the answer is, and this is not a cop-out, I don't know, because I'm not God. To think otherwise is actually to be superior and smug and arrogant. And there's no room for that in the church of Jesus Christ. Why does God do it? He does it because he loves us. Why does he love us? Because he loves us. It's not a reason for smugness, it's a reason for humility. Friend of mine called Marcus worked with students in London. And on one occasion he'd been taking part in a series of lunchtime meetings in a college campus, university students this was. And a girl there came to living faith in Jesus. They'd heard about the gospel and made a decision to follow Jesus and entrust her life to him. And the series of talks lasted over a week and maybe on the Monday or the Tuesday she'd come to faith in Christ. Now, later on in the week, there was another lunchtime event, and she came along to it, and she heard this stuff about predestination and God choosing and all of this stuff, and she came up to Marcus after the meeting, and she said this. You mean to tell me that before the beginning of time, God knew about me and chose me to be his and has a purpose for my life? Marcus went, yeah, he was thinking of Ephesians 1. And she looked at him and she said, that is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard. And she burst into tears. That's the reaction Paul's trying to elicit here. He's not saying these things to freak us out. He's not saying these things so that we can actually get one over our Sunday school teacher and keep them confused ad infinitum. He's not doing these things so that we can say I'm part of the frozen chosen. He's saying these things to encourage us and to reassure us and to incentivize us to live for God. You actually see that in verse four. even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. That brings us to the third objection. Why bother behaving if I already belong to God? Well, Paul says, if you're thinking like that, you haven't understood what I'm talking about. We behave because we belong, not the other way around. What we're talking about here echoes God's choosing of his people in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 7, one to six. We haven't got time to look it up, but God says, don't think that I chose you because you're anything special. I chose you to be my treasure possession, to show the universe, to show the nations about me. Now live in keeping with why I have chosen you. We hear it again in places like Leviticus 11.45. Leviticus 11.45. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. Last week we talked about the sugar spoon. Some of you have spoken to me about it again last week. You know, since then. Do you remember the status of the sugar spoon? That talks about us being the holy ones. We're like the sugar spoon. We've been set apart for a specific purpose. Now, Paul talks about what that specific purpose is. Be a sugar spoon. Be holy and blameless. Live in keeping with what God has called you to do. What's that gonna look like? I know some of you have been already reading through the rest of Ephesians. Paul's gonna talk about it. It means that we're gonna speak the truth and love to one another. It means that we're gonna make sure that we honor marriage in the right kind of a way. It means that we honor our parents in the right kind of a way. It means that we live and work with one another in a way which brings honor and glory to God. There are so many more things I wanna talk about this morning, we simply have not got the time. But can I encourage you to read through this paragraph this week? and to praise God. Bless God because he has blessed us in Christ. Bless God because he's chosen us in Christ. We'll talk a little bit more about adoption next week. We cannot therefore say, I do not matter. Remember, God is God, I am not. Bless him, behave because we belong. Let's pray together. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this extraordinary passage from the Bible, which teaches us more about your character, who you are, the eternal God, who in love has worked in our lives through Jesus Christ. Lord, there are so many things in this passage which are difficult to understand, and yet we thank you that they are so rich Help us to bless you, praise you, worship you. Lord, we do love you and we want to say thank you. Thank you, Lord, that you have given us every spiritual blessing in Christ. Please help us to understand more about what that means as we go about our week. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.