I want to greet each of you this morning in the name of our Savior and welcome you to Emmanuel Baptist Church. The room was relatively quiet as the young man laid upon the hospital bed. The infection caused his body to flush with fever, and the medicine for pain dulled his mind. Through the door walked a rather boisterous preacher, nodding at the young man. as he passed by on his way to visit the other patient in the semi-private room. Some minutes later, his visit complete, the preacher stopped at the young man's bed and inquired of him, do you go to church? Yes, sir, the young man replied. Where? The preacher challenged. When the young man answered, the preacher recalled, and the veins on his forehead and neck began to protrude as he prepared to strike. He spat, you believe in that election and predestination, don't you? Taken back, the feverish young man answered, yes, sir. The preacher thundered, that mess won't hold water. and launched a relentless assault on the young man and his beliefs. After a few minutes, the preacher's bluster waned and he exited the room. But the impression of that visit never left the young man. That preacher's vitriol response to the doctrines of grace is not completely unusual. The experience of that young man, while perhaps a little bit more intense than some folks, is not that different than what many of you have experienced who confess the doctrines of grace. Some folks grew up in church, but somewhere along the way, along their journey, they come to a knowledge of the doctrines of grace They usually ask, why have I never heard this before? And in their newfound discovery, they share it with others. They want to share it with others. They share it with their family, and they share it with their friends. And often their family and friends look at them like they're cyclops. They have that big eye in the center of their forehead. Some of the bolder ones actually get in debate with their family members or their friends, their co-workers. And then as they get in debate and they share what they have discovered with others, they can't understand why others can't see what they see and why they aren't excited about what they see and understand in the scriptures and why they will not embrace it and why they don't love it like they do. But the truth is, much of the evangelical world, in much of the evangelical world, the doctrines of grace, especially the doctrines of election and predestination, are attacked and they're considered heresy or more likely they're ignored by the vast majority. And when and if they are addressed, they are addressed in such a way to attempt to explain them away or subject them to the will of man. But for the Apostle Paul and for many today, these doctrines are calls for great joy. They are a reason for worship of the triune God. And I encourage you to open your Bibles now to the book of Ephesians, chapter number one, as we consider today the opening benediction. Ephesians chapter one, and I want to read in our hearing verses three through 14. Ephesians one beginning with verse three. Now we hear God's word. 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 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. May God bless the reading of his word and may his people say let's join together in prayer. Holy Father, we are grateful for your word. We ask now your blessings as we consider this portion of it. We pray for the Holy Spirit to come and illuminate the word, to give us eyes to see and ears to hear, hearts to be tender to your word. I pray, Lord, for myself that I may have a comprehension and boldness to preach your word as it ought to be preached. And I pray, Father, that it would go forth to all of us and that we would hear and rejoice in who you are, what you are doing, and in Christ our Savior and the Holy Spirit, our God and our seal. For it's in the name of Christ our Lord, I pray, amen. I mentioned to the elders before we came out, as we gathered to have prayer and go over the morning's worship, that I am amazed, as I have been many times before, of the providence of God as we go to worship. Not having seen Dr. Godfrey's lesson that we went through this morning, Yet what he went over in the lesson from Revelation 12 and some of the things that he mentioned and having my own studies in Ephesians and the passage I just read in verses 3 through 14. And the discussion of the heavenly places and where we are in the. The realm that we live in. I just, I was like, yes, that's exactly where I've been buried in all week in my studies in Ephesians. So it was encouraging to hear his comments from Revelation 12 this morning. Well, last week we tried to consider verses one and two of Ephesians, the salutation. and in the salutation, after the salutation, which is verses one and two, in which we have the author of the book, and it's the Apostle Paul, and by that we learn that he is an emissary of Jesus Christ, and this is by the will of God, so we have a letter that is written that is, he is a representative of Christ himself, and so we ought to take these words very, very seriously as we are to take all words of scripture. They are inspired by God and they are profitable. And so these are God's words. And then we have the audience in verse part of last part of verse one to the saints. And we discussed the phrase who are nephesis, but to the saints, which describes the people of God. And they are also faithful and they are in Christ Jesus. and that's gonna come back in today very much so. And then we have the greeting in verse two, and the greeting, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That greeting, we have a snippet of two of the major themes of the book of Ephesians, and that is grace, which I would say is the primary theme of this book, and peace, which is the result of grace, and that will be both vertically with God and horizontally with others and cosmologically with all of creation itself that is the result of this piece and it really sets the structure for the book of Ephesians. Now generally when you consider Ephesians, most of the time, it's often divided into two basic divisions. There are the first three chapters, in which usually what's considered the doctrinal structure of Ephesians is established. And this is the establishment for this new society, this new people, the church. Salvation by grace is worked out for us. And this would be considered the indicative part of Ephesians. You hear the pastors here mention several times indicative and the imperative. Well, this is the indicative part of Ephesians, the first three chapters. Then in chapters four through six, you have the practical consequences of the indicative worked out. This is the Christian life. This is the being in Christ that's being fleshed out, and this is peace and unity. So first section, you have the doctrines of grace worked out. You have the peace and unity that flows from that worked out, and this is the imperative. Now a suggested, I think this is on your notes as well, a suggested outline, and this comes from Vaughn, Curtis Vaughn, but a suggested outline of the Book of Ephesians is the blessings of God's people, and that's where we are in this section of Ephesians, the resources of God's people, the formation of God's people, that would be regeneration and reconciliation, the spiritual obligations this new people, the moral obligations, the domestic obligations, and then the warfare of God's people. And that's a, again, a suggested outline as you look at the book. Now after the opening benediction, excuse me, after this opening salutation, we go to three and four, which I'm considering and calling the opening benediction. Now the apostle proceeds immediately into this great benediction. Now most of Paul's writings begin with an expression of thanksgiving. This is not unusual, but really this one seems to be the queen of all his greetings, of all his openings. This particular Opening verses 3 through 14 has been called a magnificent gateway to the epistle. And it. It really begins. I kind of think of it as beginning like a small Creek. And instead by tributaries. It's almost each verse, almost every word. It's like a tributary flowing into it. And then by the time you get to the end of it. It's like that mighty river that's flowing into the ocean. So that when you get to verse 15, the apostle has to pray, he breaks forth in prayer, that the Ephesians, those reading this letter, will understand the depth of the grace of God. Because of all that he has just been speaking about. So it starts, it doesn't really start that small, but it starts, and it just builds as it flows. And tributary after tributary feeds into it, so you just have this massive volume as you get to the end of it. The passage is Trinitarian in nature, and this is something we're gonna be, I think, touching on again in coming weeks. In reform circles, we often note that salvation is Trinitarian in nature. And it's said different ways, but we often will say it something like, salvation is purposed by the father. It's purchased by the son. And sometimes to keep the peace going, we'll say it's poured forth or preserved by the Spirit, but probably a better way of saying it is supplied by the Spirit. It's purposed by the Father, it's purchased by the Son, it's supplied by the Father. If you look at this section of Ephesians, you'll notice that verses three through six are primarily about the work of God the Father. Verses 7 through 10 focus primarily on the work of God the Son. And actually, in the first 14 verses of Ephesians, Christ is mentioned either by name or title 15 times. I mean, it's full of Christ. And then verses 11 through 14 focus primarily on the work of the Spirit. Now each of the three stanzas that we have here, close with a refrain. Verse six, to the praise of his glorious grace. Verse 12, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. And verse 14, the end of the verse, to the praise of his glory. to the praise of His glory, to the praise of His glory, to the praise of His glory, repeated three times. Peter O'Brien said, God is the origin and the source of salvation as well as its goal. What is the goal of salvation? To the glory of God. He is the source. He's the origin. He's the goal. Now, we usually think of a benediction, and we have it this way, even on our overheads, is that which the preacher does at the end of the service. He comes and he pronounces a blessing, a scriptural blessing on the people. And that's normally what we think of as a benediction, that which is at the close of the service, and that is indeed a good definition of a benediction. I borrowed that title from S. M. Ball, who writes that this section opens with the word blessed or blessed be, which is the root really of our English word eulogy. And the definition of that is to praise, to celebrate with praises of that which is addressed to God, acknowledging his goodness with desire for his glory. And so this is a benediction. This is Paul's benediction. He is celebrating the goodness of God and he is desiring his glory to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. So this is what's happening. Now, the question I would begin with, and this is verse three, what is the topic of this benediction? 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. There's our answer. It is every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now, before I get to the spiritual blessings, I want us to note the phrase in heavenly places. Because Paul is the only one that uses that phrase, and he only uses it in Ephesians. Even though there seems to be a similar reference in Corinthians. But it's used five times in Ephesians. 1-3, 1-20, chapter 2, verse 6, chapter 3, verse 10, and chapter 6, verse 12. And you really have to look at each one of those uses to kind of parse out a meaning. But generally, Generally, we would say that the meaning of that phrase in the heavenly places is the realm or a region of spiritual reality in which the believer belongs and has been lifted to in Christ. Now it's interesting, Lloyd-Jones preached I don't have any sermons on Ephesians, but there's a set of books by Lloyd-Jones on Ephesians, and I'm not even sure of the number of volumes in that set, but Volume 1 is on Ephesians 1. And he designates an entire chapter to that phrase. And part of what he says in there is kind of what Dr. Godfrey was going for this morning in that lesson on Revelation 12. And that this is not only the realm in where Christians live, but this really identifies a Christian. This is really the identity of a Christian in heavenly places. This separates the Christian from the non-Christian. That we are people with two natures. And we live in two worlds. Go back to the saints in Christ, the opening address. And that means that we have two realities that we're digging with. And so the blessings are in heaven and places that we actually are lifted up. We actually are with Christ now in the heavens. And that really is transforming. Well, it's spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. And thus our battles, our life view, our worldview, all of that comes into play right there. Okay. But these are spiritual blessings. Now, obviously God knows that you have need of material blessings. And Jesus addresses that in Matthew 6, where he talks about food and drink and clothing. And Paul in Philippians says, my God will supply every need of yours. According to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus, every need, that's material needs, that's physical needs, that's praying for people to get better, praying for somebody to get a job, praying for whatever it is on a physical plane. But that's not what this is. This is spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Now, you may have many or you may have few material blessings. however you count those. But the focus here is on the reality of something that every saint has, and that's spiritual blessings in heavenly places. And they're common to all the redeemed, and they are abundant. Now let me stop here and just contemplate something with you for a moment and make some word of application. Then I want to move on and consider these just in a very, very general way today. But I want to make two general statements here. First, private devotion and corporate worship ought to be a regular part of a believer's life. And secondly, genuine worship requires discipline of heart and mind. Those are the two statements. Private devotion and corporate worship ought to be a regular part of a believer's life, and both of those require discipline of heart and mind. Now, worship is not something that we artificially generate or contrive. Sunday morning at 10.30, we don't flip a switch, and we don't flip it off at noon. It's one of the reasons we have, we try to build in time. And one of the reasons we encourage that we prepare our hearts and our minds. And we also know that on Sunday mornings is very hectic time. That we're all trying to get ready. We have to get physically ready, we have to drive here. We have interruptions, we have things that come along and our minds are taken to wherever. We also know that while we sit here, our minds go out yonder. Our minds flit around. Our attention goes to different places. That's why You know, it's really good not to just wait till I walk in and think, well, I can just flip a switch and all of a sudden I'm in worship mode. When we say we're going to begin our worship now, it doesn't work that way. I can't worship by proxy. I can't worship by substitute, and I can't worship without it costing me something. Cheap. Do you remember the account of David and Ornan the Jebusite? Where David wanted to buy the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite to build an altar. And he goes to, because he's been told to, because David sinned and God was smiting Israel. And so David goes to Ornan, to Jebusite, to buy the piece of property, to build an altar there to sacrifice to God. And he goes there and Ornan and his sons are in the threshing floor, threshing the wheat. And David comes up and And of course, there's an angel outside that Ornan has seen as well. But he sees David coming and he goes out to meet the king and he bows down to the king. And David tells him he wants to buy the piece of property and Ornan says, no, I'll give it to you. You can have it. Actually, you can not only have the property, I'll give you the oxen for the sacrifice. It's all yours, just take it. And David says, no, I will not take it. He says, I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing. That's First Chronicles 21, 24. No, I will not do that. I'll not have a, you know, basically a welfare worship here. It doesn't work that way. But worship arises from a full heart, a heart that knows and enjoys and overflows from the spiritual blessings of God. And that's what we find in Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. David, excuse me, Paul didn't flip a switch. It wasn't by proxy or a substitute or by hire. This is, His heart, his mind is filled with this knowledge, this dwelling on these great teachings, this great reality of God, and his heart has been inflamed, and now his pen is just pouring forth. And then he's praying for those that read this that they will understand this, that they can so be impassioned. And to our knowledge, Paul was childless. He had no children. He was homeless. And he was poor. He was ill treated. He's in prison now. He's overworked. And often he's friendless. And not often is he only friendless, but he's been double crossed by those that would be his friends. He knew very little creature comforts. He had very few material blessings. But spiritually, the apostle considered himself rich beyond measure. He had contentment. I have learned whatever state I'm in to be content. He had peace. My conscience, he said, is clear. He had peace with God and peace Even though men were at war with him, he still had peace. He had assurance of his salvation. He had fellowship with the Lord. He had faith and he was faithful. And he understood that if you are redeemed and you're saved, you will never be more redeemed. You will never be more saved than you are right now at that very moment. That if you are the object of God's love, you will never be more the object of God's love, and you will never be less the object of God's love. Because God set his love upon his people from before the foundation of the world. And it's not dependent upon the person, but upon God himself through Jesus Christ our Lord. And Paul knew that. He recognized that, and he knew nothing in heaven or earth would shift that or change that. He knew that if you're in Christ now, you will always be in Christ, and nothing will change that. In fact, he said, I am sure that death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He's convinced of that. And do you know that the believer's spiritual well-being, your well-being, your spiritual well-being, your contentment, your peace, your faithfulness is tied to your spiritual health. And your spiritual health is tied to your thankfulness. and your knowledge and your communion and your relationship with the Lord. And that thankfulness and relationship with the Lord and your communion are related to your worship. That's where worship arises from, from that full heart. And as one thinks about these spiritual blessings The mind becomes full and it spills over in praise of who God is and what he has done. Now I want to do a overview, just an overview today. I want to come back and look at these in more detail, but today I just want to do an overview of these spiritual blessings that he mentions. And we begin in verse four with election. So again, I stress an overview. Don't expect me to go into detail. That's not my intent. The election I would simply define for now is that God chose before the world existed individuals who would be the recipients of his saving grace. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. This choice is in Christ and that is it's in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Now Spurgeon said this, he wrote, do not conceive that some decree passed in the dark ages of eternity will save your souls unless you believe in Christ. Do not fancy that you are to be saved without faith. That is the most abominable and accursed heresy and has ruined thousands. Lay not election as a pillow for you to sleep on, or you may be ruined." And so he's making a very good point, a very valid point, a very needed point, and that is don't confuse God's decree of election with faith and belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, but understand it is the spring from which that will come. But election, for our purposes today, all I would simply say is that it is God's choice of individuals that will be the recipients of His grace made in eternity. Next I will go on, and I will also point out and say that this choice to be God's people is to be to holiness, they are to be sanctified, they are to be set apart, and they ought to be blameless, that is justified. So it's to be holy, sanctified people, and to be a blameless, justified people. Then in verse four and five, we have predestination. In the four, in the ESV, different Bibles arrange these sentences differently, but in the ESV, and I think this is proper, but it says in love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he's blessed us in the beloved. Predestined means to determine in advance. And in this case, of course, it's connected to election. And that is in love, God predestined those he chose. He predestined us to be adopted into his family. Predestination is not some cold, methodical act, but it's an act of love whereby we become children of God. As children, we have access to God. Our prayers are heard and we have a home, we have a family, we have an inheritance, we have protection, we're nurtured, we have a future. Predestination may well be an answer to why, to the question that's so often asked. Why did God go ahead and create the earth if he knew before that men were going to sin and everything was going to be a ruin? Well, this may well be the answer. It may well be the answer in this sense, and that is that God intended something higher for us than creation. And what he intended was adoption. And that is that we would be part of his family. Adam and Eve, what they had is fine. But what you and I will have in the end will be so much better than what Adam and Eve had in the garden. Our rank, our standing will be much, much higher. We are heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We are adopted into the very family of God. And this is according to his purpose and to the praise of his glorious grace. In verse seven, we have redemption, which means delivery from slavery of sin. You have been delivered. In chapter two of Ephesians, we'll find that we're slaves by nature, and we're slaves by conquest. That's in Ephesians 2.1 and Ephesians 2.3. And we're also slaves by debt, for the wages of sin is death. But Jesus ransoms the elect from the bondage by his blood. In verse seven, we have forgiveness of sins. And that's related to redemption, but it's different. In redemption, we're freed from the power of sin. In forgiveness, you're washed from sin. And that's something through the years I've found people have a real problem with. Past sin. And they struggle with the fact that, yeah, but you don't know my sin. You don't know what I've done. And I can look at them and yeah, and you don't know what I've done either. But do you believe in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse you from all sin? That's the question. Do you think that your sin is greater than the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In verse nine, we have the revelation of God's purpose in history that is made known to us. Now, mystery is a word that's gonna come up in Ephesians about seven times. It's gonna come up over and over and over again. And this mystery is the truth about the ultimate destiny of the universe. And as believers, we've been given the ultimate destiny. We're given knowledge about the ultimate destiny of the universe. I like to read books, listen to lectures about the origin of the universe. I'm actually listening to a book now about that. I was listening to a couple of TED Talks recently about this. but I'm going through a book on it. I like that. Enjoy that. And it's just interesting where science goes with their thoughts and I don't, you know, so it's very interesting. But according to what Paul says in verse nine, as believers, we have been given understanding of God's purpose in history and where it's all going. What's God's purpose here? And from prison, Paul in verse 4 looks back before the foundation of the world and he sees the purpose of God, talks about the purpose of God. I don't know if he sees it all, but he talks about it. And in verse 10, he looks ahead to what will be a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. And in verse seven, he considers what we have now. So he's talking about time past, time future, and now. And his heart is filled with praise. In verse 11, he talks about our holy heritage. Now, on this part, scholars differ, and I really think I prefer the ASV rendering of this verse that says, in whom also we were made a heritage, not that we have an inheritance, but we are the heritage, because that seems to fit with the context here, it seems to fit with a greater context of scripture. It seems to fit with the grammar that's used here. And also probably verse 14, the same thing. It's not to say we don't have an inheritance, we do, but it also seems to suggest that we are God's heritage. But then verse seven, excuse me, verses 13 and 14, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Sealed with the Holy Spirit. There's three uses that the Bible gives us for seals, or three uses that are usually spoken of for seals. One is to authenticate something as genuine. Secondly is to secure something. And the third is to denote ownership. I think about when I used to, work out at the mill, and boxcars would come in, and they would have the seals on them, and that meant that they'd been secured. Nobody had tampered with them. Think about branding a cow. You take an iron and you brand them. That's a seal. The cow belongs to that particular ranch or person. You read about that in Revelation 7, verses 2 and 3, where you have the seal of the living God, and the servants of God are sealed with his seal. Well. The actual salvation of sinners occurs by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And the salvation is applied by him. But I want to make some closing observations now. Before time, God the Father wisely, sovereignly, purposed and planned salvation. He chose individuals who would be his people and he predestined them to be sons. The Father did this in Christ. He did this to his praise and to his glory. In the fullness of time, God the Son effectually accomplished salvation. He redeemed the elect by his work on the cross. By his blood, he ransomed us from sin. And by his blood, we have the forgiveness of sin, and we've been cleansed from our sins. And at the right time, God the Holy Spirit sovereignly initiates and applies salvation to the ones the Father chose and those the Son redeemed. And he does this by giving us new life, replacing our stony hearts, our dead hearts, with a new living heart, and by granting us faith, enabling us to hear and believe the gospel. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit sovereignly bringing salvation. And the object and subject of worship is the triune God. That's who the object is in Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. The subject is the spiritual blessings in heavenly places. It's what God has done, salvation by grace. And yet these very truths are ignored and maligned. Why is that? Why do people not like these truths? Well, we'll probably get into that. Maybe some of you struggle with these truths. We need to understand they are a declaration of the love of God, a love that is unfailing, a love that is redemptive, a love that is not generic but specific. These are a declaration of the sovereignty of God, a sovereignty that is the basis of your prayer life, a sovereignty that is the basis of evangelism and missions, a sovereignty that transforms the message of the cross from a blackjack salvation of maybe I got a chance to a gospel of this is what God has done. And this is the basis of assurance. These are spiritual blessings. And also would have us to know and to try to realize that these are not merely doctrinal studies. But they are genuine calls for praise because they're practical and experiential realities. that we as believers should know experientially that they truly are the heart of our worship of God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth of it. We thank you for these great doctrines these great truths, these great realities. We ask that you bless them to our hearts and to our minds and to our lives. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. I want to stand and sing this hymn. I think it's a, well, it is a new hymn to us. The tune is, to twas not to make Jehovah's love and hope the words will be meaningful as we sing the hymn. May we stand together as we sing.