be reading from Ephesians 1, 1 through 14. We were in this text, same text, last week as well, and we'll be in it from a few more weeks. Just to give those of you who have not been with us a little heads up, we're doing a couple of big picture sermons, and then we'll dive in a little bit deeper to some of the particulars. So I've asked those here who Don't hear me mention something that you think is particularly important to have some patience, but we'll read this morning from Ephesians 1, chapter 1 through 14. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and who 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 are 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. Thus far in the reading of God's Word, the grass withers and the flower falls, but this Word of our Lord endures forever. Let's bow and ask His blessing upon its preaching. Lord, we know that your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths. By your spirit, shine your light into our hearts that we may walk the path of righteousness before you in dependence upon your Son, Jesus Christ, in whom we pray. Amen. Ira Yates, it's the name of a man in West Texas, who was going through the Depression on a ranch. I'm sure some of you may be more familiar with this than I am, being from that area. But that was a time of great economic struggle. Many people were poor, and I hear stories from my family and generations past of how hard things were, how much people struggled. And he was going through these problems. He was worrying how he would pay his bills. How he would pay back his mortgage. But all along, Mr. Yates was sitting on a goldmine. Not gold of a golden color, but of a black color. You know, Texas tea. He, all along, was sitting on riches. And if he had only known about them, I'm sure he would have had many a night. He would have slept a little bit more soundly. Eventually, he did find that source of gold. He learned of those riches, and he received the benefit of them. We have in our text this morning a lot of talk of riches. the riches of God's glorious grace. And Paul writes in our passage to remind us, to make sure we know about the riches which are ours in Christ Jesus. We don't want to go through this life ignoring them, living as if we were not blessed when he has richly blessed us in Christ. We spoke last week about the greatness of God. about the way in which this passage emphasizes his greatness as he is the beginning and source of our salvation, the mastermind behind this plan of redemption given to us, and he is the purpose or the end of our redemption to the praise of his glory. Themes that run throughout these many verses which are full of rich biblical truth. Having focused on that last week, we'll look at the other side of that coin this week. God is the source of our salvation who has done everything for us. He's a source of great blessing to you. You're not the ultimate purpose of your salvation. It's to the praise of His glory. But what great benefits you do receive from that great and glorious God. This glorious God is for you in Christ. who have every resource you need for life and godliness provided by salvation. God has lavishly blessed you beyond anything you could imagine. Everything has been provided. He has left you with no spiritual blessing lacking that you do truly need. God has blessed you in marvelous, rich, and lavish ways. If we look at our text this morning, we'll see this in a few points. We'll look first at the greatness of God's blessing. We'll turn and look then at how this blessing is provided to us. Spoiler alert, it's provided in Christ. And finally, we'll look we might say at the eschatology of the blessing, the location of the blessing. Where are we blessed? So we'll look at the greatness of the blessing and how Paul describes it, how we are blessed, blessed in Christ, and where we are blessed. So we'll look at the blessing in these three ways. First, the greatness of the blessing. Paul, in this section of Ephesians, is not writing poetry. As many have guessed, he maybe is writing or quoting a hymn from the early church. I don't think that's quite the case. But he blesses in rich and lofty and overflowing terms. He blesses God. But he also extols the blessing that God gives us. That's what we see in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. And he describes the totality of that blessing in several ways. We get this emphasis on the word all, or every, which is a little more poignant in the Greek, because in the Greek it's the same word. They look very different, all and every, in English. In Greek, they're a little more closely related. But we have, in verse 3, every spiritual blessing. In verse 8, God has blessed us in all wisdom and insight. Speaking of our Savior Christ, all things are summed up in Him. To provide that home, He says, things in heaven and things on earth. And our Savior is one that we see in verse 11, works all things to the counsel, according to the counsel of His will. This is a rich, rich blessing we have, and we see it by this repetition of language. There are also other ways that Paul describes it. He describes it as grace. Grace and peace to you in even the salutation of this letter. In verse 6, it's to the praise of His grace that we have been predestined to adoption. Grace is something that we don't earn. It's a gift. It's a blessing we receive from God. And there's a repetition in the original. The grace with which He has graced us. Again, a kind of word similarity that we don't see come out in English. And this is a glorious grace. It's not a small bit of grace. It's a glorious grace, a rich grace. And in verse 7, grace pops up again. It is the riches of His grace. Again, this is not a poor man's grace. This is the grace of a king. It's not a widow's might. That's our part. That's what we bring. We praise our God, but do not enrich him. But God gives us rich and unmeasured blessings. And in verse eight again, grace abounded to us. Grace abounded to us. Look at that language again. It's not just, you got a little bit of it, but it abounded. It's rich, it's lavish. That runs throughout the passages. Paul drives that point home because he wants you to know about the riches which you have. And another way that Paul explains this grace and this richness that we have in Christ is through the many blessings that he delineates. He talks in verse 2 about grace and peace coming from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We have the grace of election. God has given us this in verse 4. God chose us. Everything happens according to His plan. And praise Him that according to His plan, we get to be on His side. We have His election. We have His adoption in verse 5. We are brought into the family of God. What a privilege that is. We are adopted into His family. He speaks of it also as redemption, which we have. We have election, adoption, redemption, grace, peace. We have forgiveness of our trespasses, which we have praised our God for this morning. Not only this, we have revelation in verse nine. God has made known to us his secret plan. And finally, he has also appointed us an inheritance. Look at all these multifaceted aspects of our salvation that he has given in Christ. It's not one-dimensional. It's not small. It is great and it's rich and it includes all of these things. You've been blessed in so many ways. God has done everything for your salvation. And that is why it is all for His glory. But that is why it is such a blessing to you. It's because God has done everything. If we look at our text, we see the greatness of this blessing in another way. And that it spans from eternity past to eternity future. If we look at the beginning of our passage, In Ephesians 1-4 there, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He chose us before the foundation of the world, going back to eternity past. God set His love upon you. You sometimes say that phrase, you know, before you were, you know, a sparkle in your father's eye or something. It's further back than that. For anything was, besides our great God who is, Before we were, before the world was made, He chose us. It extends from eternity past as God works out this plan in history in 1.7. In Christ we have redemption through His blood. So God planned it, predestined it, chose you in Him, and then He put the plan into action, and He did it. That God took on flesh. He poured out his blood for you. This is something that has literally happened in history. It is not a metaphor, as some would have us believe. The death and resurrection of Christ are just metaphors. And Paul says, we of all people are most to be pitied. But no, God himself, who is above time, who created time, stepped into time in Christ Jesus and saved us. Christ was raised for our justification. But if he's only raised in our hearts as we remember him, if it's a nice metaphor or way of talking about redemption, and we're only justified before ourselves, what an empty and hollow justification that would be. And this work does not stop as God has planned it in eternity past, as he has accomplished it in history at the fullness of time, as he says. It extends into eternity future. That's how our passage ends. In the future consummation, that is when the inheritance is to be redeemed. And that's where he points us as Paul brings this passage to a close. The Spirit is given as a down payment, looking forward to that, to ensure that we arrive there, that we make that destination, that we don't miss our flight. Praise God, none of the members of the Presbytery or others on Friday missed a flight and didn't make it. So God has done everything for your salvation from start to finish. It's a great salvation you have to look forward to in the future. It was planned before eternity and accomplished by God in history. So Paul has heaped up these lavish words of blessing, this repetition of grace, Speaking of it, abounding of it, gracing us. He's given us so many names for salvation and aspects of salvation that are all ours. And he's shown us that it is one plan from start to finish which God has accomplished for us. What a great blessing we have indeed. How does this blessing come to us? It comes to us in Christ. That's another feature of this text that we looked at last week as we considered the Trinitarian nature of salvation. But there are this repetition of, in him, in whom, in Christ. In the original text, sort of ending every phrase as the speaker reading this letter would have paused for breath. He leaves in your mind, in him, in Christ, in whom, as it varies throughout the text. It's all in Christ. And we see this in a couple of further ways that I want to point out from the scripture. In verses, the end of verse four there to verse six, 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 has blessed us in the beloved. And I want you to see the first words and the last of that phrase. Yes, we are blessed in the Beloved. We are blessed in the Beloved, in Christ. But it is also, Paul says, in love that we were predestined. And it is as we are in the Beloved that God's love overflows to us. Paul links those terms there, I think, quite purposefully. We notice also in our text. that God is called God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the reason, because we are in Christ, we are adopted into His family and made brothers with Him. And that is why Paul can say in verse 2 that God is our Father. He's first and foremost the Father of Christ the Son. And as we are in Christ, how fitting it is also that we united to Christ by faith, call Him Father. All of these blessings come in Christ. Toward the end of the passage we see this, it is in Him, in verse 13, that we believe. We hear the word of truth, we hear the gospel preached, and it is in Christ that we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. All of these blessings are applied to us by the Spirit in Christ, Paul says. Even your faith in Christ is a gift of God, as we'll see, to Chapter 2. It's the conduit through which these rich blessings of Christ are given to you. It's by faith you're united to the Son, and you enjoy what He enjoys. We will be raised from the dead because He was first raised. Paul gets into this as he continues in Ephesians, and we'll see it in the coming weeks and months. He speaks of Christ being raised and seated in heaven. And then as he describes salvation in chapter 2, you also, in the very same terms, are raised with Him and seated in heaven. What is true of the Son is true of those who place their faith and trust in Him. These things are a great gift. God has given you so much grace and blessing, and it comes to you in Christ. Put your trust in Him. We are poor. We are beggars. We have nothing. If we depend upon Christ for our salvation, we get His riches. We've seen the greatness of the blessing. We've seen the manner in which God blesses us. The way He blesses us is in Christ. And finally, I want to look at where he blesses us, because that's important for us to note in this text. We are so richly blessed. But sometimes this language of richness and blessings, it doesn't ring true to our experience. Some of you might be saying, Pastor, you don't know what I'm going through. And I'm new here, and I want to know what you're going through, and I hope we can visit sometime. But you may be going through something, you may be thinking, that does not describe my experience. This is not what the world we live in is always like, is it? We get sick. We suffer physically. We lose our jobs. We can move across the country and establish ourselves and pour ourselves into work. And then downsizing. economy tanks, outsourcing. Our cars break down when we need them most. We are let down. We are hurt by those whom we trust most deeply. Some of us, many of us, actually, to live in America are, in a lot of ways, greatly blessed in this life. But none of us are kings, I don't think. with money overflowing, lighting cigars with $100 bills. If we have everything, if we are blessed so greatly, why does life look like it does? And one important thing we must remember about these great riches, we are told is that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. There's kind of two terms used here. We have the spatial language of where, being in the heavenlies. And we have the term spiritual, which, as we said last week, is a reference to the Holy Spirit being given. He's the one that blesses us. If we look at the Old Testament, we realize This is something Paul had to work through as he's writing to a Greek-speaking, Greek audience, mostly of Gentiles in Ephesus. The Greeks had this cyclical view of time, that it's just this wheel that keeps turning around and around. But the Jewish people, with God's revelation, they had a future hope. They were looking forward to something happening, to the day of the Lord, when God would come and establish his justice. They knew there was a goal to history. That it wasn't just repeating endlessly over and over. That's what eschatology is, if we use that fancy word. The last things that we're looking forward to that future hope. And that's what Paul is talking about here. That future hope when heaven comes down. This is the surprising thing for these people to learn, for us to learn sometimes, that eschatology isn't all about the future, but that the future has come into earth. We look forward in one sense to that great day when the heavenly Jerusalem comes down to earth, but we also look back to that first coming of Christ. And that is setting us up with this context, which we heard about on Friday, looking backwards on the first coming, looking forward to that second coming. And we see the tension in verse 3. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, but it is in the heavenly places. Christ has come and inaugurated His kingdom on earth, but He has not yet consummated it. There is a tension there between what we call the already and the not yet. And that defines these blessings for us now. It defines how we experience these. Again, as Paul says, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places spiritually. We look forward to the consummation. He speaks here of all of these blessings in the spirit. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are opposed to physical blessings, because what do we look forward to? That Christ to whom we are united has a glorified body, what Paul calls in 1 Corinthians 15, a spiritual body. And we look forward to getting those new bodies. It won't hurt and decay. shut down, and stop working. That's what we look forward to. But yet, he says, you have a taste of those blessings now. You have every spiritual blessing. Because God has given you that spirit that you have now to seal you. It's not, this is coming in the future. Good luck getting there. I hope you make it. No. He has sealed you with His Spirit until the redemption of that final inheritance, which is yours in Christ as you believe in Him. This is why we need the Spirit to work faith in us. It's only with the eyes of faith we see those spiritual blessings. And the Spirit gives us his scriptures just like this one to remind us, as we look around and we seem poor, as Paul says elsewhere, we seem foolish in the eyes of the world. We need the eyes of faith to see that, no, this is not the end. We have every spiritual blessing. We need to be reminded. So Paul reminds us. We have a foretaste. A great multitude in heaven singing praise to God as we gather here on Sunday. Most of us go back to work on Monday. So we need this as a reminder. We have every spiritual blessing, but they're in the heavenlies. And that is the hope we look forward to as Christ returns. He brings the heavenly city down and establishes his kingdom completely forever. I'm going to draw a few conclusions from this text, a few applications of this text. God has richly blessed us with so many things. And he reminds us of that. Have fellowship with the God of the universe, who is our Father, who chose us, who loved us. We have his spirit. We are incorporated into his Son. What do these truths mean for us in our daily lives? For one, this truth of God's riches that have been given to you is a great aid in the fight against sin. What does the devil do when he comes to you and tempts you to sin? His lies are twofold, often. He says, you deserve fill in the blank. And God is stingy. He doesn't want you to have that. But you deserve it. Scripture counters both of these. The law tells us that, no, you don't deserve anything. That's why it's grace that we have seen throughout. But Paul tells us here that, look, God is not stingy. He's blessed you lavishly. He's given you His church. He's given you His Son. He's given you His Spirit. You have everything that you need. God has richly blessed you. Reminds me of that quote that C.S. Lewis has, and the name of the book escapes me, but you may know it. He says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us in Christ. We are like ignorant children who want to go on making mud pies in a slum because we cannot imagine the joys of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. When Satan comes and tempts you and says, doesn't this mud pie look great? Remember this vision of the beautiful sea, of all the riches you have in Christ. Stop playing with those things. This also reminds us that as we inevitably fail in that struggle, as we want the mud pie, that we can look back on what Christ has done. We can remember the riches of God's grace which have been lavished on us. Forgiveness of all your sins has been bought by the blood of Christ, by which he has redeemed you, satisfying all divine wrath for any sin you have committed or ever will. As there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation, so there is no sin so great that it can bring damnation on those who truly repent and have faith in Christ. Remember the riches of Christ given to you, forgiveness of all your sins. And finally, when others sin against you, or when the state of this life in a fallen world tempts you to despair. That is when you lift up your eyes to the heavenlies, where you are blessed with all blessings. That is when you look forward to that day when Christ will return again, for that is your hope. We pray to the Father, who is already our Father, in the name of His Son, by the Spirit who seals us for the day of redemption. We will certainly make it to that end, no matter how the many troubles and toils and trials of this life make us think we cannot get through. Because His Spirit is here with us to testify within us, remind us that we are His, that we will be brought even through death itself unless He comes again first. to the arms of our Father, where we will see the Son face to face. Praise God. Let's pray. May He constantly be working in our minds, renewing them, training them to look to Heaven, training them to look to Your Word, training them to enjoy the pleasures we taste in this life that we look forward to in the consummate world to come. All of this is done by you, and so we give all glory and honor to you. Amen.