Becoming What We Worship
- David Fairchild
- Jan 31, 2010
- Series: Ephesians
Ephesians 1:3-14: “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, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 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, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 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, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
About four years ago, I traveled to India to teach at a conference in an area called Vizag. After a couple of days, we connected with some friends and went to their house for dinner. During the conversation I asked my friend’s wife when she was going to come with her husband to visit us again in the States. She politely smiled and said she didn’t think it would be soon. I was curious about her reason so I asked her to explain. What she said stunned me.
She told me that it was very difficult for her to visit the States because of what it does to her spiritually. So, I continued to press, “What does it do?” She said that the idolatry is so oppressive in America that she can feel it.
Now, needless to say, I was a bit taken back by that comment. Having just landed in India a couple of days prior, I was overwhelmed by the thousands upon thousands of statues, images, and trinkets that lined the streets, filled the busses, and were visible in almost every neighborhood. Images of a variety of gods were everywhere. Idols made from man’s hands were being sold in all of the squares and markets and frankly it repulsed me. I even saw images of Jesus lined up next to other gods in a taxi, as if he’s one of many thousands of gods to be given a nod out of respect.
Without being rude I mentioned this to her and she said she understood my point but felt they were essentially impotent and powerless in comparison. When she saw how powerfully we worshipped money, comfort, beauty, sensuality, cars, homes, and entertainment with all our resources and energy, it grieved her. The danger she saw was that these gods didn’t claim to be gods but yet took all our time and resources. She felt they were far more powerful than a wooden box or a cheap stone carving that isn’t taken seriously. No one was going in debt or divorcing over these gods.
I walked away with a new appreciation for just how powerfully we worship our false gods. I realized just how much it is part of our cultural experience. And, I was shocked at how invisible they are to our eyes. The point is an important one; our false idols often become invisible to us.
The Ephesian experience was similar since this was the center of the Artemis cult. Silversmiths made a fortune selling small shrines for the citizens and visitors to buy and worship in their home. Also, the political, economic, educational, sexual and architectural makeup of the culture was deeply rooted in their spiritual beliefs and practices.
Paul’s entire purpose for this entire letter is identity formation. He realizes the only way for them to see who they are is for them to first to see who their God is.
You see, most of Paul’s letters start with an initial greeting and then he moves on to tell them what he’s praying for when he thinks of them. This letter is different. Before Paul tells them what he’s praying for his heart is overwhelmed with wonder when he considers the character of his God and the salvation He’s brought to the Ephesians. Verses 3-14 are one long continuous stream of worship. Before Paul gets to anything else, he leads the Ephesians in worship of their God.
Verse 3a: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”
So Paul starts by telling them about their blessed God and the blessings He’s given them in Christ. He’s fixing their eyes on Him so that they are filled with the beauty of their God.
Listen to Paul describe why our God is blessed in verses 4-14. He is:
Father
Lord
Messiah
Sovereign
Eternal
Creator
Holy
Loving
Omniscient
Glorious
Redeemer
Savior
Forgiving
Gracious
Wise
Truthful
Giving
Triune
God is blessed because of who He is. He alone is worthy of our deepest affections, adoration and praise simply because of who He is.
We share in the same need as the Ephesians; to find the longing of our souls met in the only One worthy our worship. Each of us here, if we’re honest, will have to confess that there is still lingering idolatry that has to be exposed and put down.
Paul wants our identity formed around Christ and His Gospel. He realizes something that we need to learn; we become what we worship, for ruin or restoration. For instance:
If your god is money, you become greedy.
If your god is sex, you become a pervert.
If your god is power, you become oppressive.
If your god is work, you become obsessed.
If your god is experience, you become bored.
If your god is a relationship, you become smothering.
If your god is romance, you become unfaithful.
If your god is religion, you become self-righteous and judgmental.
If your god is comfort, you become lazy.
This is why Psalmist says:
Psalms 115:4-8: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. 6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. 7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. 8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”
One thing is sure: If we don’t worship the true God, we will worship something. We’re made for worship. And, we become what we worship, for ruin or restoration. Anything we worship forms our identity and we begin to be made in its image.
This is what happens when the true God is not at the center of our identity. Cultures void of the one true God are not atheistic, they’re idolaters, and that’s true for you and me.
Paul is fighting for the desires of their hearts. He realizes that the human heart doesn’t have the ability to morally pry away its love for the world until a greater lover has captured its heart. A greater power, a greater desire and affection has to topple the old affections. The heart can’t be changed by pure force of will.
Paul lifts our eyes up to see the beauty of the true Lover of our souls and reminds us that the competing lovers demanding our affection are utterly impotent. The more beautiful God is to us, the more His beauty engulfs and overtakes these trifle and impotent idols.
How do we bring our hearts to a new desire when they don’t feel it? We stare at His beauty in His word. We remind each other of His beauty through in our conversations. We speak the good news of who God is and what He’s done for us in Christ.
We do what Paul does; we rehearse the gospel. We praise God for his glorious gospel. We remind ourselves of the gospel, and we come together regularly and gossip the gospel to one another.
Verse 3b: “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”
What does Paul mean when he says that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing?
The next 11 verses explain why we have every spiritual blessing, it explains from eternity to eternity God’s gospel plan.
Paul didn’t write verses 4-14 to lead us to intellectual objections and debates. He wrote what He did so that we would worship and give praise to our God. If all these next few words do is cause you theological fits, you’re not listening to what Paul is saying. Listen to him:
V. 4 – Before anything was made by God, He had already chosen you and set His affections on you. AND, He guaranteed that you would be made holy and blameless just like He is.
V. 5 – Before you ever lived one day, He had already ordained that day when He would adopt you into His family by His great love.
V. 7 – In order to accomplish what He planned before time began, He had to forgive you from your sin and redeem you by His own blood. He did this because He loves to be extravagant and lavish His rich grace upon you.
V. 9-10 – What’s more amazing is that this was just a part of His bigger gospel plan to bring everything together in His Son. God is taking all wrongs in this world and He will be make things right again, and He begins with us. No more wars, famine, disease, pollution, doubts, fighting, division, hatred, sin or evil. It will be all gone.
V. 13-14 – And if this weren’t enough, He sent His promised Holy Spirit as a seal to guarantee the good news.
He has done everything according the counsel of His own will, for His own glory, for His own good pleasure. He wants us to hear this good news and let our hearts cry out in praise to Him for His glorious grace.
To praise His glorious gospel is to praise Him. The gospel and God’s character are intertwined. Paul recognizes that the gospel flows out of the character of our God. Because of who He is, the gospel makes sense. It comes from Him and is consistent with His nature and attributes. He loves us because He’s loving. He gives us grace because He’s gracious. He saves us, because He’s a Savior. He chooses us, because He’s sovereign. He makes promises to us, because He’s trustworthy.
Just as the Gospel flows out of God’s character, so our doctrine flows out of the gospel. If the gospel is true, then the doctrines we’re going to learn over the next few weeks make sense. They aren’t some abstract thing we argue; they directly affect how we understand the gospel and the gospel directly affects how we understand God’s character.
This is what it means to have every spiritual blessing we could ever want or need. We have been given this glorious news and the news is about Him! The gospel is about our God and its goal is that in believing this good news, we get Him!
What keeps us from hearing this glorious news and breaking out in worship? What stops us from being free to trust His word over our own? What causes us to doubt that God is better than anything the world can offer?
It’s not just a sin that keeps us from worshipping God. It’s the competing worship of something else. The biblical term for it is idolatry, but another way the Bible talks about it is adultery. It is giving yourself to a lover that can only promise, but never truly satisfy you.
John 4:9 deals with spiritual adultery.
John 4:9-24: The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Jesus is saying to her, “You keep plunging your bucket in other wells hoping they’ll satisfy you and yet you’re still dying of thirst. How are your gods doing for you? Do they keep letting you down? Don’t you see the wells are empty? Woman, if you only knew the gift of God and who it is that’s speaking to you now, you would ask and I’d give you water that will never run out. I’d give you living water so you’d never thirst again.”
Worshipping lesser gods is nothing less than plunging our buckets in empty wells and wondering why we’re still thirsty. Why do we keep drinking dirt when a well full of living water is offered to us? You don’t have to be thirsty ever again. Like the woman, it’s a matter of knowing who it is that is offered to us. She doesn’t see who He is. So this morning, we’re fighting to see who He is and what we have in Him.
In Him, you’ve been chosen. In Him, you’ve been adopted. In him, you’ve been redeemed. In Him, you’ve been forgiven. In Him, God’s plan for our lives is being realized. In Him, we’ve been sealed by the Spirit in grace. No matter how many times you’ve blown it, His well of grace never runs dry.
Jesus can tell this woman that only He can satisfy her because He sees beyond her adultery and has the cross in His vision. In a few months from encountering her, He is going to take all of her adultery, all of her filth, all of her isolation, all of her false worship, all of her guilt and shame, and He’s going to stand in her place and receive the judgment her idolatry deserves.
Jesus has done all of this so that you and I can see and worship the One True God. He is the greater lover. He is the greater savior. He is the greater affection.
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