Spiritual Blessing in Christ
- Tim Cain
- Feb 20, 2010
- Series: Ephesians
Kaleo Church El Cajon
Ephesians Series 2
Ephesians 1:1-3
Tim Cain
I will never forget about ten years ago when I was driving out to California for the first time. I had so many things on my mind. I only knew one person out here, I didn’t know what I was going to be doing, I was missing my family and friends back home and I felt overwhelmed. I felt like there were so many massive question marks in my life and they were burdening me. For some reason I decided to take a little detour off of route forty on my way and go visit the Grand Canyon. I will never forget parking the car and walking up to the ledge. It was a crazy feeling. I remember looking over the edge and seeing how deep the canyon was, and then I looked up and saw that it stretched on and on in the distance. It blew my mind. All the sudden all my fears and all my worries faded away. I remember I just sat there. I sat there and I looked down and people were like ants. I could barely make them out as they walked further and further down the trail. And I thought the God who made this, the God who carved this out with his little finger, that God can take care of me. I knew then that I was safe. I knew then that my God was bigger than all the stuff that I thought was so important. I remember I was alone at the canyon and this was long before I ever got a cell phone. And I remember being so overwhelmed that I felt I had to express something. My whole body was overwhelmed with how majestic my God was and I had to express it. So I remember going to my car and finding a napkin from taco bell and grabbing a pen and just writing about the majesty of God and how much bigger he was than all the things I was worried about. I don’t know that I ever showed the napkin to anyone, but I had to express myself because what I saw was too amazing to keep inside.
Now God didn’t make the canyon that day, the canyon had been there for years and years, but I saw it that day. I saw it and it changed everything. This week for me has been one of those really long weeks when it’s so easy to let yourself be overwhelmed with all that is going on in life. I know for many of you this has been a difficult week. And I know that it’s easy when things are really tough to let our circumstances begin to overwhelm us. To allow our hearts to sink under the massive weight of our lives. However, as I sat down to work on this message I felt like I saw another canyon. I felt as I contemplated what God was saying that I was in the presence of something huge, something absolutely beautiful, something far bigger and more powerful and more worthy of my attention than anything else that might be going on. I feel like I have seen a canyon and it has changed everything. I want to show you what I saw this week. You are my napkin and I am praying that God will allow me to express his beauty tonight so that you too might see it and be changed.
Now to do this we need to take a few moments and get some background to help us understand the book of Ephesians. Now the book of Ephesians is a letter and just like letters today there was a certain form for how to write letters in the ancient world. You know how today if you see the words “Dear” and then your name on the top of a piece of paper, you know it’s a letter right? You only need to read two words to know it’s a letter. Well, in the ancient world there were even more detailed forms than that. So, Ephesians begins like a regular letter. Paul identifies himself as the author and he says he is writing the letter to the saints in Ephesus. He goes on to define what he means by saints and he doesn’t mean super Christians. When Paul writes the word saints he is simply talking about all those who are faithful to Jesus. Paul calls all true Christians saints. So Ephesians is written by the apostle Paul and it is written to Christians; to those who have placed their faith in Jesus. Now this is a really big deal. We need to remember that. Tonight, as we witness the majestic blessings of our God, we need to remember they are not for everyone, they are only for those who have put their faith in Jesus.
So, Paul begins this letter just like a normal letter. He tells you his name, he says who he is writing it to. Now normally the next part of the letter would be a thanksgiving and prayer. Look over a few pages at Philippians for a second. See how the first few lines are really similar, and then a thanksgiving and prayer. This is the way letters were typically written. In fact if you look at Ephesians there is a thanksgiving and prayer isn’t there. But before the thanksgiving and prayer there are these 11 verses. So whenever you see this change in form it is supposed to get your attention. Its like highlighting or bolding these verses, for those of you who text its like using all caps. And the crazy thing is that these 11 verses are really only one long sentence in the original Greek. This whole section is a 200 and some word sentence.
So Paul is in prison in Rome. He is chained to a roman soldier. He takes a pen in his hand and he begins to write this letter. Now imagine you were in prison, chained to a guard, how do you think you would start your letter? What would the first thing you talked about be? “Hey guys, I am ok, things are really hard, but I am making it through ok. God has been really good to me.” You might say something like that right? Or you might say, “Things are so hard, please pray for me, it has been hard being in prison for the last three years, I just keep hoping to get out soon.” If you were in prison and you were writing a letter, your situation would probably be the biggest thing on your mind. However, maybe, maybe if you were some insanely humble amazing person you might be really concerned with the person you were writing to and you might inquire about them first. You might see how they were doing with the savage wolves that Paul said were going to come after the Ephesians you had left. Any of these things would be pretty understandable. Here is what Paul does.
He starts the letter like this, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.” What? Did you hear that? What is he talking about? He is in jail and the first thing he does is say, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing?”
It’s crazy, as Paul begins to pen this letter to the Ephesians he is overwhelmed, but he is not overwhelmed by his situation, he is not overwhelmed by how much he misses them, he is not overwhelmed as he remembers that he will never see them again, he is overwhelmed about how amazing his God is. As Paul sits in prison it’s almost like God opens Paul’s eyes to see just how amazing He is and Paul grabs a pen and starts writing. And once he starts he can’t slow down, all the sudden it’s like he explodes in praise and he can’t stop his pen. That is why he puts it all in one sentence, he is writing so fast it’s almost like he is seeing something absolutely beautiful and he is trying to describe it all at once. This massive sentence is the overflow of a man who is overwhelmed by his God.
Now verse three really serves to sum up the entire sentence. In fact the rest of this huge sentence will simply come and unpack what Paul says in verse three. It begins, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now what the word blessed here means, “Worthy of praise”. So, here is how I want you guys reading it. Worthy of praise is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Guys this message is for us this week. It is for all of us who have found ourselves overwhelmed with life this week. It is for all of us who have found that we are spending most of our time focusing on ourselves, our problems, our struggles, our pleasures, and our desires. I have struggled a lot with these things this week. Over and over I have found myself talking to my wife about how weary I am. How long the days have been. And then I finally sat down to write this message and found myself totally overwhelmed. I sat down to write this and thought about what I have been doing with my wife and with my own heart this week. I have been drawing attention to myself, to how busy I am and to how long the week has been. But look at Paul. Look at Paul, he is in prison, he has not had a long week, he has had a long three years, and yet he is using all his energy to draw people’s attention to how amazing God is. Paul is in prison and all he can think about is how worthy of praise his God is for blessing him so much. For those of you suffering this week. For those of you who are tired, confused, lonely, frustrated, angry, bitter, disappointed, for all of you, please come with me and let’s listen to Paul. Listen to him. As he writes from prison, “Worthy of praise is our God.”
So, how does Paul do it? What does Paul know that I don’t know? What does he see that I don’t? And then he goes on to tell us why he is calling for God’s name to be praised. God is to be praised because he has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” What is Paul talking about? What are these blessing that he is so overwhelmed with? You don’t see them do you? I am sure many of the Ephesians were really struggling the week they received this letter. They were really struggling, then before Paul even gives them a thanksgiving and prayer, he starts going off about how much God needs to be praised for blessing everyone so much. Imagine how out of place this must have seemed to people. I know for many of you who were getting ready to come to church you probably were not thinking, “I hope I hear a message about how blessed I have been this week”. Some of you may be thinking that but many are probably thinking, “I hope someone can clear up for me why all this junk keeps happening. I hope I get some new insight into why life has to be so hard. Why sin has to be so appealing, why my heart has to ache like it does”. And now you are going to hear a message about how blessed you are? I know how out of place this might sound, but I want you to imagine how out of placed this must have seemed for Paul to say about his own condition. If Paul is in prison and he can rejoice in the blessings of God, then maybe we ought to listen to him. Maybe these are just the blessings we need to hear about. The blessings that are not dependent upon our circumstances.
You see, Paul saw something most of us miss. Paul understood something that most of us pass by without a second thought. Paul understood that all those who know God have been blessed with indescribable blessings that can never be taken away. Paul knows how lavishly God has blessed every single person who is putting their faith in Jesus. You look around this room and you might think some people have been blessed more than others, but Paul would say NO, NO, it’s not true. Some of you who slept out in the rain last night might have looked at people’s homes and felt like they were more blessed than you, but Paul says, for all of you who know Jesus and who have put your trust in him, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. Every single one. You are not lacking in any good thing. Do you hear what Paul is saying? He is saying whatever your week has held for you, whatever difficulty has come your way, don’t forget, you have been blessed with every single spiritual blessing.
But what are these spiritual blessings in the heavenlies and what do they have to do with our life today? Well first, when it says in the heavenlies it is not talking about where these blessings are now, it is talking about where they come from. We have been blessed now, on earth with every spiritual blessing that is in heaven. In other words every spiritual blessing in heaven has been brought down to earth. For the believer we have been given every blessing that is in heaven and we have been given them now. That is why Paul can rejoice in prison. He can rejoice because there are no prison walls that can keep these blessings out. Guys this is huge. What this is saying is that there is no circumstance, no situation, no person, no sin, and no power in heaven or earth that can keep these blessings from those who love God. None. All believers have been blessed with every blessing in the heavenlies.
However, many of us don’t realize it. The reason I can talk about how busy my schedule is instead of talk about how amazing my God is, is because I don’t see his blessings. Just like the Grand Canyon had always existed, it just didn’t affect me until I saw it. So all believers have been blessed more than they could ever imagine but often these blessing go unnoticed. They go unnoticed because they are not visible to the naked eye. They are spiritual blessings. I Corinthians 3 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” You can’t look around and see these blessings. They are not cars, friends, good marriages, kids, homes to live in, money in the bank, or good jobs. NO, these are earthly blessings and they are nothing compared to the spiritual blessings we have received. Don’t be deceived. There are many churches and many people trying to use God in order to give them physical blessings. There are many who see God as some sort of Genie, who think if they pray the right things and read their bible enough and love their neighbors God will bless them. But when they think of blessings they are consumed with the physical. They want cars, jobs, friends, spouses, families, comfort, and security. Oh my friends do not be satisfied with these blessings. Do not allow your lives to be consumed by trying to gain these earthly treasures. Seek the blessing that last. One day every earthly blessing that you have received will be taken away. One day we will all loose whatever physical blessings we have gained. One day the homeless and millionaires will stand before God with absolutely nothing. Do not be deceived, naked you came into this world and naked you will leave this world. You can take no physical blessing with you. Please hear me. Hear me. You can’t take stuff with you, and when all your stuff is ripped away, the emotions that they gave you will be torn from you as well. The comfort that stuff brought, the security, the freedom, and the pleasure, all of it torn away. Do not be a fool. My friends what blessings are we seeking? What do we want from our God?
Paul was not focused on these physical things but instead Paul praised God because he knew that he had been blessed with eternal blessings. He had been blessed with those things which can never be taken away, neither in this life or in the one to come. And Paul longed for the Ephesians to have eyes to see the amazing spiritual blessings of God. He longed for them to see all that God had lavished upon his people. Today I long for you to have eyes to see all the blessings that our God has lavished upon his people. Today I want you to see these things as more precious than anything else in the world. Today I want to list out some of the spiritual blessings for you. Please my friends, listen to them. Hear them and know that if you love Jesus and have given your life to him, these blessings are yours. And if you have not. If you don’t know Jesus, please hear these blessings and know that they are available to you. They are for all who will let go of clinging to the things of this earth and instead cling to Jesus.
Listen to these blessings. Whatever kind of week you have had, hear this. You were chosen by God before the foundation of the world. Chosen to be blameless and holy before him. Do you hear that? Your God views you as blameless and holy. You, you who are so full of sin, you who are so consumed with physical blessings, you were are so often overwhelmed by your circumstances, your God has chosen you, and he has washed your sins away and has made you to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Your God has adopted you. He has looked down upon you with pity, and he has come and adopted you. Adopted you from the orphanage of this world to make you his own child. He has paid your adoption fee and has paid your redemption with the precious blood of his only son. He has made you a part of his massive plan, which is to fix everything in this whole world and bring it all under the feet of Jesus.
Right now you have an inheritance, now, tonight, you have a massive inheritance, an inheritance that can never spoil or fade, that can never be taken away. And not only has he lavished you with every spiritual blessing, not only has he done all these things for you, he has sealed you by giving you himself. Your God has given you himself. You have the Holy Spirit in you and he has sealed you until the day Jesus comes to take you home.
You are your God’s. You are his child, chosen in him before the world was ever made. Notice how firm all these blessings are. Notice how nothing can change them. Notice how you can never cease to be his child, you can never be un-chosen, you can never loose your inheritance, his spirit can never be taken away from you. Guys that is something to rejoice over isn’t it? Please take a moment and be blown away by all the spiritual blessings that God has lavished on us. I John 4 says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished onto us that we should be called children of God.” We are children because he has adopted us. Our God is amazing. In prison this God is still amazing. Divorced, this God is still amazing. Single, this God is still amazing. Homeless, this God is still amazing. He is amazing because he has given us that which can never be taken away. He is amazing because he has given us himself. Our joy should not be determined by temporal blessings that are here one day and gone tomorrow, our joy must be in our God. Our God who chose us before the foundation of the world, adopted us out of the orphanage of this world, and gave his Spirit as a down payment of the massive inheritance that is in store for us.
Oh my friends, “Worthy of praise is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” But how? How on earth could God bless us? We are not worthy of such blessings. We must never for a moment believe that we have somehow earned these blessings. No, these are heavenly blessings. This means that we can never get them on our own. There is no tower that we could build that would ever get us into heaven. These are heavenly blessings and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So, how on earth is it that we can receive these blessings? How can God who cannot look at sin adopt sinners into his family? How is it that a sinful people such as us could ever stand blameless and holy before our God. How do earthly people ever get heavenly blessings?
As we read about how amazing these blessings are, we are to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in all of heaven and earth there is only one who is worthy of such blessings. There is only one who deserves these amazing blessings. There is one who has the right to be called the son of God. There is one who through his own power stands holy and blameless before God. There is only one who is the true heir to all that is God’s. There is only one in whom the spirit of God dwells in all its fullness. Before the foundation of the world this one has lived in perfect union with his Father. He is God’s perfect only begotten Son. He has never disappointed his dad, he has never needed to be disciplined, his father is so proud of him for he has always stood holy and blameless before him.
And yet this one, this worthy one, left his Father’s side. He left the heavenly places where all these blessings resided and he took on flesh and came to earth. Though he was the rightful heir of every blessing, he did not cling to his rights as the son of God, but instead he took on flesh and became a man. And he did not merely take on flesh to show us how to live; he took on flesh to live for us. So amazing, so beautiful, so glorious are these blessings that only Jesus Christ the perfect son of God has ever been worthy of them. And yet he who knew no sin but perfectly earned every blessing of God became sin for us. The blessed son of God took our curse. On the cross he bore all the wrath of God against all who would ever believe in him. He bore our wrath on the cross and went to the grave.
But the grave could not hold him. Instead God raised him up. Ephesians 1:20 says, “God raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” Jesus now lives in the heavenly places and because he has paid for all our sins and given us his righteousness he is able to lavish upon us every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. You see that is why the text is so clear, these spiritual blessing are given to us “in Christ” because it is only “in Christ” that sinners can be blessed. These blessings come from heaven where Christ is seated and they come for all those who are in him.
Oh my friends what an amazing privilege it is to be able to be “in Christ.” Please, I beg you to understand the great privilege it is to be found “in Christ.” However, to be found in Christ means we must come to the end of ourselves. We must die to our own desire to earn God’s love. We must die to our own desire to live life for physical blessings. We must let go of everything earthly in order to cling to our savior with all that we have. We have to give up doing things for our own pleasure, to be in Christ means to be crucified with Christ. To fellowship with him in his death so that we might also fellowship with him in his resurrection.
Colossians 3 puts it this way, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” I love these verses. I love the verse that says, “When Christ who is your life appears. Guys to be in Christ means that Christ is our life. He is our righteousness. He is our approval, our only boasting, and our very great reward. He is our blessing and having him we know that we have all we need.
And so we are left with one last question. Why? Why did our Jesus leave heaven and suffer and die in order that he might bless a rebellious people like us? A people who find ourselves again and again focused on physical blessings when every blessing in the heavenlies has been purchased for us. Why? Paul tells us that God has done all this for the praise of his glorious grace. God has blessed us, undeserving sinners, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies so that we might praise his glorious grace. Guys that is what Paul is calling us to do when he says, “Worthy of praise is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.” That is what he is saying. He is saying please open your eyes.
Open you eyes and see all that God has done for you through his Son and be overwhelmed. Be overwhelmed at his glorious grace and praise him. Praise him for he is worthy. My friends there is tremendous joy in praising God. Look at Paul. He is not praising God out of duty. And he is not commanding the Ephesians to praise God out of duty; instead he is overwhelmed by God and finds himself so full of joy that he must express it to someone. That is why he picks up a pen. He picks up a pen to praise God because praise does not merely express our enjoyment but it completes it. When I was at the Grand Canyon it was not enough for me to merely gaze at the beauty of the canyon, I had to express it somehow. Even if it was merely scribbling on a napkin, I had to get it out. And as I wrote about the beauty and majesty of the maker of the canyon I experienced a great joy. Expressing praise to God completed my joy. I would have been incomplete without it. It was more than I could contain.
C.S. Lewis says: I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.
There is joy in praising God. There is something insanely powerful and deep and precious about crying out in praise to God, despite the fact that our earthly circumstances seem overwhelming. There is something absolutely glorious about praising our God when things are hard. I beg you guys tonight, I pray that you have seen something more precious than any canyon. Tonight I pray that you have seen that your God has blessed you now with every imaginable blessing from heaven, which nothing can ever take away and he has done so at the cost of the blood of his son. I pray that you would know that and knowing it I pray that you would delight to praise your God. Complete the joy of gazing upon the beauty of your God through praising him tonight.
Tonight we are going to give you a napkin. Not a real napkin to write something on but we are going to give you some time to express your praise to God. To express it through song. Tonight before we take communion we are going to take a few moments and sing to our God. Guys don’t miss out on this. Don’t let your mind drift off to other things. Complete your joy by praising your God who is so worthy. Tonight lets joyfully obey God’s word and lets praise the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places In Christ.
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