Sermon Tone Analysis

Series: Ephesians: Building the ChurchText: Ephesians 1:11–14

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: January 8, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: PM Service

Introduction

We traverse a wicked world each week.

The flesh in which we dwell produces sinful impulses that war against the ways of God.

Society draws us down as those around us, even those close to us, encourage and applaud sin.

The enemy of our souls, the devil, alternately tempts us and accuses us when we fail, causing us to feel ineffective for God.

By the time we reach Sunday, we might wonder if God even wants to keep His promises concerning us.

That’s what makes the preaching of the Word so important in our lives.

We may question what God has for us now and in the future, but Scripture like this passage gives us great hope in the Lord.

Just as Abraham believed God, we should be “fully assured that what God had promised, He [is] able also to perform” (Rom.

4:21).

It is only in God that we can “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Heb.

10:23).

We receive such confidence in this passage.

This passage comes at the end of that long sentence in the Greek.

If you recall, this sentence is a eulogy, a doxology even, a statement of praise.

This praise begins in v. 3, which reads, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

These blessings God has given us in Christ encourage our confidence in Him, prompting our praise as a result, and they continue in these verses.

Consider again some of those blessings.

As we looked at vv. 3–6, we saw that God the Father choose us before the foundation of the world — before we did right or wrong — predestining to freely bless us with His grace.

In vv.

7–10, we saw that Jesus blessed us by redeeming us from our sins, revealing His will to us to sum up everything in Him in the end.

We’ve seen God the Father and God the Son blessing us in these previous verses, leaving us with expectation of what comes next in this passage.

So, vv.

11–14 record the blessings of the Holy Spirit.

We’ll see this as part of God’s building of the church, first coming to the Jews and then the Gentiles, which is why the spiritual blessings will apply personally to all Christians today.

We are going to learn about the root of the Spirit’s blessing (vv.

11–13a), the report of His blessing (vv.

13b–14a), and the result of His blessing (v.

14b).

The Root of the Spirit’s Blessing (vv.

11–13a)

Before we can talk about how the Holy Spirit is a blessing, we need to consider the ground or root of His blessings.

So, we first consider an interplay of ideas you’ve probably wondered about before — how do faith and election work together?

We see the importance of personal faith later in this letter, when Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).

God saves us through faith, but we see that even faith is a gift from the Lord.

Likewise, here, we read that God works because of His divine election (vv.

11–12) and through our faith and hearing (v.

13a).

God Works Because of His Divine Election (vv.

11–12)

also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

Consider this interesting blessing we receive in Christ — inheritance.

Now, typically, we think of inheritance as something we gain from the death of another, and it would be easy to think of that with the death of Christ.

However, that is not what is meant here.

“Inheritance” is an interesting word in the Greek.

It means that we have been appointed something, an allotment.

Now, that means there is something sovereign at play, as in we were elected to receive this, which is why the NIV translates it, “In him we were also chosen.”

The word means that Christians have been chosen by God to receive this allotment or inheritance.

A better word might be that we were chosen to be a heritage.

This is how God speaks of His people in the Old Testament.

God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt so they would “be a people for His own possession” (Deut.

4:20; cf.

9:29; 32:9).

They were identified with God, in other words — they were God’s people.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the New Testament would use the same language for the people of God, those for whom Jesus died to purchase.

The inheritance is God’s.

As such, v. 14 says that this inheritance is “God’s own possession.”

Yet, because Christians are the sons and daughters of God, this means that we enjoy the resources of God as heirs according to the promise.

Of the treasured blessing of such a heritage, Paul prays here in v. 18 that the reader would know “the riches of the glory of [God’s] inheritance.”

So, even though we are God’s heritage, we should still see this as a way of blessing us.

We can’t describe the inheritance in which God chooses us to partake.

The best we can say is that it must include the life we’ll enjoy with God in the eternal state.

One day, we will be changed, transformed from one form of glory into another, and we will then be free from sin, Satan, and the world.

We will enjoy the life that God has created us for while enjoying His presence in an unending way.

This is just a glimpse, an imperfect one, at that.

Even so, you may wonder whether these promises apply to you.

Remember, though, that God chose to do this before the foundation of the world.

Moreover, just as Paul noted in v. 5, we see that this blessing comes because God “predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

Rather than consulting others, or ourselves, God’s will is the extent of His own counsel.

His decision already made, He now “works” or “energizes” all events in the history of His creation according to His will.

You can be sure of His promises.

He works “all things,” including but not limited to our salvation, for we already read that “all things” would be gathered “in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth” (v.

10).

As Christians hear the truth, believe, are sealed in the Holy Spirit, and are God’s possession (vv.

13–14).

As Paul says in Philippians 1:6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The rest will follow in His good time.

We can take confidence in the fact that His promises to us represent a unilateral covenant on His part — we can fail to submit, but we can never fail to enter what Christ has for us in Heaven.

That’s why Romans 8:1 states that glorious gospel promise: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

We can know that God will continue to bring us forward in Him because of Christ’s work, despite our own.

As such, Ephesians 1:12 is the natural result: “to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.”

Glory means weight or honor, and we must praise Him for the gravity of the work He’s accomplished.

Our response comes both in praise and in faith (which brings us to the next point).

God Works Through Our Hearing and Believing (v.

13a)

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—

Remember that we said that our inheritance identifies us with God, and God uses the same language of Old Testament saints.

This connection comes forth here.

We see a link in the people of God throughout all ages and ethnicities.

That’s an important consideration starting in v. 12.

In proper English, Paul writes of “we who were the first to hope in Christ,” but the original language emphasizes the pronoun — “that we, we would be….”

Contrast that with v. 13, stating “you also.”

Paul temporarily divides believers along ethnic lines — the first ones to hope in “the Christ” or “the Messiah” in v. 12, the Jewish disciples and the gentiles — to make a point.

Paul highlights this division again in chapter two.

He writes (2:11–13),

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands — remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ

Paul goes on to write there that the two have become “one new man” (v.

15).

The message is a powerful one of unity.

Paul isn’t saying “we vs. you” but “we and you.”

Look again at 1:13 — he says “you also.”

In other words, some of us may have come first, but we all came the same way.

What is true of us is true of you, and vice versa.