Blessed is He Who Blessed

Good morning, welcome to NHCC. Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 1.

Thank you Ed.

Next week- Michelle Dalton’s baptism.

We have a problem.

Psalm 24:3- Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

Romans 7:24- Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

What do we bring with us this morning? What hope might we have?

Verses 3-14 seek to answer such a question. We will return to our answer later.

Read Ephesians 1:3- 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...

Pray.

One word that shows up often- some form of the word blessing.

Eulogeo- Different meanings, each of which are important to understand separately- to praise, to speak well of something, to cause to prosper, to bestow blessings upon.

Going to see this being used in three different ways in our text.

We are to bless God, who has blessed us with blessings.

1. Blessed be God.

Paul’s writing is worshipful.

For Paul, he is ever aware that who he is as a person ought to be filled with praise.

He is aware of what God has done, and he cannot help but praise God as a result.

Head knowledge is never enough.

And yet head knowledge is crucial.

Some people downplay the importance of time in the Word- then what or who are they worshiping?

I don’t feel adoration for God. Get in the Word, read the Gospels, re-introduce yourself.

Paul here echoes the psalms.

Psalm 72:18-19- “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!”

Psalm 144:1- “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;”

Perhaps the best example of what we are talking about here in Ephesians could be found in Psalm 113.

Psalm 113:2-3- “Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!”

This is the root of what Paul is getting at when he claims that God is to be blessed.

God is to be praised, God is to be spoken well of, God is to be made much of. This is meant to be the aim of our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

Thoughts.

Philippians 4:8- “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Colossians 3:1-2- “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.”

We so often poison our lives with the content of our thoughts. Does our thought life bless and make much of God, or does it not?

Words.

Psalm 19:14- “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

The two are lumped together. Our words reveal the content of our hearts.

Speak something and wonder where it came from. It came from our heart.

Matthew 12:35-37- “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Why are we to be judged according to our words? Because our words reveal.

Actions.

Hebrews 13:15-16- “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Notice the direction of the text. We offer up a sacrifice of praise with our words, fruits of our lips. But how are those sacrifices defined? Doing god, sharing, being selfless.

Our thoughts lead to words, our words lead to actions. And all of them are meant to worship, praise, and bless God.

Is blessing God a priority for all of life? How do you know it to be true? What is the fruit in your own life?

We now know what is our responsibility, but what is the fuel for our praise?

Paul answers the question. It’s a good memory. It’s the reason we are baptized. It’s the reason we continually celebrate communion together. To remember. But what is it that we are remembering?

2. God has blessed us in Christ.

We bless God because God has blessed us.

Different meaning here. Not spoken well of us, but given us increase.

God has taken what we were and has added to it. He has blessed us.

Pastor Jeff- How much change have you put in a person’s pocket?

God has blessed us. But notice this- He has blessed us in Christ.

Two important notes to make in noticing that we are blessed in Christ.

First, our blessings are attached to Christ, meaning that they are for those who are living in Christ.

The blessings mentioned and promised here by Paul are for believers of Jesus Christ, and are not given apart from Jesus Christ.

Crucial point to make, because a lot of bad theology comes from ignoring such a point.

Ephesians 1 later describes the blessing of being adopted into God’s family. Meaning there are some who have received the blessing of adoption, and others who have not.

What of those who have never heard the name of Jesus?

Second, our blessings are not of ourselves.

Any of what we read in the coming 12 verses does not come from within ourselves. It is all rooted in Jesus, and is thus given to us when we are “in Christ.”

All is grace. Hammered in within these first three verses.

We must be careful to not switch the two meanings.

For many, we believe ourselves to be able to add to God, that He is somehow dependent on us.

And the flip side is true as well, that God praises us, places us on the pedestal above even Himself.

Now, Paul will narrow down the definition of what it means to be blessed by God.

3. Every spiritual blessing.

The nature of our blessings are spiritual, and it is important to make this distinction.

They are not fleshly.

We hear of God’s blessing and our hearts automatically often go to worldly blessing. Stuff. Money, protection, security.

Throughout Scripture, that which is spiritual is contrasted against that which is fleshly, or wordly.

1 John 2:15-16- Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

These blessings, instead, are spiritual. They come to us from the Holy Spirit and they give us all we need for our own spirit.

God will give you what you truly want, once your desires have been changed within you.

Psalm 37:4- Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What blows me away about this text- every spiritual blessing.

Everything we could possibly need for our eternity, everything given in the following verses, is promised and given in whole.

Ian Hamilton- “The blessings of the gospel come to us not in discreet parcels but in all their perfection and fullness when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and are brought into saving union with Him.”

Why do we feel as though this is simply not the case? We feel as though we do not have what has been promised, what is necessary to carry out God’s will.

Joshua 7.

Conquest of Ai.

Joshua 1:1-2- “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.”

This promise is given to Joshua before any land had been given, before any conquest had taken place.

God says, I’m giving you all that I promised.

Begin their conquest but run into a roadblock at Ai.

Joshua 7:10-12- “The Lord said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.”

The promise had been made, the land was being given, but what kept Israel from taking it was their own sinfulness and foolishness.

Our spiritual blessings have been promised. Paul writes we have received them. All of them. But it doesn’t feel like it, and often we blame God.

Harold Hoehner- “The reason the believer does not receive spiritual benefits is not because God is in some way stingy and he or she must plead for them, but because believers are not appropriating by faith what God has already bestowed in their behalf. The problem is not with God but with the believer.”

We return to the question offered at the beginning, the problem stated so clearly in Scripture.

Psalm 24:3-5- Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Romans 7:24-25- Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Our ability to approach God, to see Him not only as the Father of Jesus but also as our Father, our ability to bless and praise God, to be delivered from our sinfulness and death, comes by way of God’s blessing us with every spiritual blessing.

Martin Luther- “Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.”