Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Ephesians 1:4

I am not much a planner, in fact, planning stuff, events, vacations, outings, stresses me out. I know that is some people’s cup of tea, they love it. My sister-in-law spends months planning each and every one of their vacations. Before they hop on a plain to go anywhere, she has almost every action planned down to the minute. Doing this would cause me to have an anxiety attack.

That is one of the blessings I have in working with Michael. For those that don’t know, Michael is very much a forward thinker. He plans and organizes well in advance with the big picture in mind. I’m lucky if I can plan for tomorrow without my brain folding up and quitting. Of course, my lack of planning and forethought messes with Michael’s plans and Michael’s attempt to always be three steps ahead messes with me. Together, I think it makes a good mix.

I want to know what’s going on, but for my mental capacity, I don’t need to be responsible for planning that out. My mind will shut down. Like, if we’re going somewhere or doing something new that we’ve never done before, and I don’t know the parking situation or I don’t know the structure of the event, I panic. Just being transparent. If I have to plan ahead for these types of things, I panic. I guess that’s just the way I’m wired. Best to surround myself with people who have skill sets I don’t possess.

With that in mind, let’s look at our text for tonight.

Ephesians 1:3-6

3 Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. 4 For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.

Last week we covered verse three and noted five things concerning spiritual blessings mentioned here by Paul.

1. Spiritual blessings are OF THE SPIRIT

2. Spiritual blessings are the OPPOSITE of temporal blessings

3. Spiritual blessings are SUPERIOR to material blessings

4. Spiritual blessings are found ONLY in CHRIST JESUS

5. God dealt with man in material blessings first because we, as mankind had several lessons that had to be learned.

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Tonight, I want to start diving INTO those spiritual blessings mentioned by Paul.

I. To be Holy and Blameless in HIS sight

Now this comes at the END of verse four with a BUNCH of theology preceding it. First let’s talk about the blessing itself, and then we will look at the theology.

The blessing is that God has chosen us to be holy and blameless. But there is a caveat to this statement. The caveat is that this being holy and blameless is IN HIS SIGHT.

This goes back to our discussion about our status before God being positional or in practice. In practice, in our every day life, we do not fit the bill of being holy and blameless. It doesn’t take long after we wake in the morning for that to fly out the window. In practice we find ourselves not living the life God has called us to live. We find ourselves with unrighteous anger, with thoughts of ill intent or impure motives, we find ourselves in a variety of different sins. It’s not that we don’t WANT to live a life of holiness and blamelessness, but in our fallen nature which still exist after salvation, we battle every day.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the church in Rome wrote:

Romans 7:19-25

19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want [to do], I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this principle: When I want to do what is good, evil is with me. 22 For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law. 23 But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.

Paul says, “It’s the sin of my fallen nature that battles against my spiritual desire to do what is right and pleasing to my Heavenly Father.” So much so was this a constant battle for Paul, that he makes that claim in verse 24, “What a wretched man I am!” But he goes on to say that it is through the Lord Jesus Christ that my spirit can wage war against the fleshly desires that remain.

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So, if this is the case in our lives; we battle daily to live a life pleasing to God. That doesn’t sound like we are Holy and blameless. If anything, that sounds like the regular old me. Where is the blessing?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we responded to God’s call for salvation through faith and woke up the next morning completely holy and separated from sin? That would be something to write home about. But instead, we must battle to reach that point. That’s why Paul also says later in his letter to the Ephesians:

Ephesians 6:11-13

11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil. 12 For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. 13 This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

It’s a battle for holiness, righteousness, and blamelessness. So again, I ask, where is that blessing if we have battle for it?

The key comes from the last three words of the sentence; “In HIS sight.” After our salvation by faith, we are washed clean by the blood of Jesus. We are purified by the cleansing of the Word. We are made righteous and holy in the eyes of God. Our sins are forgiven.

Psalm 103:12

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Our sins are forgiven and forgotten. That includes our past sins, our present sins, and even our future sins. In God’s foresight, He knew we would battle our flesh and the sin of this world, yet He chose to send His only son to die for them anyway. When I was saved on that Wednesday night in 1996, God knew that the following day I was going to sin against Him, yet He chose to forgive those sins anyway. This forgiveness was not based on anything I would do or possess, but was fully based on the love of the Father for me; His creation.

Though we as humans still find ourselves slaves to our sinful nature, when Father looks upon us, He sees us as He predetermined us to be, and that is Holy and blameless. To look upon our hearts, as true born-again followers of Christ, is to look upon the blood of Jesus. Jesus spilt His blood to forgive our sins. When God gazes upon us; in His sight; He views us through blood-stained glasses.

John Conlee sang:

But these rose-colored glasses

That I'm looking through

Show only the beauty

'Cause they hide all the truth

To see the world through rose-colored glasses is to see the world in a positive light no matter what the circumstances. For God to see us, His children, through blood-stained glasses is for Him to see the truth of His holiness and righteousness in us despite the fact that there’s a lot of ugly which still remains.

Our sanctification is to strive to match our lives every day with the life God sees in us. We are to strive for being blameless and holy. We are to strive for righteousness. God already sees us there, but we won’t reach that place in true practice until we pass into glory. Until that day comes; we are positionally righteous in His sight.

The great blessing of God is perfection. God chose the believer to be perfect, IN Christ. Jesus is the only perfect man to have ever lived; He is truly the only man who deserves to be in the presence of the Father because of that perfection. Our only hope for being in His presence is believing in Jesus. God takes our faith and counts it as our righteousness.

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Now, think about this for a second. That position and vision was something God determined for believers before the foundation of the earth was laid. Before He spoke and the worlds were created, He had already determined in His heart and mind that He would positionally place you in holiness. Though my acceptance of this truth did not come into my life until 1996, and my true UNDERSTANDING of it didn’t come until much later; it was already in God’s plan before He laid the foundations of the earth.

Before time and space were, before there was even sin, God determined that every person who places their faith in His son would receive the free gift of righteousness. This was not an escape plan or a secondary plan which came about AFTER the fall. God wasn’t sitting around after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit wondering what He was going to do or how He was going to deal with this NEW disruption to His plan. Before He hung the stars in the sky, He had already determined the path to holiness.

That’s the first part of verse four, but also the rest of our text.

Ephesians 1:4-6

4 For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love 5 He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, 6 to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.

Your adoption as a child of God was predestined and for God’s pleasure. The word predestined can also be translated foreordained. The word does not mean that God chooses those who will go to heaven and those who will go to hell and face eternal punishment. It does not mean that God made your selection for you. Scripture paints us a very different picture.

John 3:16-17

16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that EVERYONE who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

Romans 10:13

13 For EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

1 Timothy 2:3-6

3 This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants EVERYONE to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, Himself human, 6 who gave Himself—a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.

2 Peter 3:9

9 The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but ALL to come to repentance.

These scriptures define for us the nature of God; He desires for all His creation to have faith in Christ. But He also endowed us with the option to NOT listen to His call and commands. And those who choose not to heed His call will face eternal punishment; by their own doing.

The term translated predestined comes from the root word meaning to “mark off or set off a boundary of something.” The boundary is set up for the believer; it is the boundary of being adopted as a child of God. We shall be made just like Christ and be conformed to His very likeness and image. No longer just in position, but also in practice.

Though we will struggle in our lives with sin and shame, our boundary has been determined to be like Christ. We can rest assured of our glorification and holiness which is to come.

Verse four and verse five present two separate but similar ideas. Verse four says God chose us as believers to be like His son in position, Holy and blameless while still in our flesh. Verse five gives us the fulfillment of this position in its practicality. We now go from IN GOD’s SIGHT to being ADOPTED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. No longer will we be only blameless and holy through blood-stained glasses, but in real and personal practice.

Before the foundation of the world, God determined those who believed in Him would live in His sight as holy, but will eventually live in His presence as holy.