Ephesians 1:3

Introduction

Ephesians 1:3 KJV 1900

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:

I have preached through all the Pauline Epistles with the exception of Ephesians. For the last few months the Holy Spirit has been burdening my heart to preach through the Ephesians.

Last week, I started an introductory survey of the Book. I did not get very far. My heart was captivated by Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”

Especially, the 2nd half of the verse. My focus was particularly on the word blessed.

Usually, when I study a passage, I will print the passage out. This allows me the opportunity to circle key words, underline important concepts and connect key words with important concepts with lines. To the right of the page, I write down questions that I have regarding the text. These questions and their answers helps me to beyond the surface of the text. I simply do not want the surface meaning of any text. I want to get as close to the root of the text.

I immediately wrote down 3 questions regarding the word “blessed.”

Who is doing the blessing?

Who is receiving the blessing?

What does the word blessing mean?

Who

The answer to my first question regarding who blessed is “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The answer to my second question who received the blessing was “us.” Who was the “us”?

Ephesians 1:1 “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:”

The “us” in an accurately general way are the saints who are faithful.

Blessed

My third question: what does the word “blessed” mean?

This is the most important of the three questions.

“Blessed” is a verb. Whenever I see a verb, I am eager to discover the tense and voice of the verb.

The tense is aorist and voice is active. This means that “God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” actively participated in the blessing He gave. And the Aorist speaks of this blessing occuring sometime in the past.

With this new information, I wrote down a fourth question - When did this blessing occur?

Now it was time for me to investigate the word itself. In the New Testament, there are two words that are translated “bless,” “blessed,” “blesses,” “blessings,” or “blessing.”

One word means “happy.”

Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

God wants happy Christians! The key question regarding God’s desire for us to be happy is: Where is our happiness rooted in. The “poor in spirit” man’s happiness is rooted in the promises of God and the promises of God are rooted in God. The viability of a promise is determined by who the promiser is.

Illustration: Kissing a boo-boo.

Therefore, if I promised the “poor in spirit” person that there’s is the Kingdom of Heaven, there would not have been a generation of happiness. Though I may have the desire to fulfill the promise, I have neither the authority, power, orresources.

However, God is the promiser. He has the authority, power, resources and desire to fulfill all His promises. Thus, God’s promise of the Kingdom of Heaven generated a divine degree of happiness in the “poor in spirit(‘s) life.”

Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.”

The second word means “to speak well of.”

The word closely resembles our English word “eulogy.” At a Christian person’s funeral there are two eulogies. The first eulogy is good things said about the person who died. The second eulogy is giving by the pastor. He says good things about the Savior.

An example of this meaning is in our verse: Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”

We are to say good things about God. This generated another question: Why are we to say good things about God?

I assumed the word for blessed in the second half of verse 3 meant happy. In my mind this made sense. God has made us happy people with all the spiritual blessings we have in heavenly places and Christ.

However, I discovered this was not what the word meant. The word means the same as the first word for “blessed” in verse 3.

God is speaking well of us with all spiritual good talking about us.

As I meditated on this thought, my mind was overwhelmed. God, saying anything good about me did not make a lot of sense.

Romans 3:10 - There is non righteous

Romans 3:11 - There is none that understands God

Romans 3:11 - There is none that seeks after God

Romans 3;12 - We have purposely gone out of the way

Romans 3:12 - We are unprofitable - Useless

Romans 3:12 - No one is good

Romans 3:13-14 - Our words are deceitful

Romans 3:15 - We use our feet to shed blood

Romans 3:16 - Destruction and misery are in our way

Romans 3:17 - We do not know the way of Peace

Romans 3:18 - No fear of God

Romans 3:19 - We are guilty

Then I remembered a parable of Jesus’ in Matthew 25:14-30. In the parable the Lord gave three servants talents. He gave 1 servant 5 talents, another servant 2 talents, and the third servant 1 talent. The first 2 servant He said: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” This is definitely something good the Lord says to us. In fact, this is a great blessing with awesome words.

However, why were the first 2 servants faithful with their talents? 1 Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

In other words, the reason the first 2 servants were faithful was God’s grace that was given to them. Some of you may be more faithful than me, and I may be more faithful than some of you but the reason you or I am more faithful is because of God’s grace.

I am right back to where I started. Is God saying something good about me because He gave me grace to be faithful? This did not sound right. I know why I am to bless God. Verses 3-14 form 1 sentence. The theme of the sentence is how we need to bless God - everything that follows are reasons we are to bless God.

I went back to the text, to find some answers. I noticed a number of prepositions.

The reason God blesses us with saying good things about us is Christ Jesus our Lord.

Song: In Christ Alone:

Verse 1 In Christ alone my hope is found He is my Light, my Strength, my Song This Cornerstone, this Solid Ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand

Verse 2 In Christ alone, Who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This Gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save ‘Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live

Verse 3 There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious day Up from the grave He rose again And as He stands in victory Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ

Verse 4 No guilt in life, no fear in death This is the power of Christ in me From life’s first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny No power of hell, no scheme of man Can ever pluck me from His hand ‘Til He returns or calls me home Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Revelation 4:10–11 “The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

When did God bless us

Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:”

The answer is Ephesians 1:4 “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”

Before Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

We do not know much about what God did before creation. We know that God was absolutely fulfilled in loving the God head and sharing in glory. There are some other things we know God did before creation.

Ephesians 1:4 “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”

1 Peter 1:20 “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”

John 17:23 “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”

Why are we to bless God

Conclusion

It is easy for us to say it is becasue of God.

Ephesians 1:13 “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,”

1 Corinthians 1:21 “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Romans 10:14–15 “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”