Book of Ephesians Pt. 1

Ephesians 1:1–5 NIV

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

Have you ever played a sport or been a part of a team for something at school? Have you ever played dodge ball maybe at school and the team captains get together and they line everyone up and they pick each person to be on their team? Man have you ever wanted to be picked for someone’s team for that? If you get picked to be on the good team it feels pretty good too doesn’t it?

Over the next couple of months you and I will be reading through the book of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians is one of my favorite books of the Bible. I love the book so much because it shows teaches something very important about how God views us.

We’ll be watching a series of videos where pastor JD will walk through the book with us.

I hope that up to this point in the video you can appreciate the heart behind the message. For some of us that have read this part of the Bible our entire lives it has been a point of theological arguments among Christians, and if you’d like to know why I would love to sit down and talk to you about that some other time.

But let’s dive into this portion of Scripture together and take some time to reflect on God’s heart:

Ephesians 1:1–14 NIV

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

If you remember I asked you if you knew what it felt like to be a part of a team that you were chosen for, I got a chance to coach two soccer teams last year and the cool part about it is that I was asked to be a part of both teams as their coach. I didn’t sign up ahead of time, someone came up to me and said “I want you to be on my time, will you be on it?”

It felt so good to be asked to be a part of a team, man I love soccer so being able to be a part of a team gave me some pride, but it also made me feel cared for, loved and needed.

have you ever been asked to be a part of something important? what does that feel like?

Ephesians 1:4–5 NIV

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

Verses 4 and 5 tell us that God chose you, God chose you to be a part of His team. You know what’s cool about God, there are 2 things that are crazy cool about God.

God chose you before you were born.

Isn’t that neat? God has existed forever. The Bible tells us that God is the beginning and the end. Before God formed the stars, the earth, before He created plants and animals, before He put Adam and Eve in this earth, God chose you.

Let’s pretend we’re all about to play some dodge ball and all of us are lined up against the gym wall and God is one of the team captains, Well when God goes to pick his first player, He chose all of us 1st at the same time.

2. God is on the wining team.

My favorite team is Charlotte FC for soccer. That’s why I’m wearing their Jersey today. I love this team a lot, and I watch all of their games. The season has not started yet, it will start very soon and I’m gonna watch all of their games this year too. You know what their problem is?

Last season they got scored on more than any other team in the league. They tied more games than they won, and we barely made it to the play offs last year and you know what happened after the first round of the playoffs? We lost, by a lot.

Charlotte is not the wining team, but when you pick a favorite team you won’t always know wether or not that team is going to be good, or if they are going to win or loose all their games. You pick your favortire team because that’s where you are from, or because that’s you favorite color, or because that might be your mom or dad’s favorite team. But there is no guarantee that your favorite team will win,

God has already determined that He has won against sin and against the devil. God, through His son Jesus, has taken on sin on the cross and Jesus knocked it out of the park and won against sin. God does not loose, and the Bible gives us the guarantee that He does not loose.

As good as this message is, and as fun as it is to be a part of the wining team, there is some difficulty that comes from all of this. Being part of the wining team comes at a cost:

Ephesians 1:7–14 NIV

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Verse 7 tells what the price is to be a part of the wining team. Remember I told you that I was asked to be a part of a soccer team last year as a coach? I would love to tell you that I was asked to be on this team because I used to be a coach, and I was asked to be on those teams because they saw how good of a coach I was, nope. I have no clue why I was chosen, but I was not chosen because I was good. These people just chose me. I had never coached in my life.

In the same way, and I know this might be hard to hear, God did not chose you or me to be a part of Hid team because we are any good, or because we are better than anyone else, or because we’re perfect. Unfortunately, we are not perfect.

Jesus had to pay the price for us so that we could be a part of the wining team. I’ve shared this with all of you a number of times but our sin separates us from God and every time we sin, It hurts God’s heart. But God loved you and me so much, He did everything He could to show us how much He loved us by sending His son Jesus to pay for the price of our sin.

The book of Romans teaches us that the price of sin is death, and Jesus paid that price in our stead. Jesus paid the price so that you and I would not have to pay for it.

God has chosen you to be a part of His team, but there is a question that still remains, what team will you be a part of? Will you be a part of God’s wining team or not?

God choosing you is not the end, did you know that you also have to chose Him back? Choosing God is the begining of a wonderful relationship between you and God, if you don’t quite know what that means but would like too, please come talk to me or another adult.