Ephesians 1:1-6

Ephesians 1:1-6 “Beyond Understanding”

Good morning,

Lets begin with Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the grace you show us each and every day. Thank you for the love that you have bestowed on us and thank you for every person who is here today. Please help us to understand your word and to learn more about you and the relationship we can have with you as we study your word this morning. We pray all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Last week we finished up our series on 1 Peter, an encouraging but often times heavy letter written by Peter to a church that was persecuted and suffering. This week we will begin a new series on Pauls letter to the the church in Ephesus, which as you might have guessed is the book of Ephesians in your Bibles.

As we turn our pages and our focus to this letter written by Paul I want to start with a little background and reminder of the relationship Paul had to these believers in Ephesus. This was a church that Paul was a key part of since their beginning and their first believing in Christ, he had a hand in the formation of the church. He spent a lot of time with the Ephesians on his missionary journeys, about in total about three years of his time was spent with them. He had a deep personal and spiritual connection with them and we see and feel that in the tear filled farewell he gave to the elders and the church recorded in Acts 20. That passage alone is enough to bring tears to the readers eyes even today. The love they had for each other jumps from the pages as he departed from them for the last time.

The letter we are looking at this morning was likely passed around to the other churches in the region, and rightfully so, Ephesians is a book that is an endless well of insight and knowledge of who we are in Christ and how we are to apply that to our lives. It gives is the coordinates we are to set our compass to- as a church. Have you ever wondered what IS the church supposed to be?… That is what we will discover as we read God’s word and let His spirit provide us with understanding. I would encourage you to try to start with a blank slate, remove all of the personal, denominational and American traditions we have accumulated, So that as we look at what GOD says an assembly of believers should be we are hopefully less weighed down by or own ideas and traditions. I am not suggesting we gut everything we do as Perry Bible Church…but if there is something WE do or something we ARE that is a hindrance to what God wants us to BE…. Then we really need to be prepared to leave whatever that might be, behind. And in all seriousness this should be our attitude every time we approach the scriptures and God’s word. Praying for his understanding that when he reveals to us what HIS will is for His people and His church that we would be ready to accept HIS plan with open hearts.

I genuinely hope you all find Ephesians exciting and uplifting often leaving you with a sense of wonder and humility as we learn more about the purposes God has for us.

I will begin by reading verses 1-2 of chapter 1: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,

To the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

2 *Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul begins the letter as we might expect, writing who it is from and to whom it was addressed. But also look at how Paul introduces himself “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God” our first inclination of this might be to think, ‘Well Paul seems to think rather highly of himself’… but this is not why Paul is describing himself this way. Yes Paul IS saying that he is an apostle, which means he was commissioned, sent out by Jesus Christ and by the will of God to deliver a message. He starts with his credentials, this letter is written with the authority of God.

Paul WAS called by Jesus himself… but not in a way that Paul can really boast about himself right? Paul, or as he was called then, Saul, hated Christians… He was on a mission to see these ‘Jesus believers’ and followers absolutely wiped out. They were dangerous to the Pharisees, of which he was a big up and comer… And on his way to search out and arrest or kill Christians he was stopped and blinded on the road to Damascus, and it was Jesus who spoke to him asking, why are you persecuting me?… It took a miracle to change his heart, it took losing his sight and hearing God speak to him for Paul to get it… Not exactly something to boast about huh?

But I thank God for using Paul, could he have used someone else? I suppose God can do anything right? But why choose the most unlikely person around?… Because if God can use someone like Paul, to have an eternal impact and write his inspired scripture, he can use any of us… If you think you are not good enough, look at Paul, he stood by as Stephen was murdered and he approved, he was zealous to hunt down Christians… Do you think your life has too much ‘value’ and direction to give it up for something as humble as a missionary or disciple of Jesus? Paul was on the fast track to be the Pharisee of Pharisee’s with plenty of power, wealth and public praise to satisfy anyones dreams… But here Paul is, writing a letter to the Ephesians from a dirty stinky prison cell… How Paul could think and care so deeply about others even in his sad physical state should tell us copious amounts about what God had changed Paul into. His disciple… of Jesus Christ… by the will of God… in despite of who Paul WAS.

He is writing with humble authority to: the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.

Paul has addressed this letter to the saints at Ephesus, this was a relatively large city, a very important port city. This was not a small, off the beaten path, back woods village. And notice Paul’s language here. He addresses the saints. He does not just mean the best of those at the church, those who are the most pious, or those who give the most money, volunteer the most or know the scriptures the best… He is addressing each and every believer. We are all saints the moment we believe in Jesus Christ for his free gift of eternal life, we are to look to HIM for our eternal life, not to ourselves or any good thing we do, and it is this idea of looking to Christ will become central to the rest of the letter. And we look to HIM for what follows in verse 2… Grace and peace… Paul greets the saints, at Ephesus and all who are faithful in Jesus with grace and peace. The order of the words is significant. Not just because it is the order in which Paul will roll out this beautiful letter but it is the order in which we actually receive these two unmatched gifts from God.. We receive his Grace, our wonderful security in HIM, that priceless gift of eternal life and as we begin to fully understand what has been given to us, as we learn all that it entails and embrace it we will have as Peter said in his letter ‘inexplicable peace’ a peace that surpasses understanding, peace that should not exist in a brutal first century prison… yet it does and some how it INCREASES… but how can that be possible?

Or perhaps you are wondering, ‘I feel like I am in a figurative prison of sin, or of work, or of my love for material things, or debt or whatever it is you feel imprisoned by… why do I not feel Gods peace?… This is an incredibly important question, one so many people ask themselves, and probably only themselves because they are too ashamed to ask it out loud…to ask their Christian friends… They all LOOK like they have God’s peace… so what is wrong with me? Why do I not feel his peace?… Am I really a Christian? And even if I am then why don’t I have this peace Paul talks about and others talk about? Certainly I must be doing something wrong…

It is what follows in his letter that are the building blocks that Paul wants his dear brothers and sisters in Ephesus to see and understand. So if you are asking yourselves these questions, or have asked, or might know someone who has asked or maybe you answered these questions long ago…PLEASE listen to what Gods word has to say and be more excited than a kid on Christmas morning because this is far, far better….

We now will move into the body of the letter and we will look at verses 3-6 this morning and I will read starting in verse 3: 3 *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, 4 *just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love; 5 *He predestined us to adoption as sons to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 *to the praise of the glory of His grace which He graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved.

To say there is a lot here in these 3 verses might be the understatement of the year. And rather then be overwhelmed or just breeze over it because its too much work or we don’t understand lets just start with one verse at a time.

3 *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. There is a word that jumps out here immediately. Blessed or blessing, Paul says it 3 times in a short sentence! We are having our attention drawn to blessings right out of the gate. God, the Father of Jesus, IS blessed, he has all the blessings to enjoy, understand and… to give. He has no shortage or limited number of blessings, he is not stingy or waiting for the right human being to come along to dole them out. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ… Did you hear that? God HAS blessed us with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He has not wasted our time with material blessings that will soon rot away or be destroyed but has blessed us with EVERY Spiritual blessing!… If you have a hard time understanding the value of spiritual blessings… I hope and pray that you will listen with open ears and a soft heart to what God reveals to us in Ephesians…

But what are these spiritual blessings Paul is talking about? What good can they do for me? …How can you even quantify a spiritual blessing in a physical world? Especially with our limited human language?

This is what I began struggling with as I was reading Ephesians again and studying its words and truth… I became overwhelmed with how I could possibly deliver its message to you in short 30 minute chunks. You can easily spend a lifetime studying just this short letter and the vast depth of what God has revealed to us within its pages…

We often think we know all about God’s spiritual blessings, especially if you have grown up in church or have been a Christian for a long time. I fall into this tragic way of thinking sometimes. God blessings become apart of the long list of something we think we grasp and certainly take for granted. Something else much like that is light, yes, just plain old light, the opposite of darkness.. But lets think about light for a moment.

If you are standing on a flat surface You can only see something 3 miles away because of the curvature of the earth, unless the object is tall like a building, but lets starts with 3 miles… it takes light or light waves 0.000000016 seconds to travel 3 miles… It takes light 0.00058 seconds to travel 1100 miles, that would be from here in Perry to New York City.

Who has taken an 1100 mile road trip? Even scooting along at 70mph, that takes a long time… Don’t you wish you could make that trip in WAY less than a second? And While I don’t THINK any of you have travelled around the equator of our planet in one go, that is 24,901 miles I’m not even sure how long it would take us in a car or plane… but light, can make that journey in 0.13 seconds! A tenth of a second! And when we start talking about how far away the sun is, or other stars and solar systems we are talking about light-years… maybe one of the most used and least appreciated words… a light year, the distance it takes LIGHT to travel in an ENTIRE YEAR! The same light that only takes 0.13 seconds to go around our whole planet. Going like that for 365 days! 8760 hours… and yet you read a textbook or article about space and it talks about something being so many light years away and we will just read it like… yeah that is really far away… but when you stop long enough to ponder that, it is something I cant wrap my mind around, I don’t know about you… So when Paul wrote this letter, it was in fact much like you or me trying to explain how far a light year really is, let alone a number of light-years. Yes I can give you the milage and the time frames but which of us can really comprehend how far that REALLY is?

Paul then in verse 4 starts by talking about one of those blessings and he starts with how God the Father has blessed us. With a mind bending blessing that to us seems a paradox or mystery. That is: He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in LOVE. Paul then nearly restates it with verse 5:He predestined us to adoption as sons to Himself through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will.

IF you think it was an interesting excise to think about the speed of light, try the love of God the Father… as mankind we have struggled for centuries to understand, wrap our minds around or put into words the doctrine of predestination. But instead of being frustrated with not coming to a concrete conclusion or fully understanding how it works, we should instead marvel at it. God chose us before the foundation of the world, before we were created or any human being for that matter. Yes, God gives us free will and we make our own choices… How can that be possible… for him to CHOOSE us and yet we get still have the ability to make OUR own choice… instead of getting caught up in how that works, lets get caught up in the majesty of how God uses seemingly impossible circumstances to bless us. As His word states, He chose us to be holy and blameless before him, that was only made possible through Jesus Christ. HE chose us to be adopted into his family. But why?.. It says right here, in verse 5 it says, in love, in verse 6 it says to the good pleasure of HIS will. He chose us because he loved us and it was his will and good pleasure. He does not NEED us but still chose, US… what is ONE main ingredient in a healthy marriage relationship? Love, right, that is an important part of it. But think about before that marriage even takes place, the man loves the woman, and pursues her, and eventually proposes. He can have ALL the love in the world for her but when he asks that question, can she reject him? Say no? Most definitely she can. Does he want to force her to say yes even if she choses not to love him? No absolutely not. He wants her to say yes because she too loves him and has chosen him. God loves us, he wants a relationship and fellowship with us. BUT he is not going to force it upon us. Like the man down on one knee, he wants the woman to love him and choose him over all others, it is the same with God. He wants us to chose him. Because what is love without choice? It is nothing, it becomes meaningless. But why does God even want our love, that seems almost silly to think the God of the universe, creator and sustainer of all things, who is outside of time, knows all could want MY love. But he does, and the end of verse 5 and verse 6 tells us. It brings him pleasure, and it brings praise to the glory of his grace which he graciously bestowed on us in the beloved… The love he shows, that he choses us and invites us to him THROUGH his GRACE brings glory and praise to him and to his GRACIOUS nature, He desires us to CHOOSE Him back.

So like the speed of light Which of us can really comprehend how vast the love of God is? That he would go to such great lengths to redeem me? To redeem you? It is far beyond the comprehension and understanding it would take to really KNOW what traveling a ‘light-year’ is, and still that comparison still does not even begin to touch the love of God… So should we really be frustrated or surprised that we are unable to comprehend his methods? His method we call predestination? How can free will and his plan co-exist? It seems a paradox to us, an impossibility… yet it is true… Why do we not struggle so much that a Just, righteous, holy, all-knowing, eternal… GOD could love us? Do we really view ourselves so wonderful that it does not surprise us that God could love ME?… If that is the case I’d better take off my rose-colored glasses for a moment and spend time in prayer with God, thanking him, loving Him and Choosing Him and who HE is over who I AM. Seeing the position he has allowed me to be in, even though my holy and blameless position is not something I deserve, he has gifted it to me. I do not understand it but I love it and I love Him and I will choose Him because he first chose me.

Lets pray: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you… Thank you for all you have blessed us with, thank you for your love, the sacrifice you made through Jesus Christ, the Beloved so that we can choose you and to love you and know you. Please help me and all of us not to take your love for granted but to cherish you and be struck with wonder and amazement at your love for us. We ask all of these things in the name of your Son, Jesus, Amen.