The Hope of His Calling, the Riches of His Inheritance
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Point: Being confident in the goodness of Christ, and in our invitation to Christ, we should count on the riches of Christ’s inheritance as our inheritance in Christ Jesus.
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
According to the secret service of the United States government, identity theft has been one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing crime in the States. In Canada, things are not much better. The unauthorized use of an individual’s personal information, according to Statista, there was a 35% increase in identity theft between 2019 and 2020. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, there was $165 million in reported vitim losses, and in 2021 these losses increased dramatically to $379 million. No wonder 97% of Canadians “feel vulnerable to fraudsters and identity theft” (percybolton.com Percy E Bolton Associates Inc). What has contributed to the high rate of identity theft is the transformation of our society to digitization - online transactions, social media, and digital communitication. As a result, the general public has become susceptible to their personal information being stolen in data breaches, cyberscams, and dark web trade of stolen identities.
Suggested solutions to protecting your identity from being stolen - monitor your accounts regularly - checking bank statements, credit reports, and your online accounts for suspecious activity. Invent and use strong, complex, unique passwords; avoiding using the same password in multiple platforms. Enable two-factor authentication, become aware of what “phishing” is, use security devices and antivirus software to secure and encript your digital footprint. Above all things, shred your personal documents that need to be disposed of and limit the personal information you share on social media platforms. Teck and the internet was supposed to make our lives easier, not harder, not more complicated, or induce anxiety and worry about losing your identity. The thing is, an epidemic of identity theft is raging in the church, people losing their identity in Christ.
This is what the aposle Paul is writing about in the book of Ephesians, he is writing about who we are in Christ, and who we are to be in Christ. Unless we know who we are in Christ, our identity will be stolen and we will live this life poor, beggerly, and beaten because we do not know the hope that we have in Christ, nor the riches of our inheritance in Christ, nor the power of Christ toward those who are living “in Christ”. Am I living “in Christ”? How does a Christian prevent identity theft? By living “in Christ”. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, those most apt to have their identity stolen,
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
A follower of Christ prevents identity theft by changing the way they think. They do not think and behave like the world typically does, they do the opposite, or the wise thing, or the kind thing, the just thing, the merciful thing, the graceful thing, or the right and good thing. When someone is down, do you grind them even more? When someone is hungry, do you ignore their hunger? If the gang you are hanging with are causing you to flounder, do you continue to hang with the one’s dragging you down and inticing destruction in your life? If your right hand is causing you to sin, Jesus says cut it off. If you eye is polluting your soul, gouge out your eye. What is Jesus saying? Take drastic action in your actions and behaviors, by changing the way you are thinking, because if you do not, destruction will be the result. And destruction is not the kind of transformation that God has in mind, for you physically, but restoration and understanding as to the riches that you and I have in Christ, by Christ, and through Christ.
How can one change their thinking, their mind, the organ of morals, ethics, wisdom, judgment, and understanding? Exposure to truth and facts undergirded by promises of power, strength, and authority. What being, what person, what thing speaks of nothing but truth and facts? God and His Word. How can I change my thinking if I am never submitted to God and His Word? If I am never in prayer? If I am hardly ever in His Word? And it’s not just a five-minute pit stop, like a pit stop at the Indianapolis 500 for 10 seconds. We can say God is not doing anything for me, but are we even giving God the opportunity to transform us from the inside out? Let’s be honest. Are we serious about sin? Serious about repentence? Serious about God’s call upon our lives to be the “Called out” ones which is what the church is and means …“the called out”?
Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?
Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched?
So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.
Or one who goes into the world, behaves like the world, following it’s ways and customs; none who play with it’s fire will fail to get burned, and there is always collateral damage to innocent parties. King David and Bathsheba are a perfect example. King Saul, Samson, any of the Israelite kings. They messed with the world of their times, disgarding the commands and wisdom of God, and they paid dearly. We prevent destruction of our identity in Christ, by living as the called out ones “in Christ”. We do that by sitting at Jesus’ feet and listen to Him speak, watch His actions and non-actions, obey as He commands. Am I sitting at His feet listening to His Word and guidance for good profit in my life? Am I even aware of the riches that I have in Christ? The hope I have in Christ? The inheritance that is mine in Christ because of Christ?
asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
Remember the Temple of Diana in Ephesis was also a bank, a treasury, where people invested their wealth and treasures. They were literally investing in an idol. Paul prays that they would be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that they might be illuminated, flooded by the light of the Holy Spirit so that would know God. With the natural mind, man cannot understand the things of God, they must be revealed to him (1 Cor 2:9-16). Paul speaks of this truth saying that “no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (v.11). And that,
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The natural person is the person who is not a spiritual person of God, they do not have the Spirit of God. But God chooses to impart His Spirit to us, by His grace, His favor, to enable one to discern Him, and to understand Him spiritually. Simply, we were born with a bias under the curse of sin and death, a bias to darkness and blindness to God and the things of God. That’s our natural default. God needed to come in and switch our default from darkness to light, remove the blinders, so that we would be able to see Him and understand Him, and follow Him. Paul says,
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
We cannot even imagine how good God truly is without His self revelation. We do not have the Spirit, nor the spiritual capacity, to understand and fathom the depth of a truly good God that has nothing but the best for us. That’s why one prays for revelation, that God would reveal themselves to a person, so that they may truly recognize and understand who God is. That’s why you and I have been tasked with the purpose to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our stories of God. People are not able to spiritually discern God, unless they have been enabled to discern God spiritually. You and I as followers of Christ need to understand this and not miss this. This is where our purpose comes in in loving God, we pray, we speak, we share His story of truth and love praying that He would remove the blinders of darkness, and enlighten the person with His Spirit of Revelation.
Do you know that you have been enlightened by the Spirit to enlighten others by the Spirit? You can know God, and know Him better and better because He has indwelt you with His Spirit of Revelation. Paul says in verse 12 that “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Cor 2:12).
And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
Do you believe this? Do you know this? Do you employ this understanding in your daily living? In your interaction with others? If you want to grow in God, you have to get to know God. And one of the best ways, the preferred way, is to be in the Scriptures. Since we are made in God’s image, then the better we know God, the better we will know ourselves and each other (Gen 1:26-28). When we come to know God, and spend more time with Him, and with those brothers and sisters who know Him, He will reveal to us the hope of His calling. In Ephesis, the hope for people was what? That the god’s, and in this case Diana, would bless them with riches, prosperity, with a future. People would go and hopefully hear an oracle of prosperity, or good fortune, most cases it was cryptic and required further sacrifice to appease the god or god’s.
Paul says, God’s calling is not cryptic, it does not require a greasing of the palms for words of blessing. His calling is to leave the world behind and be set apart to a hope and future in Christ, that has already been determined and settled. Jesus’ death and resurrection for you and me has given us everything we need, everything we would desire: safety and security for today and tomorrow. Can you sing with the Psalmist Psalm 27:2-4?
When the wicked came against me To eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear; Though war may rise against me, In this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple.
Though the world may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though the world may rise against me, I will not fear because I desire the One thing, the Only thing, to be pleasing to my LORD; that I may dwell in His Kingdom all the days of my life. Do I sing this? Is this my desire? Is this my hope? Is Jesus the apple of my eye, if He is the focus of my desires. We are called to be “set apart”, that is what the word “church” means “the set apart ones”. Set apart from the world unto Christ. This is our calling, and our hope is to be with Christ, at the return of Christ (1 Thess 4:13-18). Paul, the veteran pastor, encourages Timothy, the young sprout, in his purpose, in the churches purpose,
So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me His prisoner. Instead, share in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.
He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
Our purpose is to be Jesus in this world …at anytime, anyplace, and to anyone. We are called to believe Jesus, belong to Jesus, and bless like Jesus. This is our calling, this is our purpose, and we have been favored by Christ to do so by the indwelling power and authority of the Holy Spirit. He has been entrusted in us to guard the trust and witness that has been invested in us, the Gospel and the riches of Christ in you, as you and I live in Christ. This is what the world and it’s prince wants to tear out of us. He wants us to focus on the here and now, in this world of chaos and corruption, and take our eyes off our hope in Christ, and as a result forget the riches we have in Christ.
What are the riches you have in Christ?
For one you been brought near to Christ through the blood of Christ (Ephsians 2:13). We were once seperated from God living in darkness. Through the sacrifice and shed blood of Christ we have life. The wrath of God has been appeased, payment made in full, therefore man has peace with God through the sacrifice of Christ. By faith we have become sons and daughters, prince and princess of the King, sitting on the throne with Christ, with His power and authority, exercised through Holy Spirit. We are Kingdom citizens on earth, as we are in Heaven!
I am the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)
· I am the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
· I am a child of God and He is spiritually my Father. (John 1:12)
· I am part of the true vine, a channel of Christ’s life. (John 15:1,5)
· I am Christ’s friend. (John 15:15)
· I am chosen and appointed by Christ to bear His fruit (John 15:16)
· I am a slave of Righteousness. (Romans 6:18)
· I am a joint heir with Christ, sharing His inheritance with Him. (Romans 8:17)
· I am a temple—a dwelling place—of God. His Spirit and His life dwells in me. (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19)
· I am united to the Lord and am one spirit with Him. (1Cor.6:17)
· I am a member of Christ’s body. (1Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:30)
· I am a new creation. (2 Cor. 5:17)
· I am reconciled to God and am a minister of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:18-19)
· I am a saint. (Eph. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:2)
· I am God’s workmanship—his handiwork—born anew in Christ to do His work. (Eph. 2:10)
· I am righteous and holy. (Eph. 4:24)
· I am a citizen of heaven seated in heaven right now. (Phil 3:20; Eph. 2:6)
· I am an expression of the life of Christ because He is my life. (Col. 3:4)
· I am chose of God, holy and dearly loved. (Col. 3:12; 1 Thess. 1:4)
· I am a son of light and not of darkness. (1 Thess. 5:5)
· I am a holy partaker of a heavenly calling. (Heb. 3:1)
· I am one of God’s living stones, being built up in Christ as a spiritual house. (1 Peter 2:5)
· I am a member of a chose race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
· I am an alien and stranger to this world in which I temporarily live. (1 Peter 2:11)
· I am an enemy of the devil. (1 Peter 5:8)
· I am a child of God, and I will resemble Christ when He returns. (1 John 3:1-2)
· I am a born of God, and the evil one—the devil—cannot touch me (1 John 5:18)
· I have been justified—completely forgiven and made righteous. (Romans 5:1)
· I died with Christ and died to the power of sin’s rule over my life. (Romans 6:1-6)
· I am free forever from condemnation. (Romans 8:1)
· I have been placed into Christ by God’s doing. (1 Cor. 1:30)
· I have received the Spirit of God into my life that I might know the things freely given to me by God. (1 Cor. 2:12)
· I have been given the mind of Christ. (1 Cor. 2:16)
· I have been bought with a price; I am not my own; I belong to God. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
· I have been established, anointed and sealed by God in Christ, and I have been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge guaranteeing my inheritance to come (2 Cor. 1:21; Eph. 1:13-14)
· I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives I me. The life I am now living is Christ’s life. (Gal. 2:20)
· I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. (Eph. 1:3)
· I was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and am without blame before Him. (Eph. 1:4)
· I was predestined—determined by God—to be adopted as God’s son. (Eph. 1:5)
· I have direct access to God through the Spirit. (Eph. 2:18)
· I have been rescued from the domain of Satan’s rule and transferred to the kingdom of Christ. (Col. 1:13)
· I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins. The debt against me has been cancelled. (Col. 1:14)
· I am firmly rooted in Christ and am now being built in Him. (Col. 2:7)
· I have been spiritually circumcised. My old unregenerate nature has been removed. (Col.
· 2:11)
· I have been made complete in Christ. (Col. 2:10)
· I have been given a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. (2 Tim. 1:7)
· I have been saved and set apart according to God’s doing. (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5)
· Because I am sanctified and am one with the Sanctifier, He is not ashamed to call me brother. (Heb. 2:11)
· I have the right to come boldly before the throne of God to find mercy and grace in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)
· I have been given exceedingly great and precious promises by God by which I am a partaker of God’s divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4)
· I am not the great “I AM” (Ex. 3:14; John 8:24, 28, 58), but by the grace of God, I am what I am. (1 Cor. 15:10).
But, might we draw close to the Word written. For the passage says, “(we) His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance” (Eph 1:18),
I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
What does Paul mean by saying this? Again, it’s not about us. We are not the center of God’s universe, He is. It is all about the praise of His glory (as we learnt last week). God looks upon us as He great wealth! Just as a man’s riches bring glory to His family name, God will get His glory, gets His glory, from what He has invested in the church, His called out ones. Jesus shares His Parable of the Ten Talents or the Parable of the Three Servants found in Mt 25:14-30. He has entrusted to each man a portion of his weath: one received 5 bags of silver, to one 2 bags of silver, and to the other 1 bag of silver. He has done so based on their ability to bring a return on His investment. He goes away and comes back to receive glory for what he has invested in each servant. The first brings a return on the investment of 5 bags of silver, with another five bags of silver. The second doubles the Master’s investment as well. The third, knowing the Master’s reputation for being harsh if one messed up, instead hides the Master’s bag of silver in the ground, not wanting to lose it.
The first two servants recieve accomodation as being faithful servants and are given more responsibilites and a celebration with their Master. The third servant is called useless and tossed out of the kingdom, into the darkness, where there will be pain and sorrow. Why did Jesus tell this parable to His followers? To His disciples? To those who would believe upon Him? That He has expectation to be glorified. He has invested Himself in us and that there is an expectation to produce in His Kingdom. As His servants, we are expected to produce fruit because we have been enabled to produce fruit by the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. Laziness is not acceptable. He has invested in each one of us, to different degrees, based on His given ability and talent, but there is an expectation for each believer in Christ to be productive for the Kingdom of God. No excuses are acceptable. Those that choose not to, even what little they have will be taken and removed from them if they refuse to live out their calling as being set apart for the work and will and glory of Jesus.
God has an expectation of glory. He wants to be glorified in you, by you, in what you do. He wants us to succeed and overcome, empowering us by His Holy Spirit and with His authority. We are not to live by what we see and experience, but instead by what we know and believe to be true in Christ. We have been enlightened to do so by the Holy Spirit. Because we are God’s inheritance, we are to live to please Him and glorify Him. And the LORD God does not look upon us as we were yesterday, but as to what He is empowering and making us to be today and tomorrow. As Pastor Warren Wiersbe says, “God deals with us on the basis of our future, not our past” (Weirsbe, BEV, p.16). Jesus prayed in John 17 that God would keep us in the world, to persevere through the world, to glorify Him. We are here in this place, at this time; you have been made the person you are, in the place you are, in this time for His glory.
Will we choose to glorify Christ? Will we choose to believe in the Hope of Jesus? Embrace the calling of God upon our lives? Believe upon and live out the riches we have in Christ, so that He may be glorified in Me? God has an expectation, will we meet that expectation? And He has empowered us to far exceed His expectation with the power and authority of His Spirit. Afterall, what sense would God make in having supplied all the riches of His goodness and grace, if we are to weak to employ His will? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Mt. 26:41), but in Christ all things are possible (Mt. 19:23-26). Did Christ rise or not? Did He conquer death and hell, or not? Will all powers and principalities, authority and authority figures reside under His feet or not? They do! and they will! Do we have the faith to lay ahold of the riches we have in Christ? We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9) and we live by grace through faith (1 Cor 15:10).
But by God’s grace I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not ineffective. However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God’s grace that was with me.
You are who you are by God’s grace. You become who you can become by God’s grace, the working out of your faith, and submission to God’s Holy Spirit in our lives. All believers of Christ have the resurrection power of Christ in us (Acts 1:9). But the question is: are we willing to have His resurrection power live through us? Will I embrace the hope of my calling? Will I choose to allow Christ to be glorified in my being? He has empowered each one to do so, given each a responsibility to live so. Will we be faithful and do so? Amen.
