Week 2 “IN HIM”
Notes
Transcript
Good evening everyone, it’s good to be here with you tonight.
Good evening everyone, it’s good to be here with you tonight.
For those of you who don’t know me: My name is Zach Honnen. I am the student and young adult director here at The River Grand Blanc.
I am beyond excited to open up God’s word with you tonight… And for those of you who don’t know, it has been about three months since I last taught for the church…
This is because the last time I spoke at a Sunday gathering during my message I took the Lord’s name in vain… This was a mistake that I have owned up for and asked for forgiveness from the church and the elders.
Since then, the church has been bringing me through a restoration process of Repentance, counseling, healing, and care.
I’ve had countless hours working on the backstage of my life, working with our elders and Counselors and other staff…
And we’re now at the point of the restoration process where I stepped back in to teach teaching in small capacities.
So tonight I wanna thank you guys for taking the time to listen. I wanna ask for your prayers during this message and I want to thank Our elder team… the Grand Blanc location… And the Lord for giving me the opportunity…
But with that said…
If you have your Bibles with you… Go ahead and open up to Ephesians chapter 1 starting in verse 11.
If you have your Bibles with you… Go ahead and open up to Ephesians chapter 1 starting in verse 11.
We will be Looking at verses 11 through 14 tonight
If you don’t have your Bible tonight, go ahead and download the Bible app or The River Church app. There’s a Bible feature available on there.
But as you turn there…Last week Grant brought us through versus 1-10, We looked at the beauty of adoption and the power of the gospel.
And tonight we will continue to see God’s power and his purpose, and his plan through the gospel.
Throughout the book of Ephesians, we see something that is very common in Pauls Writings, but uncommon to the rest of the Bible.
We see the statements “In Him” “In CHRIST”
and Tonight we’re gonna quickly look at what that means, What it means to be in Christ, and How that should impact our lives…
And last week’s passage Presented this picture of adoption of being chosen by God.
talking about All Who have repented and believed in Jesus, have been adopted, have been chosen by God to be his children
And every child receives an inheritance from their parents…
we all inherent something.
But tonight the question is this… is our inheritance in Adam or is our inheritance In Christ?
We will look at that for a few minutes during this message and then discuss it further in our discussion groups following the message
But with all that said Let’s jump into our text…
But with all that said Let’s jump into our text…
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Lets Pray…
Lets Pray…
Amen…
Amen…
How many of y’all have heard this phrase before show me your friends I’ll show you your future???
I feel like that’s a pretty popular phrase, but as I was preparing this message, I had another thought
Show me your family and I’ll show you your future…Your family influences you more than you could ever imagine
When I was a kid, I would see my dad sometimes just get angry when someone cut them off in trafic on the highway and I would think it’s not a big deal. We’re just driving a car. It’s OK.
But then I grew up and someone cut me off on the highway, I’ve found that my first instinct is to have the same reaction…
Each and every one of us inherit things from our family… for some of us we inherited good looks, Maybe nice hair a good smile…
For some of us We have inherited some anger issues, Some baggage , immaturity, maybe some bad habits or mindsets.
We all carry our things from our family with us… and sometimes we have to choose to let things go… In order to pick up something new…
And you and I in this room have something in common… We were at one point a child of adam…A child of sin, a child of wrath As it says later on in chapter 2…
In the beginning of creation, God created Adam and Eve and they lived, and then they sinned, and their sin passed on to us
Looking at Romans, 5:18 through 19:
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
The inheritance that you and I are naturally born with is SIN…Is DEATH… IS SEPARATION FROM GOD.
This is our inheritance In Adam…
BUT TONIGHT I WANT TO LOOK AT THE INHERITANCE WE HAVE in Christ.. In Christ, Through his adoption through his death, burial and resurrection, we have a new inheritance…
Looking at 11:
Looking at 11:
11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
IN HIM… the The central theme throughout Ephesians Is IN CHRSIT…
In him, we have obtained inheritance, In him, we have been adopted, In Christ, we have been redeemed…
We were once unified in Adam… Unified by condemnation, sin, shame…
But now we are unified in Christ… We have received this inheritance of Grace,Mercy, Redemption and Forgiveness
We have inherited the gospel We have inherited the truth that we see in Romans, eight
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
and in Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is our inheritance… Salvations… we have moved from a place of hopelessness to a place of hope “IN CHRIST.” and in verse 12 we see who had this hope first…
12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
what Paul is describing here is something incredible… He’s referencing the Jews, those who first hoped in Christ, what that means is those you first knew they needed a savior…
For thousands of years, the Jews had looked forward to… and known that a messiah was coming… They looked ahead and hoped in the coming Savior, who is Christ
From the beginning of humanity till the day, Christ was born his people hoped and waited for the savior to come
And when he came many rejected, but when he died and rose again, many believed to the praise of his glory!
God’s people at Last were redeemed, but God doesn’t stop with the people of Israel, but he extends this hope to the Gentiles that is what we see in verse 13…
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
this inheritance wasn’t just for the repentant Jewish people, but was for anyone who put their faith in Christ
this is where the world gets cracked wide open… The hope of salvation was no longer hidden behind a veil in a temple, but that veil was torn Top to bottom…
Access to God… Access to forgiveness, to redemption and salvation was not only for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well
The Bible says those who were once far off, have now been brought near
You and I are now grafted in to this beautiful glorious inheritance…
And this inheritance is sealed with the promised, Holy Spirit
When Jesus was heading to the end of his ministry, he prepared his disciples by saying this
7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Jesus has sent his Holy Spirit not to come down and put a stamp of approval On our forehead, but to dwell within us as our guarantee of salvation. We are not sealed by the Holy Spirit, but sealed with the Holy Spirit…
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon somebody for a while and then he will leave. David would often say in his psalms. “Take not your spirit from me”
We have received access to God himself… Dwelling us and us Dwelling within Him…
To illustrate I want to share something, my fiancé, and I are in the house buying process…
And a part of that process is laying down and earnest money deposit
This is a portion a taste of the full commitment financially that will come
This is me saying in good faith I plan to continue and finish And honor this deal until the end…
And if I go back on my word, I will lose that deposit
The Holy Spirit is a deposit is the guarantee that God will carry us through the end he will be faithful to the end…
God says he is not like man that he should lie… He is our guarantee of salvation of our inheritance…
And that’s what we see in verse 14
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
To be in Christ is to be fully secure in salvation…
To say I’m a Christian can mean a lot of different things to different people…
Story about Ymca coworker… said he was Christian… was living with his girlfriend smoking weed… but he’s a “Christian”
BUT To say, I am in Christ Is a whole different thing entirely…in 2 Corinthians 5:17 it says this…
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Looking at the tense within the Greek, the new will come means “and will continue to remain…”
To be in Christ is to be a new creation… And this is guaranteed and perfected, and finished and brought across the finish line by the power of the Holy Spirit
So tonight I wanna ask you… ARE you in Christ? Have you accepted the gospel? Has he transformed you?
Because it is so easy to pretend it is so easy to grow up in church and put on the mask put on the façade and act like you are in Christ when you are in Adam… In the flesh
Again, there are two different inheritances, the one of condemnation, and the one of forgiveness…
If we continue to operate in the flesh and reject the spirit, we will inherit the inheritance of the flash, which is sin and death
But if we have surrendered ourselves to Christ and have the Holy Spirit in dwelling us, we will inherit life and life to the full
And the best moments with Christ down here… the most beautiful moments with God here… it’s just a small little deposit of what is to come
The Holy Spirit is the earnest money deposit. The incredible moments with God in this life, is a small taste of that which is to come.
One day, we will see Christ, face-to-face, and forever worship, forever, celebrate, and forever bask in his glory…
Forever, knowing that you are forgiven forever, knowing that you are loved, forever perfectly sitting within that love, grace and forgiveness
That is only found in Christ…
And closing with this passage in NLT…
54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
56 For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.
57 But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.
In Him… In Christ is our victory…
So this In our discussion groups, let’s ask ourselves. Do we live in this victory? Or do we choose to live in our history?
Do we allow sin and shame to rule our life or hope and faith in Christ.
Let’s pray…
