Ephesians 1:11-12

Inheritance, Purpose, Glory

Three words I want to focus on tonight in these two verses.

But before we do I want to review verse 10 a little bit.

Ephesians 1:10 ESV

10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Not a day goes by that we don’t look around us and see chaos in our world. I don’t know what app you use for news on your phone, but if you have notifications set to “on” - then you are bombarded with something going on somewhere, ALL the time.

We have chaos in the home, in the school, in the workplace, in the government, in the nations. There is unrest in every arena of our lives.

As Christians, how do we process this? How do we deal with this?

How many of you remember the folk music from the 60’s and 70’s? What was one of the main themes they sang about? Love mainly. Love is all we need.

The problem with most of those songs though, is that they are supposing that we can “look inside” for that love and that it’s just sitting there waiting on us to express it. Well, I think it’s safe to say that they were looking for love in the wrong places right?

They were looking within themselves to find the love and peace that their heart desired and they came up empty. Because the love and peace we desire does not come from within our hearts naturally. Selfishness comes naturally. Pride comes naturally. Envy comes naturally. Bitterness and anger come naturally. Isn’t that true?

So, what do we do?

Well, if we are ignorant of our Bibles, we could be tempted to live as the world lives. We would be tempted to give up hope, or to “live for today, for tomorrow we die”.

But we read a verse like this verse 10 in Ephesians 1 and it brings us back to our true foundation.

It says that God, in Christ has a plan for the fullness of time to redeem all that was broken by the curse of sin on this world. It says that Christ will make all things right again. It says that we have an eternal hope beyond all of the pain and heartache that we see now.

Isn’t that a great thing for us to remember? If we aren’t careful we can get bogged down in all of the darkness around us and forget that we have an eternal hope beyond all of this junk.

God has a plan for the fullness of time to re-unite all things in Christ.

Ok, onto verse 11.

Inheritance

- In Him

What is this inheritance?

Listen how this is literally translated in the Greek: This is literally “we were chosen as an inheritance,” an AORIST PASSIVE INDICATIVE.

So the inheritance is that we were chosen to salvation.

Christ is ours, and We are His.

The inheritance is that we get to share in the blessings and life as a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17)

ALL spiritual blessings are ours in Christ now that we have been redeemed. (Ephesians 1:3)

How do we get this inheritance?

We get it IN Christ!

When do we get this inheritance?

Now and Later.

Now, in the sense that these blessings we get to enjoy while in this temporary body. Now in the sense that we are enjoying fellowship with the Father as Sons and Daughters.

But also, Later. Later in the sense that we will enjoy it FULLY when we get to Heaven. And we will get more into this later on in these next verses, but it says that the Holy Spirit is our down payment of the inheritance. He is given as a pledge, a down payment, a foretaste of what is to come when we reach Heaven!

Purpose

v.11) “according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will”

Look at these words. It says that God has a purpose, and that he works all things towards that purpose.

Your life, my life, this world is not driven by chance or fate or any other blind force. Our life is not a roll of the roulette wheel and determined on where it lands. No, our life has been planned out and determined by a holy and loving God. A God who loved us before the foundation of the world. A God who chose us when we were still sinners. A God who sent His only Son to pay the penalty for our sins. God didn’t spin your life like a top and walk off and hope it lands in a good spot. He loves you, and He has a purpose for you.

Now, we have to know that sometimes the “all things” that God purposes in our lives are hard things. They are sometimes painful things. They sometimes feel like undeserved punishment. But that is the most vital time to remember who God is and what He did to redeem us.

I was talking to a good friend this morning and sharing some of my life experience where God has taken very bad things that have happened and used them for good purposes. The situations themselves were NOT good, but the final outcome WAS good. I’ve seen myself in those times that ONLY God can pull that off. Only God can take the BROKEN and make something BEAUTIFUL out of it.

Only God can do that.

Glory

v.12) “to the praise of His glory”

Whenever we understand that we were chosen with a purpose by God who works all things according to His will, and that “all things” He will use for our good - then that should naturally make us praise Him.

When we understand that we have a loving Father that loves us with a perfect love, a love that is unchanged by our wavering - it should make us want to glorify Him.

You should glorify God by your life. You should glorify God in every aspect of your life.

It doesn’t matter what your occupation is. Whether you’re a nurse, a plumber, a refinery worker, a welder, a homemaker, a truck driver, an architect… you get the idea. It doesn’t matter what you do, you do it to the glory of God.