In Him Pt. 2
Notes
Transcript
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. Turn with me to Ephesians 1, Ephesians 1.
I hope that you were able to rest and to take some solace in the assurances that we were given last week - the riches that we receive in Him. What a wonderful truth that we as Christians can rest in - the fact that we are in Christ.
We are back into the heights of the opening stanzas of Ephesians today.
Every verse drips with spiritual significance. With valuable knowledge that we as Christians need to have.
In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will,
so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.
Benediction?
In ancient letters the benediction would follow the greeting - and would amount to a prayer on the sender’s part for blessings for the recipients.
This is the second or middle portion of the benediction - and my contention, my opinion as I’ve looked at this section of Scripture over the last few weeks is that Paul is pointing to the glory of God primarily and then the benefits that we receive.
He starts off blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
We were chosen according to His good pleasure and for the praise of His glorious grace
We have redemption and forgiveness according to the riches of His grace
According to His will, to His good pleasure - to His glory.
Big Idea - Our presence in Christ is meant to bring glory to God
How does this second portion of the benediction reinforce or build on this idea?
A Glorious Inheritance?
A Glorious Plan
A Glorious Hope
A Glorious Inheritance?
A Glorious Inheritance?
Whose inheritance is it?
There are currently 58 million dollars of unclaimed money being held by state and federal agencies waiting for a claimant
These are placed in abeyance by the government
There are websites galore to help you claim your share of this money - if some is owed to you
What a gift to know that this inheritance is already assured and is delivered
The verb here is eklerothemen
Writing in his commentary on this passage, Dr. MacArthur writes “When something in the future was so certain that it could not possibly fail to happen, the Greeks would often speak of it as if it had already occurred (as here, where Paul uses the aorist passive indicative).”
There is no doubt in Paul’s mind that not only is this inheritance is assured - in some sense the recipient already has it
Remember that the phrase “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing” means that those blessings are already present
The challenge to this phrase
It can be translated have obtained and inheritance (or in our translation received an inheritance) or were made an inheritance
So the question that we are faced with this morning is what inheritance is Paul talking about?
Is Christ our inheritance?
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
This would go along with the idea that there are benefits for the Christian who is found in Christ - in Him.
What an inheritance - out of the abundance of His riches God gives us the greatest gift, inheritance, we could have.
Are we his?
The people of Israel were referred to as God’s inheritance
But the Lord selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for his inheritance, as you are today.
But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob, his own inheritance.
Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord— the people he has chosen to be his own possession!
“They will be mine,” says the Lord of Armies, “my own possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
The people of Israel were referred to as God’s inheritance - but that is the Old Testament
What about the New?
It is more personal - Christ lays claim to a people for Himself
Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
We’re really a pretty pathetic inheritance - unless Paul is making the case that all of this points to God’s glory and the most glory that He gets is the redemption and forgiveness of wretched sinners for an inheritance for His Son.
Much like, instead of giving the panhandler on the street corner a handout it is plucking him off the corner, cleaning him up and providing him the best accommodations for eternity - the surprising thing is that God does it at no cost to us and great cost to Himself.
Both and proposition - we are Christ’s inheritance promised to Him by the Father and He is ours. Both translations are grammatically and theologically correct. Throughout this section Paul has been carefully balancing the proposition of God’s glory next to man’s benefit - and he does so again here. I would give more of the nod to the idea that God is glorified most in the redemption of sinners who thereby become Christ’s inheritance and, in the process, gain Christ as an inheritance.
The largest inheritance in history - at least as far as my internet search turned up was $42.2 billion dollars
Pittance compared to the inheritance that we have in Christ
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Modern Church The Inheritance of the Christian
Talk of princes, and kings, and potentates: Their inheritance is but a pitiful foot of land, across which the bird’s wing can soon direct its flight; but the broad acres of the Christian cannot be measured by eternity. He is rich, without a limit to his wealth; he is blessed, without a boundary to his bliss.
A Glorious Plan
A Glorious Plan
I am a big fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - the original movies not the upcoming Amazon series - with the vast landscapes and vistas set across the New Zealand countryside. One quote that rings to mind is the words of Gimli the dwarf when talking about the Mines of Moria and he says that it is shocking that they call them a mine - because in reality it is a vast underground kingdom. In the same way it seems absurd for Paul to refer to God’s plan as just a plan.
There is no other word for it - but it just seems necessarily limited in scope and description of the breadth of the plan that God put into motion.
We make plans
To cut the grass
The grocery store
To finish college
But this is a plan 6000 years in the execution and continuing. This is amazing.
Paul returns to the theme that he struck in verse 5
The believer’s predestination - we were predestined to be adopted according to the good pleasure of His will
He works out everything according to the purpose of His will
Isn’t it wonderful in a world where so much seems to be going wrong
Wildfires
Covid
Afghanistan
Political fighting
That there is a God who is in control and is working everything out according to His plan
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
300 Quotations for Preachers from the Early Church Actions contrary to God Still Tend toward Good Ends
It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God’s will; but so great is His wisdom and power, that all things which seem adverse to His purpose do still tend towards those just and good ends and issues which He Himself has foreknown.
God works - energeo meaning to put into operation, to cause a state to be, to work
God doesn’t get tired, He doesn’t need vacations or breaks
The Lord does whatever he pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths.
He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings the wind from his storehouses.
Riches and honor come from you, and you are the ruler of everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
He is working to bring about His good and perfect will
Commenting on this passage William Hendriksen writes “Neither fate nor human merit determines our destiny. The benevolent purpose—that we should be holy and faultless (verse 4), sons of God (verse 5), destined to glorify him forever (verse 6, cf. verses 12 and 14)—is fixed, being part of a larger, universe-embracing plan. Not only did God make this plan that includes absolutely all things that ever take place in heaven, on earth, and in hell; past, present, and even the future, pertaining to both believers and unbelievers, to angels and devils, to physical as well as spiritual energies and units of existence both large and small; he also wholly carries it out. His providence in time is as comprehensive as is his decree from eternity.”
Isn’t it reassuring to know that our lives are part of a universe-embracing plan. That every event is moving us forward and ultimately points to God’s glory, His grace and His goodness in our lives.
Every sickness
Every challenge
Every joy
Every promotion or missed opportunity
Every event
All things work in accordance with the purpose of His will
A Glorious Hope
A Glorious Hope
This presents another challenge to understanding this portion
Who does Paul mean by “we who had already put our hope in Christ”?
The Jewish believers?
The NLT leaves no doubt as to who the translators think Paul is referring to
God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.
They were the first to believe
Jesus command was to move outward from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth
Later in the letter - specifically in much of chapter 2 - Paul is going to contrast the citizenship granted to Israel and the Jews with the separation inherent in the life of the Gentiles
But this wouldn’t make sense with what Paul has written so far
All throughout this salutation and benediction Paul has used plural pronouns - us and we - to refer to all believers
It would be very confusing to his readers for him to now - without clarification - to switch the meaning of we from all believers to just Jews
And then he’s going to switch it right back in the very next verses
All believers?
Then what does he mean by those “who had already put their hope in Christ”?
I think this is a both and proposition yet again
The “we” is all those who have already believed - whether Jew or Gentile - as they, by nature of their belief in Christ will bring praise to His glory
God gets the most glory from humans being saved
Rather than looking backward to a pre-Christ view of Israel’s hope in the Messiah or to look only at Jewish Christians, this statement has in view all believers
What gets lost a bit is the definitive, exclusive statement that Paul is making here
The article is missing - in Christ should be in THE Christ
We didn’t simply put our hope in a way - but rather the way
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
This is the way, and there is none other; the right way, the holy way, the perfect way, the way of Christ, the way of the just, the way of the elect that shall be saved. Walk in it, persevere in it, endure in it, live in it, die in it, breathe forth your spirits in it.
Oh what joy is ours in knowing that we have our hope in the way to Heaven - that Christ is our most perfect inheritance, that we are His, that He is working all things out according to His plan that has been in existence since before the foundations of the world, since before time began and that we who have put our hope in Him are even now bringing glory to His name.