Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

-{Ephesians 1}

-Suppose you’re walking along the streets of a big city and you see a man living in box on street.

You want to help the man, so you begin a conversation with him.

You want to get to know him, so you ask him some questions.

You ask, “What’s your name?”

And he replies, “Well, I don’t remember.”

You ask, “Where are you from?”

He answers, “I don’t remember that either.”

You ask him, “What happened to you?”

And again the reply comes, “I don’t remember that either.”

He goes on to say, “All I know is that one day I woke up lying in the street with a big headache.

I don’t know who I am, where I’m from, what I used to do.

So, I’ve ended up living in the streets.”

You offer to help, so you begin to look through the man’s effects.

You take his picture with your smart phone and use one of them fancy face-recognition apps to see if it can help you identity the guy.

After all the digging around, you put the pieces of the puzzle together.

The man is Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chair of Amazon.

You tell him, “Man, you’re Jeff Bezos.

You’re one of the richest men on earth.

You’ve got mansions and cars and planes and all sorts of other stuff.”

The problem is that he has amnesia.

He is rich, but he doesn’t know he’s rich, so he can’t enjoy the riches that he has.

-Wouldn’t it be sad if you had all those riches, but you completely forgot that you had all those riches and you’re living well below what you truly possess.

~As strange as that sounds, most Christians live their life that way.

Christians are immensely rich, but they are living well below their spiritual means.

-You might be thinking, “You say Christians are rich, but my bank accounts say otherwise.”

But that’s not the riches I’m talking about.

If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you are immensely rich in the eternal sense.

Spiritually, you possess everything your need—you lack nothing.

But most of us have forgotten about the spiritual wealth that God has given us.

-By your position in Christ and the spiritual possessions He freely gives, you have all you need for a victorious Christian life, but we might live defeated lives because we forgot who we are and what we have.

And so, today, I want us to remember our riches and live in victory in light of those riches.

-We just celebrated Thanksgiving, and now we are going into the Christmas season.

What better time than now to be reminded of the things we ought to be thankful for, and the gifts that God has so freely given.

-In our passage, Paul tells the Ephesian church how blessed they are in Christ and gives ideas about the kind of riches we have.

It is a great reminder for us that God has blessed us in Christ, and we are able to live in victory because of those blessings.

READ Ephesians 1:1-3

-Paul begins with great praises to God.

He says, BLESSED BE GOD!

That word BLESSED means to be inherently worthy of praise.

Why is God worthy of praise?

Paul says it’s because God BLESSED US IN CHRIST WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING.

God has shown unmerited favor on us and showered us with gifts and riches.

-But Paul doesn’t say that God has blessed us with some spiritual blessings or a few spiritual blessings.

He says God has blessed with EVERY / ALL spiritual blessings.

God has given us every single blessing that we need for victorious Christian life (in our position and in our possession).

-Paul says to the church as a whole and to all Christians individually, God has made you rich (not in the usual sense of the term).

But he goes on to describe those riches and I want us to consider those riches—a point of thanksgiving during the Thanksgiving season, and a reminder of the types of gifts we receive from the Christ-child born on Christmas morning.

1) Our riches are spiritual, not material

-So, just for fun, I looked up Jeff Bezos’ net worth.

As of November 18th, his estimated net worth is over $226 billion dollars.

He is considered the richest man in the world.

Let’s face it, the guy is stinking rich.

And that’s exactly how the world sees him.

~And yet, with all that money and with all that stuff that he has, he doesn’t even come close to the riches that a Christian possesses.

If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you are richer than Jeff Bezos.

-You might disagree with that but it’s because we are measuring wealth in the wrong way—we’re thinking materially.

We begin thinking in terms of material things we have or don’t have.

In America we think that the more stuff we have the richer we are, so we try to accumulate more stuff to satisfy ourselves (or so we think).

But, in light of eternity, stuff doesn’t make you rich.

~What good is it to gain the whole world and yet lose your own soul.

If Jeff Bezos doesn’t repent and believe in Jesus Christ, all his stuff don’t matter.

He is poorer than a street urchin in India without Christ.

-Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with stuff.

I have stuff, you have stuff, you may have gone Black Friday shopping to look for stuff, but our stuff doesn’t make us rich.

Paul says that God has BLESSED US WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING.

This is partially in contrast with the material, and partially a reminder of the source, because it also speaks of the Holy Spirit Himself.

We are blessed spiritually because we are blessed with the Holy Spirit and all the benefits of being indwelt by God.

-If you think your stuff is neat, how much better is the fact that Almighty God is within you with all His power and honor and glory.

If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit indwells you and lives a powerful spiritual life through you.

Everything that you need for a successful, satisfying Christian life is yours.

-Now, if you don’t have the Holy Spirit that means you’re not a Christian and don’t have eternal life, and you are truly poor.

Paul says:

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

(Romans 8:9 ESV)

~But listen, if you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the One who created the universe, sustains the universe, and owns every single thing in the universe, dwells within you.

Can you imagine being any richer than that?

-One author stated this:

The real measure of our wealth is how much we’d be worth if we lost all our money.

~If you’re a Christian, you can lose all your material things and still be richer than anybody else on the earth because your riches are spiritual and not material.

Paul also has this to say about our riches:

2) Our riches are heavenly, not earthly

-What does Paul say? God has BLESSED US WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES

~Paul is speaking about the transcendent world of the spiritual, especially in the place we call heaven where God’s throne is located and from where Christ rules.

Our riches come from the throne of God, not from the puny planet earth.

-We can’t look at the earth and the things of the earth and think that our riches come from here.

If we are born-again Christians, this world is not our home, we are just passing through.

We are actually citizens of heaven and that is where our eternal riches of inheritance are located.

-Unbelievers look to gain all that they can from their short stint on earth because that is all they have.

All they have is right here in the right now.

Jesus calls them CHILDREN OF THE WORLD because that’s all they have to live for.

They try to store up all they can right now because when they die they have nothing in the next world (except wrath and judgment and torment)

-But that’s not the Christian.

We know that our true treasure and riches are centered in heaven with our Savior.

That being the case, that is where our attention and affections ought to be centered.

Paul says this:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.