Transformed By Ephesians

Ephesians 1:3–4 NKJV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,

Pray

Confession of Faith

I am not moved by what I see or by what I feel. I am moved by what I believe. I believe the WORD of God! The victory is mine! I have it now! I can see it through the eyes of my faith! In Jesus Name

Intro: We have been blessed by God! Today, I want to take some time to look at and deal with the great blessings of God! The blessings that God pours out on those who trust Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Ephesians 1:3 NLT

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

When we look at God's blessings for us today they are different!

Paul tells us our blessings are spiritual

Paul says our blessings are heavenly

What Paul did not say in this text is that our blessings are material blessings.

Now we know in the old testament God has used two methods of blessings to deal with his people!

Before Jesus , God dealt with people by blessing them with material blessings.

He promised Abraham and promised the children of Israel land and wealth and fame Gen 13: 14-17

Genesis 13:14–17 NLT

14 After Lot had gone, the Lord said to Abram, “Look as far as you can see in every direction—north and south, east and west. 15 I am giving all this land, as far as you can see, to you and your descendants as a permanent possession. 16 And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted! 17 Go and walk through the land in every direction, for I am giving it to you.”

Genesis 22:16–18 NLT

16 “This is what the Lord says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that 17 I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18 And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.”

But there was a problem

Israel misused and hoarded the material blessings.

Instead of sharing the blessings with other nations, Israel isolated itself and claimed superiority and God-given rights over other nations of the earth.

When Jesus came , God now blesses in a different manner!

He blesses with spiritual blessings When we get this - it transforms how we worship, how we approach God, what to look for in blessings, how to receive and how to share blessings

Tell Your neighbor you are blessed!

Today you must recognized that you are blessed beyond measure

1. Spiritual blessings are of the Spirit.

It is our Spirit that controls each one of us! It is the spirit that controls how we respond to the issues, problems and the circumstances that surround us.

You can feel bad; You can feel down, You can feel depressed and You can be oppressed; but if your spirit is strong, You arise arises and conquers your feelings.

You control and You overcome the oppressing circumstances,and you live a victorious day.

But if your spirit is weak, whether you are at work or you are socializing , you will walk around in self-pity,

you are constantly complaining

You are grumbling and griping and living a defeated day.

Then those days turn into weeks and the weeks into months until your life is down more than it is up

Because your spirit is too weak to conquer.

So the major blessings of God

The blessings that come from the Holy Spirit are the blessings that are spiritual

The blessings that keep you from losing your mind when the storms come!

The blessings that keep you getting up when others give up

The blessings that keep boundaries around you tel help you from hurting someone - who is trying to hurt you

It’s the spiritual blessings that enable you to control your life!

Ephesians 1:3 (NCV)

3 Praise God and praise the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you Jesus

When God gives us Spiritual blessings are the very opposite of worldly blessings.

I’m talking about the blessings of the inner man, I’m talking about spiritual blessed coming from God to me and to you.

I’m talking about the spiritual blessings that erase the loneliness,

Spiritual blessings that take away the feeling like you don’t belong.

Spiritual blessings that give purpose and meaning to our lives

Spiritual blessings that give us a reason to get up

the Spiritual blessings that allow us to experience an over-abundance of life.

You gotta get what I’m saying

The Spiritual Blessings from Jesus brings are superior to material blessings.

These blessings are permanent

these blessings are and eternal,

these blessings last forever.

The blessings Paul is telling us about come from God Himself.

Paul tells us these Spiritual blessings from God exist and can be experienced both on earth (the physical dimension of being) and in heaven (the spiritual dimension of being).

The Spiritual blessings Paul is telling us about can only be found in Jesus Christ

The same Jesus who was The same Jesus who is exalted to the right hand of God the Father.

The same Jesus who is in heaven, surrounded by all the heavenly atmosphere and the heavenly blessings.

All heavenly and earthly blessings are His;

He is Lord over all

He is the Possessor of all blessings.

So to have these blessings

to experience the spiritual blessings, he must be in Christ.

Check this out

If you are in Christ,

meaning you have accepted him as your Lord and Savior the bible tells us that we sit in heaven with Jesus!

Ephesians 2:6 NLT

6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.

Wait Pastor Ken - What you talking about Willis?

When you believe in Jesus, truly believe - God takes your faith and says because you trust my Son You are in right standing with me!

Hear me now, because this is how we miss our spiritual blessings

God counts you and me the same as Jesus Christ!

That’s why he is God

God counts us righteous like Jesus

That’s why Paul was saying Praise God!

God counts us acceptable to him just like Jesus.

When you think about the grace, the mercy and the favor we receive from God

In God's mind your trust in Jesus

Your Faith in Jesus Christ makes you Holy- makes you righteous and makes you acceptable for heaven!

When you believe in Jesus God's mind sees the you in Christ;

God sees you identified with Christ

God sees you seated in heaven.

And when you and I are seated in heaven,we experience all the blessings of heaven.

To have faith and trust in Jesus, to be in Christ means to believe in God's Son so much that God becomes elated

God is so that He counts you and me to be just like Jesus : acceptable and worthy to be blessed with all the blessings of heaven.

Galatians 2:16 NCV

16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God not by following the law, but by trusting in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be made right with God because we trusted in Christ. It is not because we followed the law, because no one can be made right with God by following the law.

God dealt with his people in days of old with material blessings first because his people had to learn several things.

Material inheritances don’t. That stuff is subject to being lost or stolen. We either watch our material possessions deteriorate or else we leave our material possessions behind for others.

Material inheritances cannot bring peace and security.

Having Peace and security come from the spirit. worldly nations and material things are of the earth, of a corruptible nature.

That’s why material things don’t solve the spiritual struggles that we deal with on a daily basis!

I’m talking about the stuff we struggle with internally.

Material things erase the spiritual divisions between men and between man and God.

God has to show us and is still showing us that within our inner being is a basic selfishness and greed.

We have a tendency,

We have an unregulated urge,

We have a desire to seek after material things

We seek after things that will corrupt us and we neglect the spiritual.

So we must undergo a basic change of character to be freed of this urge, this tendency that causes so much bondage, disruption, and division within self and between each other.

The only was is we must be born again,

We must be made into a new creation,

We must be created into a new man

A new person spiritually, permanently, perfectly, eternally.

And the only one who can do that type of surgery is God!

To have the spiritual blessings we must be recreated by the hand of God Himself. So Paul says:

Ephesians 1:3 The Message

3 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him.

Take a minute - ask God to show you all the spiritual blessings - he has given you! Then do like Paul - Just Say Praise God! What A Blessing God is in my life

Be Blessed until we meet again!