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Well, if you have your Bibles this evening, if you will, get them out and turn with me over to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians... We're be in Ephesians 1. There's not gonna be a PowerPoint on the screen or anything, but this lesson's actually... It's intended to be sort of an introductory lesson of a series of lessons that that will sort of talk about some of the different themes and ideas that Paul is talking about here in the book of Ephesians, some of which we're gonna talk about tonight and then a whole bunch of others as well.

There's several different themes and ideas that he's working with throughout the book. And so we're gonna be mostly in Ephesians 1. We're also gonna be kinda looking at the whole book too. So I don't believe that I have any other scriptures to reference. If I do, it'll be something quickly.

But I think most everything we're gonna be talking about is here in the book of Ephesians. So if you'll open your Bibles there, that will serve pretty well as your outline. That'll be our PowerPoint tonight. It's from from our bible. So we're in Ephesians.

Begin reading with me Ephesians 1, and we'll just start at the beginning, verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God, our father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly... In the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 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 so that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. And 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 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Paul begins this letter, obviously, here wanting us to understand the nature and not just the nature of, but the extent of the blessings that we have been given in Christ Jesus.

And I've always loved this opening statement that he makes here in verse 3. Blessed be the god and father of our lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And this evening, I really wanna look at that particular statement and notice some things about that statement. There's four things here that Paul says about these blessings, many of which we just read through. But there's four things in the statement in verse 3 that Paul points out about these blessings that I think are important for us to understand them and for us to under...

Or comprehend, I guess, the exact nature of those blessings. Four things that Paul wants us to understand about our blessings in Christ Jesus. And the first thing that I wanna point out to you from that statement in verse 3 is that Paul wanted us to know. He wanted us to believe. He wanted us to understand that we were truly...

We are truly blessed. If you notice there, he says that he has blessed us with what? With every spiritual blessing. That's always kinda caught my attention. It's not most spiritual blessings.

It's not a whole bunch of spiritual blessings. It's every spiritual blessing. If there is a spiritual blessing to be had, God has blessed us with it. If one might argue that this is really Paul's main point here in the first chapter of Ephesians. He spends most of his time doing what we just read, listing out all of these blessings.

And I don't think that it's an exhausted list either. I think that mostly, what Paul is trying to do here is just overwhelm us with the idea of all these blessings that he's given to us. Verse 4, he chose us to be holy and blameless before him. Verse 5, he adopted us as sons. We have this redemption, he says, in verse 7, and this forgiveness of our trespasses.

He's lavished these things upon us, he said in verse 8, wisdom and insight that he has given to us. Verse 9, he made known to us, not to others, he made known to us the mystery of his will. Verse 11, we have obtained this inheritance that he says. Verse 13, we're sealed with the promised holy spirit who guarantees that inheritance. It's important to Paul that we know not only the abundance of all these blessings, but that these blessings were sheer, that they were real.

They were valuable blessings. In fact, when we get to verse 15, he'll tell us about this prayer that he prays, like, all the time for them, asking that God would make sure that these brethren knew the extent of these blessings, that they knew the totality of what God had blessed them with. He said in verse 15, for this reason, all these blessings I just listed, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he had called you... Yet he has called you.

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might? He wants our he wants our eyes to be opened. He wants us to see. He wants us to comprehend the reality of our blessings, that that even though these blessings are not always clearly seen... I mean, these aren't things that you can put your hands on.

But just because they're not things that are not seen, they're still very real, and they are still very sure. So I think that's the main thing that Paul wants us to understand at the beginning is this... Just that we are tremendously blessed. It's easy to forget that, but we need to remember that. The second thing that he wants us to know about these blessings is that is that these blessings are not of this world.

They're not of this realm. Notice he said there in verse 3 that they are spiritual blessings, and they exist, not not in this world necessarily, but they exist, he says, in the heavenly places. That that term heavenly places is sort of a... Sort of an interesting word. It's the word that...

It's a word that's used to mostly describe really just something that's not earthly. It's the word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15. Remember when he is... He's talking about the nature of our resurrected body, and he says that, you know, that we're not gonna be raised with an earthly body. I think some translations...

Yeah. We're we're not gonna be raised with an earthly body instead we're gonna be raised with a heavenly body. It's some translations translate that word to celestial. I think I'm saying that right. Celestial body.

And so he's making that that contrast here that... Between the earthly and the heavenly, the spiritual. It's the same word as well that the Hebrew writer uses to talk about all of the earthly rituals and those things that served as a... As copies or shadows, he says, of the heavenly things. That's the same word that we have here.

And so when Paul uses it here to describe the nature of our blessings in Christ, I think he's trying to make it clear that these blessings are not earthly. They are not physical blessings. They are spiritual blessings. And that's an important point because I think that's where so many people get confused about the promises of God. If they think that God has promised to bless them with an abundance of earthly and physical blessings, and then when that doesn't happen, they get discouraged.

I know I've dealt with lots of people in the past who have... Who kinda had this expectation. It's probably my fault, and I led them to believe that that was the expectation, that God was just gonna bless them with all these different things and changing all these circumstances in their lives. And when that doesn't happen, they really... They get down.

They get angry with God. The blessings that he has promised us, they're they're not of this world. They are only... They're spiritual blessing. Now that that doesn't mean that God has not and does not bless us with earthly blessings at all.

He does. He does do that. He blesses us with an enormous amount of physical blessing. But here's the thing. Those blessings, those physical blessings, they're not a promise or a part of the promises that he's made to us as Christians.

God's physical blessings, those are blessings that God provides to everyone. He makes the sun rise on the evil and the good. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust. Before you ever became a Christian, God already blessed you with an abundance of material, earthly, and physical blessings. The difference becoming a follower of Jesus and becoming a Christian, the difference is not that you get more of those same blessings.

The difference is that now as his children, we are now also blessed. We have the physical blessings he's already given us. Now we're also blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's a very important truth to grasp. This is...

It's not about the physical. This is about the spiritual. This is something that's kind of a major theme throughout the book of Ephesians, one of the many ideas that he's working with. This is something that Paul keeps coming back to over and over throughout the letter. He starts here with our blessing in the heavenly places in chapter 1 and verse 3.

And then if you remember, he ends the book. Alright. In chapter 6, remember how he instructs us there to put on the full armor of god so that we can be able to stand and fight? And he says it's not against physical enemies, right, here on Earth, but it's against spiritual enemies. Enemies that reside, he says, in these, he uses his word again, these heavenly places.

Galatians 6:12 where he says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil, he says, that are in the heavenly places.

And so he says, therefore... Since that's the battle that we are engaged in, therefore, up the whole armor of God. This whole book, he's emphasizing the importance of what's happening here in these these heavenly places. In chapter 1, a little bit later in verse 20, he reminds us that that Christ is already seated there, that he is already reigning in the heavenly places. He says, it's chapter 1 verse 20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand.

There he says, in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power, dominion. He reminds us in chapter 2 that we are seated there with Christ in those heavenly places. Verse six of chapter 2, he raised us up with him, with Christ, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ. In chapter 3, he declares that the wisdom of God has been made known by the church, by us. God's wisdom is being made known.

In chapter 3 in verse 10, he says, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities, he says, in the heavenly places. Basically saying that when God brought Jew and Gentile both together through the church that that declared... That union that God created, that declared God's wisdom. But notice there in chapter 3 and verse 10 that that wisdom is not declared to the people of this earth, to this world. That declaration is being made known, he says, to the rulers and to the authorities who are in, he says, the heavenly places.

What's... Whatever it is that's going on here in these heavenly places, in the spiritual realm, that's what this is all about. That's what what we're trying to do. That... That's...

It has to do with what's going on there. And the happenings that are that are going on here on this earth, they do matter, but they only matter in regard to their association with the spiritual realm, with the heavenly places. In fact, that is what Paul points out is God's ultimate goal and plan. It's to unite all these things, to unite the things in earth and the things in heaven. We read that in chapter 1 in verse 9.

He talks about the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he says he set forth in Christ, and it was. In verse 10, he said the plan, a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. So Paul wants us to know the importance of not the physical and the earthly, but the importance of the spiritual, the importance of those things that are eternal. Thirdly, he wants us to know that God has blessed us. You're looking there again, verse 3, who has blessed us, he says, in Christ with every every spiritual blessing.

He wants us to know the important role that we get to play in this plan that God has. Notice how many of these blessings that he lists stress our importance to God. Verse 4, he... And we're back in chapter 1 again. Verse 4, he chose us.

He predestined and adopted us as sons, we learn in verse 5. He made known to us. There's something special about us. He made us known the mystery of his will, he said in verse 9. And he'll remind us this, not just in chapter 1, but several times throughout the book.

As we mentioned earlier, he had allowed us to be seated with him in these heavenly places in chapter 2 and verse 6. At the end of chapter 2, he tells us that we are being built together into this dwelling place of God. That's chapter 2 and verse 22. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit. That God himself is choosing to dwell with us, that we're special to him, that he wants to dwell with us.

We're being built together for that purpose. In chapter 3 in verse 10, we talked about that unity that we have that makes known the mystery of God's will and declares that to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. We get to share with him in that, and that's a lot. It's another thing that Paul's talking about in this book, the importance of our unity. And that's one of the main reasons that he's saying that our unity is that important because this is part of God's plan, and this is what declares God's wisdom.

And we're so important to God that he entrusted that with us. He trusts us to maintain that very unity that declares his glory. That's a privilege. That's a blessing. But, man, that's a responsibility, ain't it?

The very thing that declares the wisdom of God is placed in our hands. We can mess that up, or we can keep that going. He trusts us with that. He trusts us to be a part of this cosmic victory that he is performing through the church. And then right here in chapter 1, he made three statements that give us assurance of how special we are to God.

If you notice there, verse 13, he mentions that we were sealed. That's the idea of a marking, like, he sealed us. He has marked us. We're sealed with the holy spirit of promise, and so that's something that kinda communicates to you how important you are to God, that he has put his seal on you. He has marked you.

In chapter 1 and verse 18, Paul is reciting this, that prayer that we read that he has for all these saints. And he says that... Well, he wanted the eyes of our hearts to be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling. And he says, so what are the riches of his glorious inheritance, he says, in the saints? And that one's kind of a kind of an interesting statement or maybe a possible interesting statement because Paul could be just talking about our inheritance that we receive from God and how we share that with, you know, all the saints that have lived before.

But the way that this is worded, he also might be saying that the saints, that's us, that's you and I, that we are the inheritance that God received, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. And if that is what Paul is saying, then that's a pretty cool thought as well that we are his inheritance, that we are this prized possession of his. But whether or not that's what he's trying to say there in verse 18 or not, we get down to verse 20. He tells us something else about ourselves as well there. In verse 20 through about verse 23, he's talking about that rule and authority of Christ over all things.

Says he's putting him over every rule and authority and power and dominion, how he is head over all things to the church. And then he describes us. He describes the church. He says, as being the fullness of him who fills all in all. It's verse 22.

He says he put in... He put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, who he says is the fullness of him who feels all in all. We are the fullness of God. How cool is that? I think that's hella lot what Josh was trying to point out in our singing service last Wednesday that that...

That's how important we are to God. He saved us so that he wanted us. He desires us. We make him in some way complete. We are the fullness of him.

And then lastly, I wanna point out from verse three of chapter 1. Fourth thing that Paul wants us to know about these spiritual blessings, and that's the thing that should stick out to us most of all, is that everything, all of these blessings, all of it, the plan of God, all of it is in Christ. He's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Even though we are special to God and we are very a very important part of God's plan, but, actually, it doesn't really have much to do with us. Our significance, our importance, it's only because of him.

It's only because of Christ. Sure. You noticed that as we read through those blessings. Verse three of chapter 1, it's in Christ, he says, but we keep going through that list. Verse 4, even as he chose us in him.

Verse 5, he adopted us through Jesus Christ. In him, verse 7, we have redemption. Verse 9, which he set forth, he says, in Christ. Verse 10, it's to unite all things in him. Verse 11, in him, we have this inheritance.

Our hope is in Christ, he says in verse 12. Verse 13, when we believed in him. Verse 20, he worked it in Christ. It's not just chapter 1. It goes all throughout the book.

Chapter 2 and verse 5, we were made alive together with Christ. Verse six of chapter 2, we are seated with him. We're in Christ, he says. Verse 7, his kindness towards us is in Christ. Verse 10, we are created in Christ.

Verse 22, in him, it is that we are being built up into this dwelling place of God. Chapter 3 verse 11, God's eternal purpose and plan, he said, is realized in Christ. Verse 12, in Christ, we have boldness and confidence. In chapter 3 and verse 21, he says, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.

It's all about Christ. It is because of him. It is by him. It is through him, and it is for him. Point that out because, you know, the popular way, okay, it seems to be gaining more and more popularity as time goes on.

The popular way to talk about God, to talk about Jesus, to talk about salvation in general... It's to talk about it in terms of ourselves, in terms of individuals that that I, Todd Martin, I am so special to God, and that's why he offers me all these blessings. That's why he died for me. It's because I am just so special, and I am just so important to him. It's just all about me and how important I am to God.

I really get annoyed with the modern day... The more pop... The latest Christian music seems to really revolve around, not all of it, but a lot of it, seems to revolve around that idea that, oh, you don't think you're very special, but let me tell you are special. And that's true. It's true to an extent.

You are special to God, and we just talked a little bit about that. Right? God loves each and every one of us very much, and he cares for each and every one of us. Although we... Even when we say that, right, that's got more to do with God and less to do with you.

But this idea that he did all this just because you were so special to him, it just totally misses the point. It's really not the point at all. In fact, we could spend a whole sermon up here arguing the exact opposite point. There are several passages in our Bibles that would suggest that the opposite is true, that you are not special at all. And even in all this talk in Ephesians 1 about the tremendous blessings that we have, we're adopted, we're chosen by him.

You never really thought about the fact that he's not talking about us as individuals anyway at that point. Right? He's talking about who? Who's the you? It's us.

He's not talking about me. He's talking about us collectively. And so the emphasis on you being so special, it really just... It misses the point on several different levels. Number one, it's we that are special to God.

But even when you're talking about us collectively, who is us? Christian, followers of God, or his church, or his body? Even as a collective unit, we don't have any importance, any significance in and of ourselves. There's nothing special about us outside of him. This whole idea that you are special...

So special to God, therefore, you know, go be you, right, because that's what God would want you to do. He wouldn't change a single thing about you, I've heard some say. The whole idea of this is... This really isn't true. God does not want you to go be you, and he does want to change everything about you.

He wants you. He wants you to be like him. He wants you to be like Christ, and that's what this is all about. And he's blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. If you have not put on Christ, these blessings do not belong to you.

If you have not been true to Christ, if you have... You've left him, you are not serving him the way that you are, these blessings might not still belong to you. And that's a lot of what Paul's point in writing all the letters that he wrote is that we understand that that maintaining this relationship with him, it is the most important thing that we can do in this life. And so if your relationship is not right with him this evening, all these blessings doesn't really pertain to you. And we beg you this evening, if that is your situation, that you make that right so that you can you can be a part of us and a part of this inheritance that he has given us we can all one day be with him forever in glory.

If we can help you with that in any way, we offer you this opportunity to come forward, to make your request known that we might be able to assist you in getting your life right with God. If we can do that for you tonight, all you have to do is come forward as we all stand and as we all sing.