Please read the passage carefully before reading the sermon!

Ephesians 1:1-14

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has two great themes; the excellence of Christ and the excellence of his church. Both f these themes recur as the letter unfolds.

The letter opens with an enormous pile of heaped up blessing; verses 3-14 are all one sentence – the blessings pour out and pile up, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over! And Paul is quite clear that the blessings of heaven are heaped up for us in Jesus Christ.

In fact we have every spiritual blessing in Christ; chosen to be holy, predestined to be adopted, redeemed through his blood – the revelation of the mystery of Christ, chosen and predestined according to God’s plan and marked and sealed with his Spirit. What a fantastic pile of treasure we have in Christ? Time doesn’t permit us to examine each of these treasures individually although each would supply the material for an enriching study. For now I invite you to tumble into the pile like a child in a sweet factory or an infant in a ball pond. Enjoy the pure delight of being in Christ.

This is a good reason why our conversation and our prayers should be full of Christ. It is Jesus who has done all this for us; how can we be anything other than ecstatically grateful to him? Paul outlines two key blessings that we have in Christ.

• Destiny

  We have a destiny and a purpose for our lives that saves us from emptiness and nihilism. Us humans need a purpose or we either fall into despair or throw ourselves into futile attempts at fulfilment; pleasure, possessions, drugs, alcohol, sex, career etc. All these attempts ultimately fail. This is because we have an eternity in our hearts that God has placed there and we are made to be fulfilled by God.

  Our hope of heaven is a destiny that God has purposed. It is not a natural consequence of anything we have said or done; quite the opposite. God has chosen, God has acted and we are the beneficiaries.

  We are destined to be children of God and live in his household, under his loving care and with our Father’s love around us – we are destined to inherit all of our Father’s glorious kingdom treasure.

  Since God has done all of this our conversation and our prayers should be full of our spiritual destiny. These truths should release us from the mundane and trivial and set our hearts firmly in heaven.

• Assurance

  This is the second key blessing that Paul draws attention to in this first chapter. Assurance is the working out in our lives of God’s loving intention that we should enjoy our life with him NOW. Assurance is based on his choice, his action and his son; Paul argues that this assurance is ours in Christ.

  Our hope of heaven is solidly based on God’s sovereign purpose (he chose us and predestined us) and on what Jesus Christ has done on the cross. Since none of it depends on “man’s desire or effort” then we can have every confidence – “I write these things to you who believe so that you may know that you have eternal life …”

  God wants you to enter into the promised land of enjoying the relationship he has established for you NOW. We are to be for the praise of his glory here. Christ’s praiseworthiness and dear-worthiness are for this life as well as the next. It really is alright to enjoy our salvation now.

  There is another basis for assurance in this passage – Paul tells us that the ultimate goal of God’s amazing salvation activity is actually his own glory (v12, 14). It is inconceivable that God will allow his glorious splendour to become tarnished and it will never be said that God’s glory is not complete.

  Assurance is often criticised because, it is said, it makes Christians presumptuous, complacent or fatalistic. How can we avoid these errors if we want assurance?

  This is not an easy question but the New Testament suggests that we apply the twin tests of perseverance and holiness. To be sure of our salvation without falling into the errors mentioned above we should look for these twin fruits. We persevere in our love for Jesus Christ and we become increasingly like him. If these characteristics are not in evidence in or lives we might be justified in wondering if we are indeed God’s children.

  This is not to say that our security in Christ is under threat but these obvious tensions are intended to undermine our trust in anything other than the saving work of Jesus. We persevere in complete dependence and loving obedience – true assurance never gives rise to fatalism or complacency or half-heartedness

• In Love … (v4)

  Isn’t holiness just another rather old-fashioned, Christian way of being legalistic? It is love that saves us from legalism. We are “holy and blameless in his sight in love” and “in love he predestined us.” We obey because of love – he loved us first and we respond to him in love – then, because we love him we obey him.

  The bible often links love and holiness together:

  1 Thessalonians 3:12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father

  Holiness is loving obedience, not slavish obedience and this is the antidote to cold legalism.

  Our conversation and prayers should be full of our desire for faithful perseverance and loving holiness.

We have a huge mountain of benefits in Christ – spiritual blessing beyond description.

Thank God for Jesus!