You won't be surprised when I invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter 1 and we'll read once again from the first verse through to the end of verse 14.
Ephesians chapter 1 and 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 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 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, 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. Amen .
Well, let's bow and pray together. Let us all pray. Father as we turn back to our Bibles, we affirm what we've been singing that we need You. We acknowledge that without the enabling of the Holy Spirit, words are just words, and so we need You to come and help us, both to speak, to hear, to understand, to believe, to live in the light of Your truth. And it is our expectation that having assembled us in this way that You will fulfill Your purposes in us and through us. That's what gives us hope and that's what enables us to keep doing what we do in the awareness that You are the One who, as Your Word is so brings life out of darkness and death, so accomplish Your purposes, we pray for Jesus sake, amen.
Well, I invite you to turn again to Ephesians 1:2 , what we've been referring to in a borrowed phrase as a great symphony of salvation. This long sentence that begins in Greek at the beginning of verse 3 and goes all the way through to the end of verse 14 without any punctuation at all and the English translators have done their best to punctuate it in a way that at least makes it readable.
Ephesians 1:3-14
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,
9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,
10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
One of the things that we want to make sure we are understanding is that in this story Paul is beginning with God the starting point is God verse 3 blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in other words he doesn't start with ours and proceed to God he starts with God and then comes towards the readers it's important because as we have said on a couple of occasions before any notion of religion in our day particularly in our culture is always cast in terms of man's endeavor to somehow or another engage with divinity somehow to meet God to find God to look for him and doubtless there are elements of truth in that insofar as people are wandering and wandering but the story of the Bible actually is the reverse of that the story of the Bible is a story of a God who takes the initiative in seeking out men and women and that is why it is important to that we recognize that we are talking here about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ we're not talking here about a cosmic principle we're not talking about some kind of Pantheon's pantheistic a new-age notion of spirituality whereby God is somehow interwoven in creation we are part of creation therefore it so facto we are part of God therefore perhaps if we look inside of ourselves we might meet God no the Bible operates very very differently God is presented in the Bible as quite distinct from everything in creation he is outside of and distinct from there was no creation before the beginning in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth so when Paul says we're starting here with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ he is reminding us that God is the sustainer the controller of alI things and for Paul this was a Creator the fixed point and understandably because it is the revelation of God Himself when Paul addresses the Intelligencia or those who at least thought of themselves as such in Athens and he has opportunity to establish his his presentation as he designs he says I know you're religious and then he launched a straight-in and he says the God who made the world and everything in it that's where he starts with this declaration of God and here in great chapter he is describing the fact that it is this God who in an amazing way by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone has chosen and adopted and redeemed and lavished His grace upon those who have come to him and with allI that said he still isn't finished and that of course is what he comes to in verse 11 there is still an inheritance that awaits us we've obtained it in one sense but if you look down to verse 14 you will see that there is also a sense in which we have yet to acquire it how is this well he tells us at the end of verse ten that God is operating according to a plan that he has set forth a plan for the fullness of time that he has set forth in Christ that little phrase fullness of time Paul uses elsewhere in Galatians he says that it was in the fullness of time that God sent forth His Son and now he says he has a plan for the fullness of time so if you're like the fullness of time was begun with the Incarnation and the fullness of time will reach his conclusion with the return of Jesus therefore we live within this timeframe and his plan for this time is to unite all things in HIM things in heaven and things on earth what was quite a thought isn't it the thought of unity the thought of the uniting of families that don't talk to each other the thought of uniting husbands and wives that are at enmity with one another the thought of putting sports teams together in a way where they actually are kind to each other and humble in their dealings with one another the thought of unity that exists amongst the nations of the world is quite a thought isn't it it's almost like a forlorn dream is like a notion that it seems to be absolutely unattainable because think about it this morning the fact that I mention husbands wives families sports teams office departments or nations there's not one of us is prepared to say that we live in such a sphere of tranquility and unanimity that nothing ever goes wrong and no one ever has their knows I would have joined and everybody's just having a wonderful time you go into your office in the morning and all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and then it's just a wonderful day from there isn't it now you've had about forty three emails before you even got into place two of them have annoyed you the other one wants to make you quit and so you just get on with your day from there and if you happen to tune in on the way to listen to a little bit of news about the world there'll be another reason for you to think well I don't think ever anything will ever be fixed at all well here's the promise he has a plan set forth in the fullness of time in Jesus to unite all things in him things in heaven and things on the earth well it's a very laudable and an understandable agenda isn't it to bring the nations of the world together the folksongs and the yeah the folk songs of the sixties in the early 70s had a great sense of that this land is your land this land is my land well the fact of the matter is that some are another yeah we got to share this thing this is ours but we can't share it because we're selfish and some people want it all and some people want the rest and so it goes on this morning when I clicked on the BBC news as a group of Syrian diplomats were assembling in Geneva for tentative peace talks concerning the nation there were two suicide bombers and a car bomb at a Shia shrine south of Damascus in Syria 45 people were instantaneously killed and many more are seriously wounded ( January 31, 2016) well this is at the very heart of everything that's going on isn't it and the Shia shrine it was there and swear one of Muhammad's granddaughters is buried a sacred place for Islam for the Shia Muslims so on and as those questions were presented in the debate the other evening to potential presidential candidates no matter how good an attempt they might make at it if you have any sense at all you know there is not one of those guys can fix this and all of them put together can't fix it well you say well this is a horrible experience it's a relatively nice Sunday morning We've come in here and you're explaining all these dreadful things no no that's not the story the story is that God has a plan for the fullness of time in Christ to fix this stuff and what you have in verses 11 through 14 is Paul giving a hint of what he's going to come back to about the way in which both Jew and Gentile are united in the economy of God as a result of the Work of the Son of God I've got to show that to you in just a moment the promise that has been given to the Jew is being fulfilled in the person of Jesus and His redemptive power is going to unite these people that's why the end of the story in Revelation 7 is of a company that no one can number from every tribe and nation and language and people and tongue and we find ourselves saying with a hymn writer I cannot tell how he will win the nation's how he will achieve his earthly heritage that's just straightforward that's just obvious isn't it all you need is a newspaper or the internet and say I cannot tell how he will do this but the promise is that he will do it now you will notice that there is this little hint here in verses 11 to 14 and as I say it will be developed as we go into chapter 2 and then into chapter 3 but if you notice three pronouns I think you'll be helped first of all in verse 11 in him we that is the first pronoun in him we then in verse 13 in him you and then in verse 14 who is the guarantee of our alright we you our now what's the significance of this well I take it or what Paul is referencing here in eleven and twelve is the description of the believing Jew of the Jewish person who has come to trust in Christ as their Messiah and as their Savior you remember when Paul wrote to the church at Rome he says to them that the gospel is to the Jew first is to the Jew first I wonder how much I wonder how much time we do we spend praying for our Jewish friends and neighbours and our work colleagues the people who are performing surgery on us at University Hospital are or are doing different things the Gospels for the Jew first and then on from there it's quite remarkable isn't it when we look to this the other Sunday evening we said how is it that God chose the Jew why did He choose this or why did He choose Abraham and the answer in Jerusalem e7 is that he chose them now because they were significant not because they were large he says but you were smaller than any other group of the people but I chose you because I loved you and if you asked why did he love them the answer is because he loved them how far is this getting you all right now think about your own faith and you don't believer this morning unless you've got a really really fat head which I can identify with unless you do you find yourself saying as you lie in your bed why did you choose me answer because I loved you why did you love me because I loved you in other words we bow down before the imponderable nature of God's amazing grace and that's what he's driving home here he's saying to these people isn't this an amazing thing all that God planned for His people is now there's it is in Christ that we have obtained an inheritance not separately from Christ but in Christ that's why that is such an important phrase for Paul, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation it is in him that we have this inheritance not in isolation from him it is in him that we have been adopted into his family it is in him that we have been united with Jesus Jesus who is the heir of all things so if he is the heir of all things and I am in him then guess what I have an heirloom that's coming my way as well in Jesus in fact when he writes to the church at Corinth he says of Jesus that all things are ours in Him that's first Corinthians 3:21 and following if you're looking for it all things are ours in Him the hymn writer says thou oh Christ art all I want and more than all in thee I find they see when we begin to fasten on the fact of all that is ours in Jesus the wonder of it then it changes the way in which we're able to look at everything else that is ours or the things that we wish were ours now you will notice that this is half and not haphazardly it has not emerged contingently but rather purposefully having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will what is going on this is what's going on we were reading Habakkuk the other morning at our pass our team meeting for prayer just briefly reading from it and and you might want to read that later on today it's very brief and Habakkuk starts out he says how long is that how long are we going to have to have this going on and why do you even allow it to go on are you going to do something and then the answer comes back yes I am going to do something and you're not going to like what I'm going to do you're going to be surprised by