Sermons
Praise be to God
Praise Be to God! Eph. 1:3-14 Introduction: 1. God is to be praised for what He has done for us through Jesus Christ! 2. He has chosen us, adopted us, redeemed us, forgiven us, revealed His purpose, and sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise. 3. Oh, how thankful we should be! 4. Our lives have been forever changed by His intervention. 5. In one long sentence in the Greek containing 202 words Paul floods us with the magnificence of what God has done for us. Discussion: I. God is to be praised because He chose us (3-4). A. Israel was chosen from among all the nations of the world to be the special recipients of God’s special blessings. 1. It was not because they were more in number that the other peoples (Deut. 7:6-11). 2. It was not because they were especially righteous (Deut. 9:4-5). 3. Their being chosen was the result of God’s goodness. B. But now Paul says the saints of God, the faithful in Christ Jesus (1:1) are chosen and blessed with every spiritual blessing. C. He says that we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him. 1. Sometimes people get hung up on being chosen before the foundation of the world. They have difficulty comprehending how God could do this. 2. Yes, it is difficult for us humans to comprehend a God unlimited by time and therefore unlimited in understanding. 3. But it is those who have placed their trust in what He has done through Jesus Christ that are the chosen. It is neither against our will, nor apart from our will that we are chosen. It is those who are dependent upon God who are chosen. It is those who believe in what He has done. 4. The holiness and blamelessness that we have comes about NOT on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of our having been cleansed and made holy by means of the blood of Jesus Christ (5:2, 25-27). 5. What we have done has placed us under the wrath of God (2:1-3). But He has chosen us through what He has done in Christ to cleanse us. D. God is worthy to be praised because His goodness results in our cleansing. II. In love He adopted us through His grace (5-6). A. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. 1. Again, people get hung up on being predestined. But what he is saying is that God had a plan to bring people into His family through Jesus Christ. 2. Peter referred to the “predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God” in Acts 2:23. B. It was “according to the kind intention of His will” (1:5) and “to the praise of His grace” (1:6). C. A grace bestowed on us “in the Beloved” (cf. 2:1-10). D. God is worthy to be praised because He has adopted us into His family (2:11- 20). III. Through Christ we have redemption and forgiveness according to the riches of His grace (7-8). A. Redemption harks back Egypt and to the death of the first born (Ex. 12:23-32; 13:1-16). 1. The first born died throughout Egypt. 2. But the first born in Israel were redeemed by blood sprinkled on the door posts and lintel of each house. An alternative price was paid. 3. By means of sacrifice a payment was made that preserved life. 4. Peter said, “You were not redeemed (ransomed) with perishable things like silver or gold . . . but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18-19). B. Forgiveness involves our lawless deeds and sins being covered and that the Lord not taking into account our sin (Psa. 32:1-2; Romans 4:7-8). C. All this is made possible by the riches of His grace which He has lavished upon us. 1. The richness of His grace denotes the extreme high value of grace. 2. That it is lavished upon us denotes the unrestricted manner in which it has been given. God has not been conservative. He has not given His grace in a budgeted, or limited way. When I go to a restaurant, I do not get the most expensive item on the menu. I act conservatively. But God has not done this. He has lavished us with His grace. D. God is worthy to be praised because He has redeemed us and forgiven us and lavished us with His grace. IV. He has not stopped there. He has revealed His purpose (9-10). A. All His lavish grace, redemption and forgiveness would be meaningless if we did not know about it. B. In wisdom and insight, He has made His purpose known. 1. How magnificent is the history of Israel, the promises to Abraham, the temple, the Levitical priesthood, the sacrificial system, the promises to David, the coming kingdom . . . all this revealing His plan, spanning thousands of years leading up to the coming of Jesus, summing up all things in Him. 2. What a tragedy it is when people do not see the unfolding of the plan of God in the revelation of Scripture. C. In verse 12 Paul refers to those who were the first to hope in Christ. I take that to be the faithful Jews from the O.T. But he continues, “in Him, you also (Gentiles), after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation—have believed” (13). D. God is worthy to be praised because He has revealed His purpose to both Jews and Gentiles. He has been planning for us for thousands of years! That through our belief in what He has done in Jesus Christ we can be saved. V. In Him, all believers, are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, redeemed as God’s own possession (13-14). A. The seal of the Holy Spirit is synonymous with having been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge of our inheritance. Perhaps we can best understand this as the Holy Spirit being the down payment on our inheritance. B. We have become “God’s own possession.” C. God is worthy to be praised because He has given us the down payment and there is MORE TO COME, our ultimate redemption. D. Paul prays, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (1:18- 20). Conclusion: 1. YES! God is worthy of praise! 2. May the eyes of our heart be enlightened of the appropriateness of praising Him, and may our lips, and our lives, honor Him in every way!!
