All Spiritual Blessings

Introduction

I’ve shared with you from time to time some stories from my childhood and my upbringing, trying to illustrate the truths of the gospel or to help us to understand some part of our relationship to God or one another. But I don’t think I’ve shared with you a lot about our economic situation in the family that I grew up in. It would be an understatement to say that we weren’t rich.

I never had a cute little animal on my shirt. My shoes never had a swoosh on them. You may have grown up drinking seven up. We grew up drinking six across. We always had that little off-brand name of everything. But I can remember about my child, one thing I remember about my childhood is we could have been rich.

And now it’s being sold for maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you could have bought that piece of property that’s now worth a hundred thousand dollars, if you could have bought it for a hundred back in the 60s, why didn’t you? And dad’s reply was always, because I didn’t have a hundred dollars back in the 60s.

But thinking back on that now, I think Dad probably could have come up with a hundred dollars in the 60s to buy that piece of property. He could have worked some extra hours or maybe borrowed from multiple family members and friends. And so what was missing from that equation was, yes, the money to make that transaction, but more than the money, it was the knowledge. He just didn’t know when that was offered to him in the 60s, that it would later be worth what it was worth. Because I have to think that if Dad would have known that, he would have somehow made that transaction. There’s a biblical principle. Jesus tells the story about the pearl of great price.

That God offers to us something of great value. Now, to be fair, he asks a pretty high price for it. God makes big demands of us, his people. Demands that are summed up in phrases such as, you’ll love me with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. That you’ll have nothing that you put above me. In language that is our commitment to him is likened not just to some marriage ceremony, not just to some allegiance, but the language that we will die to the world and everything else and live for him alone. The examples, our legion of the demands, the great demands that God has placed upon his people. Think of just three of the prophets. To one prophet, God would say, You can’t get married.

To another prophet, he would say, get married, but marry a harlot, because I need to teach a lesson. And to another prophet, he would say, I’m going to take the life of your wife. God’s always made high demands of his people. But right-thinking people, his people, understand that if we can think in terms of transactions, that the transaction is worth it. Would you turn with me to the book of Ephesians, chapter one? In Ephesians chapter 1 tells us that yes, God makes great and high demands of his people. But it will be worth it. In Ephesians chapter one, look beginning in verse 3. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 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, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he has made us accepted in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of his sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to the good pleasure which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on the earth, in him. In him also we’ve obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. In him, you also trusted after you heard the word of salvation, the gospel of the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.

All spiritual blessings are in Christ Jesus. That’s what he gives us. A couple points about that transaction that should obviously be a transaction that we’re willing to make. That whatever demands, whatever cost Christ might ask of me will be worth it because in him, in Christ, and I believe that means exclusively, that there are no spiritual blessings outside of Christ. But in Christ are all spiritual blessings.

And the purpose of this lesson will be twofold. Number one is hopefully for us to see that this transaction is going to be worth it. It is worth for you to go and sell everything you have so that you might purchase this pearl of great prize. That maybe you’ve never made that transaction. You’ve never become a believer, a follower of Jesus Christ. We would urge you to do that this morning. Even if you’ve made that transaction, you’ve become his follower sometime in the past. We want to help you to grow in the appreciation for that decision that you’ve made and for you to double down on that decision and not to forsake it. And then secondly, we’re going to talk about some implications of what that does for us in these spiritual blessings.

1. God Chose Us

All spiritual blessings are in Christ Jesus. And the first one that jumps out to my mind when I read this text in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14, is that God chose us. He says that right from the get-go in verse 3, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him. The other language is that he predestined us. That just simply means that he chose us beforehand.

He has adopted us into his family.

2. Adopted Into His Family

Let’s talk about those concepts. Being chosen and being adopted. We recognize here that the Holy Spirit’s doing a little bit of a mixing of metaphors because throughout the New Testament, the way the entrance into Christ is often spoken of in terms of a birth. This symbolizes the idea of new life, a new beginning. But here, rather than being born into Christ, he says that we are adopted into Christ. In this context, in the language that surrounds it, that obviously is highlighting the idea that he chose us. Because that’s what adoption is choosing. Now let’s talk about adoption, and particularly adoption as it would have been understood in that first century world. It’s a little different, maybe than what we’re familiar with, the idea of adoption. The end result’s the same.

You end up with a kid that wasn’t yours. That’s the end result’s the same. But maybe the purpose for that was different. Today, someone adopts, it’s usually, not always, but usually because maybe they can’t have children. Or they choose not to have children, but they still want a child. We want that cute little baby. We want somebody to raise. We want to have those toys in the house. We want to have those sounds of laughter and crying and all the other things that comes with having a child. And so we’re going to adopt that child. Now I’m not saying that never happened in the first century Roman world, but more common in the first century Roman world was the idea of I need an heir.

It wasn’t so much the idea of companionship and love. It was the idea of carrying on that name. And so oftentimes in the ancient Roman world, adoption would be not adopting a newborn baby or a toddler. You would adopt sometimes a grown adult to be my heir, to carry on my tradition, to carry on my name. A choice was made. And that was often a blessing to both. It was a blessing to the one doing the adopting because now they had an heir. They had someone to carry on the family name, the family business, the family tradition. And usually, as you might suspect, the one being adopted was in some kind of dire straits. Was some poor family or maybe a child that had been abandoned in some sense.

And so it was certainly a blessing for that child to now have a name, to now have a family, and to have all of the financial and material resources that would go with being that adoption. That’s the term that the Holy Spirit chooses in saying God chose us. Hold your finger here in Ephesians chapter 1, and let’s talk about this concept of how God has chosen us and what that means. Turn over to 1 Peter chapter 2. And he talks about our, as Jared talked about in our Lord’s Supper talk this morning, our royal status before God. But notice what he says about that royal status. In 1 Peter chapter 2. Let’s start reading in verse 9. You are, 2 Peter 2, verse 9, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous life.

We so often read 1 Peter 2, verse 9 and talk about the blessings that we have in being one of God’s followers, in being in his kingdom and even in his family, that that’s the status that we’ve been given. We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. But if you keep reading, you recognize not the double blessing of that status. When he says in verse 10, who once were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. You not only you don’t own that status by birthright, you’re not a chosen generation, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, just because that’s the stuff you’re made of. You are that because God chose you to be that.

3. He Chose Us Through His Word

You were not a people. You didn’t have any of those statuses, you didn’t have that title, but God chose you. Now let’s talk just a little bit about that process of choosing. Go back to Ephesians chapter 1. He uses language throughout this text of the spiritual blessings that we have in and only in Christ Jesus, of the idea of choosing. He chose us, he predestined us, he adopted us. But notice how he tells us that choosing took place. Look at verse 9 of Ephesians chapter 1. Having made known to us the mystery of his will. He chose us through his word. He made known to us the mystery of his will. Skip down to verse 13. In him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

That’s how God does the choosing.

Again, hold your finger here and go with us to the Thessalonian letter. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. How does God choose us? Does he just randomly, like in the P.E. class, just say, you’re one, you’re two, you’re one, you’re two, you’re one, you’re two, and all the ones are going to heaven, and all the twos are just out of luck. No. He chooses us through his word. Look at 2 Thessalonians again, chapter 2, verse 13. For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

For you, brethren became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus, for you also suffered the same thing from your own countrymen, and just as they did from the Judeans. He says here that you heard the word, you receive the word of God which you heard from us. That was the calling. In fact, in 2 Thessalonians, he will say, He called you by the gospel. You heard the word of truth, and he called you by his gospel. That’s how God chooses us. He declares that gospel. And those, as Jesus told in that parable of the sower, those who have the right heart are able to hear and to receive that truth. And it’s those people that God chose. Now that has some implications.

Look with me in the book of 1 John. In 1 John chapter 4, John is warning his original audience and us against false teachers. He says there are false spirits or false teachers who’ve gone out into the world. And it’s our responsibility to check, to test, to see whether this teacher, this preacher, this prophet is speaking the word of God or whether he’s speaking some other message. And notice what he says about that. 1 John 4, let’s look at beginning in verse 4. You are of God, 1 John 4, verse 4. You’re of God, little children, and overcome them, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They, speaking of those false prophets, those teachers, they are of the world.

Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. That’s a little bit uncomfortable realization to come to. That the gospel was not intended to call everybody.

But it wasn’t intended to call everybody. Those who are of God will hear that gospel. And so what I believe that John and really the whole of the New Testament, Jesus in the parable of the sower, I believe that what they’re teaching us is that the gospel, the message itself, is its own filter. That it will filter out those who have that good and honest heart. And those are the ones who will respond to it.

We are tempted when we present that word, that gospel, that truth. And it’s not positively received. It’s almost our natural inclination to want to craft the message differently. To maybe change it and alter it in some way so that it will be more receptive. But we recognize the danger in that.

But the second danger in that is that we are calling people that God never intended to call.

Alright. Levanta la mano. All right. You notice a few people raised their hands, which it was a relief to me because I got close enough at least to the Spanish pronunciation that simply says, raise your hand. But only those of you who understood my redneck Spanish responded to that. And that was the purpose. God calls us, he chooses us by his word. And when that word is presented, those with what would Jesus say? Those who have an ear to hear. Those who have that good and honest heart will hear that message and respond to it.

If I did, I would have said, raise your hand in English. But the words themselves was a filter. It was a test. It was really two tests to see how good my Spanish was, but also to see who in here speaks or understands Spanish. And so John is telling us in 1 John chapter 4, we are of God. He who knows God hears us, but he who is not of God does not hear us. We make no apologies in just preaching the pure word of God. And saying, He who has ears to hear, those are the ones that God has chosen. And he will adopt you into his family.

4. He Has Redeemed Us

Not only has he chosen us, and chosen us beforehand, and not only has he adopted us into this new, not just change of status, but a change of character, a change of behavior, but now he has redeemed us. He could not choose us without redeeming us. He could not choose us without changing us. You know the idea of redeeming. It’s the idea of buying something, really, kind of buying something back. Again, in the ancient world, this word would have been used for purchasing a prisoner of war or an indentured servant, someone who had become a slave, most likely because of debt that they were unable to repay. And someone could pay that debt, pay the fee necessary to buy that person back. And you know, oftentimes when we think of what God has done for us, what Jesus did for us in terms of redemption, we think in terms of the price that was paid.

That Jesus redeemed us, not as Peter would say, not with gold and silver, but with his own precious blood. And that is certainly true and needs to be highlighted, but it seems, turn with me to Psalm 78, that really in the grand scheme of things, when the scriptures speak of redemption, that it’s not really highlighting the price that was paid, but the results of the price being paid. Look at this illustrated in Psalm 78. Let’s look at two verses there. Here, some of the Psalms are what we call historical psalms. They talk about what God did specifically in this case for Israel. And we know one thing that God did for Israel is he freed them from Egyptian bondage. Notice how he says it. Psalm 78, beginning in verse 42, they did not remember his power, that’s God’s power, the day when he redeemed them from the enemy, when he worked his signs in Egypt and his wonders in the fields of Zoah.

Freing Israel from Egyptian bondage is spoken of as a redemption. Well, God didn’t pay Pharaoh money to release his people. And so redemption doesn’t necessarily always highlight the cost that was paid. But it highlights the results of what has happened through that transaction. Yes, a high price was paid. I’m not minimizing that at all. But the emphasis is upon what was done when that price was paid. He has freed us. Like the Israelites who were in Egypt, freed them from the dire straits that they were in. There was no way out without God. Just like that slave, there was no way out of that relationship without someone else paying the price and freeing that individual as they deserve to be free. And so when the scriptures speak about redeeming us, it’s highlighting the fact that God chose us and freed us from our slavery and sin.

And he says specifically there in Ephesians chapter 1 how that took place. He says in verse 7 again, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. It is forgiveness that redeemed us. That was the transaction, the removal of the debt and the guilt of our sins. And so God chose you. And he called you by his gospel, hoping that you had the ears to hear, hoping that you had that good and honest heart on whom the seed is being scattered, so that he could adopt you into his family. And give you a change of status, but more than that, a change of character, a change of being and behavior. But in order to put you into his fold, into his family, he had to clean you, forgive you of your sins, redeem you from the curse that was under the law.

Conclusion

The question of every hour is Are you in Christ? Where every spiritual blessing is found? Would you respond to that gospel message? Would you have those ears to hear and that heart that is good and honest and receptive of that gospel message? Would you let Him forgive you of your sins and to redeem you, though you were not worthy of that redemption, but to redeem you by forgiving you of your sins? Can we help you in that transaction this morning? Whatever you have to give, whatever you have to sacrifice will be worth it. To be honest,