“Jesus Changes Our Identity (Ephesians 1:1-6)", Will DuVal | 8/25/24
Ephesians 1:1-6 | 8/25/24 | Will DuVal
It’s often said that “people don’t really change.” Try telling that to the apostle PAUL. The murderer turned martyr. The zealous persecutor of the Church who in a DAY, one life-changing MOMENT became a zealous defender of the Christian faith. He even changed his name to reflect his transformation: from “Saul”, named after the tallest of Israel’s kings from whom he was descended, to “Paul”, which literally means “small”, after he’d been humbled and put in his place.
What could possibly cause such a radical change in one person’s life - in Paul’s… in mine… in yours?
JESUS. Because, friends: Jesus Changes Everything.
This is the underlying message of the book of Ephesians.
It would be hard to overstate the beauty, the power, the genius, the weight and significance of this book of the Bible.
John A Mackay called Ephesians “the sublimest communication ever made to men” (God’s Order, p12; in Hughes, p15).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge considered Ephesians “the divinest composition of man” (Specimens, p88; in Hughes, p15).
Commentator Clinton Arnold maintains that “This letter summarizes what it means to be a Christian better than any other book of the Bible.” (Ephesians, 21)
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And it’s my favorite of the NT epistles, or letters; that’s the REAL reason I picked it for this fall. 🙂
Alright, let’s do some background overview before we dive in to the first 6 verses for this morning. I’ll let my commentaries do most of the background work for us. BTW, I always like to give you an idea of which resources I’ll be leaning on throughout our study of a book; here are the best commentaries on Ephesians, according to a few trusted sources I consulted.
TITLE? John MacArthur notes (Study Bible, 1754): “The letter is addressed to the church in the city of Ephesus, capital of the Roman province of Asia (in modern day Turkey). Because the name Ephesus is not mentioned in every early manuscript, some scholars believe the letter was an encyclical, intended to be circulated and read among ALL the churches in Asia Minor and was simply sent FIRST to the believers in Ephesus.”
Clinton Arnold elaborates on that theory (25): “The earliest manuscripts, [the] general contents of Ephesians, the lack of any personal greetings, the impersonal tone of the letter, and the apparent absence of any specific situation [for writing] has led most contemporary scholars to doubt the previously held view that Ephesians was addressed [specifically] to the church in Ephesus. Ephesians simply does not look like an occasional letter written [only] to one church that Paul had come to know so well through his three years of ministry in the city. Consequently, most now regard Ephesians as some form of circular letter intended for multiple cities that… included Ephesus.”
That explanation of course also answers many of our other contextual questions, like:
AUTHOR? Paul. The aforementioned Pharisee-turned-Jesus freak who had his entire LIFE flipped upside down by a personal encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus somewhere between the years 33 & 36 AD. Paul is gonna tell us that he’s the one writing this letter in the very first word of the very first VERSE we’ll read here in just a few minutes.
DATE/PLACE? MacArthur notes (1754): “The letter was written from prison in Rome (Ac 28:16-31) sometime between AD60-62”. Now I have to confess - I was SUPER excited to share this picture with you, because the very last day of our trip in Rome, Polly and I got to visit the Mamertine prison where both Paul and Peter were held just before they were martyred. And I was HOPING I’d be able to tell you: “This is the exact spot from which Paul wrote Ephesians - this jail cell.” But we actually think Ephesians was probably written during Paul’s FIRST imprisonment in Rome, while he was under HOUSE arrest, NOT during his LATER imprisonment here in Mamertine, just before he was executed in the year 64AD. (But still had to share the pic. 🙂)
AUDIENCE / SETTING? We’ve mentioned Ephesus already, but Clinton Arnold details for us (30): “Ephesus was aptly called the ‘mother city’ of Asia because of her influence over the politics, commerce, and religious atmosphere of the province. Ephesus was the headquarters of the Roman proconsul [and] the major port city for the west coast of Asia… the leading city of the richest region of the [entire] Roman Empire.” So you can see why Paul devoted so much of his TIME and ENERGY there.
MacArthur notes (1754): “The gospel was first brought to Ephesus by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:26) who were left there by Paul on his second missionary journey (~AD51)... The fledgling church was later firmly established by Paul [himself] on his third missionary journey (recalled in Acts 19) and was pastored by him for some three years (AD 52-55). After Paul left, Timothy pastored the congregation for perhaps a year and a half, primarily to counter the false teaching of a few influential men (such as Hymenaeus and Alexander [who we know from] 1 Timothy 1).”
Which leads us to a consideration of the main THEMES?
There are really too many to try and list them all here up front, but
Clinton Arnold does point out that (22): “When we carefully examine this letter that comes in at less than 2,500 words, it is remarkable how many issues it addresses that continue to be hot topics in today’s church. Here are just a few of them…
*divine sovereignty and human free will
*spiritual warfare (you might recall from our study of Acts a few years back the exorcisms Paul performed in Ephesus in Acts 19 and the funny episode with the “sons of Sceva”; Ephesus was a HOTBED for sorcery and magic and occult practices). Other issues addressed include
*worship in the church and diversity in form and style
*gender roles in marriage
*racial reconciliation (we know from extra-biblical historical records that there was a lot of Anti-semitism against the Jews in Ephesus, that was apparently spilling over into the predominantly Gentile churches even after Christians converted)
*similarly, church unity [amidst] religious pluralism” is a big theme (you might also remember the account of the RIOT in Ephesus in Acts 19, started by the silversmith guild, when their livelihood was threatened by Paul, who was telling people to stop buying and worshiping IDOLS. Ephesus was MOST known for the famous Temple of ARTEMIS, one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world. Polytheism was BIG BUSINESS, which Christianity threatened.)
SO many themes, still relevant today. But more than ANYTHING, the most central, overarching theme of this book is the NEW IDENTITY we now have in Christ. Jesus Changes EVERYTHING. As Arnold puts it (45): “Thirty times in this short letter [and 12x in vv3-12 alone!] Paul uses the expression ‘in Christ’ or a variation to characterize the new identity of believers. They now exist in a dynamic, personal relationship of solidarity with the Lord Jesus Christ, which defines who they are, empowers them to live, and gives them a new purpose and meaning for living. This new identity is foundational to Paul’s… concerns addressed in this letter.”
How about the LAYOUT/STRUCTURE/OUTLINE?
MacArthur notes (1754): “The first three chapters are theological, emphasizing NT doctrine, whereas the last three chapters are practical and focus on Christian behavior.”
Lastly, I want to issue you an EXHORTATION, as I do with EVERY book we study together, to READ IT before you come to church on Sundays this fall. I’ve broken Ephesians’s 6 chapters down into 16 sermons, so you only need to read about ⅓ of a chapter per week to follow along, and you will get so much more out of our study that way. Make sure you’re signed up for the West Hills WEEKLY, our weekly newsletter, so you know what to read. But I ALSO want to encourage you this COMING week in particular, now, to read through the entire book of Ephesians before next Sunday. It’ll take you just 15 minutes and give you a good overview of where we’re headed the next 3 ½ months.
But let me introduce our passage for this MORNING by asking you this: “Who ARE you?” Who are you?
It’s a bit of an ODD question, isn’t it? It feels too PERSONAL and INTRUSIVE coming from a stranger, but presumably unnecessary coming from a friend who already KNOWS you. I bet most of us have rarely (if EVER?!) even been asked that - “Who are you?” - but if you WERE, how would you RESPOND?
Well, you might start with your NAME. “Who am I?” I’m WILL. Will DUVAL. But how much does that really tell you about who I AM? It tells you that a long time ago my ancestors were French. The capital “V” in DuVal (“of the valley”) tells you that MY ancestors were the wealthy land OWNERS, who employed all the other LOWER-case “v” proletariat PAUPERS, thank you very much. The single “l” in “DuVal” tells you that I’m used to getting my name misspelled by pretty much everyone. But in reality, my name tells you more about my PARENTS than me - they’re the ones who PICKED it 39 ⅔ years ago. (While we’re at it, I suppose my AGE tells you a LITTLE bit as well; I’m a “Millennial” who will officially be “over the hill” here in just a few months).
But you get the point: is your NAME (or AGE) really a good INDICATOR of “who you ARE”?
So perhaps you add your TITLE: “I am PASTOR Will DuVal”. Doctor [Abbe Keen]. Councilman Michael Finley. But does your occupation really best define who you ARE, the CORE of your identity?
You might situate yourself within your FAMILY of relationships: “I am the son of Bill & Jill… the husband of Polly… the father or Ellery, Elijah & Bo…”
Or you might point to your dominant personality traits: “I am cerebral, inquisitive, slow-to-trust, strong-willed…
Consider for yourself this morning, YOUR ANSWER to this very straightforward yet for so many people quite perplexing question: “Who ARE you?”
Now understand this: Paul wrote chapter 1, vv1-6 and indeed, the entire letter to the Ephesians, to help them ANSWER this most fundamental of questions. And here is his answer, and I hope and pray it is YOUR answer too, friends: more than your name, your occupation, your family of origin, or any other distinctive characteristic about you, if you belong to the LORD, then HE defines “who you are” more essentially and more significantly than ANYTHING else about you; your identity is BEST described in those two words: you are “IN CHRIST”. What is MOST important about you is not so much WHO you are as WHOSE you are: in Christ JESUS, you belong to GOD. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God” (1 Cor 6:19-20).
That’s the message of Ephesians in a nutshell. But as we’ll see this morning, the nut is really more like an ONION, because there are LAYERS - GLORIOUS layers - to this new identity we have now been given in Christ: at least NINE of them that Paul peels back for us here in just the first 6 verses!
So without further ado, I invite you to STAND… Ephesians 1:1-6:
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
This is TRULY one of the most GLORIOUS introductions you will find to ANY letter… to any book of the Bible… to any book PERIOD. And it reveals to us 9 glorious TRUTHS about this new identity of all those who are in fact “IN CHRIST”.
#1) Those in Christ are SENT. (v1a)Paul opens by identifying HIMSELF, answering that “who are you” question with his OWN name and title: “PAUL an APOSTLE”.
The Greek word “apostolos” literally means “sent one”. Sent WHERE? Sent to Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the EARTH to bear WITNESS to the beauty and truth, the goodness and POWER of the GOSPEL - the “good news” that Jesus Christ died and rose to forgive sin and to SAVE all who would simply trust in him by faith. But, as Paul will point out elsewhere (Rom 10:14), “How can they BELIEVE that saving good news unless they first HEAR it? And how can they HEAR it unless someone SHARES it with them? And how will we SHARE it unless we GO to them?” Therefore, Jesus says, “pray earnestly [that the Lord would] send out laborers into his harvest”, because it is indeed “plentiful” - there are so MANY souls, still waiting to be “reaped”. So many “FISH” still waiting to be “caught”, and Jesus has called us to be “fishers of men”. But we’re not gonna catch ‘em from the shore; you gotta get in the BOAT, and be SENT. “How beautiful are the feet of those who [GO and BRING] the good news!” (Rom 10:15)
If you are “in Christ” this morning, you have a CALLING on your life. We remind ourselves of it every single Sunday here as we are “SENT OUT”, that truly, we TOO are “apostolos”, “sent ones”, who have been commissioned to “go and make disciples of all the nations”.
Philip was sent to the Samaritans. Peter was sent to the Jews. Paul was sent to the Gentiles.
Who is Jesus sending YOU to go and reach?
Your office, co-workers? Your unbelieving family, friends? Your kids’ friends’ parents, from school? Maybe he’s even calling someone here to leave ALL that and go reach a NATION, an “ethne”, a “people group” halfway around the world who don’t even yet have ACCESS to the gospel - 7,217 of the 17,258 ethnes in the world… 42.6% of the world’s population - don’t even know who Jesus IS. They haven’t even HEARD the good news; haven’t even been given the OPTION to believe and be saved (joshuaproject). Maybe God is raising up someone this morning to be part of his plan to CHANGE that.
Jerret Henley, our Missionary of the Month for August, was raised in this church, was sitting right there where you are sitting right now, some twenty years ago, when God called him to go.
God IS sending you this morning; the only question is “WHERE”? To WHOM? And will you be obedient, and GO, and declare the GOODNESS of the gospel with boldness and joy.
#2) Those in Christ are SAINTS. (v1b)Paul identifies the intended recipients of his letter as “the saints in Ephesus, who are faithful[a] in Christ Jesus”.
If an “apostle” is a “SENT one”, a “SAINT” - hagiois - is a “HOLY one”. In fact, in the OT in Hebrew, this term was often used in reference to the ANGELS. So the Catholics developed this whole process for determining “sainthood” - this special, VIP kind of status reserved for REALLY “holy” people LIKE “St. Peter” and “St. Paul”, and they have to be able to prove you’ve worked at least TWO miracles… but that is NOT how the NEW TESTAMENT depicts a “saint”; according to God’s WORD, EVERY true believer in Christ who has been saved by grace through faith is now a “saint”. There was nothing particularly special about these believers in Ephesus; they were simply, as Paul says in the second half of the verse here “FAITHFUL in Christ Jesus”. That’s it; THAT is the grounds for a person’s sainthood. Not because you’re so “special” and “holy” - “holy” literally means to be “set apart” - and one does NOT become a “saint” by being “set apart” from the REST of us “JV” Christians in the Church, but rather, by being “set apart” from THE WORLD, from SINNERS, from their OWN “former way of life”, as Paul will put it later in Ephesians.
And how does that HAPPEN? We are DECLARED “saints” solely because of the holiness that has now been IMPUTED to us by Christ. God has MADE us “holy”, in HIM. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says “you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us… righteousness and [HOLINESS] and redemption”.
So if you REALLY wanna start a gospel conversation, especially in a Catholic town like St. Louis, the next time someone ASKS you, “Who are you?”, don’t reply with your name or occupation; tell them you’re a SAINT. Because you ARE! IF… you are in CHRIST. You have been clothed in his righteousness. You are now one of God’s “holy ones”.
#3) Those in Christ are SECURE. (v2)
If you’re not careful, you’ll blow right by verse 2, as some kind of formality that Paul includes just to be polite, in keeping with the letter-writing style of his day: “Grace to you and peace from God…”. But it’s SO much more than that; I think it serves a DUAL function here.
For starters, it is a BLESSING. Paul is SENDING the church his BLESSING, or rather, he’s sending them GOD’S blessing; THAT is who “grace” and “peace” come from, and that’s whose grace and peace we so desperately NEED and DESIRE - the LORD’S.
But I think it’s even MORE than a blessing; I think verse 2 here also serves as a REMINDER. Notice: there’s no VERB. Paul doesn’t say, “I am SENDING you grace and peace…”. He doesn’t even say, “Grace BE to you”, even though it may be implied. But what may just as LIKELY ALSO be implied here is something like this: “Grace HAS COME to you… and PEACE, from God”. Sure, Paul may be sending them NEW graces, wishing them a FRESH “peace” - and praise God: His mercies ARE new every morning, because you and I need grace and peace for TODAY just as much as we did the hour we first believed and were saved. Nevertheless, we should never FORGET that in CHRIST, we have ALREADY received grace upon grace, peace to last us a lifetime - an ETERNITY, in fact! We are now eternally SECURE in Christ.
Receiving God’s “grace” means our spiritual debt has now been forgiven. God deserves our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength - he deserves it ALL! - which we’ve failed to BRING him. The Bible says “we’ve all fallen SHORT of the glory of God”, of GIVING him what we truly OWE him. We’ve incurred a spiritual “DEBT”, which the Bible calls “SIN. But in CHRIST, God graciously PAID our debt in FULL on the cross, through his sacrificial, atoning death - Jesus died the death that we deserved, so that WE could now enjoy the LIFE that only HE truly deserved. This is God’s GRACE.
And because of it, we ALSO now have PEACE. Peace with God. Because as Paul will put it later in Ephesians, Christ has “killed the hostility” that once existed between us and God. The Bible says without Christ, our sins make a “separation” between a holy God and sinners like us (Isa 59:2). But now that Jesus has WASHED our sins away by grace, and IMPUTED his holiness TO us by faith, we can have PEACE with our heavenly Father - relationship reconciled and restored.
#4) Those in Christ are SPIRITUALLY BLESSED. (v3)
Now, verse 3 begins a single sentence in the Greek that will actually span the next 10 verses and 202 words! (and for US, the next two SUNDAYS!). But here’s how Paul BEGINS that lengthy, meaty, GLORIOUS sentence: he starts, appropriately, by singing GOD’S praises: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; first things first: we exist - EVERYTHING exists! - to bring God glory and honor and praise and blessing. So Paul starts by blessing GOD, but then he immediately makes the turn back to US again. Remember, his whole driving purpose here is to help elucidate for us and to GROUND us more DEEPLY in our new identity in Christ. What does it mean to be “in Christ”?
Well, for one thing, it means to be BLESSED! God has now “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”.
Now: just stop for a second and TRY to take that in, to GRASP the MAGNITUDE of what that means. You can’t DO it, but TRY. To appreciate all that it means to have God “bless” us with EVERY spiritual blessing.
We could easily spend the rest of the MORNING, camped out on this one. I could point out what God DOESN’T promise here, in contradistinction to the fake news of the prosperity gospel, and the eternally LESSER, earthly, material blessings that we are often sadly so quick to SETTLE for, God does NOT promise to bless us with every FINANCIAL blessing in the EARTHLY realm. With every HEALTH blessing, with every physical, or emotional, or relational, or vocational blessing. RATHER, God has ALREADY blessed us with something INFINITELY greater: every SPIRITUAL blessing, in the HEAVENLY places, “where moth and rust CANNOT destroy and where thieves can NOT break in and steal” (Matt 6:20).
And then we could spend the rest of the morning… or the SERIES, the rest of the YEAR… unpacking the LIST of all these spiritual blessings with which God has now blessed us in Christ. Paul’s list here in vv3-14 isn’t even EXHAUSTIVE, by the way, but consider with me just the list he offers us in these 12 verses alone, of the spiritual blessings that are now OURS, in Christ:
*Election
*Imputed righteousness
*Sanctification
*God’s LOVE
*Adoption as God’s children
*Redemption
*Forgiveness of sin
*Wisdom and insight
*The revelation of his will
*Union with Christ
*An eternal inheritance
*Eternal HOPE
*Meaning and Purpose
*Salvation
*The Holy SPIRIT
*Eternal SECURITY
*and the promise of eternal LIFE.
That’s ALL here, in vv3-14. And the list really does go ON - of the innumerable spiritual blessings we have now received in Christ. So we’ll continue unpacking them, but let me just ask you two questions to consider before we move on:
First, are you CONTENT with the spiritual blessings? It’s a pretty ridiculous question, because if you and I had even the faintest inkling of a grasp on how MASSIVE and MAGNIFICENT any ONE of those spiritual blessings I just listed for you is, much less the whole list of SEVENTEEN put together… it would be like…
Our cruise ship stopped in Nice, which is less than an hour train ride to Monaco, with the famous Monte Carlo casino, high end shopping - not our scene, but Polly and I were like, “Hey, we’re right here; let’s check another country off the list, and just experience it.” And it was truly like NOTHING I have ever experienced. Their BMWs and Mercedes are like our Fords and Chevys. That’s what you drive if you’re the one SELLING the Prada and the Dolci & Gabanna. But the folks BUYING it…?!
Parked just outside the casino was a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+. It is one of only 30 in the WORLD, and retails for 3.9 MILLION dollars.
Now imagine my son, my ADOPTED son, Elijah, who we graciously CHOSE to be a part of our family, imagine he turns 16 and says, “Dad, I want a car” and I give him a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. Imagine he’s not even that good of a KID, if we’re really gonna do the illustration JUSTICE here - grades aren’t great, always seems to find trouble, doesn’t respect and obey us all that well. But he’s still my SON. So I give him the Bugatti.
How ABSURD would it be of me to ASK him, “Son, do you think you can be CONTENT, with a Bugatti.”
That’s kinda what it’s like for me to ask you, for GOD to ask you: “Are you CONTENT with the spiritual blessings I’ve given you in Christ?” If we could only see with SPIRITUAL eyes, the way that GOD sees, the relative value of the health and wealth and happiness “gospel” - the finite, temporal, material blessings that we’d sometimes rather settle for - if we could SEE just how much they PALE in comparison to what you and I ALREADY POSSESS now in the “heavenly places”, the eternal treasure that is laid up in store for us, awaiting us, in Christ, then we’d understand just how LUDICROUS it is to use a word like “content” here. Content with a Bugatti. Content with salvation, adoption; content with God’s LOVE, with eternal LIFE!
But my SECOND question is: “Do you AVAIL yourself of those spiritual blessings God’s given you in Christ?”
“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” - God’s BLESSED you with them, because they are the fruit of the SPIRIT with which he has blessed you; are you regularly ACCESSING those spiritual resources? Later in Ephesians, Paul will explain that God has given “[spiritual] GIFTS” to his people - “apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers” - (4:8,11); how effectively and how FAITHFULLY are we putting those gifts to USE, to serve the Lord, to serve one another, and to serve and REACH the lost?
You’ve probably heard the popular MYTH that we only use like 10% of our brains. I guess we don’t fully understand WHAT percentage it is, and obviously some of us [*raise hand*] use less of our brain than we probably could and should, but it is a compelling thought; remember that movie Limitless, with Bradley Cooper, where he takes the pill that unlocks his full 100% brain power (I never actually saw it, was it any good? I think it was rated PG-13 so I probably couldn’t recommend it anyway, or I’d get emails), but it’s interesting to me to think about what our lives would be like as BELIEVERS, if we could unlock 100% of the SPIRITUAL potential that God has blessed us with in Christ. But then again, we don’t HAVE to imagine, do we? We can just read the Gospels, and look at the life of Jesus of Nazareth. HE is what it looks like, when a person lives 100% unto the Spirit and not unto the flesh - PERFECT “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness” incarnate, in the flesh. And to think that now he has blessed US with “every spiritual blessing” and resource in his arsenal… astounding.
#5) Those in Christ are SELECTED. (v4a)
“[God] chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world… In love he predestined us”.
Now I know what you’re thinking: “Oh boy, here we go! Predestination vs. free will! And he’s already 35 min into the sermon, THIS should be interesting!”
I’m gonna save the deeper dive for next week, because Paul will reiterate in v11 that we “have been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will”, but for now, if this is like an “issue” for you, and I KNOW it is for some of you, because we’ve had the conversation, and you’ve ASKED me to explain how a loving God could elect SOME people and not others… how God could “desire ALL people to be saved” like 1 Timothy 2:4 says, but still only choose a relative FEW… how people could be held morally responsible for rejecting God if they weren’t CHOSEN in the FIRST place… or why bother EVANGELIZING if people are either predestined or they’re not anyway… or why bother doing ANYTHING if free will is just an illusion and God is totally sovereign, calling all the shots… Those are all good, important questions, and I can assure you: they all have good, biblical answers. But for this morning, I just wanna ask you a very simple question: “Do you believe God’s word?”
Do you believe the Bible is God’s word, and as such, that it is completely true and trustworthy, even when you don’t yet understand it at every turn?
Because if SO, friends - brothers, sisters - you WILL believe in election, in predestination, in God’s CHOOSING us IN Christ before the foundation of the WORLD, because that is exactly and very plainly what Ephesians 1 TELLS us He did. And not just Ephesians 1, by the way, but Romans 8, and Romans 9, and Romans 11, and Matthew 24, and John 15:16, and Colossians 3:12, and a few dozen OTHER passages, none of which we have time for OTHER than to emphasize how thoroughly BIBLICAL and therefore BEAUTIFUL this doctrine of election is. And it IS, friends.
J.D. Greer highlights FOUR blessings that this doctrine of election ought to produce in the heart of the believer (“Ephesians 1”, https://summitchurch.com/GetFile.ashx?Guid=443f3180-acfa-443a-8f83-9b5042b44276) :
“Assurance: Because salvation begins in God, and is accomplished by God, you can be sure that what God starts, He will finish…
POWER: this truth - election - gives me power to get back up again after failure. If I know that what God starts, He will finish, I can be sure that even though today was consumed by defeat, God’s decree for my tomorrow is victory.
HUMILITY: according to Ephesians 1, the only reason you are a Christian is by grace alone, and not because of anything you’ve done. Why did God choose you? Was it because you had a better heart… and God thought you’d make a great Christian, so He had to have you? No. You were chosen, Paul says, so that God could glorify His grace in you. If anything, Scripture says that God chose you because you were weak. (1 Cor 1:27), so God could more easily put His grace and His power on display. [And he did it before the foundation of the WORLD, before you even EXISTED to DEMONSTRATE any “merit”, worthy of his choosing!] And…
HOPE: to bravely face your trials, because we can know that God is working in every area of our lives to make of us his CHILDREN who are to the praise of His glory!
We’ve got FOUR more aspects of our new identity in Christ to cover, and we gotta do it QUICKLY, even though these are some of the BEST in the LIST!
#6) Those in Christ are SANCTIFIED. (v4b)
Sort of covered this already with our identity as “SAINTS”, “HOLY ones”, but Paul reiterates now in v4 the PURPOSE for which God chose us: “that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
Here’s how Titus 2:15 describes the work of Christ: he “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”
This should serve as the spiritual equivalent of a 2x4 upside the head to anyone who might misconstrue the doctrine of election as an excuse to IGNORE God’s calling to holiness - “Well why do I need to worry about being “holy” and “blameless” if I’m already chosen anyway?”; according to Ephesians 1:4, your choosing is FOR holiness! It’s an election UNTO blamelessness. So if you DON’T find yourself driven to holiness, motivated by a hunger and thirst for righteousness, then according to God’s word, you’re not really chosen AT ALL!
#7) Here’s MY personal favorite: Those in Christ are SONS & DAUGHTERS. (v5)
“he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ”
As we already said: it’s “not WHO you are, but WHOSE you are” that makes all the difference. And for those who are “in Christ,” we now belong to THE LORD, by virtue of our adoption.
We are now “sons and daughters” of the high king of heaven. Now Paul just says “sons”, not because he’s a chauvinist, but because in ancient Roman, only the SONS stood to inherit their father’s fortune. So Paul’s making it clear that ALL who are in Christ - Jew & Greek, slave and free, male and female - we are ALL now heirs.
That’s one of the questions Polly and I were explicitly asked, by the judge, the day we officially, legally adopted Elijah: we took an OATH to treat Elijah just like we would any of our own biological children - he had to be given the same rights and privileges and blessings as them.
And brothers and sisters, our heavenly father made the same promise to US when WE were adopted - Romans 8 declares: “you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” And The Spirit bears witness… that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (15-17).
“Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. ” (1 Jn 3:1)
J.I. Packer says this (Knowing God, p182; in Hughes, p26): “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on LIFE, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. Everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the NT new and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian… is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God,” and MY being his CHILD.
Who am I? Yes, I’m a “sent one”. Yes, I’m a SAINT, a “holy one”. I am secure, blessed, chosen, sanctified. But if I had to pick just ONE of them to describe and DEFINE my identity in Christ, I’m going with “SON”. I am a CHILD of God, to the praise of his glorious grace.
Not because of anything good in ME; but because of EVERYTHING good in HIM. Because in God’s kindness and mercy and LOVE, he looked at me, the scrawniest runt in the litter, and said, “I want THAT one.” He looked at YOU, and said, “I want HER.” And that is facet #8 of our new identity in Christ:
8) We are SOVEREIGNLY LOVED. (v5)
“In love he predestined us… according to the purpose of his will”.
I think a better translation is “on the basis of the good pleasure of his will” (Arnold, 83) - the Greek word - “eudokia” - literally means “good pleasure”. And as Clinton Arnold points out, “The term ‘good pleasure’ clarifies that God did not select a people in some austere, dispassionate way… rather, God took great DELIGHT in thinking of his future people and being kindly disposed toward them.”
Christian: do you know that your heavenly father takes great DELIGHT in thinking of you, in being “kindly disposed toward you”, in ADOPTING you as his own? Polly and I didn’t adopt our son in an “austere, dispassionate” way, out of obligation; our hearts were filled with LOVE for him, from the moment we met him in that delivery room.
And before you and I had even made it THAT far - before the foundation of the UNIVERSE! - our perfect heavenly Father had already set His perfect love upon us.
Does Ephesians 1 have your heart SINGING yet? I hope so.
But now we end in a bit of an interesting place:
#9) Those in Christ are SIGNPOSTS. (v6)
You say, “Signposts? What do you mean?”
What does a signpost do? It’s whole purpose is to point you BEYOND itself, to something far greater. If you’re driving out west and you see a sign for the “Grand Canyon, 2 miles ahead”; you don’t stop for hours and hours to admire the SIGN. The sign just points you to the thing that is worth stopping to admire.
Lest all of his reminders of how BELOVED and BLESSED and CHOSEN and SANCTIFIED cause us to start thinking too much of OURSELVES, Paul ends here by reminding us why God did ANY of it - it was “to the praise of his glorious grace”. So that HE would get ALL the glory from loving and SAVING unworthy, otherwise un-LOVABLE sinners like us. And the more unworthy we truly were are ARE, the more GLORIOUS his grace is revealed to be.
Not to US, but to CHRIST ALONE, be all glory and honor and praise, now and forevermore. Amen.