Today’s Reading: Ephesians 1:1–14
“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.”
That’s something like the topic sentence of this passage, if not for the entire book.
* Paul builds everything on the nature of God, who he is, what he’s like.
* To that, he adds up what God has done.
* He is blessed (that is, worthy of blessing/praise), and he has blessed (by providing us with gifts according to his favor).
Notice, the one who has done everything in these verses is God.
* He has blessed, chose, predestined, adopted, favored, willed, redeemed, forgave, lavished, made known, planned, brought together, made, predestined (again), decided, and sealed.
* Wow! And most of these actions are towards us.
* We are the ones who have been blessed, chosen, predestined, adopted, etc.
Actually, there are three actions attributed to us. Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet…
* We “put our hope in the Messiah.” In other words, we hoped.
* We “heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.”
* And we “believed” in him.
* We hope, hear, and believe.
Later in Ephesians, we’ll get more things to do, but this is the foundation of those later things.
* If we don’t see God working in everything, how can we claim to do anything by his authority and power?
* Even our obedience and service are exercised only in strength he has provided. See 1 Peter 4:11.
Anyway, before we get to those positive actions, we read about our death in trespasses at the beginning of chapter 2.
* Then, finally, Ephesians 2:10 alludes to the “good works” God has prepared for us.
* And as it says, even our good works have been prepared for us!
So, back to chapter 1.
* In short, the God who is Lord over all the universe has saved us.
* We, for our part, must place all our trust and hope in Jesus.
Still, we are supposed to do good works, right? We need to obey God, right?
* Yes, but obeying God is not a way to find forgiveness, nor an entrance into salvation.
* Our service to God is an act of love for our heavenly Father or it is an act of rebellion.
* Note: Like yesterday’s lesson on spiritual gifts, our goal should not be to serve God when we have a mind to obey, rather we should seek to glorify God with every aspect of our lives.
So when we “do good,” we don’t pay off debts to God or attempt to purchase more favor from God.
* First, Christ has purchased all the favor we need.
* Second, we don’t have anything to offer that God doesn’t already have claim to.
* “But that means we can’t do anything!” Right, we can only trust in Christ.
* If you get this, you get Christianity.
Clever Remarks 