Our Spiritual Bank Account (2)

Ephesians 1:8-14

Growing Our Spiritual Bank Account (Part 2)

Prepared by Dr. John E. Marshall

 

Ephesians 1:8a (Holman)  . . .that He lavished on us. . .

 

          "Lavished" pictures a liquid overflowing its container and streaming in every direction. We do not have to pry God's abundant mercies loose. His grace flows freely of its own accord. God cannot give grudgingly. Being love, He can act in only one way toward us. His ocean of love flows toward us in wave upon wave.

          His generous "legal" forgiveness pictures how generous He wants to be in ongoing "personal" forgiveness. The flow of God's provision toward us is thwarted only by our refusal to receive what is ours. Never forget; grace was God's idea.

          There is as much joy in His heart when He for­gives, as in our hearts when we are forgiven. God loves to give forgiveness as much as we love to receive it.

 

Ephesians 1:8b   . . .with all wisdom and understanding.

 

          God gives not only redemption and forgiveness, but also wisdom and understanding of what to do with them. Wisdom and understanding help us to put into action what we know, to apply to our daily lives the cosmic matters of right and wrong, time and eternity, Heaven and Hell. We re­ceive wisdom and understanding not to be academic, but to respond and act aright. God lets us see the ultimate truths of eternity, and then helps us solve the problems of each moment of time (Barclay).

 

Ephesians 1:9-10  He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him for the administration of the days of fulfilment—to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him.

 

          "Mystery" refers to a truth that God hid until He chose to reveal it to us. Let me illustrate the New Testament meaning of "mys­tery." Before this service, I stepped in a room and did something. Unless I tell you, you can't know what I did. The deed is a "mystery," impossible to be known un­less told. In the room, I took my pen out of my pock­et, and put it back in. Now you know what I did. The "mystery" is revealed.

          The Gospel is a "mystery"; we could never figure it out on our own. Without a revelation, we would know nothing certain about God's salvation; all speculation of His ways would be unreliable. Fortunately, the mystery of God's will has been made known to all. The Gospel is not a closely-guarded secret, a cryptic mes­sage revealed to few select initiates. The Bible hides nothing. All we need has been re­vealed to all.

          Since believers know the mystery, we are obligated to tell it to others. We are "stewards of the myster­ies of God" (1 C 4:1). God did not keep it a secret, nor should we. We must go everywhere telling everyone about this wondrous Gospel we heard.

          The Gospel, conceived in eternity past in God's heart, has been revealed to us in time not because we deserve it, but because it pleased God to do so. In salvation, every­thing can be traced to God's "good pleasure." Stop trying to buy off God. En­joy grace. Do not try to earn God's favor, before or after sal­va­tion. Come always as a suppliant, never as an achiev­er. Do come, but always come as one undeserving.

          We never deserve to come. Our attitude must ever be like the one expressed by my friend Dave Eggers. He said at the Judgment he will say in defense of his life lived on earth, "No excuses, Sir." Always display this spirit. We have no merit to stand on. We come because His blood was shed for us, and He invites us to come.

          Our message to sinners is; Someone cares and wants to forgive. "At the heart of the Universe there is a heart" (Maclaren). God forgives. What else would we expect from One who decided to endure the penalty for sin instead of in­flict­ing it?

 

Ephesians 1:11-12 We have also received an inheritance in Him, predestined according to the purpose of the One who works out everything in agreement with the decision of His will, so that we who had already put our hope in the Messiah might bring praise to His glory.

         

          We "received an inheritance." An in­her­i­tance is not earned, but received due to a parent/child link. God treats us as if we truly are His chil­dren, and we are. As full-fledged family members, our honor is not one whit inferior to that possessed by angels who never rebelled. Grace totally reverses the disgrace the Fall affixed to us.

          Predestination assures us God not only had a plan, but also included us in it. Without it, none would ever be saved. None on their own decides to receive Christ. Only God can call us to Him, and He does so because He decided ages ago to do so.

           "Decision" denotes deliberation. God moves logically to secure ends worthy of Him­self. He is Sovereign, but never arbitrary. He does not work at random or blindly. God has legitimate, coherent rea­sons for what He does. We cannot see or understand all now, but "by and by" we shall see how logical every­thing was.

 

Ephesians 1:13  When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.

 

          Being "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" is the essence of our security. We must begin by believing in Jesus. Faith has to come first. Once we make this choice, our loving God wants all of us to be absolutely certain of our salvation.

          This can happen only in the context of grace. Any who believe in salvation by works cannot enjoy assur­ance. They may be true and loyal for a life­time, and work hard for the Master, yet never be sure of Hea­ven. This is sad, but explainable.

          Where works are advocated for salvation, assurance is impossible to pos­sess. We can never know if "enough" works have been done. Assurance is meant for every believer, but is found only in the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith.

          Seals officially identi­fied posses­sions, letters, contracts, bills of sale, and other im­portant doc­uments. A seal consisted of hot wax or soft clay which, af­ter being placed on an object, was stamped with one's own unique sig­net ring. Seals performed at least three significant functions.

          One, seals authenticated a completed transaction. Once the agreeing parties affixed their seals to a document, there was no turning back. The transaction was finished, com­plete, impos­sible to nullify or reverse. The indwelling Holy Spirit proves a great transaction has been completed in a believer's life.

          God the Father planned the salvation of all believers, Jesus pur­chased our sal­va­tion at Calvary, the Holy Spirit is the seal within us, proving sal­vation has been applied to a particular person. Sealing person­alizes God's great cosmic plan, and applies it to lone, solitary in­dividuals, one heart at a time.

          Two, seals marked ownership. Unique, personalized seals settled ownership dis­putes. The Holy Spirit's presence in believers proves we be­long to God.

          By sealing us, God says loud and clear, "Mine!" The Spirit in us is God's public assertion before Heaven, Earth, and Hell we are His. Since seals were applied only to things highly valued, we believers celebrate the fact we are pre­cious to God.

          Three, seals provided security. They assured a package ar­rived intact, guaranteed a message arrived untampered with, or pro­tected property. Pilate sealed the stone on Je­sus' tomb (MT 27:66). Any person who dared break or disturb a seal bearing authority of Rome would quickly for­feit their life. The seal was a safeguard.

          The Holy Spirit in us is God's seal of everlasting secu­r­ity. The bond between God and a believer cannot be broken. God's royal seal is inviolable.

          Worry not, dear believer. We are sealed, and the very pur­pose of a seal is to remove doubt and provide security. We will reach our ultimate destination.

 

Ephesians 1:14  He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.

 

          God's seal in believers is "the down payment", proof He owns us, but His purchased people on Earth are strangers in a pilgrim land, a world whose god is Satan. Redemption began in us when Jesus freed us from sin's everlasting penalty (1:7), but will not be completed until we are removed from sin's annoying presence.

          Our everlasting destinies are secure in Je­sus, but our bodies are subject to temptation. We are harassed by the world, ham­pered by the flesh, and harangued by a roaring lion. The di­vine seed sown in us is good, but many competitors viciously vie for our allegi­ance here. Mo­tives other than love for God constantly bombard us.

          I look forward to bringing God unmin­gled bliss. Love's deepest wound is to hurt the Beloved. In Heaven we will do this no more.

          The result of it all will be "the praise of His glory". We can undervalue Paul's emphasis on praise if we do not love Jesus as much as he did. A lover enjoys talking about the beloved more than the am­biv­a­lent want to hear. When my cousin Rod fell in love with his wife-to-be, he talked of her incessantly. He drove me to dis­trac­tion. The final blow came when I laid down on the bed and saw, glued to the ceiling above me in huge, red letters, "G-a-i-l G-a-m-b-i-l-l."  Love loves to speak of the beloved.

          In this life, we cannot find language ade­quate to ex­press praise. Even our best words, and most prolific speeches, fall far below the vastness of the subject, but someday we will bring Him adequate praise and glo­ry. We will voice aloud His praise, and show forth His glory. For this moment we were created and re-created.

          God will receive all praise and glory. When we sinners are made beautiful and clean, all creation will be agog, amazed at God's redeeming ability. When God decks us in white robes, we will be awed. Even angels will gasp in astonishment when they see how well we redeemed sinners "clean up."  The Universe will be enthralled, spellbound. For sure, no one will give us sinners credit for such a wonder­ful transformation. "The praise of His glory" shall en­com­pass all in all.

 

Our Spiritual Bank Account

Ephesians 1:3-7

Growing Our Spiritual Bank Account (Part 1)

Prepared by Dr. John E. Marshall

         

Ephesians 1:3 (Holman)  Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.

 

          "Blessed us" is past tense. All God's bless­ings flow to us from a decision to bless that He made in the dis­tant past. The decision to bestow the "spiritual blessing" of salvation was made be­fore the ones to be blessed were created to receive it.

          Salvation from eternity past to eternity future, and every­thing needed in between, has been given to us. Our predestination, our adoption, our acceptance, our re­demp­tion, our forgiveness, our inheritance, and our being sealed by the Spirit are all deposited in the spiritual bank account of every Christ-follower due to grace.

          Our spiritual resources are not far away. All we need to live effectively is nearby and available. In prayer we ask God to mobilize in us what is already ours.

          Never pray as if God were the problem by withholding some­thing needful from us. Never pray as if victory over sin were doubtful. Be content with nothing less than absolute victory in any strug­gle against sin. This is your birthright!

          "Heavenly places" presents one of the Bible's most important con­cepts. The Greek adjective has no noun. Transla­tors often add "places" to clarify the meaning.

          "Heavenly places" is used five times in Ephesians in a sense not found elsewhere in the Bible. It is the realm where believ­ers are blessed (1:3), where Jesus sits beside the Father (1:20), where believers sit with Jesus (2:6), where God's wisdom is made manifest (3:10), and where spi­rit­ual warfare is waged (6:12).

          "Heavenly places" is the God-dimension, the supernatural unseen universe, the eter­nal order beyond the world our five senses perceive. "Hea­venly places" is the present, at hand, home of believers, a region nei­ther remote nor faraway. It is not relegated to the future, or kept from us till after death. It is a present, at hand, realm.

          In a way, believers are al­ready in Heaven before they arrive there bodily. We need to be reminded of this truth often. No one has to re­mind us we live on earth.

          We know our bod­ies are trapped here, fighting Satan, the flesh, an old na­ture, and the world. But we easily forget about our real home, Heaven. The world often so overwhelms our senses that Heaven is forced from our thoughts. Thus, we must be often reminded where our citizenship is, where the place of blessing and victory is.

          If Paul found us discouraged and totally possessed with something of earth, he would not understand.  He could not comprehend why we would be completely absorbed with a detail of this world when a part of us lives in heavenly places.

          God's power is stymied in a believer obsessed with the phy­s­i­cal world.  The power flourishes in "heavenly places." We must take our seat, and see the conflict from our throne of victory. Every believer has two addresses, one below and one above the clouds. When problems cloud the sun of life, we have the privilege to take a seat above the foggy troubles and to look down on them from the place of victory.  When discouraged with others, if sick, in pain or agony, in financial trouble, whatever of earth assails us, we must mount our seat above the clouds.

         You are a citizen of Heaven, you belong there. Your mansion is prepared, and will someday be fully inhabited by your glori­fied self. For the time being, visit your heavenly home regular­ly and sit on one of your pieces of furniture.

 

Ephesians 1:4-6   For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ for Himself, according to His favor and will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He favored us with in the Beloved.

 

          We receive spiritual blessings because, due to Christ's mer­it, God chose us to receive them. Be humble. Proceed on your knees as you enter the central beginning essence of His grace. When does salvation begin? Some say, "When we be­lieve, re­pent, and receive Jesus." Paul, when a new believer, might have agreed with this.

          Eventual­ly he realized God chose him long be­fore his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road (Acts 9). The fact salvation comes from the outer recesses of time clothes it in noble garb. Our salvation is neither co­incidental nor an afterthought of God. Throughout history a holy purpose for each of us has continued unabated. The fact we are part of an eternal strategy of God should encourage us.

          What was the strategy? All along, God intended to adopt us. Adoption implies special nearness and dearness. We dwell in God's pres­ence now as recipients of a love He is lavishing on us. Though we are sinners, God wants us nearby. "He had a whole heaven to Him­self, my­riads of angels to do His bidding, but these could not sat­isfy Him. He must have sin­ners to share it with Him" (John Bunyan).

          Due to merit gained by God's only begotten Son, we can become God's adopted children, full members of His family, with all rights and privileges appertaining thereto. Adoption provides us the privilege of access to God's presence. When you approach your heavenly seat (2:6) to pray, always plead your adoption.

          Learn to say "Father" often. If Satan tries to block your en­try ­to hea­venly places, do not be intimidated. If he asks your claim to enter, say, "I come as neither a servant nor a sub­ject, but as a child of the Father. This is my home. I belong here."

          Adoption is God's way of retrieving us, of returning us to what He meant for us in the first place. The pur­pose of adoption is to undo the consequences of his­tory's most disastrous event; what we call the Fall, when we rebelled against God and cast Him off. We believers were children of wrath, but God adopted us. This is amazing. If a king adopted a child, we would assume the new heir would be taken from "respectable" stock, from a loyal family of nobles, but God chose as His heirs the seed and imitators of one who rebelled against Him directly, even in flawless Eden.

 

Ephesians 1:7  We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. . ."

 

          "Redemption", paying a ransom to free a slave, emphasizes our security. A redeemed slave could never be bought again. Otherwise, their redemption would be meaningless. The very purpose of redemption is to remove from slavery forever.

          Sin disturbed God's original plan for us. A glitch occurred in Eden. The ones God created to be His own fell into a bondage of their own making. To bring us to our redeemed position, Jesus entered time to correct what went wrong in time.

          People became slaves to sin and to Sa­tan. We are by nature, choice, and habit, pawns in a slave-market. Unable to control our desires, we love and hate our sins at the same time. We fail to live up to our standards, much less God's. When honest in ourselves, we echo Seneca's cry, "What men need is a hand let down to lift them up."

          This exactly describes "redemption." It is a ransom God Himself paid to liberate from bondage people powerless to help themselves. God not only created us, He redeemed us from our self-induced slave­ry. God wrought us in creation, sought us when astray, bought us with a ransom, and brought us back to Himself again.

          Redemption required the substitutionary death of one perfect life for countless imperfect ones. The ransom required to secure our redemption was nothing less than the precious, immeasurably costly blood of Jesus the Beloved. If a lesser price could have suf­ficed, God would have avoided shedding His Beloved's blood, but there was no other way. Sin is no trifle. It is a crime so severe that only the shedding of Christ's blood could overcome it. The cross says loud and clear, "Sin is heinous and huge."

          Redemption results in "forgiveness" of sins. This word refers to setting people loose from what binds them. Be­fore redemption, we know only bondage of mind and will. For­give­ness entails freedom. Forgiveness is walking away from the bondage of the slave-market as an adopted child of the king. Imagine! Me--a slave turned prince.

          Our text pictures slaves laying down heavy, burdening shackles of sin, never to wear them again. The context indicates this refers to God's "legal" forgiveness, not His "personal" forgiveness. We seek the latter often. Being a Person, "personal", God is hurt each time we sin. We offend God, but want His smile, thus much of our Christian lives is spent in repeatedly asking God for His "personal" forgiveness.

          Our text refers to God's "legal" forgiveness, whereby He re­moves from us forever the threat of everlasting punishment. Re­demption provides legal forgiveness for all our sins--past, pres­ent, and future. Every believer enjoys total emancipation from the everlasting consequences of sin. "No condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). We are forever released from any danger of Hell.

          We don't appreciate our legal forgiveness till we realize the extent of our guilt, the full weight of the "ball and chain" God loosed from us. When God saved us, Hell fell from our ledger. We received total freedom from any wor­ry of damnation. In this light, "freedom" takes on an ex­traordinarily meaningful hue for believers.

          Slaves who escaped via the blessed underground railroad usu­ally arrived in Canada with only rags on their backs. Neverthe­less, they often kissed the soil, clapped their hands, and danced for joy, for though they had few things, in being free they had all. As they crossed the border, they laid down a bur­den. No one had to tell them what it meant to be re­leased from a shackle.

          We, too, were in the bondage of slavery before Christ re­deemed us. We have some here to whom cursing was a habit, drunk­enness an instinct, and immorality a way of life. We have stor­ies of grace among us that would make the saints in heaven sing louder. Not everyone, though, has been a public, flagrant viola­tor. Nevertheless, we all were equally in need of legal forgive­ness. All sin condemns. Each sin has Hell in it. Thus we all have had an infinitely heavy weight lifted from us. Do we realize the burden we were bearing? Are we thankful for God's redemption and forgiveness?