¹Paul, 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. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

¹¹ In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:1-14 ESV)

Let’s pray.

Father, Thank you for allowing us to worship you this morning. You are our God, you are our king, you are our father in heaven that loves us beyond imagination. We are the people you chose to bring you praise and glory. We come before you in this moment of worship because we want to be faithful to the calling you have on our lives. So please hear our prayers, pleas for mercy, our requests for your intervention. Answer us as you answer those who call you father. Lord, let your love become more than an idea, but a reality that washes over us with peace. Let everyone here experience the power of your Holy Spirit making us more like your Son.

Give us insight into the mysteries of your ways this morning. Open our hearts to receive your blessings. Open our minds to understand where you’re taking us. We want to be your faithful disciples now and forever. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

We’re kicking off a brand new sermon series this week, titled, “Becoming Saints.” In this twelve week series, I want to encourage you: take notes, ask questions to the people around you, pray and ask God what he is saying. Make sense of it, then apply it. Only when we wrestle with the scripture will you become the saint God called you to be. Let’s go. Verse 1.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

This entire series, this sermon, hinges on that word: saints.

The definition of “saint” is a person set apart to be holy like our father in heaven. This comes from the Old Testament where God pulls the nation of Israel from slavery and tells them in Leviticus 19 that he set them apart as his own nation for his own purposes in the world, so they are to be holy because their God is holy.

The idea of being set apart as holy in the New Testament has broader scope being extended to non-Israelites, Gentiles, whom through faith in Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, have the same calling on their lives as the Israelite nation: we are set apart as children of God, holy for the father’s purposes. The people reading or hearing this letter identify themselves as people set apart by God, as his own.

Here, Paul is saying that the church in Ephesus are more than set apart as holy, they also find their identity in living faithfully to Christ’s calling on their lives.

We can’t go past verse 1 without asking ourselves this question: are we living faithfully in our calling as God’s saints?

Do you have days like this?

• You go to work and you’re cursing out your boss, your co-workers, or your clients
• Maybe you’re flipping the bird to the people driving the cars you zipped by on 270. I know, because there are days I give you a dirty look as you try to kill me heading 70 miles an hour into traffic.
• Maybe, you’re just snapping at your kids or your spouse who just happened to be chewing gum too loudly for you to hear your inner monologue.

I can tell you there are days… and I mean there are days where living set apart like a saint or even being faithful to God’s purpose for my life are not visibly present in any capacity.

Hopefully, the types of days I just described are far and few, and not your norm. But if it is or if this is something you even occasionally wrestle with, then here’s some encouragement. Verse 2: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the days we fail to faithfully live as God’s saint, there is grace from God and there is peace that comes from knowing Jesus Christ is still our redeemer.

If you hear that and stop trying to live faithfully as a person called by the gospel to be a saint of God. I want you to know that God’s grace and peace of a redeemer doesn’t remove consequences of your sin from your life. That’s Newton’s third law; because all actions have consequences good or bad.

If you’re in the camp of nihilism or relativism, study this little book in Ephesians. There is a God and he is holy and he is calling you to be set apart for something bigger than yourself.

Now, for those of you who are tired, exhausted, and at their wits end and about to fall apart from the pressure of holding it all together in your life: There’s grace from God and the peace of Jesus for you. You are not disqualified from the purpose God has for you. In fact, none of us would be here if God’s grace was not extended to us. We all sinned. We all wrestle with sin. We will fall to future sin. But you are still called by God, justified by Jesus Christ, and given the Holy Spirit. God will sanctify you day by day so you can faithfully live the life you were called to. You are God’s saint to live faithfully in the calling he has for our lives, and he gives us grace and peace for just that. In fact, if there were any doubt in your life about who you are, there shouldn’t be any because:

Big Idea: We are chosen to receive God’s blessings

Verse 3.

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.

Let’s define that word “to bless” because it’s one of those words that is thrown around so frequently in our modern vernacular that we can use it to mean anything we want. Let me give you some examples:

In the Bible, there are three uses of the word “bless” depending on the context.

• When God is the source and Christ the conduit, then “bless” means to bestow “to favor” (verb)
• When a person is the recipient of a blessing, then “blessing” is a gift (noun)
• When God is the object of blessing, it means, “to praise.” (verb)

In verse 3, all three meanings are employed. Let me reread this passage now with the synonyms of bless inserted.

³ Praise be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has favored us in Christ with every spiritual gift 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.

The Bible is pretty clear: we are specifically chosen to receive God’s blessings. We were chosen to be saints, you see that, “holy and blameless before him.” God bestows us an identity of us being a saint even before he created the world.

Do you understand the enormity of that? It means he envisioned us, exactly as we are, exactly where we are before he opened his mouth to create the universe. Then to make sure we’re equipped for our identity, we are given spiritual gifts from heaven. These are literal gifts, like presents and not supernatural talents and abilities. Spiritual presents according to this passage are:

1. The love of God through election (v4)
2. God’s grace on our lives (v6)
3. Redemption from the curse of our sins (v7)
4. Forgiveness for the penalty of our sins (v7)
5. Revelation of the fullness of time (v8-9)
6. Inheritance as an heir of heaven (v11)
7. The seal of the Holy Spirit (v13)

Having been specifically called, having received presents from heaven, then  

Point 1. Blessings from God prompt us to praise God (vv3-4)

Praise is worship. We praise God or worship God because God bestows favor on us through Jesus Christ and makes us the recipients of EVERY spiritual gift that comes from heaven. In psychology, there’s a theory called identity behavior theory. Which basically says how you act or behave is determined by the identity you hold to be true about yourself.

In these two verses, the Bible says four things about our identity as God’s saints that prompt us to praise God:

• I am chosen by God before the world even began.
• I am called by God to be holy and blameless before him.
• I am favored because Jesus.
• I am the recipient of spiritual gifts from heaven.

Let me make this clear: this is who we are. The Bible says so. Our behavior based on these identity statements is as a worshipper of God. Praising God is what we do. Let’s continue, verse 5.

In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Two things I want to address before we continue.

Some people here recoiled in terror at the word predestination, but let me use a more modern term, that was God’s strategy. That’s what a strategy is – predeciding and electing to go somewhere or do something. You see that word, “predestined” here? That has nothing to do with human free-will, human agency, fate or destiny. Don’t let anybody argue with you about how God limits free-will. The idea of predestination or election and human free-will are not in conflict with one another.

When we see the term election or predestination in the Bible, understand those words as describing the strategy of an eternally loving, sovereign, and gracious God wooing his creation over the course of time to unite people with Jesus. God pre-decided to love us, despite us. His arms are opened to welcome us into his family and it’s our call to decide how we respond to that pre-decided love God has for us. It’s why we keep telling you to share the good news of Jesus to people who don’t know God, because we want them to know the pre-decided love of God for them.

That brings me to the second thing, which is “adoption as sons.” Paul uses the word “adoption” five times in the New Testament and all five times he uses the word to explain how God’s blessings work. The audiences he writes to are familiar with Roman adoption practices. Adoption in the first century Roman empire was a legal practice where the father of a family, usually a rich family, accepted as his family’s heir to be a male child not biologically his own. The idea being that their own biological sons are incapable or undeserving of the family inheritance.

What’s different about Roman adoption vs Christian adoption is that Jesus, God’s one and only son, is not incapable or underserving. In fact, we, who are the receipents of God’s inheritance are the ones who are incapable and undeserving. Our sins made sure we were undeserving of the inheritance. But it was God’s capable and deserving son, Jesus, who makes a way for us to have God’s inheritance.

When Jesus came to live as a human being and sacrifice himself on the cross as a blameless lamb, God was able to look at us with the same favor he has for Jesus. Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God, the Father says, “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.” We are heirs to God’s kingdom and blessed with a gift that we weren’t born into, earned, or deserved. We are undeniably saints: Set aside and holy like our Father in heaven through Jesus Christ.

In addition to the four identity statements from earlier, let me add three more from verses 5 and 6:

• I am loved by God.
• I am adopted by God to be his heirs in heaven through Jesus Christ.
• I have a purpose in God that he will reveal to me.

These 7 statements identify who we are in God: blessed and set aside to be holy. So we praise God. That’s what saints living faithfully in Jesus do.

Verse 7.

⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

If you didn’t get this by now.

Point 2. Jesus is the reason we are blessed (vv7-10)

In Jesus, we have redemption and forgiveness. Redemption is liberation from imprisonment or bondage. Before Jesus died on the cross, we were imprisoned by sins and in bondage to the curse of the law. Redemption is not cheap. Redeeming us to be an heir of God cost the son of God his life. It was at the cost of the heir’s life that we have the favor of God and be his saint.

Jesus took the punishment we deserved for our sins, we became legally exempt and pardoned for those offenses against God. That is forgiveness. These two things allow us to live faithfully set apart and holy. I want you to notice that being set apart or holy had nothing to do with us. God did all the work. It was the death of Jesus that we went from being a nasty stench to a holy, righteous God, to his beloved child.

Family, understand this and apply it in your life: Don’t cheapen the sacrifice of Jesus by allowing your egos or hubris minimize his sacrifice beneath creature comforts and ever-changing perspectives in lieu of his call on us to live faithfully as his saints. If we’re not working out our lives, our worship, our sins, our priorities, according to the gravity of the sacrifice of Jesus, then we missed the point of our blessing.

• Some of us need to be reconciling with that person we’ve been at odds with for the last month.
• Some of us need to stop making excuses for our sin, and repent, turning our lives away from it.
• Some of us need to reprioritize life to live in a way that praises God, and not praising our fleeting conquests. 

Verses 9 and 10 tell us why we can’t miss the point of our blessing: because we know how history ends! History culminates with all things in heaven and on earth being conquered by the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

Go to verse 11.

¹¹ In [Jesus] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of God who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of God’s glory.

What Paul is telling us is that God’s chosen saints are his legacy. We are being gifted God’s eternal inheritance through Jesus Christ and the recipients of that blessing are God’s legacy to this fallen world, calling all people to praise him as we glorify him with our lives until the time comes for Christ to come back as king of heaven and earth.

The reason Christians have a bad rap in society is not because of who our faith is in. It’s not even about the tenants of our morality. The reason Christians have a bad rap to a dying, broken, fallen, and unbelieving world is because the very people called and chosen to be God’s legacy, his saints, are hypocrites!

Despite being forgiven and redeemed at an incredible cost, we still live in a way that does not honor the legacy of a loving, gracious God who gave his one and only heir to be the sacrifice required to fulfill the requirements of justice.

If Jesus is the reason we are blessed, then our way of life must reflect our savior, who is the reason for our blessings.

Verse 13.

¹³ In [Jesus] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Here’s my last point.

Point 3. Our blessings are sealed through the Holy Spirit (vv13-14)

A seal is a mark of ownership and authenticity. Historically we see it in letters or orders written by a king or by owners in branding their property. The Apostle Paul says God puts His seal on his saints. His seal is the Holy Spirit. You see, the gift of the Holy Spirit to us is that although we’re justified before God, as his heirs, we are still becoming like our savior. That’s to say the Holy Spirit causes us to become holy, more like our savior, Jesus. We are saints, holy and blameless before our father, but not quite reflecting his likeness. The Holy Spirit consecrates our lives by moving us little by little or in large chunks to live faithfully for God’s glory.

Don’t miss this, especially if you are struggling with your faith or if you find yourself at a ceiling when it comes to your ability to live holy and set apart in this world. You see, because the Holy Spirit invites us and challenges us to be God’s saints.

• When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, then we respond by turning away from the sinful way of life we’ve been living, toward a God-glorifying way of life.
• When the Holy Spirit moves us to worship God, then we respond by loving God with all our soul, mind, and strength. Everything you have in you, don’t hold back.
• When the Holy Spirit prompts us to love our neighbor because you know there are people we would rather not love. Then respond by getting involved with them.
• When the Holy Spirit moves us to forgive as God forgives. Then respond by accepting the scars and hurts incurred are already healed in Christ.
• When the Holy Spirit causes us to prophesy, to speak lovingly, boldly and courageously, pointing people toward God. Then respond by sharing the love of the gospel to those who would hear it.

We will see the beautiful eternity God gives us as an inheritance through Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the “guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” Until then, live faithfully in Christ, you are a saint of God, chosen, blessed, and set aside to the praise of his glory. 

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we bless you. We bless you because you blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. You chose us before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before you. Lord, you adopted us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, your one and only son. We accept that sacrifice. We have hope in his resurrection, and we eagerly want to live according to the purpose of your will.

Lord, let that be the prayer of those people here who don’t know you yet because you have chosen them. Lord, we want to bring you glory because you give us immeasurable grace. Lord, we want to embody the characteristics and markers of being one of your elect saints. Allow us to be sensitive to your Holy Spirit, as you move us to praise you with all that we are.

If there are people here who are wrestling with sin, God, draw them into your grace and love and wipe away our sins. If there are addictions festering, remove those addictions, because we are powerless against them. But you are not. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.