Spiritual Blessings - Ephesians 1:1-14

                         

I love this letter of Paul to the church in the city of Ephesus; it’s a letter filled with theology, enough for a seminary education, all rooted in the 2-word phrase “in Christ.” Scott Hoezee identifies these theological gems introduced in these first 14 verses, “The Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Divine election. Redemption through Jesus’ blood. The baptismal seal of the Holy Spirit. The doctrines of creation and providence. Salvation by grace alone. Eschatology. Faith. Sanctification. The proclamation of the gospel. It’s all here.” Yet at its heart, Paul reminds us that our faith is rooted in Jesus, it’s all about God, and, as two great Jacob’s, Eppinga and Prins, keep reminding me, “it’s all about grace!” Throughout this entire letter, we’ll be reminded over and over again that our salvation is completely begun and carried out by Jesus; we’re unable to contribute to our salvation in any way, and the grace in this completely changes us for the better.

Ephesus is the most important city in the area; a commercial, cultural, and religious hub that drew people from every part of the known world, and even from parts unknown, making it a fascinating mix of cultures, languages, and faith beliefs. Paul spent two to three years in Ephesus building the church. Because of its location on major trade routes and its multi-cultural population, Ephesus was a strategic place to build a church that could spread the gospel news far and wide.

It was customary when you wrote letters in Paul’s time to open with greetings and blessings and then introduce the different things you’re going to talk about in the main part of the letter. Our verses this morning is the greeting and introduction part to what Paul is going to go more in-depth about and what we will be reflecting on over the next few weeks as we journey through Ephesians.

Paul reminds his readers that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus. The Greek word for “apostle” literally means “one who is sent” and can refer to a representative or anyone sent on a mission. An apostle is given the authority of the one who sent him while a disciple is still a student, someone who is learning. All of the apostles were disciples, they were among the many believers in Jesus, but only a small group of disciples were chosen as the Twelve Apostles as we read in Matthew 10:1–4 when Jesus sends them out in pairs to share the gospel news of Jesus and gives them power to even cast out demons, and in Acts 26:14–18 where Paul is telling King Agrippa about his call to go share the gospel news of Jesus. This included the original twelve disciples and Matthias after Judas betrayed Jesus, and then Paul. Paul receives his call a little differently on the Damascus Road, but he’s definitely chosen by Jesus and given the call to go make disciples. Later we discover others are also given the title apostle.

Paul goes on and reminds then that they are a holy people; people set apart by God as his. This is followed by a blessing, offering them grace and peace from God. A blessing is all about speaking God’s presence into someone’s life. Then comes something really special, Paul begins praising God and how he’s blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. At this point I’m going “WOW,” what a picture of God’s incredibly generous nature! This is no stingy God, but a God who pours out every spiritual blessing to us, his people; not because we deserve them, but because this is who God is!

What are these spiritual blessings? We’re chosen to be holy, to be set apart for God and made blameless, forgiven because we’re chosen in Jesus. God sees us through what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross where he took our sin on himself, where he died and was buried for our sin, and then was raised from the dead and now sits with God preparing to return and claim everything under himself again. We’re chosen to be children of God to bring him praise for his glorious grace. To think that our confession of faith in Jesus, that in how we live as his children leads to God being given all the praise is an amazing call for our lives!

It’s all about God and Jesus; our lives are always to point to them. If you know grammar, this intensifies the awesomeness of what Paul is saying here. All the verbs used by Paul here in the original Greek are in the past perfect tense. You might say so what, well this means that everything Paul is saying here about what God is doing is settled, completed, accomplished once and for all; there’s no turning back, no changing what God has done in these blessings given to us! God does it all, he will not turn his back on us, he will not un-choose us, he will never take back his gift of grace and faith, all we’re called to do is simply receive the blessings; hopefully with lots of thanksgiving and praise!

Why does Paul focus so strongly on these things? We look back to what the world was like then. For the most part, things looked mostly good. The economy wasn’t horrible, there was mostly peace in the empire. As long as you acknowledged Caesar as lord, you could believe whatever you liked, religion was mostly tolerated. Yet as you dig into the government, the philosophies, the faiths of the day, as you take a closer look at the empire, you begin to see that signs of corruption were creeping in, cracks were starting to form in society. With the world opening up because of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, the investment in infrastructure like roads, the world was coming to the Roamn Empire with all its diversity and different beliefs.

When people looked to all the various faiths and philosophies that were appearing and capturing people’s minds and hearts, they were mostly told that they needed to earn their ways into a better life or into paradise. Philosophers were teaching that the gods were created in our images, or if gods did exist, that they weren’t interested or engaged in this world except for their own pleasure, and that they could be manipulated but not trusted. No matter the faith or philosophy, they all mostly came down to telling the people that we need to work towards becoming perfect, it’s all up to us to save ourselves.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus to show them that their lives have meaning by pointing them to God who has created them for a reason and gives them a purpose. Paul shows them a God who values and loves them, giving them a place where they belonged and were accepted, filling them with hope; things the other faiths and philosophies didn’t offer. Paul tells them that God loves us, honours us; sharing with us “the mystery of his will… to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ… in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the paise of his glory.” The greatest gift is that God does it all, he chooses us, saves us, and gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us into becoming more like Jesus. We’re reminded that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves, that God uses us to play a part in the grand plan of God for all creation to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ!

This fascinates me, that we’re part of God’s plan to accomplish this; God’s doing this through the Holy Spirit working through us when we put our hope in Jesus, when we commit our lives to be for the praise of his glory, showing the world who Jesus is and the difference he brings, sharing what he’s done for us by becoming one of us, living life with us. All it takes to belong is to believe the message of truth, the good news of our salvation. As a sign and mark of reassurance, we’re given the Holy Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance as children of God.

Biblical scholar N. T. Wright shares with us what the gift of the Holy Spirit looks like, “Those who follow Jesus, those who find themselves believing that he is the world’s true Lord, that he rose from the dead—these people are given the Spirit as a foretaste of what that new world will be like. If anyone is ‘in the Messiah,’ what they have and are is—new creation.… The Spirit is the strange, personal presence of the living God himself, leading, guiding, warning, rebuking, grieving over our failings and celebrating our small steps toward the true inheritance.” A time-honored Christian confession of faith, the sixteenth-century Heidelberg Catechism, declares the same truth: “By the Spirit’s power we make the goal of our lives not earthly things, but the things above where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand” (Q&A 49).

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul gets us thinking in big picture ways, thinking of eternity, of salvation, of thinking about more than me and more about we and the world. He offers a message of hope, a message anchored in the gift of the Holy Spirit as a seal on us of God’s promises, showing us that God claims us as his, not as slave, but as his children, princesses and princes in the kingdom of heaven. As we journey through life, we do life in Christ, looking to Jesus for our identity, for who we are called to be as his brothers and sisters, and how to carry out his work of sharing the gospel news that leads people to God. To do life in Jesus, he gives us the Holy Spirit so we can have the courage and joy that comes from being his. May you all experience every spiritual blessing in Christ as you go into the world this week.