Some years ago I was given this 1,000 piece puzzle for Christmas. So why is it still in the cellophane wrapping? I’m ashamed to say I am just not patient enough to do jigsaws of that size. If you were to open the lid of this box, you would see a bewildering pile of different coloured pieces. Where do you start? How do you go about putting it all together? Well, what you usually do is sort the straight edged pieces from the rest. Then you place the corners in position. Then, using the picture on the box as a guide, you can start to piece together the outline. Once you’ve done that, you're ready to work inwards. Is that how you do jigsaws? Well, counting the infinite and astoundingly great blessings of God is a bit like opening the lid and sorting through hundreds of pieces a great puzzle. Ephesians 1, if you like, is the picture on the box.
It’s the plan, the big picture. Ephesians 1 is God’s sweeping revelation of who he is, who we are and why we are here, in all its wide-angle majesty. It’s the bird’s eye view or, more accurately, the God’s eye view of his great purpose from all eternity till kingdom come for life, the universe and everything. And because we tend to spend most of our lives zooming in on the features of the landscape (in other words the small detail of the ups and downs of existence), we sometimes forget the big picture.
But today, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re starting a series of three talks on God’s Father Heart and we’re starting out this morning with a wide-angle view on his great plan, his grand design, his glorious scheme, lovingly conceived from all eternity, to adopt you and me into his family. We’re going to look at truth about ourselves from God’s grandstand perspective.
1) What God Says About Our Present (v1-2, 7-8)
If Ephesians 1 says quite a lot about who believers in Christ really are, from God’s viewpoint, it also says quite a lot about how we got to be there. And it gives us a tantalising glimpse of what’s in store for us in the future.
First of all, what does God say about who we are, who you are? In v1 Paul addresses a group of ordinary Christians living in Ephesus. But it could be here. He calls them ‘saints’ and describes them as ‘faithful in Christ Jesus’. ‘Saints’ is a regrettable translation, and the latest revision of the NIV uses the expression ‘holy people’ which is less confusing. The word Paul uses literally means an individual who is ‘set apart to belong to God’. It’s someone who ‘stands out’, who is ‘chosen’ or ‘distinctive’. When God calls those who belong to him ‘saints’ he means, ‘You are special to me.’ Do you see yourself in that way? Because it’s true. Don’t listen to what you say about you. Your heavenly Father says that you are truly exceptional in his eyes. Whatever you or anyone else feels or thinks, that is the truth about you.
In v7-8, God says, “we have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.” Let’s tease that out and try to grasp what it means for us.
“We have redemption through his blood and the forgiveness of sins...” says Paul. The truth is that every wrong thing you and I do, every wrong thought we think, has an addictive power that ends up controlling you. That’s why Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” People who drink alcohol excessively, or who inject drugs, or who visit pornographic websites, or who binge on chocolate, or who bet on horse races or who smoke tobacco can become addicted. We know the dangers of getting hooked on these things. But all sin is addictive. It’s equally true, for example, when I throw a temper or seethe with jealousy or allow pride to take root by making much of myself or indulge in a bit of juicy gossip. If I don’t cut those things at the root by taking authority and rebuking them and repenting of them, they can all get a grip on my life and become habitual, then compulsive. They have an addictive power, making me a slave to them.
We’ve been talking about money and giving over the last few weeks and we talked about debt in that context. Debt is a massive problem in our culture. But it was also a big issue in the ancient world – and, in fact, the stakes were higher. The last resort if you got yourself into serious arrears back then was to put yourself up for sale as a slave at the market and the price on your head would be equivalent of what you owed. For some desperate people it was the only way out of financial insolvency. If somebody bought you in the market, your debts would be cancelled, but you would become the property forever of your new master. You would be at his service, for the rest of your days. No rights, no pay, no holidays, no choices, no fun…
Suppose you’re sitting in the slave market with a price tag of £1 million round your neck. And suppose someone comes past and says, “I feel sorry for you. I’d like to help you. And what I’m going to do for you is this. I’m going to pay all your debts off in full. But I’m not going to take you as my slave; I’m going to give you back your freedom instead.” The technical term for that was redemption. They would have paid the ransom price. We use the word ‘ransom’ these days with kidnappers and hostages, but the slave market is where the word originally came from. Now, what v7 tells us is that Jesus came to secure our redemption. We were hopelessly indebted, we were slaves to sin and he came and paid the ransom price, not in cash but in his blood, by dying a horrific death in our place on a cross, so that we can walk away free.
A few years ago, I prayed with a guy who wanted to give up his cannabis habit. There was a prophetic word in a service; a picture of an axe cutting the retaining rope on a hot air balloon. And the word was, “When are you going to cut the rope and fly?” That really spoke to him so he asked me to pray with him. He had been a Christian for some time, but for years he had put off dealing with this issue in his life. He was dating a lovely Christian girl, about 30 years old, who was saying to him, “I am not going to marry you until you end this habit.” Our Father God touched him in a deep way that day and he hasn’t gone near that drug since. Last March I preached at their wedding. Because of the cross, the addiction is broken and that man is ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.
Last year I invited Stéphane Bertheau, who is Director of Living Waters Ministries in Paris. Stéphane came to Christ whilst trapped and confused in a promiscuous gay lifestyle. It’s been a long road for Stéphane, and he admitted that he throws himself on the mercy and grace of God every day but God has brought redemption and freedom and healing in his life. He’s now married and works as an assistant pastor. Because of the cross, he is ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.
Do you need to be released from something that has a grip on you today? Something that you can’t defeat and just keeps coming back time and time again? Christ is here. Christ’s awesome power breaks the chains of spiritual tyranny. Christ paid the price on your head. Christ redeems all from the power and grip of those things that destroy lives. Don’t leave here today without asking the Lord to break the bonds that keep you enslaved to sin. That is what God says about who we are in the present; special to him, our debts cancelled, our addictions broken, our guilt forgiven.
2) What God Says About Our Past (v3-6)
But in v3-6 God says something quite mind-blowing about our past.
If you’ve ever received a letter or an e-mail from me, the chances are that I closed with two little words. People often sign off saying things like, “Take care” or “Many thanks” or “Best regards.” These endings can often be no more than a polite formality but the two words I used when I wrote to you were carefully chosen and they come directly from our reading in Ephesians 1; the words are, “Every blessing.” It’s become a semi-conscious habit for me when I write those words to fleetingly ask God the Father to bring whoever I am writing to into the marvellous fullness of each and every heavenly blessing in Christ that are the birthright of every believer.
Verse 3: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
That verse says we have at our disposal, now, “every spiritual blessing in Christ” – which is pretty comprehensive – and he then goes on to say how that came about. And it’s quite surprising. Your story with God goes right back to before time began, before the universe, before creation, to a point when only God was. It was then that your heavenly Father chose you. Then your Father predestined you. Your Father had it in his mind even then, because he loves you, that he would be glad to adopt you into his family. That was going to be a particular delight to him. He took great pleasure in choosing you, and deciding to lavish on you every spiritual and heavenly blessing in Christ, knowing you would have good days and bad days, knowing you would turn out a sinner, knowing you would never really deserve it. All this was in his plan from the start.
Therefore your adoption has nothing to do with your value, your worth, or your gifts. Your adoption is anchored forever in God’s eternal pleasure and purpose. That means that your adoption is absolutely not insecure or conditional or fragile. God will not change his mind about adopting you on becoming disappointed with the way you turn out. He chose you and predestined you for adoption knowing you would never deserve it and never be able to earn it. That means his fatherly approval and favour towards you is firm and settled and permanent. He has predestined it from all eternity past and will hold it unshaken till all eternity future.
Do you have a problem with that? Because some people do. This is what v4-5 actually say; “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”
And of course the difficulty people have with all this is a matter of simple logic. If God, in his love, predestines only some to become his children, that must mean he inclines others to reject his love and salvation. That makes God look terribly arbitrary, even cruel. What are we to make of this? What about Malachi 1.2-3 where God says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”? What about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus? Paul said in Romans 9.18, “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” It’s not easy to get excited about predestination if it means God has predisposed us to believe and be saved, while he has pre-programmed others to disbelieve and be damned. It doesn’t seem fair does it?
We’ll have a look at the specific case of Pharaoh in a minute but first of all, let’s ask ourselves a question. What certainty could we have about life, the future, the battle of good and evil and the end of the world if God had his hands tied, wasn’t in control and left everything to chance? What if God just had to hope that it will all pan out OK in the end? What confidence could you have then that the goodness of God will finally prevail? The answer is absolutely none at all. But if God really is in total control, we know that our lives are secure in his plan and purpose, that the future is safe in his hands and that the battle between good and evil will be decisively won in the end by Christ.
If God really is in charge, you need not worry that some loose cannon will press a button starting a nuclear war that will wipe out life on earth, or that a pandemic will destroy the human race. God will trust nobody but his Son with the honour of inaugurating end of the world. So the teaching of the Bible that God is sovereign over the affairs of this universe, that he reigns and rules over the nations, and that nothing is outside the all-embracing scope of his cosmic plan, should be a source of great assurance and confidence for us. And the thing is, God’s wisdom is so great and his power is so awesome, and his designs are so excellent that he is able to weave his total all-knowing authority with our complete and real free will.
Some Christians are troubled by the story of the plagues of Egypt because God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Doesn’t he? Yes, he does. It’s there in black and white. In fact, it’s worse: God not only hardens Pharaoh’s heart, he punishes him afterwards.
But when you read Exodus 5-11 carefully, you find that Pharaoh hardens his own heart seven times. He obstinately refuses to cooperate with, God from his own free choice, before God starts to harden his heart further. So it was Pharaoh who deliberately and freely rebelled against God. When that attitude had become permanent, God in effect said, “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you get.”
And that is how God works with all who stubbornly rebel against his just and holy laws. In Romans 1 Paul explains that this is how God consistently operates with society. When sin goes too far and becomes endemic, God hands civilizations over to the folly of their rebellion against him. And people block their ears and hate to hear this, but this is what the Bible says happens; trash culture and sick humour become prevalent. People begin to worship the environment instead of its Designer. Unnatural sex becomes widespread and is promoted shamelessly. Respect for authority and common decency breaks down. Greed and deceit become normal. Ringing any bells? All this is an open expression of God’s righteousness and I for one tremble for our Western civilisation, because it shows all the warning signals of provoking God’s judgment right now.
But today is also a day of grace. On all who cry out to God and ask for forgiveness and appeal for mercy, he pours out his fatherly kindness. He adopts into his family, lavishing blessing upon blessing on all those who call on Christ, and place their lives in his hands. If you have never done that before, can I urge you strongly to do it today? Why hesitate? Why put it off? Come to Christ, or come back to Christ, today of your own free will – and rejoice that it is already God’s perfect plan to bless you from before time began! So God forgives and loves and redeems all those who are his special people, who he has predestined and chosen to belong to him. That’s the superb present and the surprising past. Now for the surpassing future...
3) What God Says About Our Future (v9-10)
In v9-10 Paul says that God “made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment - to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”
That’s where it’s all going. As John Stott puts it, “God’s plan is that all things which were created through Christ and for Christ and which hold together in Christ will finally be united under Christ by being subjected to his headship.”
It’s all about him, and it’s all for him. God’s plan is big scale; it encompasses with ease all wisdom and all knowledge. It includes virtue and justice. It reaches every limit of time and space, effortlessly stretching distances in the scale of billions of light-years. It starts before time began and goes on beyond time and into eternity. And if you are in Christ you have a vital and integral stake in that future.
Ending
This is the wide-angle lens through which God sees everything. It’s also the macro lens with which he sees every beat of your heart. And this is the assurance he wants you to enjoy as a confident and loved child. So if you find yourself asking, “Does God really love me?” Or “Am I really saved?” Or “Is God really in charge?” Or “What about the future?” take a look again at the Father’s plan in Ephesians 1.
God has, in his hands, all that is yet to come. If you have asked Christ to be your Lord and Saviour, then the matter is settled and you can be completely confident. You are a child of God, you are the object of his limitless affection, you are born from above, chosen before the creation of the world and predestined to be holy, adopted and treasure by your heavenly Father, rescued forever from the terrible wrath that is to come fully, but that is already being revealed in part; you are an inheritor of the kingdom of God, paid for in full, restored and healed, completely forgiven and reckoned as righteous in Christ, with every good thing from heaven at your disposal.
That is what God the Father says about you.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 25th January 2009
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