Paul just saying hello to us. We saw several important things
that Christ would teach us. We saw the authority of Christ
fully invested and manifested in the words of Paul, the last
Apostle. We saw the sovereignty of God
proclaimed and praised in God's conversion of Paul the Apostle. We saw ourselves and our desperate
need for a Savior reflected in the testimony of Paul. We saw
grace and peace that we can only find in Christ. All of this from
Paul's simple greeting. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus
by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful
in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now if we can see all of this
in Paul's greeting, right, this is not something Paul is, you
know, intending to use to teach us. By the Holy Spirit, we learn
from Paul's greeting, but Paul is just writing us a greeting. So imagine the treasure that
we will find in the words of Paul when he gets on to teaching
us. That's where we begin. Verse
3. If you've ever studied Romans, you
see that Paul sort of gives this introduction that serves as an
outline to the whole letter, and then Paul sort of does a
lot of work to lay a logical foundation with long, logical
argumentation, almost as though he were engaging with the Roman
philosophers who would read his letter. We see several examples
of rising and falling action, literary climaxes, and then Romans
3, 21 through 25, Paul gives the first resolution of the problem
that he presents in Romans 1 and 2. He tells us that Christ has
made propitiation, that the wages of sin is death, But in Christ, there is life. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And he explains this more in
Romans 4 and 5. And then in Romans 6 and 7, Paul
presents us with a new problem where he displays the tension
between God's law and grace. And then Paul resolves this tension
with another literary climax in Romans chapter 8. I mention all of this to show you
that Ephesians sort of does the opposite. The literary structure of Ephesians
is different from Romans. Paul begins in verse three of
Ephesians one, 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. This right here is the literary
focus of the entire letter. Everything in Ephesians is commentary
on Ephesians one verse three. It's all centered around the
glory of God and blessing His people. Verse 3 is the climax of Ephesians
and is the resolution of all the tension that we see later
in the letter. God's glory and saving His people. In Ephesians 1, God's glory in
saving his people is extolled in verses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, and 14. It is very important
to the text of Ephesians. So we're going to read this whole
section here of Ephesians 1. Then we're going to jump into
verse 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, even as he chose
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us
for adoption 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. In him we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to
the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, and all
wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will,
according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a
plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things
in heaven and things on earth. 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, so that
we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise
of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed
in Him, were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee
of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise
of His glory. So Paul begins with this exclamation
of praise in order to set the tonal center for the rest of
the chapter. Just like in music, every song
is written in some key which tells us the tonal center of
the music, Paul's first statement in this letter is the key that
the whole letter is written in. Blessed be God. So he begins with an exclamation
of praise to God the Father. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we think of blessing, we
usually think of it in the context of how God has blessed us, right? We think of the things that God
has done for us. We think of the grace that he
has given to us. We think of the life of ours
that he has sustained thus far. And while that isn't exactly
what blessed means here, Paul's not talking about all the great
things that we have done for God when he says that God is
blessed, right? I've encountered people who You
know, think they have a lot to offer to God. In fact, we even
read about that in scripture in Matthew 17. We see Peter,
who thinks that he has much to offer Christ. Matthew 17, Jesus
goes up onto the mountain with Peter, James, and John. And there
he shines like the sun. Jesus does, not Peter. And while
he's shining like the sun, Moses and Elijah are there with him
and they're just having a conversation. And Peter thinks he is well equipped
to bless God the sun in that moment. And he says, it is good
that we are here. I will build you guys some tents.
He offers to the Lord God of all creation his ability to build
tents. And God the Father rebukes him
from heaven. That's not what we're talking
about when we say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Because we have not merited anything. Nothing that we can do can earn
any of God's favor, right? Prior to our conversion, apart
from Christ, we are only capable of sin. This is what we see in
Romans chapter 3, 10 through 18, that none is righteous, no
not one. But even after our conversion,
Our good works on their own do not merit any of God's favor. You're aware of this idea of
crowns of righteousness. Paul says, there's laid up for
me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge will award to me on that day. And not only to me, but
also to all who have loved his appearing. When I was younger, I would think
of these crowns of righteousness. And for some reason, I was probably
told this by a preacher, I connected this reward, this crown of righteousness
with the level of service that I provided to God. That the more faithful I was,
the more good works I did in His name, the prettier my crown
would be. And that you could be a believer, you
could have faith in Christ and live your life and do no good
works in the name of Christ. your crown of righteousness would
be something like a sweaty headband or something. I don't know where
I got this from. Because it's not what Paul's
talking about when he talks about crowns of righteousness. There is laid up for me a crown
of righteousness which is my savior. Right, because the righteousness
that I have is only the righteousness of Christ. I have no righteousness in me
except that God has seen my faith and counted it to me as righteous. And in that, God is pleased in
our good works. That our good works done in faith
are counted righteous on account of Christ. Christ's righteousness is imputed
to us on account of our faith. And in that, God is pleased in
our good works done in faith. And so in that sense, we might
say that we are a blessing to God, that God is pleased in Christ
on account of our faith in his work. Paul goes on, blessed be the
God and father. I want to talk a little bit about
God as Father. The first thing that we need
to understand about God the Father is that it is something of a
relational title. It tells us how God the Father
relates to God the Son. Because in the Trinity we have
three distinct persons and yet one God. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They relate to one another in
an eternal, redemptive covenant. Where God the Father charges
God the Son with becoming human and satisfying for his people
a covenant of grace. by his death on the cross. So God, the Father, is the Father
of Christ. He testifies this numerous times
in the Gospels, and Pharisees wanted to kill him for it. But in God being the Father,
we can also see how he is our Father. Now, he's not everyone's
father. Those who are apart from Christ
Those who will suffer the wrath of God, God is not their father,
at least not in the same way that he is ours. We often think
of our relationship with God in terms of God being distant
and impersonal, that he is this cosmic being beyond comprehension. And so in that, things like love escape our ability to understand. But this is not what scripture
teaches about God the Father. God teaches us that he is personal
and intimate. One of his titles is Abba, Abba
Father. This is the intimate way that
a child might address their own father. My children call me daddy. A relationship with God the Father
is personal and intimate. This reminds me of one time I
was fixing our dishwasher, which I did again this morning. You're
always fixing stuff when you're a dad, right? I was fixing the
dishwasher and I was getting frustrated. And Ellie could hear
my frustration. She was maybe three years old. I was getting mad at the dishwasher.
And she comes up to me and she says to me, Daddy, you don't
have to get upset. You are the best fixer in town. And in that moment, I wasn't
doing anything for her. I had not recently given her
any treats or shown her any love. I was just fixing the dishwasher. And she chose to love me in the best
way that she knew how, to call me the best fixer in town. And that feeling, that emotion,
The love that I had for her in that moment. That's the very same love that
God the Father has for his children. That unconditional love. And the love that she showed
to me for no reason at all is the way we can love God. It's the way we can relate to
God, our Father. God is personal, He is real,
and He loves us. And even more importantly, that
love that He has for us is entirely unique. The love that God has
for His people is unique only to His people. And that love that He has for
His people is effectual for their salvation. We can talk about systematic
theology in this thing called the Ordo Salutis, which is Latin
for the order of salvation. And there are all these theological
moments in the spiritual life of a believer that we can identify
that are taught in Scripture. This is where we take Scripture
and we synthesize all of the ideas. And we can sort of write
down the order that all of these things happen in. We have in
eternity past a covenant of redemption between God the Father and God
the Son. We have election, God's eternal decree that He would
save His people. And we can put all these things
in order. But in some sense, We can say that the cause of
all of it is God's love. That the cause of your salvation
is that God has loved you as his child. You have been saved because God
is your father by his decree. And it is in this love that Paul
says that we are blessed in Christ. 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. So we can say
that our salvation is first caused by God's love for us as his people. And then Paul tells us that we
are blessed in Christ. And in doing this, he is telling
us the way in which we are saved, the actual mechanism of our salvation. These blessings are communicated
in Christ. What has Christ done to bless
us? God's people, God's children. We see in Romans 3 that the righteousness
of God is manifested in a different way from the law. That is that
Christ upholds the law in perfect obedience, manifesting the righteousness
of God. This is the first part of Christ's
work. And then on the cross, Christ endured the wrath of God
for our sins. And Paul would tell us there
in Romans 3 that God has put Christ forward as the propitiation
by his blood. Propitiation is an important
word. It is used four times in the
New Testament. What it means is that God's wrath
is satisfied. It means that the thing that
the law requires of God, because the law has requirements for
God, right? The law has lots of requirements
that God, in some sense, expects men to obey. But the law also
has requirements that it places upon God because they are God's
promises and God cannot go back on his promises. And that is
that God has promised to judge every law breaker. And so this propitiation speaks
of the satisfaction of those requirements. So that when Christ
dies on the cross, spills his blood and breaks his body for
his people, those things that the law requires of his people
are satisfied. In this case, the law requires
of us death, right? The law requires of all people
death. But the work of Christ on the
cross is to satisfy that particular requirement. Death. Christ dies. He endures the wrath
of God. And God the judge is satisfied
in that. This is what it means when Paul
says that we are blessed in Christ. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ. God the Father, the righteous
judge is satisfied. The work of Christ is effectual
for what the work of Christ accomplishes. When Paul testifies in Romans
3 that Christ is propitiation, that Christ has satisfied the
wrath of God, there is no doubt, there can be no doubt, no debate
that Christ has accomplished it. And there are many who say he
has not. There are many who say that when
Christ says it is finished, he's just talking about the end of
his life. It's an actual thing someone
has said to me, that when Christ is on the cross and he says it
is finished, that he's just referring to the
end of his life and he's going to die. When Christ says it is finished,
he is referring to the work that he was sent to complete by God
the Father. When Christ says it is finished,
he is saying he has accomplished the propitiation that the law
requires. There can be no doubt that those
for whom Christ died are saved. Christ does not accomplish this
work for all people. Christ accomplishes this work
for a very specific people, His people, those given to Him by
the Father. To say that Christ died for every
person is to say that Christ did not accomplish redemption,
that redemption is not complete, that in order for the work of
Christ to become effectual, something must be added. If Christ has died for all people,
then either God's wrath has been satisfied against all people, or Christ's work is insufficient
and ineffectual. Paul goes on, not only have we been blessed
in Christ, but we have been blessed in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places. This work of Christ is inseparable
from the blessing of Christ. The work of Christ cannot be
separated from the grace of God in Christ. If you have been blessed
in Christ, then you have been blessed with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places. That is, if Christ's work is
accomplished on your behalf, then every spiritual blessing
is yours. Now, throughout history, men
have come up with many schemes, many clever inventions, different
ways to heaven, different ways to know Christ. And this shouldn't surprise us,
right? The teacher tells us in Ecclesiastes 7, God made man
upright, but they have sought out many schemes. And later that
there is nothing new under the sun. That every wacko that comes up
with a new plan for knowing God is just repeating the lies of
the devil before him. One of these schemes is rampant
in our society. It defines the religious culture
of our country. It goes by many names. I think
the technical term is prevenient grace. But if that word doesn't mean
anything to you, the teaching that lies beneath it, will. Prevenient
grace teaches us that Christ died for all people, and that
because of this, all people receive some particular spiritual measure
of grace that so enables them to respond positively to the
call of the gospel. Sound familiar? that everyone's
got just enough of the Spirit in them that on their own they can hear
and believe apart from any further work of the Spirit. So what's wrong with this idea?
Well, the Bible says it's wrong. Romans chapter 3 tells us that
This doesn't make sense. Prevenient grace says everyone
has just enough grace that they can seek out God and find Him on their own without the quickening
of their spirit, without the regenerating grace of God. Romans
chapter 3 says, None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands,
no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, and together
they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.
The venom of serpents is under their lips. Their mouth is full
of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, and their paths are ruin and misery. In the way of peace
they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. But you can choose Christ on
your own? This passage doesn't mean anything
if it doesn't apply to everyone apart from the grace of God and
regeneration. Why is Paul telling us this if
I can choose God on my own? Then in Romans chapter 8, Paul
very plainly tells us that, quote, man cannot please God. For those who live according
to the flesh, this is Romans 8, 5, those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but
those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the
things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh
is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does
not submit to God's law. It cannot, those who are in the
flesh, cannot please God. Anyone who does not have the
spirit of Christ does not belong to him. And I talk about this because
Paul is teaching against this idea in Ephesians 1 verse 3,
when he tells us that we have been blessed in Christ with every
spiritual blessing. Paul is teaching us the exclusivity
of spiritual blessing. That if you are not in Christ, There is no spiritual blessing. Those who have been blessed in
Christ, that is, those who Christ has died for, have been blessed
with every spiritual blessing. But this idea of prevenient grace
says that those who have not been blessed in Christ also receive
some spiritual blessings. This false gospel places man
at the center of salvation because it makes man responsible for
accomplishing and finishing the work that Christ only began. This is not a gospel at all. When Paul says that we have been
blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places, it means that our sins have been forgiven. God's wrath
has been satisfied against us. Christ's righteousness is ours. We have been declared holy in
Christ. We have received the grace from
the Spirit to read the word and understand what it means. We've received grace for loving
our neighbor, for loving our brothers and sisters in the assembly. The idea here is that you cannot
receive a half measure of grace. You can't receive discount grace.
God's grace is not dispensed in parts so that you can pick
and choose which ones you want. If you read books about grace,
you'll see grace put together with some kind of adjective.
There'll be chapters on all these different adjectives of grace.
I read one book that had 15 or
16 different types of grace, had a whole chapter on each one. Electing grace, sanctifying grace,
relational grace, financial grace. And while there's some context
where it makes sense to do that, where we want to talk about God's
grace in regeneration. Okay, we can talk about God's
grace in regeneration. Or we can talk about God's grace
for maturity. Or we can talk about God's grace
in sanctification or in election. And we can talk about the different
contexts in which God's grace operates, but we cannot make
the mistake of thinking that those are different things. We cannot make the mistake of
thinking that God's grace for regeneration is different from
God's grace for sanctification, because both of those things
are found in Christ's work on the cross, given to us in the
Holy Spirit and the fullness of time in our
conversion. We cannot think that we have
received God's grace for salvation without receiving God's grace
for maturity, for sanctification. And this answers for us the question
of what place good works has in our lives. Remember, I talked
a little bit earlier about how there's some sense in which God
is pleased in our good works. That is, when we do them in faith,
it is on account of that faith that they are counted righteous
because of the righteousness of Christ. Apart from God's grace, man can
only imitate the man described in Romans 3. Man can only hate God. He cannot
do good. He cannot seek God. He can only
produce misery and pain and bloodshed. But Paul says in Romans 8, if
the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in
you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give
life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. You will no longer live like
you are dead because you are alive. The grace of God, having been
given to you in Christ for salvation, for justification, for the forgiveness
of sins, is also given you to bring life to your dead body. The very same grace, the only
grace given by God, has saved you and it empowers and exhorts
you into serving and pleasing God. We'll get there. Eventually,
in Ephesians 2 verse 10, Paul writes, we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. God has not given grace to save
you and then left you to your own devices to figure out how
to please him. He has created us in Christ.
He has given us a full measure of grace, the full blessing, and he has
given us these things to serve him, to work for him. And he has gone before us to
prepare the good works for us to do. Now, I have emphasized that we should
be very careful not to divide the different utilities, the
different functions of God's grace as though they were different
things. But there is a distinction that
I do want us to keep straight. So while we can make up different
names for the ways in which we are blessed in Christ, we must
be careful not to separate these functions from the full dispensation
of grace in Christ. But we also must be careful not
to confuse the different ways in which God's grace is shown
to us. We mentioned that God's grace
empowers us and prepares us for good works. We need to keep that function
of God's singular grace at least distinct in practice from that
function of God's grace that gives us the assurance of our
salvation. The measure of grace given you
for good works cannot itself be the assurance of your salvation. That is, you cannot look to your
good works and find your assurance. At least not in a way that is
infallible. You can look at your good works,
the things you have done, and you can be moved to further praise
God for His grace. You can be thankful. You can
show gratitude for God's work in your life. You can find joy
in the things that God has done for you and the good works that
God has prepared for you. But an assurance that you find
in that is going to be fallible. The infallible assurance of your faith is founded
only in the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel. This never failing assurance and your salvation is founded
on the testimony of the Holy Spirit to our souls concerning
the promises made to us in the gospel. Jesus promises in John 6 that
he would never cast out those who are his. Paul declares in
Romans 8, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. This promise is the spiritual
blessing given to us in Christ. This promise is given to everyone
who has faith in Christ. The word of the Lord found in
the gospel of Christ is the assurance, the infallible assurance of your
salvation. not your good works." So in this way, God's grace for
stirring up our hearts to good working for the Lord is distinct
from God's grace found in the assurance of the word of the
Lord in the gospel of Christ. We just cannot look to our works for our salvation. But isn't that exactly what the
world tells us to do? I mean, even the religious agnostics,
you ask them, you going to heaven? Yeah, probably. How do you know?
I'm a good person. And then you look at You can
look at Rome, at the teachings of Roman Catholicism, that your faith in Christ cannot alone
save you. There's some measure of working
that you must do in order to earn your salvation. But isn't this exactly the same
if we say, I know I am saved because of what I have done? One famous preacher has said
that your obedience is the only validation of your salvation. I think that is contrary to everything
that Paul would have us learn about Christ and His grace. Your assurance is found in Christ. Your righteousness is found in
Christ. Your salvation is found in Christ. And all of these things
in Christ alone. There is only Christ. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for your spirit that you have given us grace
to open our eyes to see that you have shown your light in
the darkness that we have seen and that we
have heard the gospel of Christ. Be with us every day. Give us
full measure of your grace, your blessing for joy and peace and
love. And every day teach us what you
would have us learn from your word. We pray these things in
the name of Christ. Amen.