November 23, 2022
Author: Pastor Bernard Ibrahim
November 23, 2022
"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 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. 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 in 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 council 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 promised Holy
Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire
possession of it, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 1:3-11
As we think about giving thanks, (and we had our Thanksgiving service
on Sunday night,) and we have opportunity to take time off of work and
spend time with family, and really with the express purpose of giving
thanks. And as believers, not just to other human beings, we have the
privilege of giving thanks to God, the giver of good gifts.
This
passage struck me when I've been thinking about giving gifts, giving
thanks to God for those things which are eternal, those spiritual gifts
that He gives to us. It's good to give God thanks for all the temporal
blessings He's given us; all of those are to be enjoyed by us and He
gives them to us for our enjoyment; but the spiritual, eternal gifts.
If
we just walk through this passage, you will see that there are many,
and they are rich and they are deep because this passage starts out
with, “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.” Then you'll notice he begins to delineate what he means by
“blessed us” or “given us” every spiritual blessing. What are those? You
can see the first one is listed in verse 4, and we're not going to be
exhaustive in this passage, there are many implied. But just look at the
ones that are explicit here, “Even as he chose us.” He elected us. Our
election is a gift, a spiritual gift, an eternal gift, and a gift that
we did not earn.
If you looked at the end of that verse, he gave
us justification that we would be holy and blameless before him.
Something we did not deserve, a gift that we could not gain. And it had
to be given by God, who is holy and able to make us blameless who were
sinful.
“That in love he predestined us for adoption.” He made us
his children. Another gift that you can see is distinctive from all the
other gifts of our salvation, our justification, our election. But he
went beyond those gifts and gave to each one of us the privilege of
calling him Father, and having Christ as our elder brother.
If
you jump down to verse 7, He gave us redemption. Every believer knows
that we were bought out of a state of slavery to sin, and he paid for
our freedom with the blood of his son. And forgiveness. You see that,
the forgiveness of our trespasses, a clear conscience and actual
forgiveness between us the trespasser, those who have trespassed against
God and against His law. He has forgiven us our sins and now we have a
clear conscience. We are children with a clear and open relationship
with our father.
Then verse 9. We don't think about this much,
but the Lord has revealed to us this grand mystery of His will which you
see here explained about how Christ, who is the fullness of all things,
will unite all things both in heaven and earth. And we see even clearer
in Revelation that everything will be put under his authority and
Christ will be king of kings and Lord of Lords. This is our privilege,
the Lord as our Father, as our giver of good gifts, brings us into his
grand universal plan to put all things under his Son. This is an amazing
revelation that we have, that we have been given the privilege to know
what is going to be the end of this age and the beginning of eternity.
Then he finishes off this section with the gift of the Holy Spirit,
that that promise that is our promise, which is the guarantee of our
inheritance. You see it in verse 13. We're given the Holy Spirit, our
helper, our comforter. That the Lord Jesus promised would be with us
until we are with Christ in heaven.
And so hopefully this quick
overview of these 8 or 9 spiritual gifts that the Lord has given and
blessed every one of us, every believer can say they have been blessed
by God the Father in these spiritual blessings, and it is a great place
for us to start when we think about giving thanks to God during this
time of thanksgiving. It is a good thing to give thanks to God and it is
our privilege. It humbles us, and it enlivens us because it puts our
perspective on the reality of what God actually has done and is doing
for us his children.
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