Ephesians pt1 - Blessed, Chosen and Adopted!

You're very welcome to today's Triumph Church podcast.

We pray that you enjoy the message.

I'm going to begin this morning. I'm going to be starting a new

series on the book of Ephesians. It's probably my my most

favorite book in the entire Bible.

It's a absolutely fantastic book and there's so many amazing

truths that are are packed into the book of Ephesians.

It's, it's really hard to digest all of that like in in the 1st

chapter alone, Like there's so many things that are in there.

Like it's amazing you what the apostle Paul is revealing to us

in the book of Ephesians. And the overall themes in

Ephesians are this as follows. In chapter 1, Paul really

addresses how God through Jesus blesses us.

In chapter 2, he shows us how Jesus saves us and in chapter 3,

how Jesus transforms us. And in chapters 4-5 and six, he

really lines out how the Christian should live within

those, those 3 chapters, how Jesus bless us, how Jesus saves

us and how Jesus transforms us. And it's a, it's a wonderful,

wonderful book. So I really encourage you just

to read that entire chapter. Don't read it just to read it

all right. When we when we read Scripture

like we should, we should read and be asking the Lord for

understanding of his word to give us personal revelation.

What are you trying to say Lord in in Ephesians here.

What are you trying to to say to me?

But Ephesians is so fantastic in chapter 1 here.

It opens kind of like a a doorway into heaven's

perspective of the believer. Paul is opening a door to us

here in the in the 1st chapter of Ephesians and really all of

Ephesians on, on God's perspective on you and I.

So we're going to be concentrating this morning

primarily in Ephesians chapter 1 and verses 3 through 6.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

We'll read these and then we'll be referring back to these again

as we go through this Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 3,

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

it says all praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the

heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

Verse 4. Even before He made the world,

God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without

fault in His eyes. In verse 5, God decided in

advance to adopt us into His own family to bring us to Himself

through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do and

it gave Him great pleasure. Verse 6.

So we praise God for the glorious grace that He has

poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.

Man, isn't that so rich? Like there's so much there, but

it's really hard to like break that down and and digest

everything that the apostle Paul is trying to tell us in just

these, these short few verses. And this is just the beginning

of the chapter. There's there's a lot more

there, but here the apostle Paul is stacking truth upon truth,

blessing upon blessing, until it becomes unmistakably clear that

our salvation is not accidental, it's not temporary, and it's not

fragile. God was very intentional and

very purposeful, putting His plan into motion long before any

of us or any other human on this planet ever even took a breath,

before this world ever even existed.

This was God's plan. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3

Ephesians 1:3–6

through 6. That is God's plan.

Before this world was ever even created, before this universe

existed, before this Galaxy existed, before any of those

other stars and things existed, God had a plan, A plan for you.

Isn't that cool? He you were on His mind a long,

long time ago. Ephesians chapter 1 is about our

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

identity, and our identity is important.

There's a reason why the devil works so hard and works overtime

to try to distort identity. It tells us who we are, what we

have, and where we stand with God.

It's important for us to know those things.

It's important for us to know who we are in Christ, what we

have through Christ, and where we stand with God.

You need to have that settled in your heart because a Christian

will always feel unstable if they don't know these things.

This chapter needs to be believed, not just read.

We need to have faith in what God is trying to reveal to us

here, because when we do, it produces faith in our hearts, it

produces confidence in our Lord, it produces gratitude, it

produces perseverance when we're encountering things in this

world that are contrary to God's will in our lives, and it'll

also produce worship in our heart for God.

Paul's not offering here something shallow.

All right. These are very deep truths that

get to the heart of God and what He wants for us and desires for

us. It's bedrock truth that anchors

the church in identity, who we are in Christ.

You need to know that. You need to know who you are.

Who are you? Who are you in Christ?

Our identity, when it's realized and when it becomes settled in

our hearts. This revelation causes us to see

everything differently, right? Our perspective begins to shift.

We begin to see things as as God sees.

We begin to see ourselves how God sees us, not as this world

would want us to look at ourselves.

This world is constantly beating us down, trying to discourage

us, right? The world is constantly telling

us who you should be, right? But that's contrary to God's

Word. Who you are is not who this

world tells you, but who God's Word tells you.

When you're anchored in that, when your heart is anchored in

the truth of God's Word, everything in your life is

different. It's like you open that door and

a whole new world is revealed to to you.

Before that, you're walking around.

I can hardly see anything. But when you realize what Christ

did for you, who you are through him, it will completely change

your life. So this morning we're going to

go through now these three points from Ephesians 1, verses

Ephesians 1:3–6

3 through 6. And these points are the first

one we've been blessed. The second is we've been chosen,

and the third is we've been adopted.

So let's look at the first part of this.

He blessed us all right And we'll read again Ephesians

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 and verse 3 where it says all praise to God the

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every

spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are

united with Christ. Now really when you when you

first read this Scripture, it may not rock your world, but if

you understand what what Paul is declaring here, by the

inspiration and by the revelation of the Holy Spirit,

you'd praise God the same as the apostle Paul did at the

beginning of this verse where he said all praise to God.

Paul declares that believers have already been blessed, like

you've already been blessed. It's not something that you need

to strive for, that you need to beg God for, that you need to

plead God for Scripture says that you have already been

blessed. Notice his word in there.

It says that he has blessed us like it's something that Christ

already accomplished. And this is something that's

important for us to understand is, is what Christ accomplished

on the cross. All right?

Everything that Christ is going to do for us, everything that

he's going to do for the body of Christ was done upon the cross

through Christ's death, his burial and resurrection.

Well, how long ago was that? That was a pretty long time ago,

right? So it's already been done.

Everything, everything that God has planned for you has already

been paid for, has already been purchased.

Like it's already there. He has blessed us.

Something that I want you to understand too is that these

blessings aren't anchored in this world, right?

This world is pretty unstable, isn't it?

There's constantly just madding things.

If you just watch nothing but the news, you would probably go

insane. And it just keeps getting worse

and worse, doesn't it? So if you focus on on those

things, then yeah, there's going to be, it's like ever shifting

sand. But these blessings of God

aren't anchored in anything of this world.

They're anchored in Christ, right?

Everything in this world has been corrupted by sin.

So God's blessings are anchored in heaven.

They're anchored in him through Christ.

They're spiritual, meaning caused and enforced outside of

this natural world. And notice here Paul is also

stating that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.

When you read things like this, like it's important really just

to slow things down a little bit and not just read to read.

AI read 10 chapters today, right?

How how much you read isn't important.

Understanding what it is and getting revelation of what

you're reading, that's what's important.

So sometimes just slow things down a bit and really look at

the words that are being used because they mean a lot.

God is trying to to state something to us like every

spiritual blessing. That means that he hasn't held

back. Like every means what?

What's excluded there? What's excluded from everything,

right? If I give you everything that I

have, what am I leaving out? A car?

I don't want to give you my telly.

Oh no, Everything is everything, right?

God is withholding nothing from you.

He's your heavenly Father. God has lavished upon us His

blessings, and these are intended for us to partake in

this earthly life. You're not going to need healing

in heaven, are you? Right?

Like, are you going to use your euro in heaven?

It's worthless there, right? So God intends for us all these

blessings to be used here upon this earth in this life.

I want to look at a few scriptures here just to just to

make the point, some points here.

The first is in Philippians 419. We use this scripture all the

time because it's really important and it says that he

will provide for for all your need, right?

If you have a need, any need, the Lord wants to provide for

it. This is really all-encompassing.

It says, and my God shall supply all your need according to his

riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

All your need. Well, what can that need be?

Listen it, it may be something small, that may be something

big. It may be something, something

physical that may be something mental, like whatever it is, you

have a need, right? Well, the Lord wants to provide

for you that need. This is a blessing, something

that Christ purchased upon the cross for us to be able to

partake of. He's also purchased your health

with His blood. So something that was very

serious that Christ did for us, He wants us to be healthy and

live a whole and productive life.

Look at Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 5.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Isaiah 53 verse 5 it says, but he was pierced for our

Isaiah 53:5

rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be

whole. He was whipped so we could be

what healed. God wants you healed, doesn't

He? Look at one Peter chapter 2 and

verse 24. The apostle Peter references the

scripture Isaiah 53 five. The apostle Peter says he

personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we

can be dead to sin and live for what is right by His wounds.

You are healed. Isn't that a blessing?

God wants you to be able to live a whole and healed and healthy

life. Whether it's something really

small like a common cold, right, or whether it's something really

massive like some life threatening disease or injury or

something. God wants you.

His purpose, His will. Jesus came to give you life and

life more abundantly. He wants you to live healed,

healthy and whole. Jesus paid for that right.

Jesus paid for that. You know, if we go out to eat, I

invite you out to get a bite. Let's go get some dinner.

Would you be interested in coming with me?

Right. Let's go someplace really

expensive. Yeah.

And I said I'm going to pay. I don't worry.

It's on me. You know, order what you want.

You want to the most expensive steak on the menu, go ahead and

get that for yourself. And if I said that I paid for

that, what are you going to expect?

That I'm going to pay for your meal, aren't you?

That I'm not going to leave you the bill, Right?

Oh, thanks a lot. You invite me out to dinner,

tell me to order the expensive thing, and then then you leave

and leave me with it, with the bill.

I wouldn't be very kind, would it be what Jesus paid for your

healing, for you to be healthy in whole.

He paid for that. Now I could go up to, to the,

the front counter at the restaurant and I could say, hey,

listen, I'm, I'm, I know that he offered.

I know Pastor Brad offered, you know, to pay for my meal, but

I'm going to, I'm going to pay for that instead.

You could do that. We don't have to, you don't have

to receive what I, what I said I've paid for.

You could pay for it again if you want to, right?

Jesus paid for our healing. You don't have to do anything

except receive that, receive that gift, receive that

blessing. And then there's other promises

like Proverbs chapter 3, verses 9 and 10.

Proverbs 3:9

Let's put that up where it says honour the Lord with your wealth

and with the best part of everything that you produce.

Then he will fill your barns with grain and your vats will

overflow with good wine. It's another promise from the

Lord, right? When you honor the Lord with

what you have, what does he say? What does, what does God's

promise say? He said that he will fill your

barns. How many of you have a barn?

Is anyone here? Am I the only one in here in

this room that has a barn? All right, well, what do you

have to store all those things? Bank of Ireland AIB revolute

like something, right? Like that's your barn.

So when you honor the Lord with your wealth, with what you have,

he says that he will fill that up.

Listen, I have some, I have some good space If, if your account

is too full, all right, just pour some over in, in mine.

Yeah. And once that's full, I have

that big barn and we hold some events at that'll fill that'll

fill lots. I'm emphasizing here 2 main

things are our health and our our, our finances, because these

are things that all of us deal with all the time.

We work a job. Why?

Because we need finances. We have to pay our electric,

electric bill somehow pay our gas bill somehow fill up our

vehicles with diesel or petrol somehow, right?

It takes money. I don't go to the petrol station

and, and fill up my car and say thanks and then drive on my way.

They expect me to pay. So these are things that we deal

with all the time, our, our health.

How many of you woke up this morning and had an ache or pain

in your, in your body, right. Like we deal with our bodies all

the time. We deal with our finances all

the time, right? So it's important for us.

These are just a couple examples of the Lord's blessings that we

see what God's will is. What are some things that the

Lord, those spiritual blessings that he's blessed us with?

Well, those are some of those things.

But these blessings aren't anchored in this unstable world.

They're not anchored in your job.

They're not anchored in anyone else.

Those things are anchored in Christ through God.

He's the one that provides these things for you.

So you can put your faith in your employer.

You can, you can put, you know, faith in in other people, but

but really they're not who provides for you.

Christ is. And those things aren't

anchored. Those blessings aren't anchored

in those things. If you lose a job, you get told

you're redundant. We're going to be moving on,

right? Like that could rock some

people's world, but not if you're anchored in your

provider, God. Well, that's OK.

The Lord's going to provide some other way.

He knows what I need. Philippians 419 says a My God

shall supply all my need, not my employer.

My God shall supply all my need, every spiritual blessing.

There's no shortage in Christ, is there?

There's nothing missing. There's nothing withheld.

The believer's problem is never lack it's awareness.

It's faith and obedience to God's will.

The apostle Paul tells us where these blessings are found in

Christ. Outside of Christ, people chase

blessings, don't they? They're chasing money.

But in Christ, believers live from blessing.

We live from what Christ has provided for us in Colossians

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and verse one. I love what the apostle Paul

says here. He says since you have been

raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the

realities, the realities of heaven.

What God has done for us through Christ is more real than

anything in this world, like we're living in this body.

And we're living in in this world, but this is just for a

short time, right? Our life, the Bible says, is but

like a vapor, it's here and then it's then it's gone.

You know, my my wife's grandmother, Pastor Amy, you

know, she's 90, you know, her life is about twin.

She's going to be stepping in into eternity. 90's a a long

time. Like naturally it feels a long

time. She actually, you know, has said

she'd never thought she'd live this long.

She's as surprised as as anyone and she's lived a a really good

life. And 90s seems like a long time

to us. But in eternity, like 90s, just

like a a blip, like it's no time at all.

The reality is this, this is eternal.

This will never pass away, Not one part of it.

People have tried to get rid of this.

They tried to through a lot of different means, whether it's

whether just burning Bibles, God's word, or or banning God's

word, or trying through, through our understanding and in reason,

you know, reason away God's word, but no one's ever

successful with that. No one's smarter than God.

This is an absolutely amazing book.

There's no other book like this. There really isn't.

There's other religious books, right?

But they don't even hold a candle to the to the Bible.

Like this book is absolutely amazing how God wrote this, how

God designed it, and how there's prophecies all through the Old

Testament that are fulfilled in the New Testament.

And all these things in the New Testament point back to all

these prophecies and events in the Old Testament.

Like no person could possibly do that.

It's mathematically impossible. This is a amazing, amazing book

and this is what's real. This is the the reality.

Everything else in our life can be changed.

There's no situation in your life that's permanent.

You can make it permanent if you want to, right?

But God super can always change our natural.

It's supernatural. He created this world.

Well, He can change and shift and and do whatever He needs to

do to make things line up in your life with His Word, if

you'll trust him, if you'll have faith in him, if you'll walk in

light of His Word. The second part of our identity

is in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse four.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

That He chose us says Ephesians 14.

Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in

Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes.

Isn't that amazing? Do you know how God sees you?

Sometimes we look at ourselves and we see all these flaws,

don't we? We see all all these things that

we've done in the in the past, all these mistakes that we've

done. You know, we look at ourselves

when we're brushing our hair in the mirror and we're like man.

But you know how God looks at you, says right here, without

fault, perfect. You may make a mistake.

When you leave church today, you drove, you're pulling out,

someone honks at you and you let some words go that you probably

shouldn't have. You make a mistake, but you

repent. Sorry, Lord, God sees you as

faultless. Faultless.

No fault. Perfect.

Because what Jesus did on the cross covers everything in your

life. Every mistake, every fault,

every sin. What Jesus did is

all-encompassing. There's nothing that you can do

in your life that's going to be greater than the sacrifice that

Jesus made for you. There's no mistake that you can

make. There's no sin that's bigger

than Christ. He paid for everything.

Isn't that good news man? This is a blessing so much in

here, but this verse really dismantles performance based

faith. It's not upon what you can do.

This is a free gift that God did for us because he loves us.

God loved us and chose us in Christ.

Like let that reality sink in a little bit.

God loves you and because he loves you, he chose you in

Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

Don't let the devil speak to your mind.

All this condemnation, all right?

Don't listen to this. Listen to your heart, listen to

your spirit. And I say this all the all the

time because I think it's really important for us to know and

understand is we're a spirit, all right?

We worship the Lord in spirit, in truth, when God speaks to us,

he speaks to our spirit. He speaks to our our heart,

right? Who speaks to your mind?

The devil will speak to your mind and you'll speak to your

mind as well. But you don't listen to what's

in here, All right? We're renewing this every day.

Aren't we? Making this line up with the

word of God, because we've been trained, we've been conditioned

our whole lives to just accept this fallen world, be OK with

everything that this world tells us that we should have, that we

should be right. So we're changing this actually

to begin to agree with God from his perspective, how He sees us.

That's the reality. He loved us and chose us to be

holy and without fault. In His eyes, this means that

God's commitment to you isn't based upon your successes.

It's not based upon your weaknesses.

He did not choose you because He predicted that you were going to

be obedient to Him or His Word. He didn't choose you because of

any success or failure you may have, but He chose you simply

because He loves you. He's committed to you.

That's good news, isn't it? A commitment And really the

Lord's commitment is, is so much bigger than than like just a,

you know, sometimes we make a handshake, handshake deal in

this life or even some kind of agreement, but none of those

things are, are really binding. What what God did is he actually

made a covenant, and a covenant is something that can't be

undone. If you break a covenant, you

have to die. God's love for you is so

amazing, so vast that he actually sent Jesus to die for

you. He chose you.

The third part of this is we've been adopted and this is so

cool. In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

5, it says that God decided in advance to adopt us in His own

family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ.

And this is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great

pleasure. Adoption is intentional, right?

I don't think anyone has ever been adopted by accident.

Do you know of anyone who's ever been adopted by accident?

It's purposeful, right? God did not rescue you and then

reluctantly tolerate you. He brought you into his family

because you bring him great joy. Salvation is not God's backup

plan. It's His first plan.

It's his delight and the new King James Version.

It it says that God predestined us to adoption.

This statement really has been twisted and used out of context

to mean something. Really it was never attempted to

to mean here. How many of you have ever heard

in in religious circles that the term predestination you ever

heard of that all right, this is a term meaning that God selected

some and not others. But this really isn't a

scriptural concept and we'll look at why all right in Romans

Romans 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 and verse 11 put that up on the screen there it says

for God does not show favoritism.

All right, in order to select someone and not select someone

else, you would be showing favoritism, wouldn't you?

Well, God has no favorites. We like to think that we're his

favorite, right? But he loves each of us equally.

Those saved and those unsaved. Listen, think of the most awful

person that you can think of. You know a lot of a lot of times

the the first name that comes to the mind might be someone like

Hitler, right? Well, God loved Hitler as evil

and awful of a person as he was as much as you, He loves all of

us. He shows no favorites, no

favoritism. Christ came to die for all, for

everyone. In two Peter chapter 3 and verse

9, it says the Lord isn't really being slow about His promise as

some people think. No, He is being patient for your

sake. You know, some of us take a

little longer to cop on right to God's love and choose to follow

him. No, He's being patient for your

sake. He does not want anyone to be

destroyed, but He wants everyone to repent.

Anyone, everyone. These words have a lot of

meaning there. The reason by I'm bringing this

up because a lot of people when when they when they talk about

this predestination, it can make people sometimes feel like,

well, the devil will speak things to your ear.

We'll see. You weren't someone that God

loves. You weren't someone that that

God chose. That's why your life is like

this. You need, you just need to

accept that God has denied you. But God shows no favoritism.

He's not willing that any would perish, but that all would come

to repentance. This is important for us to know

and understand what God predetermined is.

John chapter 3 and verse 15 through 17.

John 3 · chapter mention

Let's read that Jesus said talking to Nicodemus so that

everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.

For this is how God loved the world, that he gave his only his

one and only son so that everyone who believes in him

will not perish but have eternal life.

Verse 17 says God sent his son into the world not to judge the

world but to save the world. That's everyone like that

encompasses everyone. God is not willing that any

would perish. He loves us all the same.

Our adoption into God's family speaks of belonging.

It speaks of access, inheritance, insecurity.

Sons and daughters do not earn access, they live from it.

In Romans chapter 8 and verse 15 says this.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful.

Slaves goes on to say that you received God's spirit when He

adopted you as his own children. Like, isn't that amazing?

You are a child of God. You belong in God's family.

Slaves obey to avoid punishment, don't they?

But sons obey from relationship. When believers understand

adoption, fear loses its grip and intimacy grows.

It makes it really easy for us to push forward in Christ.

When you know that God loves you, when he know that God cares

for and he his will for you is always good and pleasing and

perfect, it's easy to draw close to him, isn't it?

But when you're fearful, when you don't know what God's will

is for your life, then, yeah, It's hard to be intimate with

someone when you don't know how they they feel, right?

But when you know how someone feels, and God puts it all right

out there for us, so it's so clear we know exactly where God

stands, it makes it easy to draw close to him.

You don't serve God to earn love.

You live for Him because his love has already claimed you.

He chose you because he loves you.

Amen. And this is the foundation of

the Christian life, that you have been blessed with every

spiritual blessing. You have been chosen before

creation, before anything that we know, see, or experience was

created. And you have been adopted into

God's own family. What does that mean?

That means that you have all the rights and all the privileges of

a child of the King. Isn't that amazing?

I love the book of Ephesians and this is going to be so good.

Thank you for listening to the Triumph Church podcast this

week. If it was a blessing to you,

share it with someone you know. For more information on Triumph

Church, you can visit us at www.triumphchurch.ie.