07/27/14 What A Body!
Worthy Walk Series - Week 1 (Ephesians 1:1-6)
Text: Ephesians
1:1-6 (NKJV)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints
who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having
predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which
He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
Intro: From the Broadman & Holoman
Publishers on the Commentary of Ephesians I found this illustration interesting;
this is a quote from Anders the Author it’s entitled: The Duck That Thought It
Was a Dog.
Scientists know that ducks tend to imprint soon after birth. To
“imprint” means that they attach themselves to the first thing they see after
they hatch, thinking they are “that” thing. This is supposed to work for the
duck, since, when they hatch, the first thing they normally see is a mama duck.
This phenomenon backfires, occasionally. Once, for example, a duckling was
hatched under the watchful eye of a motherly collie dog. The baby duck took one
look at the collie and decided that the dog was its mother. It followed the
collie around, ran to it for protection, and slept with it at night. It spent
the hot part of the day under the front porch with the collie. When a car
pulled into the driveway, along with the dog, the duck would run out from under
the front porch quacking viciously, trying to peck the tires.
Some things could
not be changed, however. The duck still quacked, enjoyed the water, and flapped
its wings. Sometimes it acted like a duck, and sometimes it acted like a dog.
Christians
often experience a similar confusion in identity. We have been born into and
grown up in a fallen world, so we have learned the ways of the world. We have
become like it. When we become a Christian, we are in Christ. We die to the
world and are born again, so that, spiritually, we are no longer who we once
were. We are told: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians
5:17)
Too often, however, we don’t see ourselves correctly. We act like the
thing we think we are, rather than what we really are. We believe and try to do
the right things; but for the life of us, we cannot get it exactly right. When
we least expect it, a car pulls into the driveway of our life; and we explode
from underneath the front porch, quacking viciously and pecking at the tires.
Who
are we? We aren’t supposed to do that. We’re supposed to be swimming around in
clear blue lakes, bobbing for seaweed, grooming our feathers, and laying
eggs—not quacking at cars or harassing the cat. In the first chapter and
throughout the entire Book Paul helps us to see who we truly are! If we could
understand better who we truly are in Christ we would be able to live more consistently
like him. That is why the Bible spends so much time telling us who we really
are. If we understand and believe it, we will be better able to live it.
Paul
opens his letter to the church in Ephesus by likening the church to a body. There
is uniqueness in this body that is indescribable! This is a body unlike you
have ever seen or envisioned before. This is the Body of Christ! This is the
perfect ten; ten is a number of completeness anyway. So why not allow the
Christian to be exposed to this mystery and be a part of this perfect body?
Application:
Through the ministries of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Christians have
been given every necessary spiritual blessing.
1. He Blessed Us: vs. 1-3.
1 Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus,
and faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ.
God had gifted Paul, given him the authority to be an emissary, not
for boasting purposes was Paul presenting this, but that he wanted to remind
the saints (those who are set apart) to stay encouraged and to continue to be a
faithful follower of Christ.
To appreciate this introduction to the Book of
Ephesians it is imperative that one sees that the entire Trinity was involved
with the creation of the Body. It was planned by the father! Paul prays that grace
and peace may be granted to his readers. Grace is unmerited favor, and the
grace or favor of God is the source of all good. Peace means well-being in
general. It includes all blessings flowing from the goodness of God. The
apostle prays to Christ and seeks from him blessings which only God can bestow.
Christ therefore was to him the object of habitual worship. He lived in
communion with Christ as a divine person—the ground of his confidence and the
source of all good.
God called Paul and he accepted the challenge, God calls
the church and the believer have we accepted and if we have do we know what our
mission is and the message that needs to be forwarded?
“You did not choose Me,
but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that
your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may
give you.” John 15:16
We do not always feel spiritually blessed, as a result,
we might wonder if we somehow missed out on these blessings. To make sure we do
not misunderstand what he means by every spiritual blessing, Paul spells them
out.
2. He Selected Us: vs. 4
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of
the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
When did
this occur? “Before he made the world.”
Why did this occur? That we might be, “holy
and without fault in his eyes.”
We have received the blessing of being chosen
by God and adopted by him as his spiritual children. Chose raises the question
of election or predestination, a deep and profound mystery which must be
handled carefully. The Bible in some places seems to teach that God chooses
those who will be saved and at least implies that he does not choose those who
will not be saved. On the other hand, some verses seem to teach human freedom
and responsibility.
This marvelous choice makes us holy and blameless in his
sight. Because we have believed in and received Jesus as our Savior, all our
sins are forgiven in him. This does not mean that true Christians never sin. It
means our sin is paid for by the death of Christ. Jesus was holy and blameless.
We are in Jesus; therefore, we are holy and blameless in God’s sight.
This
takes us beyond our understanding, but the final consequence is easy to grasp:
In Christ, we have his righteousness imputed to us at the moment of salvation;
and the day will come when, standing before God holy and blameless, we will be
totally separated, freed, and redeemed from any evidence of sin.
“That you may
become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Philippians
2:15
3. He Adopted Us: vs. 5-6
5 Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise
of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
He
made us his full-fledged children by formally adopting us into his spiritual
family. In adoption, a child is brought into a family and given the same rights
as a child born into that family. God did this through Jesus, and it pleased
him.
We have two spiritual blessings from God the Father: We have been chosen
and adopted by him to be his spiritual children. He made this choice before the
creation of the world with the result that we will someday stand before him
holy and blameless. God the Father accomplished this through the work of his
Son, Jesus, motivated by his desire to be kind to us and by his desire to
receive praise for his grace.
ARE YOU ONE OF THE ADOPTED? Who are you
following?
John 3:16
Romans 10:13 “For "whoever calls on the name of the LORD
shall be saved."
Conclusion:
Like the illustration I started my sermon
with, you can chose to bark like a dog and continue to be something you weren’t
intended to be or you can quack like a duck, walk like a Duck, swim in the
water like a duck, and be a duck. God is calling us all to walk the worthy
walk. We are to be a part of the body that is healthy not a cancer that needs
to be removed.
“That there should be no schism in the body, but that the
members should have the same care for one another. 26 And if one member
suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the
members rejoice with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:25-26
There should be no division
but should be harmony. He has blessed us, He has selected us and adopted us - let’s
quack that! What a body you have an opportunity to be a part of, are you worthy
of that walk?
In : Sermon
Tags: "worthy walk series"
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