Will you please turn to the letter to the Ephesians? Ephesians chapter 1. We will read from verses 3 through 13.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ;
according as He has chosen us in Him before the world’s foundation,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love;
having marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace,
wherein He has taken us into favour in the Beloved.In Whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of offences,
according to the riches of His grace,
which He has caused to abound towards us in all wisdom and intelligence,
having made known to us the mystery of His will,
according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,
for the administration of the fullness of times,
to head up all things in the Christ,
the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth;
in Whom we have also obtained an inheritance,
having been marked out beforehand according to the purpose of Him
Who works all things according to the counsel of His own will,
that we should be to the praise of His glory,
who have pre-trusted in the Christ.In Whom you also, having heard the word of the truth,
the glad tidings of your salvation—in Whom also, having believed,
you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
Who is the earnest of our inheritance
to the redemption of the acquired possession,
to the praise of His glory.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for gathering us together here this morning. We are gathered unto Thy name. We believe that Thou art here with us, and we want to remove our shoes and prostrate ourselves before Thee, saying, “Lord, what hast Thou to say to us? Speak; Thy servants hear.”
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Our God is the God of blessing. He is love; therefore, He desires to bless. Jesus is the fountain of all blessing. All blessings flow from Him.
In the very beginning, when God created man, you remember in Genesis 1 that, after He made man in His own image and according to His own likeness, He blessed them. It is the desire of our God to bless. He blessed them and said, “Be fruitful, fill the earth, subdue the enemy, and bring everything under the feet of God.”
After He created the world in six days, on the seventh day He rested, and He blessed that day. So when man was created, immediately he was introduced into the rest of God. This is our God.
God wants to bless. He does not want to curse. Curse came in through the fall of man. In Genesis 3, after man sinned, curse came into this world because our God is a righteous God. Shall not the Judge of all the earth be righteous?
Because of the fall of man, curse came upon this earth—first upon the enemy of God, then upon man, and upon woman. Yet again we see that it is not the desire of God to curse. His desire is to bless.
I think this is very evident if we look at the story of Job. Job feared God and turned away from evil. He was a perfect man, and God used Job to challenge His enemy.
Satan said to God, “Is there any reason for Job to fear You? It is because You have blessed him. You have put a hedge around him. You have blessed his family; You have blessed all his works. That is the reason why Job fears You. If You take away the things that You have blessed him with, see if he will curse You to Your face.”
So here you find that curse is the desire of the enemy of God. He has no desire to bless anyone. His desire is to curse, because that is what he is.
God took up his challenge and said, “You can touch everything that he has, but do not touch him.” So Satan went out and destroyed all his children and all his possessions. Job bowed down and said, “God gives, and God has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Another day Satan appeared before God, and God challenged him again: “Did you notice My servant Job? Even after you attacked him and took away all that he was blessed with, he did not sin.”
The enemy was so subtle, so wicked. He said, “Man will gladly give up everything to keep his own life. Touch his body, and then You will see what happens.” God said, “You can do anything, but not his life.”
So Satan attacked Job with boils all over his body. He sat in ashes and scratched himself. Even his wife suggested, “Curse God and die.” But Job said, “We have received good from God. Shall we not receive evil from Him too?” He did not sin with his lips.
Why did God allow Satan to attack Job? It was because God wanted to bless him even more. There was something in Job that gave the enemy ground: his own self-righteousness. God made use of Satan to purify Job of his self-righteousness in order that He might bless him even more.
You remember that at the end of the book of Job, God blessed Job with double blessing. It is the blessing of the first form. So, dear brothers and sisters, we find that our God loves to bless, and He is very reluctant to curse. This is our God.
If you hurriedly go over the Old Testament, you will find that God always wants to bless. After the flood, He blessed Noah and his family. After the Tower of Babel, you find that He blessed Abraham.
The God of glory appeared to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. He called him out of his land and from his kindred, to go to the place that God would show him. Abraham, by faith, went out, not knowing where he was going; but he knew the God Who was leading him.
God blessed Abraham: a great nation, a great name, a seed, a land, and a great blessing. Abraham went out by faith.
God promised him the land, though he was a stranger and a sojourner in the promised land. God promised him a seed, saying that his seed would be as the stars of the heavens and the sand of the sea. Yet until he was a hundred years old, he had only one son.
Dear brothers and sisters, even though God promised him a physical land, the land of Canaan, Abraham knew God. By faith he looked through that physical blessing of the land into the city with foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. You find that in Hebrews 11:10.
God gave him a seed, but it was not Isaac; it was Christ. That is the reason why Abraham’s faith could penetrate through the times. As you find in John 8:56, he saw the day of Christ and rejoiced.
Even though God’s promise to Abraham was earthly and physical, that was only on the surface. Abraham, by faith, could look into the very depth of God’s heart, and he could see all the spiritual blessings that God had promised to him.
Then came Moses. God covenanted with His children, the children of Israel, and God gave them the law.
You know, brothers and sisters, we will not appreciate God, and we will not appreciate the grace of God, until we know ourselves. Because the children of Israel did not know themselves, God put them under law, under probation, that they might be shut up to faith in Christ Jesus.
You remember how God brought them to Mount Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments, the statutes, the ordinances, and made them His people.
But under the law, everything was conditional. If they kept the law, they would be blessed. If they violated the law, they would be cursed. All the blessings that God promised to the children of Israel through Moses were physical and earthly, not spiritual and heavenly. Why? These are but types and shadows.
At the end of the Old Testament, the last word in Malachi 4:6 is the word curse. It depends upon ourselves and upon our works. Brothers and sisters, it would end up in curse.
Thank God, what we find in the Old Testament—all the types and shadows—existed until our Lord Jesus came. When Jesus came, the shadow gave way and the reality set in. It is a change from the physical to the spiritual, from the earthly to the heavenly, and from the temporal to the eternal.
When you come to New Testament times, what do you see? You see that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
So today, what are we looking for from God? Are we looking for physical blessings, earthly blessings, or are we looking to God for that which is spiritual and heavenly?
You know, today, even among God’s people, consciously or unconsciously, what we are looking for from God is mainly physical blessing. We are looking for blessings of this earth. We think that this is blessing.
Unconsciously, we do not look at spiritual blessing as being as real as physical blessing. We think that physical blessing is the blessing we need. That is the reason why, today in Christianity, the prosperity gospel is so welcome among God’s people.
We want to be blessed physically on earth. We think that makes great Christians, having a great God. But, dear brothers and sisters, the history of the children of Israel ought to teach us a lesson.
God tried to bless them with all the physical blessings that you can expect. What happened when they enjoyed these blessings? If you look into their history, you find they were blessed for only a very short time. They spent more time under the curse of God than under the blessing of God.
Why? When God blessed them, they became disobedient. Their hearts hardened against God. They rebelled against God, and curse came upon them. In other words, they did not know how to enjoy God’s blessing. They were unready for God’s blessing, unfit for it.
If God should bless us today with all the physical blessings He promised to the children of Israel, what would happen? We would turn away from God. We would fall into curse instead of blessing, because we are not worthy.
Does that mean that, today, with us believers, there will be no physical blessing—that everything is spiritual, with no physical blessing whatsoever? No.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Brothers and sisters, it is sad to see God’s people today seeking physical blessings. “What shall I eat? What shall I drink? What shall I be clothed with?” These are the things that occupy our attention.
We look to God, our heavenly Father, that He may give us such an abundance of food that we become fat. We want luxuries to enjoy. We are not contented.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. We want more: “Bless me, bless me.”
Those who are physically blessed, we consider blessed. Those who are not physically blessed, we think are not blessed. But look at their lives. How many of those who are only physically blessed grow in the Lord, love the Lord with all their hearts, and are willing to deny themselves and follow the Lord? How many?
Most of them are so indulged and drowned in physical things that they have no time for the Lord. Everything is for themselves.
Brothers and sisters, every good gift and every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights. But remember, God wants to bless His people, and real blessing is spiritual, not physical. Because God is Spirit, He wants to give the best to His people; and the best blessing is spiritual blessing.
Thank God, He does bless us physically. But remember, it is only within the context of spiritual blessing. In other words, if you are blessed physically first, without knowing His spiritual blessing, what will happen? It will eventually turn into a curse in your life.
But if you seek spiritual blessing first, and with that spiritual blessing you are blessed, then, dear brothers and sisters, God can bless you physically, and you will be blessed continually.
I do hope that we may see this, and that it will sink deeply into our hearts. Seek not the world. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Added, not to make you forget God; added because He is your heavenly Father. He knows all your needs.
In Old Testament times, as our brother mentioned last night, the children of Israel were regarded as an earthly people. Therefore, you find that God’s blessings to them were earthly. But we who are the Lord’s are a heavenly people. Therefore, God’s blessing to us is basically spiritual blessing, and physical blessings are just added.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, what should we look for today? Christ has already come. He has already accomplished everything. What we should look for is spiritual blessing. Do not look for physical blessings. They are not the best; they are temporal.
The temptation of the enemy today is to draw our attention away from that which is spiritual and into that which is physical.
You remember the temptations with which he tempted our Lord while He was on earth: turning stone into bread to fill the stomach; jumping from the temple that everybody might see that You are special. “You do not need a cross; You can get a crowd.”
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the temptation of the enemy and how he has tempted God’s people today.
If we are truthful with ourselves, can you honestly say that what you are seeking today is spiritual blessing and not physical blessing? When you say, “God bless me,” what do you mean?
Let us examine ourselves before the Lord and see what our heart is really seeking after.
Do you know why God’s people today do not grow as they should? Why is it that the promised spiritual blessing of God does not seem to be our portion every day? Why is it that the church today is so poor spiritually? Why is it that our fellowship is like squeezing water out instead of flowing as rivers of living water?
Is it because, in our daily life, we are occupied more with seeking physical blessings instead of spiritual blessing? Oh, I do pray that the Lord will change our heart attitude.
Again, I say, this does not mean that God will not bless you with physical blessing. If He will, He will. But if He does not, do not worry, because without it you may have more spiritual blessing.
Ephesians tells us:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us. The God Who is the God of blessing now blesses us as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When our Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He sent a message to His brethren, His disciples, through Mary: “Go and tell My brethren, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”
Brothers and sisters, this is something wonderful. Our Lord Jesus shares fully His Father with us, and He shares fully His God with us.
God is the God of our Lord Jesus. What a God He is. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus. What a Father He is. Yet because of the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus, the Lord said, “My Father is your Father; My God is your God.”
The Father that our Lord Jesus knows is to be known by us as well. What a knowledge of the Father! You know, I often say, “Lord, I want to know You.” Brothers and sisters, how much of God do you really know? How much of God as Father do you really know?
The Lord shares His God and His Father with us. He wants us to know God and Father as He knows Him. It is in that relationship—God as the Father and God of our Lord Jesus—that He has blessed us.
Not just as the God of creation. Today we are in a position so much better than the people under the old covenant. Today God is our God, and the God of our Lord Jesus is our God. God is our Father, and He is the Father of our Lord Jesus. It is in that relationship that God has blessed us.
The Bible says, “He has blessed us.” To us, who are in a mortal body, we are still restricted by time and space. We have the past, the present, and the future. But with God there is only the present. So He says, “He has blessed us.”
God has already blessed us. We may not have received it yet or experienced it yet, but He has already given it. It is not something that is going to happen; it is something already there, because it is in Christ Jesus.
All we need to do is, by the Spirit of God, experience these blessings more and more. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. There is not one spiritual blessing that is not there.
Why? Because God loves His Son. He has blessed His Son with everything. Just like Abraham loved Isaac and gave all that he had to Isaac, God loves His only beloved Son and has given everything to His Son.
Every spiritual blessing that God can give, He has given to His Son. It is all in Christ Jesus. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and ye are complete in Him.
God will not withhold any good thing from us. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing that you can think of, dear brothers and sisters, is already there. It is already given. It is in Christ Jesus, given to you. All we need to do is enter in and enjoy all the spiritual blessings.
All that you need spiritually is already here in the heavenlies. Now, we know the heavenlies are the heavenly places. You cannot confine them to a physical location. The heavenlies are a heavenly realm, just as there is an earthly realm.
In that heavenly realm, you remember in Ephesians 1 that when our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, God seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies and made Him Head over all things. Christ Jesus today is sitting at the right hand of God in the heavenlies.
Then in Ephesians 2, we are quickened with Christ, raised from the dead with Christ, and now seated with Christ in the heavenlies. As far as our physical bodies are concerned, we are here, sitting here. But spiritually speaking, where are you seated now? You are seated with Christ in the heavens, in the heavenly realm.
In the heavenly realm, angels are there. In Ephesians 3, you find that the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies learn from the church the manifold wisdom of God. The church has something to teach the angels, and they are ministers to the redeemed of the Lord.
In Ephesians 6, you find wicked spirits also in the heavenlies, trying to obstruct the will of God. But thank God, in Christ Jesus the church is like a warrior that can stand—stand for the will of God.
If you take the picture of Canaan, it will probably help you to see it. When the children of Israel entered Canaan, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. It speaks of the fullness of Christ. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.
In Canaan, everything was there: houses already built, wells already dug, fields already planted, everything prepared. In Christ Jesus, every spiritual blessing is already there.
But the children of Israel, in order to possess their possession, had to fight the good fight, because the enemy was there, trying to withstand them and prevent them from enjoying what God had given them. It is the same with us today. We have to fight the good fight.
But if we are clothed with Christ, the victory is already there. So, dear brothers and sisters, where can we enjoy every spiritual blessing?
Or, putting it another way, why is it that today we do not enjoy the spiritual blessings that God has promised us? Why? Well, because we are not in the heavenlies experientially speaking. We are too earthly.
Our whole attention is focused on the earth. Seek not the things of this world, but seek the things that are above, where our Lord Jesus is, and where our life is hid with Him in God.
If we are more heavenly, if we live right in the heavenlies, then you will find that you will be able to enjoy the spiritual blessings that God has promised you in the heavenlies in Christ.
Everything is in Christ, and God has put us in Christ. But the question is: do we abide in Christ?
The Lord says, “I am the true vine; ye are the branches. I in you, and you in Me.” But in order to enjoy the sap, the nourishment of the vine, the branch has to abide in the vine.
If we abide in Christ, then He abides in us, and all that He is becomes ours.
Our problem is not with position, because position has nothing to do with us. Position is what God has done in Christ Jesus for us. It is finished. If we believe in the Lord Jesus, that position is already there: we are in Christ.
Our problem is with our condition. Are we abiding in Christ Jesus? How?
In 1 John 2, we are taught that there is an anointing within us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us. He teaches us in all things, great and small, and what He teaches is true and is not a lie.
If we obey the teaching of the anointing, we abide in Christ. So, dear brothers and sisters, even daily, obey the teaching of the anointing within us. Then we abide in Christ, and every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies has been given to us.
First of all, we need to seek heavenly blessing, spiritual blessing, and not merely earthly blessing. Second, how can we really be blessed with spiritual blessing? We need to be in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. If we are there, dear brothers and sisters, all these things will be ours, because it is the delight of God to bless.
Now let us look a little at the spiritual blessings with which He has blessed us. In Ephesians 1:3-14, we have a bird’s-eye view of the spiritual blessings that God has blessed us with.
It is not exhaustive; it is illustrative. It gives us a view of the spiritual blessings with which we are blessed.
When you read that section, you may find that it is rather complicated. Why? When Paul wrote it, his heart was so full that he was not able to put everything into orderly sentences. Out of the fullness of his heart, he poured all these things out together, one after another. Grammatically, he did not mind.
Recently I was reading it again, and I thought perhaps we may divide it into three parts:
From verses 4 through 6, we may say that it is the glory of His grace.
Brothers and sisters, when you come to spiritual blessings, remember: it is a matter of grace. It is all grace. God provides; God gives to us freely.
How do you receive it? By faith, with thankfulness. You find that you have done nothing in all these things. It is all His doing. It is His marvelous, pure grace.
Whenever you find the word glory, it has something to do with the purpose of God and the will of God. God is glorious. Therefore, whatever He plans and whatever He gives by His grace must be linked with His glory.
What He has prepared is for His glory, not just for our benefit. His grace is so glorious.
According as He has chosen us in Him
before the world’s foundation,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love.
Do you have anything to do with that? Before the world’s foundation, our free will was nowhere. Yet before the world’s foundation, God chose us in Christ Jesus.
He chose us not because of us. He chose us because of His Son. Some people may have problems with God’s choice, with divine election, but I thank God for it.
Why? Because it gives me the firmest assurance. How can I be sure? If I look at myself, I cannot be sure for one second. Can you be sure of yourself—what you will be the next moment, where you will be? We are not sure.
But, brothers and sisters, if God has chosen you before the world’s foundation, nothing can change it. He chose us not because of us. We were not there. We had not spent a day on earth. We had not done anything—not even lifted a finger—and yet God had already chosen us in Christ.
What assurance that gives us! What love is behind it! He has chosen you before the foundation of the world. Your salvation is not an accident.
People today are troubled with this matter of divine election. They say, “Well, I do not know if God has chosen me to be saved, or if God has chosen me to be condemned.” Brothers and sisters, the Bible does not teach this.
When God has chosen you, it is more than a matter of getting out of hell into heaven. Of course, to get out of hell is great; nothing can be greater than that. But to God, that is not the end.
He has chosen us before the world’s foundation that we may be holy. Our God is holy, and because He is holy, He wants us to be holy like Him.
Holiness means separated unto God. We are completely separated from ourselves, from what we are, and completely devoted to Him and to what He is. Holiness is to be like God—godliness, to be like God.
As our brother shared last night, we are to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son. Brothers and sisters, this is what we are chosen for. You are chosen to be like the Son of God, that He may be the Firstborn among many brethren, leading them into glory.
We are chosen to be holy and blameless before Him in love. Love covers a multitude of sins. How can we be without blemish? The love of Christ washes us clean, that we may be holy and blameless before Him in love. That is spiritual blessing.
Then He says, “Having marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.”
He has marked us out. That is what He wants us to be. He has marked us out for sonship—the placing of sons. When we say we are children, we are those in Christ. But God wants us to grow into maturity, unto the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ.
After we have grown into maturity, He will place us as sons together with His only begotten Son, to be heirs and co-heirs of all things. This is what God has chosen us and predestined us to be.
Here you find the glory of His grace. It is all His grace. His grace will do the work, if only you allow His grace to work in you. Our problem is that we stand against the grace of God.
If we allow His grace to work in our lives, He will accomplish it, so that God may be glorified. That is the glory of His grace.
Then follows the phrase, “the riches of His grace.” Here you find that His grace is so rich. The Bible tells us of the unsearchable riches of Christ, and those unsearchable riches of Christ are grace to us.
He has taken us into favour in the Beloved. You know how our Lord Jesus is God’s Beloved. In Christ Jesus, God has taken us into favour. In other words, we become God’s favourites in Christ Jesus.
To be favoured by God, that is something. Favour by man is nothing, though we seek to be favoured by men. Thank God, by the riches of His grace, every one of us becomes God’s favourite.
That is the reason why we often feel, “Why does God favour me so much? Of the whole world, it seems as if it is just for me.” Why? Because He loves you.
Of course, He speaks of redemption through His blood. We are redeemed. We were slaves. We were under the curse of the law, ruined in bondage, with no future.
Yet our Lord Jesus paid a tremendous price for us—even His own blood. He bought us with His own blood. He redeemed us out of the curse of the law, out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of His love.
Dear brothers and sisters, we can never forget the forgiveness of our sins. Though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. That is the riches of His grace.
Finally, there is the praise of His glory. Again, glory is always connected with God Himself, with His purpose and with His will.
What was His eternal purpose? What did He purpose in Himself, even in eternity past? What is it that He has planned to accomplish in eternity to come?
It is to head up all things in Christ Jesus. In God’s heart there is only one Person—His beloved Son, Christ Jesus. Because of His love for His own Son, He wants to sum up all things, to head up all things in Christ: things in the heavens and things on the earth.
Nothing is excepted. Everything is to speak of Christ. Everything is to glorify Christ. Everything is to manifest Christ.
Today, we do not yet see everything under His feet, but we do see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, now crowned with glory and honour. We know that the day is coming, and God is working toward it, to sum up all things in Christ.
When all is finished in the heavens and on earth, when you look at them, you will see the glory of Jesus Christ.
Thank God, in that plan He has included us. He has joined us to His beloved Son. We are the ones who have pre-trusted in Christ.
He has not only given us an inheritance in Christ Jesus—or, to put it another way, Christ is our inheritance—He has also made us His inheritance. It is all through the seal of the Holy Spirit, the pledge of the Holy Spirit, and the working of the Holy Spirit.
Here, then, it is all related to the purpose of God, and it is all unto the praise of His glory, that He may be praised.
So, dear brothers and sisters, what are the spiritual blessings? To put it into one word: Christ.
He is the spiritual blessing. Every blessing that God can bless you with is in Him. Apart from Him, there is nothing.
When you really enter into these blessings, what do you discover? You discover that it is Christ, that He may be all and in all, to the glory of God.
Let us pray.
Dear heavenly Father, we do rejoice in Thy presence, seeing what Thou hast done in Thy beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thou hast put all things in Him, and Thou hast put us in Him.
Dear Lord, we pray that our hearts may be so occupied with Thyself that we may enjoy all these spiritual blessings that Thou hast promised us. In enjoying them, may we see that it is Christ Himself Whom we enjoy.
We pray that this may be real, and increasingly real, to every one of us, to the praise of Thy glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.