Latest / Accidental Bible Scholar / Ephesians 1:1-14
Transcript
- Jeff Ward: Hello and welcome back to the Accidental Bible Scholar podcast. sure what episode it is, somewhere around 20. And are just finished up with a study of a few chapters from Leviticus. And now we're going jump to the New Testament and talk about Ephesians, the book of Ephesians. Without further ado, Randy. All right, here we go. Ephesians, six I don't know, probably take this, you know, six, eight, nine. episodes if you will for this to happen but Ephesians written by Paul to the church at Ephesus written when he's in prison probably his first imprisonment in Rome that would put it around 60 to 62 AD if you want to go back and kind of look at that that would that lines up with like Acts ⁓ 28 the last part of that chapter this is something and it It reads like it is one of his last ones. So it's a it's a spectacular letter. think 1 Thessalonians is probably his first one. Some people say Galatians, but 1 is just such simple compared to Galatians and certainly compared to Ephesians. As you can tell the growth of Paul and as he's stepped through these. This a little bit different too than some of his letters. This was a Ephesians wasn't written to a particular problem in the church like Galatians or the Corinthians letters were similar to Romans also was not written to address a particular problem and Ephesians is and they'll come across because he's not getting on to about something they need to correct. He's just talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ and so it's fairly spectacular in my mind but as That may be the wrong way to say it because the whole thing's spectacular. And more likely it would be what I've heard people call a circular letter. It's a letter that the Ephesians read it and then they sent it on to another church and they read it and they sent it on to another church or made copies of it, just handwritten copies of it. And that's how it kind of went around that part of the world. In 1 Corinthians 9 through 10, Paul writes this, says, Eyes have not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him. A lot of times I hear us, like at funerals, you'll hear that, and they stop there. But the next verse, verse 10, starts with, God. He has revealed, says, but God has revealed them these things no eye has seen, has revealed them to us through his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. And I say that as an intro to Ephesians is I think Ephesians is some of what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us. That is these things that are unimaginable, unheard of, hadn't even entered into our heart as 1 Corinthians say. we'll look at that. Ephesians 1, we're gonna go, if we don't run out of time, we're gonna go through Ephesians 1. 1 through 14. Verse 3 through 14 is one entire sentence in the Greek. It's just one super long sentence. So it's obviously broken up into sentences to make it make sense to us in English. But in these 14 verses, let me just read some of the things that he talks about. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We are chosen. We are holy. We are without blemish. We are before Him in love. We are adopted as sons and daughters. His grace has been lavished on us. We have redemption by his blood, forgiveness of our sins. The secret of his will has been revealed to us. We are God's own possession. We, by setting our hope on Christ, are the praise of his glory. And we are marked with the seal, so all will know that we are his." That's just in the first 14 verses. So some pretty stuff we're going to look at. It's hard to put into English. Even Paul's struggling here. There's evidence that he just started writing that one sentence. turning verse three and didn't even pick up his pen to stop and take a breath until verse 14. So everything we're covering today except for the intro versus the first two is one sentence. And it kind of will stand as a background or an intro to the rest of the paper or the letter, because then he's going to go in and kind of flesh out some of these things and just show us how we were blessed and those kinds of things. But anyway. With all that, let's just jump right into it. You wanna read the first two verses there? Sure. In chapter one? Yep. From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. So Paul starts off on an apostle of Christ by the will of Christ by the will of God. So, you know, there's a, they replaced Judas before the Holy spirit came. It's my... my opinion that the Lord was going to pick Paul and they voted and picked who was it, Matthias I think. anyway, so there's this, lot of his letters, he's coming across, hey, I'm one of the 12 apostles. He didn't use those numbers, but I think Paul is a replacement for Judas. And we'll look at apostles when we get in chapter four and talk through that a little bit. But yeah, he makes that. I put just by the will of God too, in that, you know, there's going to be some predestination kind language in this, you know, about being chosen. And certainly was chosen, right? I mean, he didn't really have much of a vote on the road to Damascus. mean, he just went, was he looking for Jesus. Nor was he looking for him. He was actually the opposite, right? Running to take out some Christians and put them in prison. And he didn't get a vote. Yeah. And, but. There you go. It also refers to as saints, means holy ones. This is one of those carry over words from the King that I wish we would put in our modern English because it would be easier for us to understand that we are in fact holy if 60 times of the word saint, we saw holy ones in there. anyway, but and I are holy. We'll like that. We'll in Ephesians four, Ephesians one verse four here in a few minutes. unpack that a little bit. then grace and peace, which is a common greeting there, right? That Paul used and others used in the New Testament, but grace is God extending himself. He's leaning into people to show them his kindness and favor based, based on not anything we've done, but based on his character alone and his love for us alone. And then he shows favor to us that's undeserved, but it's because of him. then peace, peace is up. In the Hebrew, which is written in Greek, but Paul would have been thinking in Hebrew is Shalom. And Shalom is this rich word that's hard to capture in English. Because when we think of peace, we just think of calm or no war, no struggle or no conflict. But in the heart of a Jew that would be writing this, it means wholeness, completeness. It means health to include mental and physical health. It means prosperity. It means felicity. I looked that word up actually one time, because I thought it was just a girl's name, but it actually means extreme happiness. I've heard pastors say, God doesn't want you to be happy. And I'm like, why does he provide peace? Because part of that in that word shalom is extreme happiness. Let's go on to verse three, if you're ready. Ready. All right. Read verse three, if you don't mind. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. Okay, verse that's gonna be hard to comprehend, but in this verse is kind of the intro in this letter with the term in Christ. Yeah. Over 100 times in the New Testament we are described, believers are described as being in Christ. And here, it's used 11 times. In these first 14 verses, 10 % of all of them are included in the first 14 verses here, 11 times. It will be talked about being in Christ. In Christ, what does that mean exactly? And backing up, kind of what we've talked before is we normally think of a believer as Christ in us, which is 100 % true. But this is... we're described as being in Christ many more times than it were described as Christ and us. So I think of it as a position or a location, a place that we always are, and we're always there by the work and power of Jesus Christ, not by anything that we've done. Right. So that's that's what in Christ. And we'll look at some of the means of this first. This one is first. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. So ⁓ Let's see some things about every spiritual blessing. just put, well, it's every. There's nothing left out of that list. A spiritual blessing, here's where I think we can help our understanding. A spiritual blessing, sometimes our brain just goes, ⁓ well, that's for much later, or that's for when we get to heaven, or that's not real blessings because I can't see them and touch them. I would... bringing about that our spiritual blessings are much more valuable than material blessings, but I also think that a spiritual blessing includes a material blessing. And what I mean that is matter or things we can see are subject to the spirit. Everything we can see according to Hebrews 11 came from what we can't see or from the unseen. So anyway, every spiritual blessing that's there and I put here, does that sound limiting in any way? It's unlimited, right? every blessing has been given to us. lead to us in Ephesians 4 when we get to the part where it says grow up into the full stature of Jesus Christ. This whole book is full of these concepts that we are truly unlimited and that we are like Christ and he is in us and we are in him. So spirit world, which can't is probably more real more real or at least as real yeah is what we do see i'd say more real yeah yeah certainly more uh well i guess real is the right word well first of all hebrews 11 says that everything we see came from what we can't see right from the unseen right also paul tells us um the book escapes me right now but he says that everything we can see is temporary yeah and everything we can't see is eternal. that alone would tell you that the material world is not as as the world. it's not as permanent. Not as permanent, where this is all temporary. But the spirit world is, the stuff we can't see ⁓ eternal. Well, that's an interesting take on the spiritual blessing. Yeah, it's easy to take that and just go, okay, spiritual blessing. I don't even know what that is, one day or, but we can say it's even more real and more, well, I think you say valuable or you said that more valuable than a temporary blessing we can see. a spiritual blessing will manifest itself into the material world many times as well. Yeah. as we execute the Lord's authority and sheriff's kinds of things. So, yeah. I a thought and went away. I know I interrupted you. I It was how you're talking. So let's keep going. Heavenly realms. It's interesting to kind of look at and think about what he means by heavenly realms. Note that it is plural. That's the first thing. There's not just heavenly realm. It's not the spiritual realm. Yeah. It's heavenly realm. So if we unpack this a little bit in Paul's mind and in the Jewish mind, And then therefore in the biblical authors minds ⁓ three heavens. There's a first heaven, second heaven and third heaven and there's earth. So there's kind of four realms, if you will. The first one is earth. talk about that in Revelation? In word he says, I went up to the third heaven. No, that's Paul that says that in Galatians. Okay. He says, well, he said there was a man. Yeah. He didn't actually specifically say his name. There was a man. That's true. went up there. I think it's Acts. I came around and say Acts 14. think he said 14 years ago. So that's where the 14 in my mind goes. But he talks about a man that was taken up into the thought. That's right. Okay. Yeah. So, so earth, that's pretty self-explanatory. It's the dirt we're walking around on, right? It's this world. The first heaven is also part of the scene. The first heaven in the Jewish mind would be the atmosphere. So, so basically it's the stuff we can see, touch, feel, you know, whether it's the, know, heavens, stars and those kinds of things, the physical realm would be captured in their terms for earth in the first heaven. So Artemis too, they just went around the moon last night, still in the first heaven. Still in the first heaven, yeah. Second is what would call the spiritual realm. So it's God's creation that's in the unseen, that we can't see. It's the entire spiritual realm ⁓ except for what would call heaven. I know we got a lot of... the second heaven would be the spirit room. The third heaven is what in the Western mind what we call heaven Okay, so when he says I went to the third heaven he's talking about I went to Heaven itself. Okay so Is that the throne is? Yeah, that would be where the throne is That would that would be where saints who have passed away before us are right now before the new heaven is brought into existence. So, and we're gonna look at this more, but just a quick side note. I put here there's two realities. The two realities are we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Okay. So where's Christ bodily right now? Bodily in the third heaven. In the third heaven. He's at the right hand of the Father, which we'll see in our next lesson when we finish chapter one of Ephesians. Okay. So, He's seated at right hand of Father. So where are we? We're in Christ. That's our location. I talked about thinking about it as a location or a place. That's where it is. And we'll talk about the reality of that in our next podcast. How are we there? I don't know. But I understand by faith that this is what the Bible says. I can't maybe wrap my intellect around it. But my intellect is not how I understand biblical truths. I understand them by faith. Hebrews 11 3 as an example. So the truth is we're at the Father's right hand. Another truth or reality is that Christ is in us. And if you read John 14, 15, 16 in those areas and other places, Romans 8 11, which we'll look at here in a bit or an episode or two, all the Godhead is resident within us. 1 Corinthians 6 17 says we are one with Christ. in spirit. we are the Holy of Holies. So the Holy of Holies was destroyed in 70 AD, the second temple, Herod's temple. I think that was, and Jesus predicted it. He prophesied it. It happened in 70 AD. No stone would be left on another. And that's the Lord telling us that the Holy of Holies now is unbeliever. There's no need for a physical brick and mortar Holy of Holies because it's now believers. It's you and I and every believer we have within us the manifest presence of God on earth. So the manifest presence of God on earth in the Old Testament was in the temple, tabernacle or temple. Now it's in you and I, both individually and collectively as the church will look at. we are the Holy of Holies. We are the temple, the Holy Spirit is what Paul says in another place. But those are the two realities. And where are we? Well, that's a dumb question, but we're right here physically on earth, right? So Christ is in us and we are in Christ. So when we walk around, Christ is walking around on planet earth. When he's at the right hand of father, we're seated at the right hand of the father. That's important because it says we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, we're blessed literally from heaven to earth. everywhere in between. There's nothing withheld. There's nothing pending. All has been given. We're in a position where these blessings already exist and we operate. We'll look at that when we talk about being seated at the right hand of the Father and how that works. But we from heaven to earth. We don't operate from earth to heaven. We're not in on earth praying, hoping our prayers reach heaven. We are seated at the right hand of the Father, executing. His will on earth as it is in heaven as we speak and pray from heaven. So anyway, pretty spectacular stuff there is just trying to comprehend that. These, I mean, you could meditate on one of these verses a week. Right. And it would be very meaningful. You'd still fall short of what it really is trying to capture and the reality is. Yeah. But anyway, and it just keeps getting better the more we go through this. ⁓ Paul Penn is going nuts at this point. Didn't have time to punctuate and stop the right? Yeah. So, read verses four, five, He's writing out of breath. ⁓ All Verse four, said? Four through six. Four through six. For he chose us ⁓ in before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. He did this by predestining us to adoption as his legal heirs. through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved son. All right. You know, when I said it, Peter, if you take verse from the base value, God has a great plan and he's invited us to be a part of it. That's just crazy. Before the foundation of the world, he has this plan and he chose us to be a part of it. here his plan is older than dirt, literally. And so chosen, chosen before time to be holy and unblessed and unblemished. Can you flip over to Colossians 1.22 if you don't mind and read that when you get it? We're going to go Colossians several times through this book because they build on each other. But Colossians 1.22. without blemish and blameless before him. Okay. Holy without blemish. Mine says, I put your fall, I came here with the word, say those three. Blameless. So without blemish and blameless. Okay. Before him, that's who we are. It's a similar stuff. Chosen means by what? By God's desire. Says by his, pleasure of his will. So by his will and by his choosing, which he had great pleasure in, that's how he chose us. If you remember a few episodes ago, we talked about holy. Holy means to be set apart. Holy answers two questions. To whom do you belong? And for what purpose do you belong to them? So we'll almost always, when a writer in the New Testament talks about somebody, about us being holy, it's almost always, you'll see by the will of God or chosen, you'll see that word where it was an act of God's will that he set us apart. to belong to Him for His purposes. And so you see that here, you see the word chose and earlier you'll see by the pleasure of His will. And I put here, I'm wearing this is maybe not location, but I'm thinking in our dreams or in our imagination, no, this is before Him in love or in His sight in love, depending on the version you look at. But what a place to be to be before Him in love. the work of Christ, but being before him would be excruciating. It would be worse than hell itself for a sinner to be in the presence of a holy God. But because of the work of Christ, we are now holy and we come and we are now before him. Doesn't say, let's go back and read that, that we would be holy and unblemished in his sight in love or before him in love. We are before him in his sight in love. Again, could, that alone could warrant a lot of time of meditating and trying to contemplate that. We're not before him in this begrudging, well, okay, you can sit here and don't get close, stay over there and don't say anything. Whereas we'll see him in an adopted sons and daughters before him. Just like when our sons and daughters come before us, it's a... You know, they are fully loved and fully approved as they do so. Verse 5. How and why did God do all this? The how is it is he decided for him that he was the method he's going to use was adoption. That's another mind-boggling idea that we would be adopted because like I said, like we talked about before, he didn't have to do everything that he did. He could have just paid our price, kept us out of hell and told us, hey, go there and don't bug me and, you know, just hang out on earth forever and you know, good. It's better than hell and hope you do well. He didn't. He took us from being created a little below the angels and moved us to the right hand of the Father, adopted us as sons and daughters. And everything that that means, we'll look at the word here and come home and we'll talk about inheritance coming up. It's used in verse 11 and verse 18. So we won't get to 18 obviously today, but that inheritance comes from being sons and daughters. We're described in, think it's Romans, we're described as joint heirs or side by side heirs with Jesus Christ. heirs of the father. And why? Why? According to the pleasure of his will, just simply because he wanted to. It made him happy and it was pleasurable that he said, I'm going to do this. again, where this gets rid of a lot of false pictures of God that we have, false pictures of salvation, these ideas that salvation is for a Sunday thing, it's to get you to heaven. And God just kind of begrudgingly did it because he just felt bad about it. How bad about how the whole garden went? Yeah, that whole garden thing went. Maybe he felt bad for putting that tree in the garden, who knows? No, it was for the pleasure of his will. And he's adopted us as sons and daughters. We're seated in Christ in the right hand of the Father. It's pretty... It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. There's so much here. Like you said, did it because he wanted to. And then verse six, I'm gonna reread it. To the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly love, son. That word to the praise of glory of his grace or to the praise of his glory, it changes the slide. That's in here three times in the notes, three different sections. And we'll come back to that. grace. freely bestowed, again, it's not begrudgingly, he didn't just pour a drop out, thinking he's gonna later use the word lavished upon us, but now freely bestowed upon us. I put here and then he did it because he wanted to and the triune God went to unbelievable lengths to make it so, unimaginable lengths to the point that at one point on Calvary, Jesus says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There's a point where the Trinity is split in half, where the Father turns his back on the Son. And He did that for you and I. and then God's divine favor freely poured out at a great personal cost to the Godhead. That's kind of the summary that I put there. Let's look at a couple more verses. You're already in Colossians, kind of? Yes. I'm to go to Romans. I'm gonna read Romans first. Coss is 1, 13, 14, but you should already be there. Romans 3 verses 23 through 26. says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. He's talking about when all there, of course it's all, the prior verse is he's named two groups, Gentiles and Jews. And he's saying both groups, which is all people, have sinned and fall short of God. They, these same two groups, are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God publicly displayed Him at His death the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness because God in His forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed. This was to demonstrate His righteousness in the present time. so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives before, lives because of Jesus' faithfulness or by faith in Christ, depending on your version. So he's talked about, this was demonstrated as righteousness in the past, this is demonstrated as righteousness in the future because there was a of a whale eye, if you will, know, like what? When people would sin before the cross and they didn't get what they deserved. the folks that follow the law, the sacrificial system that covered their sin until the next time they sinned, but covered it, was like, how can he be getting away with this? Well, he's doing it because he passed over him because in time, was to, both righteousness justice would be proven out at the cross. And talking about his divine favor, I'll put here that that he passed over the sins committed before the cross. But in the end, the cross or dip shown displayed God's righteousness and his justice. So righteousness and justice was done. That's the thing we need to kind of firmly grasp is justice has been done. Our conscience, Hebrews 10 tells us has been cleared. And the reason it's been cleared is because justice has been done, because our conscience demands justice. And then another thing that happened at this point when he freely bestowed on us his grace is Colossians 1, 13, 14. There's also obviously a bunch of stuff that happened. But these are just some of them. But read first, I mean, Colossians 1, 13 through 14. Can we go back a second? Yeah. So those verses you read are, if we wonder how did the Old Testament people get saved? And it was through the cross of Christ. Yes. God passed over by the sacrifices, their sins, but the... punishment they deserved, the sins were covered by when God His wrath out on Christ. So past, present, future, all sins have been taken care of. So kind of what that verse, or that's what that verse said. Yeah, it's basically looked like maybe he was bending the rules a little bit. But ultimately his... This sacrifice was once and for all time, the past, present, and in the future. Yeah, so, and remember the animal sacrifices were said to have covered the sins. But Jesus Christ took away sin. That's, you know, again, that's a fantastic thing that we don't really comprehend. We think, well, we still think we're under the sacrificial system in that I'm only good till I sin next time and then I gotta fix something. There's nothing to fix. Your sin has been taken away. It's a thought that just go, man, ⁓ we could capture that and get a hold of it, it change how we live. Freedom would truly feel like freedom. And joy would us and we could live out this joy. It's easy to deny when he has taken and released me from the power of sin. Romans six is just this one. sentence after another about being free from sin. We're free from it. Right. So we don't live in it anymore. That's in Romans six says, yourself dead to sin and alive to God or in free from sin and enslaved to righteousness. puts it both ways there, but it's something we have to reckon. have to make it right. And accounting is an accounting term that we have to make it so because it is so right. And so we Recognize it as so maybe it's a better word Yeah, for clarifying all right costumes one 13 and not so smart guy. All right, I also 113 14 He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Sun He loves in him or sharing in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins So couple things here. One, we're no longer in the kingdom we used to be. We'll look at that when we get to Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 is a really nice summary of who we were before Christ. Yeah. And it's not good. But he transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dearly loved son. did that transfer take place? Romans 6 will tell us, Galatians 2.20 will tell us different places. We were crucified with Christ. So we were We had to be crucified or killed out of that one kingdom because we authentically truly belonged in that kingdom. So how do get out of it? Death. And then we were reborn or resurrected into the kingdom of his dearly loved son or into the kingdom of life. new creation that talked about in St. Corinthians five, we are ⁓ brand new. We have been reborn. We have been renewed. We are brand We're in a different kingdom. I just try to put it in terms that maybe help us understand. We're as different, the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light is more different than the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom. And the craziness of transferring kingdoms is even more spectacular than if somebody or something went from the plant kingdom and somehow made it into the animal kingdom. I know those kingdoms might be slightly different. use of the word, but it's it's that big of a change times a million to be transferred. That's who we are. We're in a brand new kingdom because of the grace that he's lavished on us because of his of the cross and his resurrection and ascension. I think we're get see more of that here in the next few verses. Any questions or comments before we go on? None. None. All right, let's go to Read back to Ephesians chapter one, read verses seven and eight if you don't mind. all right. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. All right. You first thing I do, I saw that redemption, I just looked it up. It means to be ransomed and full. It means winning back what was lost. It means released and delivered. So you and I were redeemed, we were ransomed in full. And in full means it's fully paid. So the price of our sin has been fully paid at the cross. This is the part about through His blood. And then so we're redeemed and forgiven once for all time by the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Go read, if you don't mind, flip over to Hebrews 9 verses 11 through 12. load and twirl But now Christ has come as the high priest of the good things to come. He passed through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is not of this creation. And he entered once for all into the most holy place, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. And so he himself secured eternal redemption. If you go read Hebrews nine, there's different, they're talking about the old covenant priest the new covenant priest, which is Jesus Christ. and they do this contrast comparison, the writer of Hebrews, where... priest, they would go into the Holy of Holies that was made by hands carrying the blood of goats and bulls. Where Jesus ⁓ into the Holy of Holies not made with hands, he went into the real thing and not carrying the blood of goats bulls, but carrying his own blood that he presented to the Father payment for you and I. You'll also see in there that he sprinkled things in heaven with his own blood, which is an amazing thought. don't know 100 % why things would need to be purified in heaven, but two reasons I can think of. One, Satan has access to heaven, so he's purified, may be purified there. Two, is I like to think of when priest went in, before the Holy of Holies, the first thing he would do is sprinkle where he's about to stand, and then would stand on the blood and he would sprinkle the seat. You and I have a place with our name on it in the Holy of Holies, the real Holies, that's been sprinkled and cleaned with blood so that we can righteously stand before a holy God boldly and confidently. That's what Hebrews and Ephesians, the words they would use. And ⁓ He said, according to the riches of his grace. We read that and we go out of his riches of grace. So out of his riches, if I'm a billionaire and I wrote you a check for a hundred dollars, that would be out of my riches. But if I was a billionaire and I put your name on my checking account and then gave you a full pad of checks, that would be according to my wealth according to my riches. That's he is lavished. Again, these, these Adjectives these adverbs and these verbs like lavish and these kinds of things They're just throughout these first few verses. Yeah of trying to take ⁓ use human language to describe how truly forgiven righteous saved blessed adopted Chosen all those things that we are I love the word lavished. What a picture. Yeah. Lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. It's like Christmas for your kids or what you want to do for your kids. Yeah. Man, I just want to give them some stuff. Right. I just want to and I want to lavish them for just because I it's fun. It's to give them gifts. That idea to me is crazy. Can Jesus take some good that puts that your thought out there just had and puts it in proper perspective. He says, and you being evil will not give your son when they ask for an egg, won't give them a serpent or when they ask for, what is it bread or something, they'll give them, you know, a scorpion. like, Hey, you guys are evil. He cast us, he takes us, we're arguably we're at our best when we're parenting and describes us as evil there. And say even you guys how to give good stuff to your kids. How much more your father in heaven. It's another way of trying to describe the word lavish. Crazy. Crazy. All right. Let's go on. You ready? Yes. Alright, let's go to 9 and 10. Okay, you me to read it? Yeah. 9 and 10. He did this when he revealed to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ toward the administration of the fullness of the times to head up all things in Christ, the things in heaven and the things on earth. Okay, so. The secret of his will. I want to talk about that for just a second. The secret of his will. According, again, here's this word, according to his good pleasure, that he set forth in Christ and he's revealed his secret to us. He tells us, Jesus says, the keys of the kingdom have been given to you. He also says it has been given to you to understand the mysteries of the kingdom. Here he says that he has revealed to us the secret of his will. see, flip over to Ephesians 3, 8 10. So we'll obviously cover this later in this section of the podcast, but you want to read that through, Tim? To me, less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten everyone about God's secret plan, the mystery that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things. The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church, the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. Isn't that something, this secret he brought forth, he showed it to us, but it's also to show all the heavenly realm, the authorities, the thrones, everybody, both the that are part of the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. He has revealed this to them. That's pretty amazing thought. 1 Corinthians 2, 9, which we read already, but when we started this off, and I'll read it again, says, just as it is written, things that no eye has seen or ear heard or mind imagined are the things God has preferred for those who love him. God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. So he has revealed these mysteries. He's revealed these secrets. later on not here but he'll say this the mystery of God is Christ in us. You what a crazy thing I put here God Well, we see that it's his good pleasure to reveal this. God hides things us, not from us. And what I mean by that, it's like when you play a game of hide and seek or when you hide something for your child to go find, you don't hide it from them, you hide it for them. You're them to discover something. I've found that we as people, and I've experienced it myself, are made to be explorers. He made us to be seekers and explorers and he is hidden these It'll probably be, that's probably a decent of describing eternity, is us discovering more things about him, more things about his creation. He made us explorers and he gave us this huge expanse creation for us to go explore and figure out. And then he said, talking about the times. In other words, when the time was right, God headed up all things in Christ, heaven and earth. We think, well, Christ is over everything, right? Yeah, all things in heaven, all things earth. And we can read right past that. But the crazy thing is, is that there is an authentic human being now over all things. This is by His will and His good pleasure and His revealing of His mystery. It's hard to believe, but we, you and I, people, got an upgrade. We went from creating the Holy Angels to now seeing the right hand of the Father. So there's now a human being over all things Jesus Christ. Let's move on. You ready? Yes. Okay. Ephesians 11 and 12. that, please. In Christ, we too have been claimed as God's own possession, since we were predestined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to set our hope on Christ would be to the praise of his glory. Okay, there's that second would be to the praise of his glory. This is going to designate three different sections. This is the end of the first section in this here. But notice the words like possession and purpose and claiming and will. If we've been paying attention, are all associated with holiness. Being set apart to belong to somebody, to being set apart his will and his choosing to belong to him for his purposes. Possession, purpose, claiming, will. These are all hinting at or showing that we are in fact holy. And this is all so that we would be to the praise of his glory. Read the next two verses, 13 and 14. And when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed in Christ, you were marked with a seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his glory. ⁓ right. Still we see the word like possession in there. These are all talked about being set aside for his purpose and to belong to him. But let's start again. You heard and believed. And when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believe in Christ, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. Hearing and believing. That is how the gospel has been transmitted to us for 2,000 years. It is the way that it goes, perpetuates itself. is by us hearing the gospel and us believing the gospel. comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. That's what he's describing here. You heard and believed. And then that we were marked and we were sealed. I truly believe that when we we are new creations in a new kingdom with a seal, a mark. that if we could put on spiritual glasses right now, we see the believers look completely different in the spirit realm than they do than for non-believers. They're truly different, new and this is a sign of his faithfulness. It's a down payment for the inheritance. He goes, hey, you know I'm going to be faithful because I've given you the Holy Spirit. So you know the inheritance is coming and it's a sure thing. It's a sign of his faithfulness. St. Corinthians 1 verses 21 and 22 calls it a down, calls the Spirit, Holy Spirit being given as a down payment of our inheritance. So there's this idea of a future-ness, of faithfulness. that he will do what he says he'll do. He will keep his word. That is... verses one through 14. I got one more section I'd to cover. You want to do that now you want to do that in a separate? How long will it take? Maybe minutes. Okay. You want to do it? Sure. Just keep pressing. Here's what was wanting to point out here is to the praise of his glory. That's ⁓ used three In Ephesians 1.6 it says to the praise of the glory of his grace. In Ephesians 1.12 it says to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1, 14, to the praise of his glory. Paul is setting up these three sections here from verse three to 14, and they are all to the praise of his glory. Again, I had to kind of look up some of this stuff, because that can sound like just some religious stuff that our brain just goes, well, whatever, keep going. That's fluff. It's not fluff. It's meant there for a purpose. So if you look up the word praise that Paul uses there in the Greek, means approval. It means recognition. It means public acknowledgement. So it's a response to something that is truly worthy. And then glory, glory means weight or worth. It also has idea of radiance or manifested excellence. glory is this heaviness, this weightiness, this importantness, if you will. And it's a visible expression of who God is. So definition, another way of thinking it, to the praise of the glory would be so that God's worth is seen, recognized, and acknowledged. And if you take that and you put that into what he's saying here, he's saying everything that God has done in Christ, his choosing, his adopting, his redeeming, his sealing, all of it has purpose. his nature would be put on display, recognized as glorious. He is doing this all to put himself on display. That's why he has redeemed us. And he does that. If we take and pull apart the sections, These three sections that are lined out by this to the praise of his glory. The first three through six, which is the father's plan. We are chosen, adopted, we were made holy and unblemished, we are blessed and we before him in love by his choosing, right? To the praise of the glory of his grace. So the very plan that the father had come up ahead of time before time began, that plan reveals his glory, reveals his graciousness poured out on us. And then he accomplishes this through the Son. That would be the verses seven through 12. By the blood of his very own Son, he redeemed us, he forgave us, he set aside for us an inheritance, he claimed us, he made Christ in us in Christ, head of all things over heaven and earth, to the praise of his glory. The finished work displays his worth. And then the last thing is his faithfulness. The Spirit's seal, verses 13 and 14, we're sealed, marked. We now have a guarantee of an inheritance, which is the Holy Spirit. So there's this ongoing reality that confirms His faithfulness. So if we just think out loud through this for just a second, I put here, your existence in Christ is meant to put God on display. Let read it again. Your existence in Christ is meant to put God on display. Your redemption shows His mercy. Your identity shows His grace. Your security shows his faithfulness. not saying go praise the Lord or try real hard to praise him. What God is saying, mean what Paul is saying is God has structured salvation. so that it inevitably results in His glory being seen. The very salvation, the very plan, the execution of it, and the faithfulness of it was designed and set forth to display His His worthiness, His glory, His worthfulness, if you will. The praise of His glory, His nature is revealed, His worth is recognized, and the evidence is what Christ has done. And here's kind of point that, well, that's amazing idea to get your head around that we were saved to display his glory. What's the other side of that coin? What if we minimize what God has done? What if we hear that he's declared us righteous and we still accurl ourselves sinners? What if we say that he has set us apart as holy and we deny, know I'm unholy. if ⁓ treat this salvation as a thing and not a real thing? that it's somehow incomplete, that through unbelief or through this false humility that I find in many, many believers today, this denying of what scripture has said and what salvation is truly about. I put, they are the folks that do this. When we do this, we're obscuring and denying the very thing meant to display as glory. Interesting. A diminished view of what Christ has done for us is a diminished display of God's glory. And then finally, God didn't save you. God didn't just save you. He positioned you so that your life in Christ becomes a visible demonstration of His worth and His greatness right now, every day. And in Ephesians 2, see He did this also to put us display or put His grace on display for the ages to come. Therefore, I this in there, therefore believe and walk in the truth of the gospel. we'll spend, will and we'll go along with him trying to help develop this very thought process of adding meat on the bones of this ⁓ three 14 in Fusions 1. That's awesome. Let read this one more time, and we'll be done. He positioned you so that your life in Christ becomes a visible demonstration of his worth and greatness. Praise you. Pretty, pretty, yeah, off the charts. Questions, comments or thoughts? that's all I have for this section. No, that's good, Ryan. Lots of stuff in to unpack. What?