BELIEVERS DECLARE GOD’S PRAISES
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 - January 4, 2004
EPHESIANS 1:3-6, 15-18
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
It is a wonder of wonders when we consider the miracle of Jesus’ birth. It is a wonder of wonders that any would gather around the manger in Bethlehem to worship the Savior. It is a wonder; because it means that there were believers and there still are believers today who worship the Christ Child, believers who are born into this world as sinners. They not only begin life as sinners, but also as enemies of God. So it is a wonder of wonders that anyone would worship the Christ Child, including you and I.
That is the wonder of wonders that Paul describes in our text this morning when he reminds us that believers are called, or as he says in our text, are predestined to praise God. It is a wonder of wonders--we who once were enemies are now called believers. Peter writes in his letter as he describes this wonder of wonders. He says: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light"(1 PETER 2:9). That is what we are going to study on this second Sunday after Christmas that God by His choice has called us as believers to praise Him. He has called BELIEVERS TO DECLARE GOD’S PRAISES
I. Called by God’s choice
II. Praise for God’s gifts
I. CALLED by God’s choice
Ephesians is known as a "prison epistle" because the Apostle Paul is sitting in Rome under lock and key and under guard. He is in prison because of the testimony he gave for the Gospel. Paul pens this letter to the believers who are in the city of Ephesus as he sits in prison. As you read this letter you would not know that Paul is in prison if you listen to his words. Verse 3: 3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. This doesn’t sound like anyone sitting in prison. This doesn’t sound like anyone who is separated from his family and friends. Worst of all, Paul is separated from the congregation of believers. He is off by himself. He is not able to enjoy the fellowship of worship. Yet, he still says that God is to be praised, because God has blessed us with every spiritual gift. Paul realized that he was off by himself in Rome in prison, but he was not alone. God was with him. God was with by the grace that had worked faith in Paul’s heart.
Paul further describes this: 4For God chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight Paul writes those words here even though he knows that he is not holy and blameless in God’s sight. We turn to other letters and soon learn that Paul describes himself as an enemy of God. He describes himself as one who would do good but can not do it, and the evil that he would not do that he continues to do. Yet, Paul says out of love God has placed His choice on him, who once was a persecutor of believers. By His love God has placed His choice so that now, rather than seeing Paul’s sins, the Lord sees Paul as forgiven, holy and blameless in his sight. God did this through His Son, Jesus. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- It was God’s pleasure and will to send His Son to be born into this world. It was God’s pleasure and will to save mankind through the sacrifice of His Son. It was God’s pleasure and will to show this great love for sinners.
This is what Paul clung to as he was in Rome not knowing what would happen to him. We know that Paul never got out of prison. He never went on another missionary journey. He died alone; but not lonely, because he knew God’s love. Paul knew that God had placed His choice upon Paul to save him from eternal darkness and bring him into the glorious light of the knowledge of salvation. Paul writes: 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- for his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. God had called Paul for a purpose and Paul saw it and realized it and lived it. Paul realized that God had called him to praise His holy name, not Paul’s name, but the name of the One who had saved him. God had done this by His good pleasure and will. God had done this out of love, and He had done this because of His mercy.
It is a wonder of wonders that any would be saved, because we do not deserve to stand before God blameless and holy as today’s text reveals. But the Lord God, the Almighty Creator of the heavens and earth, sent His Son to cover up our sins and to provide us with forgiveness. Paul wrote to Titus: "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior (this is how he describes Jesus--the love of God) appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy"(TITUS 3:4,5a). We could spend the rest of our life looking at that mercy God has shown us. We do not deserve to have mercy. We rebel against God day in and day out, and yet His choice is that salvation would come to the world through His Son. God’s gracious will is that He wants all people to be saved. His choice is to provide eternal salvation.
Jesus described this and reminded His disciples as He reminds us today that we can not decide to believe. It is by grace God has worked faith in each and every one of our hearts just as He does with and for every believer. We can be thankful for that. Salvation is so very important that God does not entrust that to our own decision or will, but it is His responsibility. To be lost is left up to mankind--if they want to forget their faith. If they want to forsake the Lord, that is their choice. To be saved, that is God’s choice. Listen to this from John: Jesus said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name"(JOHN 15:16). Jesus speaks that to His disciples. Jesus speaks that to us today. Jesus declares, "I have chosen you to be called Christians, to bear my name and to bear fruit—fruit that will last."
When we think of the Apostle Paul, we understand how he felt, because he had put believers to death. Now that he realized that he was to proclaim that Gospel, he certainly must have felt remorse and guilt day after day. But Paul also realized that wonder of wonders that God had chosen him to be saved. It is a wonder of wonders that God has done the same for us. We are no different than the Apostle Paul. The fact is we look back at all of Scripture, and we see that we still sin even though all of Scripture has been written for our example so we would avoid certain sins and not fall into temptation. The devil is still alive and well. Our sinful flesh is a snare in place of our good intentions. The world around us tries to snatch away the joy of celebrating Christmas and the joy of our salvation. But we are reminded then as our text says--we are called to praise God because of His choice upon us. Paul says in Timothy: Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst"(1 TIMOTHY 1:15). Oh, it is true. We don’t like to say that we are the worst of sinners; but when we do, we realize what joy there is in our life. We realize that even I, the worst of sinners, has been saved by God’s grace.
We begin to appreciate the fact that God sent His Son to die in our place. God sent His Son to take our place of punishment. We celebrate the fact that we are called and predestined to praise God, because He has chosen us to do that. We are predestined to praise God for His many gifts.
II. PRAISE for God’s gifts
We have to remember for ourselves Paul is writing these words as he is sitting in prison and separated from everyone else. He is writing these words realizing he would love to be back with the congregation at Ephesus or the congregation in Antioch or Lystra or Iconium. We have heard many of those in his journeys in Acts. Yet, he can’t be in those places with the believers. Instead he relied on the words that came to him either from visitors or messengers or letters: 15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints... Paul is going to talk about thanksgiving, because he has heard about the faith of the congregation at Ephesus. They loved the Lord; and not only did they love the Lord, they loved each other and the rest of the saints, the rest of the believers. That was a gift that Paul was thankful to God for, the gift of faith, which caused them to see God as their Creator, their Almighty Father.
These believers loved Paul and the other saints. Paul says: For this reason 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, even though he was in chains in Rome he was able to be thankful, thankful that there were believers who still were out in the world. There were believers who showed their love for God by showing their love for one another. We can picture the Apostle Paul giving thanks to God for faithful believers realizing the power of the Word and its effect on sinners. Then he goes on: 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. You can again picture Paul down on his knees praying to God, thanking God for all of the believers. Since he is in prison, he probably did that more than one time each day.
What else does he pray? He thanks God for the believers and their love for God and one another, and then he also asks God to strengthen them. He said: 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Paul prayed to God that these believers who already were great examples of faith could still come to know the Lord better, that they would study His Word and hear His Word and read His Word to grow in their faith. He prayed that they would have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation given in abundance to them from God.
Our text concludes: 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. Paul says, "I pray not only that you would know the Lord even better, but you would also appreciate the richness of your inheritance." We heard that in our second lesson where believers are adopted as God’s children (GALATIANS 4:4-7). Paul says, "And I pray that you believers in Ephesus would appreciate that fact, that as God’s children you have a glorious inheritance; namely, the riches that God gives to you."
That is a wonder of wonders once again as we look at this world and realize the blessings that we have here on this earth, on this side of heaven, pale in comparison to the glorious riches that await each and every one of us. Paul prays for the believers in Ephesus. He prays for us today. He prays that we too would get to know the Lord better, that we would look to the Lord and seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Solomon writes in Proverbs: "Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom (spiritual wisdom) is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her"(PROVERBS 8:10,11). In our society and in our day and age, we know that there is a great emphasis placed upon learning and getting an education, not just eight grades anymore, but high school and college. The Lord wants us to remember that we don’t really ever graduate from learning about the Lord. He says we are to seek Him out and His Word. In this seeking way the Lord will have us grow in our faith. Our God will give us the Spirit of revelation so that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened. This means not only to just know the Lord, but to believe in the Lord and to love the Lord.
But, alas, we realize in this world that there are many things that distract us from doing what we ought to do. There was an article written once that told about all the excuses that people have for not going to church. Of course, we know some of them. The excuses included: we are sick, or got up too late; it’s too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry, and the list went on and on. After all the excuses were listed (and we could think of many more) there were only two Sundays left for a person to be able to come to church. Sometimes we might think of excuses to not hear God’s Word, excuses not to study God’s Word, excuses not to read God’s Word. Probably one of the most difficult things in our life is to sit down and read God’s Word on a daily basis. Satan knows that this is the easiest thing we could do, but he makes it the hardest thing to do for us as believers. With all of those excuses, the Lord warns us and says to be careful. In the book of Romans, Paul writes: "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?"(ROMANS 2:4). When we study God’s Word and read God’s Word and hear God’s Word, we realize that is what we hear about, don’t we? We hear about God’s kindness and tolerance and patience. We can be thankful that these are God’s gifts that He gives to us. It is a wonder of wonders that even though we would go off on our own path, our loving Lord still brings us back with kindness and tolerance and patience and forgives us.
Today, Paul says we praise God because His choice is upon us, because He has given us gifts and blessings beyond all comparison. The people who are madly dashing around us are seeking all kinds of happiness and joy and contentment from the things of this life. They think they might find them in a new car. They think they might find them in new clothes. They think they might find them in the abundance of things. But the things of this world do not bring happiness and contentment. We rejoice that the Lord has blessed us with spiritual understanding to appreciate God’s gifts that He has given us. Then we live our lives as lives of praise for those gifts.
Thus we are reminded in Colossians: "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience"(COLOSSIANS 3:12). Today, go home and read the rest of the verses that follow. He says, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you; and above all put on love to cover up all these things." We think of that today, don’t we? Out of love God sent His Son to save us. Out of love, God’s Son endured the cross; shed His blood to give us forgiveness. We celebrate that in the Lord’s Supper today. Out of love then, we love the Lord and we love one another. We love those around us by showing those Christian gifts of kindness, humility, gentleness, patience in a world that isn’t so kind, in a world that isn’t so gentle, in a world that is not patience at all, and in a world which would scoff at humility. We praise God for those gifts that are Christian virtues.
It is a wonder of wonders when we stop and reflect on what God has done for us. We, day after day, slap God in the face by our disobedience. It is a wonder of wonders that He calls out of darkness into His marvelous light. It is a wonder of wonders that the Lord has made us His people, His holy nation. It is a wonder of wonders that we can praise Him for all of His gifts. In the book of Hebrews, we are told: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name"(HEBREWS 13:15). We praise God not just at Christmas time, not just when we think we are happy, but continually. Paul praised God as he sat in prison separated from his family and friends, separated from the congregations of believers. Then he said, "Praise be to God. He has blessed us with every spiritual gift." We too can continually praise God that He has caused His light to shine in our hearts. God has also caused His gifts then to shine in our lives. We are called to praise God continually. Amen. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
