Blessings From The Son

Since this is one long sentence in the Greek, I want to read Ephesians 1:3-14. But our text is verses 7-12, and we’ll go back and unpack those verses. Follow me, would you please in your Bible, beginning in verse 3. Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us,” there’s our theme, “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” or all the blessings of the Spirit in heavenly places in Christ. Verse 4, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

Now we begin our text tonight, verse 7, “In whom,” that is, the Beloved, Jesus, “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: 11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” That closing phrase, “unto the praise of his glory,” is that thrice repeated statement in this section—all praise, all glory, all honor go to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This section is really, praise God from whom all blessings flow.

We saw that from God the Father we were chosen, verse 4, “In him,” that we were also predestinated and adopted in God the Father through God the Son, verse 6, all “to the praise of the glory of his grace,” and then we were made, verse 6, “accepted in the beloved.” You need to note the end of verse 6 it says, “the beloved,” or “the Son of His love,” as some translations have it, is clearly a reference to Jesus Christ. He’s describing again the blessings that we have now, not only from God the Father who has chosen us, predestined us, adopted us, and accepted us, but now he moves to focus on the beloved Son and the blessings that have been ours in Christ.

If you’re taking notes, there are four of them that I want to bring to your attention (they’ll appear on the screen as well) and you can write them down. This may be that it should be broken into two blessings, that we’ve been redeemed and forgiven, and the rest flow out of that redemption and forgiveness; but I think it’s kind of helpful to break it into these four categories of blessings. First, in God the Son, He has redeemed us. This is one of the greatest, grandest themes in all the Bible. Actually, many theologians, and I cannot disagree, believe that the greatest theme is: Christ, our Redeemer. It’s central to Jesus Christ, and His work is that of redemption. Jesus Himself said, “I came to redeem those that are lost.” This is a central theme in all of the Bible, and it’s found for us in verse 7, “In whom we have redemption through his blood,” and we have, “the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” James Montgomery Boice said, “Redemption is the central to Christianity and it’s actually probably the most single beloved term in all the Christian’s vocabulary.”

In one of my hymnals that I have at home I looked up songs on redemption. There are about eight or nine songs in my hymnal on just the idea of the redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Did you know that’s going to be the central theme of our songs when we get to heaven? We’re going to be singing about Christ’s redeeming blood, the death on the cross, and His forgiveness. It’s actually mentioned in two other places in Ephesians. I wanted to just point them out to you real quickly. Look at Ephesians 1:14, we’ll get there next Wednesday night, “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption,” there’s our term, “of the purchased possession,” we’ve been bought by the blood of Christ, “unto the praise of his glory.” He’s saying that the Holy Spirit is the downpayment of God buying us until He redeems us completely and takes us to heaven.

You’ve heard me say many times that salvation has three tenses—past, present, and future. Well, you can see that in redemption: I’ve been redeemed. I’m being redeemed, and I will be yet redeemed. They all three apply to redemption. That final redemption is when we are in heaven and we have our new bodies.

Look at Ephesians 4:30. Paul says, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption,” both of these other references that use the same term “redemption” or “redeemed” tie into the Holy Spirit. We’re sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit that we are not to grieve because of the coming redemption of our Savior. In verse 30 he says, “…ye are sealed,” again, “unto the day of redemption,” so you don’t want to grieve the Spirit of God. I don’t believe you can grieve Him away, but you can certainly quench or grieve Him which causes Him pain. Go back with me to Ephesians 1:7.

What does the word “redeemed” mean? Well, it’s a vast concept, so it’s a challenge to define but breaks into three categories. It has the idea of to buy, to buy out, and the idea to loose and to set free. That concept to buy, to buy out, and to set free, is taken from the Roman world where there were many slaves and slave markets. You could go into the marketplace and pay money and buy yourself a slave. Then, you’d take the slave out of the market. If you wanted to, if you loved the slave and he was a good slave, you could set that slave free. You could grant them their freedom. The idea that we buy something, take it out of the market, loose it or set it free, all of those are implied. God has bought us, He has taken us out of our old life, He has delivered us from the law, He has delivered us from our sins, and then He sets us free. Amen? Redemption means that we’ve been purchased, we’ve been set free from the bondage of our old life, and we’ll break that down and talk about that in a minute.

One commentary I read said, “Redemption is release secured by the payment of a ransom.” If you were kidnapped, and there was a ransom paid and you were released or set free, that’s kind of the imagery of redemption—to buy out of the marketplace and then to set free. There’s a classic, and I don’t want to jump into it too quickly, example of that in the book of Ruth. I understand the ladies are going to be starting their Bible study in the book of Ruth, so I’ll try not to spoil it for you. The book of Ruth is a story of redemption and how Ruth becomes tied in with Naomi. Their husbands are dead. They go back to the land of promise, Bethlehem, and Ruth goes out to glean in the fields. She finds out that Boaz is the one who owns the field and that he’s near kinsmen and could redeem the field and take Ruth as a bride unto himself. It’s a beautiful story of redemption. Boaz fell in love with Ruth and was willing to buy the field to take out the bride to marry her and bring restoration.

It was a Jewish law that if you lost your property, that it needed to stay in your family, so a near of kin. That “near of kin” was what’s known in the Hebrew culture in the Old Testament as a Goel, which was known as a kinsmen redeemer. The qualifications for being that Goel or kinsmen redeemer is you had to be a blood relative, have the ability to purchase the property and redeem it, and you had to be willing to do that.

Jesus Christ is our Goel in that He became a Man, His incarnation, so He’s near of kin. Then, He had the ability to pay the price for our redemption in that He died on the cross, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life so He was without spot or blemish, and then He died a substitutionary death (and we’re going to see that in verse 7 the price of our redemption was His blood), and that He was wiling to do that. He said, “No one takes My life. I give it of Myself,” so He willingly, voluntarily came to redeem us as our Goel, our kinsmen Redeemer.

If you want a beautiful Old Testament picture of that, you can read and study the book of Ruth. The women will be so blessed to study that on Thursday mornings when you go through that story of redemption. It’s also seen when Israel was in Egypt and they were enslaved and in bondage there. The Passover came, the blood was applied to their houses, and they were released as slaves. They were bought and purchased by the blood and released and set free. It’s a picture of redemption. How marvelous that is! The Old Testament not only had the teaching, but it also had examples of that as well.

All humanity has become in Adam’s sin, slaves to sin, sold into slavery by sin; and Jesus, by His blood, bought us and set us free. I want to break the first half of this verse down with a couple of points. I want you to note the plight from which we were redeemed. We were redeemed from our sins, verse 7, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Some of your Bibles may translate that word “sin” as transgressions. The Greek word used there for sins actually implies transgressions. What that means is a willful, deliberate disobedience where we step over God’s law, we are out of bounds, we overstep God’s laws or commandments. It’s willful, deliberate, and the ongoing sins that we commit He has forgiven us. The Bible teaches that we’ve been freed from sin, praise God, we’re free from the law and its penalty, and we’re also free from Satan and his grip on our lives, we become children of God.

Write down 1Peter 1:18-19 where Peter says, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not,” here’s our word, “redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold…But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” That’s the point I want to make in verse 7, not only the plight of our sins we’re redeemed from but also the Person who is our Redeemer, that’s Jesus Christ, as I pointed out it’s the in whom, which at the end of verse 6 is a reference to “the beloved.” Jesus is the Redeemer, and I can certainly speak for myself, it’s one of my favorite themes and concepts and titles for Jesus, the Redeemer, that He has redeemed me.

Notice also the price of our redemption, verse 7. We are redeemed, “through his blood.” Jesus said He gave His life as a ransom for many. He gave His life on the cross to shed His own blood. The word “blood,” is a reference to the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. It involves His sacrificial, substitutionary, atoning work on the cross. It wasn’t just that He bled, it was that He took our place sacrificially as the Lamb and died in our place. How marvelous that is!

As I quoted earlier, 1 Peter 1:18-19, “…that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” All through the Bible…someone said, “Cut the Bible anywhere, it bleeds. It’s red with redemptive truth.” If you miss the scarlet thread of redemption going through the Scriptures, you miss the theme of the Bible—Jesus our Redeemer, who gave His life on the cross to die for us and our sins.

The practical application in one area is found in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 where it says, “For ye are bought with a price…and ye are not your own,” so the idea of buying you is brought out there in Corinthians and now we’re to live for God in holiness. The context of that Corinthians reference of being bought by His blood—that we don’t belong to ourselves but to Him, we’re His possession—is in the context of sexual purity and holiness. We’re to live a life that’s holy before God because He’s bought us with His own blood and live a life of purity.

Did you know that creation will be redeemed that is under the curse? Mankind will be redeemed—those who have trusted Christ and have been born again. What a glorious prospect that is! We’ll talk more about that in a minute as Paul makes that clear in Romans 8. If you are a Christian, you are redeemed. You’ve been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. You are no longer your own. Amen? That’s why as a Christian you should consecrate your life to Him, to live for Him, to serve Him, and to follow Him. Your life is not your own to choose where to go, what to do. It belongs to God, so daily we should pray, “Lord, have Your way in my life. Lead me. Guide me. Help me to follow You in Your Word. Help me to love you and to live for You.” God becomes supreme. You’re a slave that’s been purchased and now set free. You become what’s called a bondslave, doulos, where you say, “I love You. I want to serve You all the days of my life.”

The second blessing we have is that we’ve been forgiven. Now, in the text (I want to be true to the text) redemption and forgiveness are linked together. They’re not one in the same, but they are linked together. If you have been redeemed—listen carefully—you have been forgiven. You need to accept the fact that God chose me, God adopted me—predestined me to be adopted as a son—He’s accepted me, He has redeemed me, and He has forgiven me. Now, just those blessings right there are enough to just stop and say, “Praise the Lord!” Amen? These are all yours, all your blessings that you have in Jesus Christ. Everyone who is redeemed is chosen, accepted, adopted into God’s family, and forgiven. That’s the next blessing, He has forgiven us; and we see that right off the bat in verse 7. It says, “In whom we have redemption through his blood,” bringing, “the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace,” or out of “the riches of his,” God’s, “grace.”

Martin Lloyd-Jones says a Christian is a person who is amazed at the fact that he has been forgiven. You know, John Newton, the famous slave trader, was converted to Christ. How inspiring is his life! If you get a biography on John Newton, get it and read it. It’s amazing. He wrote the song Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! John Newton actually became a pastor. He used to say, “I’m a great sinner, and He’s a Great Savior!” He would say in his sermons, “All I know is that I’m a great sinner, and He’s a Great Savior!”

I remember when I was a new Christian, just a young Christian. My grandmother Miller was a godly, Christian woman. I went up to see her and spend some time with her. We prayed and read the Bible together. She said, “Let’s pray.” We prayed. She prayed, “God, thank You for forgiveness.” I’ll never forget what an impression that made on me because she’d been walking with Christ for over 60 years! I know as long as I’d been around her, I’ve never seen her sin—she’s like perfect, and she glows in the dark. I’m thinking, “Grandma, you’re perfect. What do you mean forgiveness of sins?” “Oh, no, Johnny Paul,” she called me Johnny Paul by my middle name, “I sin all the time, and I’m just so grateful that God has forgiven my sins! Everyday I thank Him for that and appreciate that.” I like that statement by Martin Lloyd-Jones that a Christian is a person who is always amazed of the fact that they have been forgiven of all our sins or all our transgressions. That is certainly something you never want to grow beyond or graduate past. Pray that God gives you a thankful heart every day that you are forgiven, that all the sins of the past have been forgiven.

There’s a lot of imagery in the Bible surrounding this concept of forgiveness, but one of the favorite that I have is that of the scapegoat in the Old Testament. When they would put their hands on this goat, they would symbolically transfer their sins to the goat and then send the goat away. That’s why they call it “scapegoat.” They would actually say, “Get away goat!” and the goat would take off. When they saw the goat disappear in the distant hills, it was a picture of their sins being carried away. The etymology of the word “forgiven,” actually means to carry away. It means not only to separate but to carry away. The scapegoat would just take off. It would remind them that, “My sins,” the Bible says, “have been separated as far as the east is from the west,” not north to south but east to west, never the twain shall meet. I love that. The picture of forgiveness is my sins have been carried away.

John the Baptist pointed to Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away,” carries away more literally, “the sin of the world.” That’s what God has done for me. The picture is also of a washing, that we are washed in the forgiveness of His blood, that we have our debt that has been blotted out—we owed a debt, He blotted it out. We’ve been forgiven, and all the beautiful pictures in the Bible of being forgiven.

That Psalm, “…as far as the east is from the west,” is Psalm 103:12, if you want a reference to that Psalm. He has separated our sins, “as far as the east is from the west.” Read Psalm 51. If you don’t know Psalm 51, study Psalm 51. David, in that penitential psalm, described his sin and his transgression after sinning with Bathsheba, killing her husband Uriah, then Nathan the prophet exposed his sin, and the floodgates were open of repentance, “Wash me…and cleanse me from my sin…take not thy holy spirit from me.” Just the way he poured out his heart and the forgiveness that he experiences is so very marvelous.

Forgiveness, I believe, is our greatest need. One of the big problems that people have today is not just that they don’t know God—not knowing God and not being redeemed—they live with guilt. They live with a guilty weight and a guilty conscience. As a Christian, that’s one of the most glorious experiences to realize, “All my sin has been forgiven, and I’m free in Jesus Christ!” How marvelous that is!

Going back to verse 7, “…according to the riches of his grace,” he has forgiven us. Notice that expression in verse 7 in your Bible, “…according to the riches of his grace,” not out of “the riches of his grace,” but according to. How rich is His grace? It is infinite. If you’re taking notes, you can write that note: His grace is infinite! His grace has no measure. His grace has no bounds. His grace never runs out. When you sin and say, “God, forgive me,” God doesn’t say, “Uh, sorry. I just ran out of grace. You should’ve come before the last guy.” Have you ever needed gas, pulled into a gas station, all the pumps are empty, and you can’t get gas? Can you imagine running to God, “God, forgive me!” “Sorry, there’s no more grace.” God gives grace and gives more grace and He keeps giving more grace. The Bible describes His grace as waves of the sea—they just keep coming and breaking over us. One of the things about the ocean that you find many times is the waves are relentless. You can’t flip a switch and turn them off, they just keep coming. That’s the way God’s grace is. It’s like the waves of the sea. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” and there’s no limit to His marvelous grace. How beautiful it is!

Look at Ephesians 2:4-5 for just a quick sneak peek at what is in store for us in chapter two. “But God, who is rich in mercy,” that concept is tied in with His grace. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve; God’s mercy is not giving us what we do deserve. “…for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).” We focus so much on verses 8 and 9, rightfully so, but we miss verses 4 and 5, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were,” sinners, “dead in sins,” He regenerated us, “hath quickened us together with Christ,” and we’re saved by His marvelous, marvelous grace.

We have been redeemed, we have been forgiven by God’s marvelous grace, and here’s the third, write it down, verses 8-10, He made known His will to us. I know I preach and teach from a King James Bible, and I would encourage you to read some modern translations of these verses because the Old English here in the King James vocabulary becomes a little bit of a challenge to wrap your mind around, but I’ll try to break it down and make it as clear as I can. I want you to notice in verse 8 it says, “Wherein he hath abounded toward us,” verse 7 closes with a reference to “…the riches of his grace,” and it’s in this rich grace that “…he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us,” so He abounds to us in wisdom and prudence, makes “known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself,” notice that reference to His sovereign purpose and plan that He fulfills.

Verse 10, “That in the dispensation,” or you might rephrase that as administration, “of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth,” this is a reference to the Lord making known to us, giving wisdom and understanding to us. In verse 8, “…he hath abounded toward us,” or literally He lavished on us, I like that translation, “in all wisdom and,” understanding. The King James Bible has “prudence.” We’re like, “What in the world is prudence? He gave me prudence.” It’s a reference to wisdom and understanding. If you become a Christian, God, by His Spirit and through His Word, opens up your mind and gives you things that you know that you didn’t know before you were saved. You know things that unbelievers don’t know.

Unbelievers are living in ignorance, living in darkness. They don’t know God. They don’t understand the ways of God. They don’t understand the plan of God. They don’t understand the program of God. They don’t understand the redemptive work of the Son of God. When you become a Christian, God gives you His Word and His Spirit, and you begin to understand. That’s not to puff you up with pride, but it’s just to overwhelm you that God in His grace opens up your eyes, opens up your understanding. The difference between wisdom and understanding, or prudence in the King James Bible, wisdom refers to intellectual knowledge of the mind, it feeds the mind; and understanding or prudence is that which influences our conduct. It’s not enough just to know, you must have wisdom for living. If there is anything that God’s Spirit, working through God’s Word, will do for you, it will give you practical knowledge and wisdom for life.

Anyone that’s been married for any length of time knows how much you need the wisdom that comes from God. Amen? To just live life, to deal with all the issues of life and the relationships. All the married folks say, “Amen, brother, preach it!” You can listen to the philosophies, psychologies, scientists, study history and have all this knowledge, but it’s not going to help you with life. God’s Word makes wise the simple, Psalm 19. I love that! When it says in the Hebrew, “…making wise the simple,” that’s what the Bible calls the simpleton—the silly simple person that doesn’t have moral standards and know right from wrong. The Bible says in Psalm 19, “…enlightening the eyes,” it makes you wise and helps you have wisdom on how to live life. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have a knowledge of this book called the Bible and be able to filter all of life through the lens of Scripture.

God has made us knowledgeable, and gave us understanding, verse 9, “Having made known unto us,” and he explains it in the context, “the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself,” He made known to us the mystery of His will. The word “mystery” appears six times in the book of Ephesians. The word “mystery” appears in Ephesians 3:3, 4:9, 5:32, 6:9. You’ve gotta understand the word “mystery,” and I’ll explain each one in context as we go through, but the word “mystery” in the New Testament refers to a sacred secret that God reveals that couldn’t be known unless God reveals it, and He has. A mystery is not something that cannot be known, it’s something that cannot be known without God revealing it, and He has revealed it in His Word. It’s pretty cool that God lets us in on some mysteries, right?

Everybody loves a good mystery, right? God actually reveals it to us, so there’s the mystery of the church. We’ll see that in chapter two, which was something hidden in the Old Testament but revealed in the New Testament. There’s the mystery of the rapture, “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be caught up…to meet the Lord in the air,” that’s not in the Old Testament. It’s revealed in the New Testament. There’s the mystery of the body of Christ being made up of Jews and Gentiles, that God would actually save Gentiles. There’s several mysteries revealed in the Bible, and God reveals them to us in His Word. You might say that God saves us by His grace by redeeming and forgiving and then giving us His Word and making known His will.

Notice verse 10, “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” Let me just give you a free paraphrase of what that verse is saying. It’s saying that God’s going to wrap up everything in history under the leadership of Christ, and it’s going to be all praise and all glory and all honor to Him. We read about it in the book of Revelation. It’s called the Millennium. It’s called the new heavens and the new earth. It’s called the Kingdom Age. It’s called the eternal state. We watch the wars, the pestilence, the diseases, nations arise and nations fall. We look at history and all the troubles that are all going on in this world, but guess what? God has given us wisdom and knowledge that in the “…fulness of times,” He’s going to bring it all under the authority of Jesus Christ.

The word “dispensation” means God’s government—the way God deals with planet earth and with people. There’s coming a “…fulness of times,” and it’s described in Philippians where it says, “Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” What a great world that’s going to be!

In Romans 8, when Paul describes that creation groans and travails, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. That’s what this verse is talking about. It’s talking about Christ’s Second Advent. It’s talking about the Kingdom of God on earth. It’s talking about the eternal state, and in great detail it describes that all things will be brought under His authority, “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.”

What you want to avoid is interpreting this statement as being what’s called universalism. The doctrine of universalism, which is not taught in the Bible, is that God’s going to save everybody—no one will go to hell, no one will be judged for their sin. God in His grace, God in His love, God in His mercy is going to save everybody. Even the devil is going to be in heaven, and everything is going to be one big happy family. It’s called the doctrine of universalism.

That’s not what it’s teaching here. Notice in verse 10 the term “in Christ.” “…in one all things in Christ,” so it’s going to be under His authority and only those who are “in Christ" will be part of that salvation, redemptive plan, the new heaven and the new earth. Those which are not believers will be cast out and locked out. All things will be brought in subjection—Satan will be bound, he will be thrown into hell, the false prophet and beast will be bound and thrown into hell, and there will be a final separation. It’s talking about that final state which is that fullness of time when the Lord returns and sets all things right. I would recommend you read Romans 8:18-23 where the creation is groaning for glory, and it’s going to be redeemed. It’s going to be set straight. And guess what? We know that because we are His people, we have His Word, and He’s revealed it to us.

When you see the world going crazy, you can rest in the fact that, “I know how it all ends.” You say, “What in the world is going on? What is the world coming to?” I can tell you, and that’s such a blessed hope!

One last thing, and I won’t tarry on it, verses 11-12, He’s given us an inheritance. That’s the fourth and last blessing—He has given us an inheritance. There are two different ways to interpret this, and I believe they’re both biblical and both can be drawn from the text, verses 11-12. “In whom,” we’re still talking about in Christ. Any time you see “in whom” it’s talking about Jesus, “also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him,” notice what He’s doing, “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” At the end of verse 9, He’s doing everything according “…to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself,” and in verse 11, He “…worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,” this is indicating the sovereign plan of God and the purposes of God which cannot be thwarted or hindered which God will complete and fulfill.

Notice Paul says, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,” the first way to interpret that, and the King James Bible would indicate that this is the way it is to be interpreted, is that we are going to inherit, with Christ our big Brother, all things. “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

I’ve never had any rich relatives. I’ve never had any rich relatives die that have left me any great inheritance. Have you ever fantasized when you were a little kid thinking, I don’t want anyone to die but maybe some uncle that I didn’t know anyway so I won’t feel bad, met me at a family picnic and thought I was awesome. Someone knocks at my door and says, “Hi. Your uncle died that you didn’t know, but he liked you and gave you $10 million.” Praise Jesus, and thank you, Uncle Harry. Well, I’m resolved that for me that ain’t gonna happen, but guess what? I’m going to inherit all things. My Father is rich and I’m His child and I will inherit all things, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” We have an inheritance waiting for us. Write down 1 Peter 1:4, “To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.” Isn’t that great? You may not have it on earth, don’t be depressed, “Set your affection on things above, not on the things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Let me give you the second way that some other translations render that. They render that statement, “In whom also we were made an inheritance,” they render it we were made an inheritance. The idea is not only do we inherit in Christ all things, but we ourselves are His inheritance. You say, “That’s not a very good deal for Him. He gets us? Whoop-ee-dee!” It actually teaches in the Bible that you are a love gift from God the Father to God the Son, and that you’re His chosen people, you’re His particular treasure. What a glorious thought that truly is!

The first picture is that of we go into the Promised Land and we claim our inheritance. Remember when God told Joshua and the children of Israel, “Cross over the Jordan and go into the Promised Land. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given it unto you. It’s yours, but you’ve got to step out and take it by faith.” The idea is there. The other interpretation is pictured in the Old Testament when it pictures the fact that God’s people of Israel are called His treasure, His inheritance, His peculiar people. Now, peculiar doesn’t mean weird or freaky, it actually means special or chosen. The idea is that I am a treasure of His.

Write down John 17:9. When Jesus is praying this great High Priestly prayer, He says, “I pray for them which thou hast given me,” He clearly says, “I’m thankful that You’ve given Me them. They’re Yours, and You gave them to Me,” so we’re a love gift from God the Father. In Romans 8:17, we’re “…heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”

Notice in verse 11, all of this is predestined, predetermined, and all of it is according to God’s purpose and will, so guess what? It’s a done deal. Nothing can thwart the purpose and plan of God. Everything that we have, and everything that we are in Christ comes from God and returns back to God. This is why verse 12 says, “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ,” or to the praise of His glorious grace.

So, He’s redeemed us, He’s forgiven us, He’s made known His will to us, and He’s given to us an inheritance and made us His own special inheritance. What a blessing. Amen? Let’s pray.