Ephesians 1:1-2
From Paul, who by God's will is an apostle of Christ Jesus—To God's people in Ephesus, who are faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus: May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Paul always begins his letters with this wish of “grace and peace”. It’s a combination of a Greek greeting (grace) with a Jewish greeting (peace). So he’s fulfilling his mission of being a missionary to the Gentile world by bringing the good news of Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter.

He is also telling us/reminding us, from the very beginning of each letter, that true peace comes from the grace given by Christ. And the grace given by Christ will give us true peace. Like two sides of a single coin, you can’t have just one or the other (and who would want to?).

From there, he launches into …

7.25.10 – The Longest Sentence

1:3-14
Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children—this was his pleasure and purpose. Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son! For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God, which he gave to us in such large measure! In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head.
All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning. Let us, then, who were the first to hope in Christ, praise God's glory! And you also became God's people when you heard the true message, the Good News that brought you salvation. You believed in Christ, and God put his stamp of ownership on you by giving you the Holy Spirit he had promised. The Spirit is the guarantee that we shall receive what God has promised his people, and this assures us that God will give complete freedom to those who are his. Let us praise his glory! (GNB)

In Greek, that’s all one sentence! And what a passage it is!

I could easily spend a month preaching on just these eleven verses. If Paul wanted to get these ideas out in a single thought, though, I’ll try to talk about them in a single sermon. (Though, being the launch pad of the book, I’m sure I’ll refer back to them now and then.)

Some basic thoughts:
• God doesn’t just put up with us, it’s his pleasure to love us!
• God is in control! (that’s a praise, BTW!)
• We are sealed, guaranteed, locked-in to this God-given freedom!

Nobody and nothing can overpower the seal that has set us in Christ. Except ourselves. Some people say that once we are saved we are no longer free to reject God, but that would mean we are less free after salvation than we were before, and that runs counter to all of Scripture. (Then, an objector will say something like, “But why would you want to reject God?” To which I tell them that I don’t. But if I don’t have the freedom to reject him, then I didn’t have the freedom to choose him, either.)

Let’s not worry about falling away at this moment in time. Let’s look more deeply into the blessings of being saved and remaining faithful!

• God chose us because he loves us and it’s his pleasure to do so! (vs 4-5)

Luke 12:32
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (ESV)

I look at myself and I see a sinner and I think that God’s love for me must be kind of grudging. After all, how can a holy God want anything to do with the likes of me?

The best clue I can find is in my own love for my children. They are not perfect, but I still love them with all my heart. God, who created us, loves us even more.

• God is in control! (vs 5, 10, 11)

Matthew 10:29
For only a penny you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father's consent. (GNB)

This whole idea of predestination has been argued for a couple thousand years and will—I’m sure—be argued until the end of time. Do we have free will? The Bible would seem to indicate so, considering there are several places where we are told to make choices. But how can anything be predestined?

Kenny Boles likened it to a track meet. Before the runners get there, the lanes are marked off for the runners, the field is marked for the discus and javelin, etc. The rules are laid out. The organizers of the track meet do not pick the winners before the races are won, but they can tell you ahead of time that the winners will be those who have “stayed in the lines” and that those who have strayed from the rules will not win.

Before we take this too far, remember the book of Galatians, and remember what Paul has already said in this book about grace. Thanks to God’s grace, we are free to run the race, not worrying about the lines but trusting that we are running within God’s love!

And three times in this passage Paul has called for us to praise the Lord. It’s not an unpleasant thing that God is in control and not us!

• We are sealed, guaranteed, locked-in to this God-given freedom! (v 13-14)

In the olden days, when you sent a letter, you sealed it with wax. While the wax was still warm, you would press your signet ring into the wax. By law—and this courtesy was generally accorded across national boundaries—you were not allowed to break that wax seal unless you were the recipient of the letter. Such a letter, sent by a king, was even more inviolable.

When you gave your life to Christ and were immersed into his name, you were fixed with the seal of the Holy Spirit. No power on this earth—or even Satan himself—can break that seal! That’s good news!

It’s also another place where grace comes in—praise God! Having once come to Christ, we still mess up, don’t we? We still find ourselves struggling with sin. That doesn’t mean that we have abandoned God or that he has abandoned us. He has placed his signet ring on us and that seal cannot be broken (except by our own desire to abandon him).

John 12:17
While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. (ESV)

What do I DO with this?

Like last week: relax … and run.

Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (ESV)