From our Sunday service on March 2, 2025, Ephesians 1. This is part 1 of our Ephesians series. Watch the full message: The Blessings of Salvation – Ephesians Series #1 on YouTube.
Last time we finished our series on the book of Ruth. This series also comes from your recommendations. We’re going to be looking at the book of Ephesians. Paul wrote it from Rome, where he was imprisoned around A.D. 60 to 62. What’s unique about this letter is that when Paul writes to a church, it’s often to correct them. Ephesians isn’t like that. He is writing to a church he calls faithful, a church that is doing what God called them to do. Usually when we’re reading Paul, he’s slapping us around. For the rest of this series, he isn’t. We get a break from being corrected, and a series about encouraging us to fully embrace the salvation that has been given to us. The one thing I want you to take away is this: God wants you to celebrate your salvation.
Who Was This Written To?
Paul is writing to the people of Ephesus, an ancient city in modern-day Turkey, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, sitting on the coastline. The city was called neokoros, which means “the warden of Diana.” You may know Diana by the name Artemis. The Temple of Diana was in Ephesus and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was built completely out of marble at very great cost, and people would travel all the way there just to look at the beauty of the building. Including a painting of Alexander the Great by Apelles, a native of Ephesus. This was not a city in the middle of nowhere. It was a city of cultural, political and religious importance. You could flee to Ephesus and not be extradited, so you would occasionally meet a colorful character with a not-so-great backstory. It had the world’s largest amphitheater, which held 24,000 people and about one and a third football fields across. And it was a place where Paul went to preach the gospel.
The church there is of great importance in Christian history. Ephesus is the only place that mentions disciples of John the Baptist. Even before Christ died on the cross, there were people in this pagan city awaiting the Messiah. When Paul arrived, they converted and began to follow Christ. We don’t know who started the church. It probably wasn’t Paul, because it started so early. It may have been Aquila and Priscilla, since the church was held in their house. Paul pastored there for two years. First and Second Timothy were written to Timothy when he pastored there, and after Timothy, Onesimus, the runaway slave in Philemon, took over. They are always praised for their hard work in the faith, yet they struggled with distraction in their big city, and sometimes they forgot their first love. So Paul is encouraging them: you have been faithful, but remain focused, and don’t lose sight of the blessings God has given you.
Chosen, Redeemed, and Adopted
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 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:
Ephesians 1:3–4
Notice that we’re not talking about physical blessings. A lot of times when we say “God has blessed you,” we mean financially. That’s not what this is talking about. These are spiritual blessings, things you can’t touch and can’t see: the works of the Holy Spirit. Before God created the world, He had decided that His people should be holy and without blame. Your testimony is without accusation. Through your salvation the very nature of your character has been reshaped into the image of Christ.
Then we come to that word “predestinated,” and we have to be careful. Is it that God chose who will and will not be saved, and we don’t have a choice? If you take it that way, you’re missing the point, because the Bible says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Whoever wants to will be. We have to make the decision. Predestination simply means to choose one’s destination beforehand. Those who have chosen to be adopted by God are predestined to receive the glory of His grace. It isn’t that God decided who will and will not be saved. He has decided that those who will be saved will gain His inheritance. John Chrysostom, around A.D. 400, who spoke Greek natively, said “the good pleasure of his will” means His earnest desire. God finds joy in us being redeemed, complete and satisfied in Him. We are accepted in the Beloved, in Christ, not because of our merits, our good works or our character, but because of God’s character.
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Ephesians 1:7
Redemption means to buy back, and it carries the idea of the ancient slave trade. The debt is sin. When we sin, we become indebted to sin, with a debt we cannot pay, destined to work off that ever-increasing debt in hell. If we try to pay it through our own good works, the debt just increases. So God, in His mercy, came to earth as Jesus, lived a sinless life, and paid the debt to free us. He says, “I will buy that slave from you. Now you are Mine.” But it doesn’t stop there. Verse 5 talks about adoption. In Roman culture, a child born into a family had the status of a slave by default, and would not inherit unless there was a certificate of adoption. That child could be beaten or put to death and had no rights. Jesus says, “I didn’t just buy you out of slavery to take you into My household as a slave. I wrote a certificate of adoption. I made you legally My son, and heir to all that I have.” It would have been enough for Him to free us from punishment. He wants us to have life abundantly.
The word “mystery” here is not the same as in modern English. It is something that was hidden and has just been revealed. What was a secret to the patriarchs and the prophets is now made known to us. “the dispensation of the fulness of times” is God’s plan coming to the proper moment. He chose the middle of the Roman Empire, when the world was as unified as it ever would be, and used those Roman roads to spread the gospel. We don’t go to heaven when we die and just stay there forever. After the tribulation and the thousand-year reign of Christ, heaven and earth will be brought together, and God will restore creation to the way it was always meant to be.
Sealed, and Christ Above All
There are three phases to salvation. There’s the moment you put your faith in Christ, and you are saved from punishment in hell. As you grow in Christ, you’re saved from the influence of sin. And ultimately your final salvation is when you’re resurrected and God removes the sin nature from you. The things I don’t want to do I do, and the things I want to do I don’t get the strength to do. One day that divide will be gone.
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, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:13–14
A seal is the wax a ring would be pressed into to mark something as authoritative, like the mark of the king on a letter. God has placed His mark on our adoption papers. Yet the date of our full adoption has not yet come, so He puts down a down payment, like you would on a house. That down payment is the Holy Spirit. When you can feel His Spirit in your life directing you, that is the confidence you have that one day He will complete the work He started.
Despite the Ephesians being faithful, Paul thought it proper to continue praying for them, because that doesn’t mean there’s no room for growth. As a pastor, I can tell you that when I see people in my church representing Christ well, it’s a great encouragement to me. When we get saved young, sometimes we don’t appreciate how much God has changed our life, because we get saved before we make all the really bad decisions. I was talking with a pastor friend about that. I didn’t go through those phases, and God has saved me from so much grief. As we become more like Christ, we realize just how abundant this life can be. When family members pass away, you have hope that you can see them again. When you go through sickness, you know you have a great Physician. When you’re going through financial difficulty, you know you have a God who notices when a sparrow falls from a tree. If all we’ve got now is the down payment, how much more will the reality be?
Do you even imagine how great your Redeemer is? He is far above all principality, power, might and dominion, whether a governor, a king, a president or an occupier. And He is above every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come: angels, demons, the heavenly council, warriors in spiritual wars. Christ is the head of the church, which is His body. He didn’t say, “I’m going to rule the world by Myself.” He said, “I’m going to be their leader, but they’re going to be My hands and feet, and when I rule, they will rule alongside Me.”
So celebrate your salvation, not as a past event, something you experienced at some point when you got saved, but as a present reality, a continuous reshaping of your future through the will of God. God wants you to celebrate your salvation. How would your life look different if you truly embraced the power of it?
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