Looking at the riches we have in Jesus Christ is encouraging and I think it is helpful in helping us realize how much we do have. Last time we looked at the privilege of belonging to God. He is ours and we can proclaim His excellencies.
Today we are looking at Ephesians 1 and I’d like to note that we have been blessed in very special ways. We start off with Ephesians 1:3 which says, “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Most of us are probably on many occasions asking God for more blessings. I once challenged our church to spend a whole week in their prayer life never once using the word “bless.” Such as Lord bless me, or Lord bless so and so. A lot of people came back and said it was hard not to use the word bless in relationship to prayer. When we come to this verse, it kind of convicts us that we have already been blessed, according to verse 3, with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He is talking about spiritual blessings here. He is not talking about physical blessings per se. He says every spiritual blessing possible in Christ Jesus has already been given to us. So, we are a highly blessed people. We are highly rich, very, very rich in spiritual things because of Christ Jesus. The phrase that says, “in Christ,” is a very unique and special phrase in the New Testament. It is found over one hundred times and we find that all of our blessings are “in Christ.” To be “in Christ,” is how we are blessed. He goes on in this passage of Scripture to give us some specific ways of which we have been blessed in Christ. In Ephesians 1:4 it says, “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love…” We have been hand-picked and chosen by God to be His and we have been given the privilege of being holy and blameless before Him and loved. Then it goes on to say, “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.” We looked at this recently. He has adopted us into the family of God so that we have all the privileges of a full-grown son in Christ . . .
