Spiritual Blessings - Week 6

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Our dear Heavenly Father, by the guidance of your Holy Spirit, Paul wrote us a letter. And in it he teaches us that you are the blessed God and it is your nature to bless us. I pray that we would have an open heart to receive every blessing that you're willing to give us. And I pray that these blessings would prepare us to abide with you forever. In Christ's name. Amen. We're studying through the first chapter of the book of Ephesians. And in it we learn that the blessed God blesses. He blesses us first by electing us to make us holy and faultless before him in love. And then he blesses us by predestinating us to Himself. Your destiny is to abide forever with God. And then he redeemed us because our nature was fallen and we were corrupted by sin. So he bought us back to Himself with His own blood. And then he made known to us the mystery of his will. He shared with us the meaning of all of this. And this week I would like us to consider that the blessed God blesses us with an inheritance. This is what Paul wrote in Christ. We have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of the One working all things according to the counsel of his will. The word that pops out here is that God has an inheritance for us. Now, I personally have never inherited anything. Maybe you have. Several people have left this good church in their will, and it's helped us immensely. But an inheritance is something you don't earn. And you can't earn an inheritance. An inheritance is the gift of someone else's wealth to heal. And inheritance is not something you choose. It's something that somebody chooses for you. So when we have. When. When. When Paul says God blesses us with an inheritance, listen what it means. Your good works don't earn you the blessings of heaven. The. The blessings of heaven are an inheritance. The blessings of inheritance comes from someone else's wealth. The wealth of God, the wealth of the Creator of the universe is the source of your divine inheritance. And sadly, we don't get to choose our inheritance. It's chosen for us. Maybe I shouldn't say sadly. Maybe I should say God. We're so silly. We would choose the wrong things. So when Paul says we have an inheritance one more time, he's pointing back to how good the blessed God is. He doesn't just bless us in this world. He has an inheritance for us in the world to come. Paul wrote to the church at Colossae and said this, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of life? We have to be pre qualified for this inheritance. And God, as I showed you in several times before, is working in us throughout this lifetime to make us competent to live with him forever. He's pre qualifying us for the inheritance. God cannot give us an inheritance that we are not ready to receive and that we can't handle. It would ruin us. And then he tells us Also in Colossians 1, verse 13, he has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. How does God pre qualify us for our inheritance? He delivers us from the kingdom of darkness and he transfers us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. The only people who will inherit from God are people who are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. If you have not been moved from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, you have no inheritance. Don't deceive yourself. There has to be a point in your life where the Holy Spirit whispers to your heart and you say to him in your innermost self, I'm trusting Jesus Christ to transform me into his kingdom and out of the world of sin and misery that I've known all my life, that pre qualifies you for this inheritance. Without that, you mustn't deceive yourself that something radical is going to happen after you close your eyes in death. Peter tells us this inheritance has four characteristics. This is what Peter wrote. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Probably learned that from Paul, huh? Peter, we know Peter read Paul's letters and this sounds exactly like what Paul said. According to the great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Here it is to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven. For you. There are four characteristics of this inheritance that the blessed God has for you. First of all, it's incorruptible. It's imperishable. Every human inheritance is corruptible and it is perishable. In fact, if you, if you read the history of wealth, it's not uncommon that by the third or fourth generation it's gone. It has, it has, it has perished. It has not been managed well and it has evaporated. God's inheritance for you is imperishable. It will last forever and ever. This inheritance is also undefiled. It's pure. There's nothing tainted about the inheritance. God is going to give you it is unfading. That means it retains its wonderful character. There is something about the human race that we quickly get used to everything. Have you ever bought a car and said, I'm going to like this forever, and four years later you're going, eh, maybe not forever, huh? Things have a tendency to lose their sense of wonder to us. We get. We get used to them very, very quickly. This inheritance that we are receiving from God, it will have something wonderful about it forever. You'll never get tired. It'll never feel like the same old thing. There'll always be something remarkable and beautiful and amazing that you are discovering about the inheritance that God has for you. This inheritance is being kept for us. This is very interesting to me and we're going to try to think about it very deeply. The inheritance that God has for you is. It's already been given and now it's being saved for us. The inheritance that God has for you, he's already given it to you. It's just being kept. It's just being reserved for you until you arrive in the kingdom of God. The blessed God blesses us with an inheritance. He keeps the inheritance for us, and he keeps us for the inheritance. Peter said in the same passage, who by the power of God, are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. He's keeping the inheritance for you, and he's keeping you for the inheritance. I've run into people in my life who believe that you can be a Christian and you can make some mistakes or you can have some doubts, and then now you're not a Christian anymore. Listen, Church, you are a Christian because God made you a Christian. And you stay a Christian because God preserves you as a Christian. You didn't become a Christian because you got your act together and became a good person. You became a Christian because God gave you the gift of faith. And you stay a Christian not by what you do and don't do. You stay a Christian because you are kept by the power and the love of the same God who made you a Christian to begin with. The inheritance is unique for you. When God created you, he created you unique. And when God created your inheritance, he created it uniquely for you. Your inheritance is not a one size fits all. Your inheritance is not an equal portion of something. Your inheritance is designed by God uniquely for the person you are. I'd like to make this note. Any sacrifice you ever make for God will be a fraction of the inheritance God has for you. Would you. Would you hear that? Any sacrifice you ever make for God is a penance compared the inheritance he has for you. Anything that you have said on this earth is so valuable. It's so wonderful. It's such a treasure. It's child's toys in a toy box. Compared to the inheritance that God has for you, it is from the riches of his goodness, and it comes from his creative genius. An inheritance that is undescribable and yet uniquely designed for you. And the next time God asks you for a little sacrifice, would you remember the inheritance that he has for you? This inheritance is part of God's predestined purpose. An inheritance being predestined according to his purpose, the blessed God selected an inheritance for you when he imagined you before creation. Remember, I talked to you about this at the beginning of this series. Each one of us are expressions of the divine imagination. You are not a random biological function. You are the product of the creative imagination of God. And before God created the world, he imagined you. He didn't make you for the world. He made the world for you. He imagined a place for you to live after he had imagined you. All right, When God originally imagined you, he chose a perfect inheritance for you. God said, this is my son. This, this is my daughter. And I want to make sure that they have an inheritance that is perfectly fit for them. God elected you, and in his election, he said, I will have an inheritance for you. I choose you for the inheritance that I have. We're going to learn that we are predestined for this inheritance. Ah. And this inheritance that God created from the beginning is being kept right now for you. This is not something that God has to conjure up at the end. It's something that he dreamed of and prepared from the very beginning. He predestined us for this inheritance according to his purpose. The inheritance is part of God's divine purpose for you. Again, I want you to understand this. God is a very thoughtful being. You are not living a random life. You are living a life that was designed by the Almighty so that you can be who he wants you to be. And at the end, and part of this thoughtfulness, a part of this plan, part of this divine resolve, is for God to say, I'm not only I am. I have not only prepared an inheritance for you, but as part of my plan and part of my resolve, I am preparing you so that you will be perfectly ready for your inheritance. When the blessed God imagined you before creation, he also imagined your eternal inheritance and planned and resolved to prepare you for your inheritance as he has prepared the inheritance for you. It will be a perfect match. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Church. [00:15:51] Speaker A: He fulfills this plan and resolve by predestination, making boundaries through our lives and we flow toward that divine purpose. Please listen to this. I believe it is altogether possible that many of our disappointments in life are for God to wean us away from things that we have put too much value on or too many expectations on. I believe disappointments are one of God's ways of saying, this is never going to satisfy you, but keep moving down the boundaries. I've got something that will satisfy you. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Church. [00:16:36] Speaker A: I believe one of the reasons we grow jaded is so that we come to see that the world and everything in it is passing away. But he who does the will of my Father in heaven abides forever. Can you hear this? This life experience, these boundaries through which we flow, these. These moments of joy and disappointment, these moments of richness and these moments of emptiness, they are all part of the divine resolve to create you, to be perfectly ready for the inheritance that he's already given to you, and to know the wonder and the value of it when you get it. Here's something about being a kid. You don't know what anything is worth. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Church. [00:17:32] Speaker A: You think it's worth something and you find out that it might be when your grandkids sell it at a rummage sale. But right now it's probably not worth what you think it is. All right. God does all of this to reset our inner self so that someday, when we see the wonder and the beauty and the value of his inheritance, we'll have something to compare it to and we'll say, this is infinitely better than anything I ever had on earth. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Church. [00:18:07] Speaker A: I have seen people hold on to the silver post on the side of a hospital bed, gasping for every stale breath because they were afraid. They were letting go of what was really valuable. And they were afraid that where they were going, they wouldn't have things as nice as they have them here. It's because they don't understand that the blessed God bless us. [00:18:39] Speaker B: Church. [00:18:40] Speaker A: I'm telling you, where we're going, it is infinitely better than where we are. And what we will have there is infinitely better than what we have here. I don't know what is valuable to you, but I'm telling you, someday when God gives you your inheritance, you're going to see how pitiful it is in comparison. He fulfills this plan. He fulfills this purpose because his plan and resolve are stable, firm and unalterable. Who would. Who would be so arrogant as to say, ah, my will can compete with the will of God. I mean, who, who would. Who, who would take that challenge? And yet we live like somehow or another our will is. Our will is a competitor with the will of God. I'm telling you, Church, God's will is stable. He doesn't vacillate. He doesn't have to vacillate. God's will is firm. It can't be moved. When it's perfect, it doesn't have to be moved. God's will is unalterable because the power of God is the power of the Almighty. There is none more powerful than he who can make him change his will. Why is his will firm, stable and unalterable? Because the blessed God is immutable. He doesn't change. He doesn't have to change. He figured it out right from the beginning, and now it isn't necessary for him to change. All right, now I'd like to stop for just a minute and say, how are you living in relationship to the blessed God? Are you living with the idea that the same God who loved me and gave himself for me, he has an inheritance for me that is beyond anything I can understand. Church and I want to treat him with respect because he has done such a wonderful thing for me. Church, if someone told you that you were going to inherit some ridiculous amount of money, certainly you would live in a respectful attitude toward him, right? Certainly you would have. You would have a sense of appreciation. Certainly you would be sensitive to what they care about. If I'm really living the Christian life with a sense that the blessed God blesses, I have this sensitivity to God. I have this sense that he is being so good to me. I want him to know I respect him. I want him to know I love him. I want him to know that what matters to him matters to me. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Church. [00:22:10] Speaker A: And having a sense of your inheritance will stir that up in you. I'd like to challenge you about the will of God in your life. In every one of our lives, in some way, God is challenging us to get better. In every one of our lives. There's some issue that we are conscious of that we need to get better. Are you aware of that? Give me a nod. Yes, we should all, if we pay attention, there's something the Holy Spirit is always working on us and saying, I want you to get a little better in this. Or sometimes the Holy Spirit does this. He just lets us be idiots until we get sick of it. And then he says, okay, now can I talk to you about this? It's not worked too well for you, has it? All right. When the Holy Spirit starts dealing with me about something he wants to make me better in, normally, my first response is I push back. I say, hey, I'm not nearly as bad as I was 20 years ago. Or I say, hey, is. Don't you remember? We just worked on this. And now that good thing is a normal part of my life, all right? If I really understand that God has this beautiful inheritance for me, and when he's trying to make me change and become better in some area of my life, it's because he's preparing me for that inheritance. An inheritance that I'm not prepared for is not an inheritance that I can enjoy fully, Church. An inheritance that I'm fully prepared for because the Holy Spirit has been at work in me, chipping away, making me better little by little, that's an inheritance I can fully enjoy. If you inherit a race car and you can't drive it, how fun is it? [00:24:30] Speaker B: Church? [00:24:32] Speaker A: If you inherit a motorcycle and you can't ride it, how fun is it? If you inherit a stainless steel kitchen and you can't cook, might as well burn it on a cheap stove. Do you see what I'm saying? When in my daily life I want to have an awareness, the Holy Spirit's calling me to be a better person. Not because God gets something out of it, but because by making a better person, I am more prepared to enjoy the inheritance that he has prepared for me. The blessed God works out his purpose according to the counsel of his will. Listen what he says. Ah. Ah. He predestined us according to the counsel of the one working the all. According to the counsel of his will. This is an interesting phrase. The one working the all. What does Paul mean by the one working the all? Well, I believe we have to understand it in the context of what he's already said. What is the all? All of the things he's already said. Okay? The blessed God works by blessing us. The blessed God works by electing us. The blessed God works by predestinating us. The blessed God works by redeeming us. The blessed God works by making known to us the mystery of his will. The blessed God works by preparing an inheritance for us. Listen at this. Paul is going out of his way to say, the one who's doing all the heavy lifting here, it's God, not you. Do you hear this? The one who's really making these beautiful things happen is God. And what he requires of you is just to cooperate with him. God Said, I'm going to do all the hard work. God said, I'm going to make things happen that you could never dream of making happen. And God said, I accept it as what I should be doing as the blessed God. Now I want to ask you, what should you be doing as the one who is the recipient of all this good work that God is doing for you? If God is doing all the hard work, what should you be doing? Well, the very first thing we should do is we should start relating to him in a more healthy and a more daily way. Do you see? If he's doing all the work, the very least I can do is give thanks to him day by day for all that he's doing. And if I really love him, I would say to him, could I hang around with you while you're doing all this awesome stuff? I once had a friend who overhauled an engine. Ah, I wouldn't dream of doing it, but he had paper laid out on the garage floor, and he overhauled an engine. And I used to sit around and watch him do it. And he'd take stuff apart and lay it out on these papers and write something down. And I bet I said to him 50 times, this is gonna end up in the junkyard, you know? But he got it back together. Car ran better than it did before. All right, I can't fix cars, but I enjoy people who can. I kind of get a vicarious sense of success. I watched you do it. It's not uncommon for us to enjoy watching other people do things and wanting to be around other people who do things very, very well. [00:28:54] Speaker B: Church. [00:28:55] Speaker A: There's something delightful about that. God is doing his work very, very well. And I would do. It would be a blessing to us if we could say to him, dear God, while you do your work very, very well, I'd like to hang around with you today while you're doing your perfect work in my life today. I'd like to hang around with you today while you're going to do something special through me today, I'd like to have a sense of your presence today. Do you hear this? He's the one doing the work. We have to be the ones who have a heightened sense of awareness and desire to be around him when he's doing these awesome things. Does anybody know how to say amen? All right, the psalmist had an insight into this. Listen to what the psalmist wrote. For I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is above all gods. Now here it is. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. The phrase I want you to hear is whatever the Lord pleases, He does. Why is that true? Because his what pleases him is always wholly righteous and good. I can't do whatever I please because some of the things I please are ugly. [00:30:29] Speaker B: Church. [00:30:30] Speaker A: I have to say no to some things in my life. In the heart of God, he never has to say no to Himself. Because the things that please him are always the very best. Can you hear this? It is a pleasure to God to be at work in your life. The way Paul is describing it in Ephesians, chapter one. It is a pleasure to Him. And if it is a pleasure to him, then certainly, certainly we should take greater pleasure in. In the good work that he's doing in us and through us. He does this according to the counsel or the determination of his will. This word counsel struck me interesting. With whom does God take counsel? Counsel is sitting down and discussing something. Council is a group of people trying to figure something out together. Who would ever. Who would God ever take counsel from? Paul told the Romans all the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Here we have it again. Remember the riches of his grace. Remember the riches of his mercy. Now we have the riches of his wisdom and knowledge. How unsearchable are his judgments. How inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. The blessed God doesn't take counsel with us. Believe this or not, God. God really doesn't need your advice. There have been many times in my life that I presumed to advise God. He didn't need it and wisely didn't take my advice. If God is not taking counsel with us, who is he taking counsel with? He's taking counsel with Himself. God is a trinity. The Father speaks to the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son speaks to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks to the Father and the Son. God takes counsel with Himself. The blessed God makes judgments that are unfathomable and impossible for. For our finite minds to understand. Is that clear to you? God makes evaluations. He makes judgments. He makes decisions that are unfathomable and impossible for our finite minds to understand. And that's why the counsel of his will should always be our first choice. Because he understands what we don't Understand? Listen, the blessed God's pathways through history and our lives are inscrutable and incomprehensible. I have a hard time figuring out my life looking at it backward. I tell you, I didn't have it figured out looking out forward, and I don't really think I have it figured out looking out backward. The ways, the pathways of God through our lives and through history, they're inscrutable, they're incomprehensible because he is infinite in his thoughts, his will is perfect, and everything he wants for you is well thought out and fits perfectly in his eternal plan. Since we don't know the mind of the Lord, we cannot presume to counsel Him. The best we can do is love, trust and glorify God, because through him, from him, through him and unto him are all things. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Did you hear that, Church? The best thing we can do is love, trust and glorify him. Because it all comes from him, it all comes through him, and it all concludes in Him. And he has chosen us to be the recipients of his great blessing. And he's promised us an incomprehensible inheritance. Listen what the psalmist said. O Lord, how manifold are your works. In wisdom you have made them all. God is not only at work. He's at work in a variety of ways that is beyond our imagination. God's toolbox is huge. It has more tools in it than you can imagine. And his works are incomprehensible. Ah, but they're all made based upon his infinite wisdom. The entire world is an expression of the perfect will of the blessed God. You say, what about these ugly things? And what about that? That ugly thing? God has a solution for it all. None of it is taken by surprise. His works are manifold, he even accomplished. He even uses evil to accomplish good. When Jacob's brother sold him into Egypt, he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Do you hear the point? We see the blessed God's will through his purpose and plan in all of history. Now here's the important thing I want to say. Your destiny according to this perfect plan is to inherit an indescribable life designed and developed by the Lord of manifold works, who in wisdom makes you who you are, history what it is, and your inheritance what it will be. Church we are so fortunate to know the blessed God. Bless us. Our dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this instruction from Paul. I pray that your Holy Spirit would do what only he can do and that something of this truth would take root in our inner self. And that it would change the way we think. It would change. It would change the way we think about you. It would change the way we think about this life. It would change our expectations and our longing and our hope to abide with you forever. And then I pray that as we see that from you, through you, and unto you are all things that we would glorify your name, both now and forever. Amen.