If you've got your Bibles open at Ephesians 1,
that'd be great. Let's pray. Let's ask God to
help us as we look at His Word now. Father, please
speak to us through Your Word. Please minister
to our pain. Please give us peace and lead us
to praise You. We ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Let me just sort this out, there we go. Well,
can you think of the hardest year of your life?
Can you think what would be the hardest year
of your life? For me, it was 2024. We were living
in Broken Hill at the time, and in that one year,
we had so much go wrong in that one year, I just
couldn't believe it. So in that year we had Laura
had some really bad burnout where she was just
knocked around for weeks on end. It was awful.
I found out, I got a phone call later, a couple
of weeks later actually from my dad, that he
had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. That
year both my grandparents died. And I remember
later in the year Laura said to me, I think I've
got a spider bite on my shoulder. Can you have
a look at it? Turns out she had shingles. I then,
because I'd never had chicken pox before, I got
chicken pox from that. Later in the year I went
to a conference. While I was away, Laura and
the kids all got gastro. And then at the year's
end we had 13 people leave our church. When you're
in a small country church of about 30 to 40 people,
that's a big deal. And it was very hard. It felt
like a lot of straws on the camel's back and
that the camel's back was about to break. And
church sometimes can be especially rough because
you can share with other people how you're going
and sometimes people just don't get it. They
put their foot in their mouth and say the wrong
thing. Sometimes you're there and you're seeing
people praising God with full gusto and joy,
and you're there going, I don't really want to
right now, I'm kind of angry. I don't know, have
you ever gone through seasons like that? How
do you cope? Not only how do you cope, how do
you thrive? How do you thrive with joy? One man
who did was Horatio Spafford. He was living in
Chicago in the 1870s. In 1871, the Chicago fire
reduced a lot of his investments to ash. It was
a big, serious thing for him. In 1873, his family
decided to go on a holiday to Europe, and Horatio
was going to go with them, but some work stuff
came up, and so he ended up staying home. he'd
go along later and catch up with them. Well,
sadly, the ship they were on crashed, his wife
survived, but his four daughters all died. And
so going on the ship to Europe to be with his
wife, to comfort her, he sat on the ship and
he wrote a hymn. It is well with my soul. and
amazing him, all about the peace and joy that
is found in Jesus that leads us to praise him.
And I sit there and I go, how do you do that?
To find such peace in such immense pain, to find
such peace and joy that it leads you to praise
God. How do you do that? Well, we see the answer
in our passage. As we read Ephesians, we've got
to remember Paul isn't writing this letter at
the, you know, Crystal Brook Riley or something
like that, sitting there with cocktails beachside
by a pool. He's in chains. He's suffering. It's
painful and shameful. It'd be very disheartening
for him. I mean, he had a mission from Jesus
to go take the gospel to the Gentiles. And there
he is now in chains. Be easy to feel pretty despondent.
I mean, if I was in his situation and I was there
writing to the Ephesians, I'd probably start
my letter with, hey guys, pray for me and send
the extraction team, you know? I'd be like, please
do something. But that's not how Paul starts
his letter. Look at how he starts the letter
in verse three. Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing
in Christ. How can he say that? He's been beaten,
mocked, he's in chains, and he's praising God.
Lord, I bless you. That's what he's saying. He's
honouring God. He's praising God. He's delighting
in God. How do you do that? How do you do that
when you're going through such pain? Well, today
I want to show you it's by seeing this. It's
by seeing that God's given us every spiritual
blessing so we should always praise Him. That's
what we need to see. God's given us every spiritual
blessing. He's emptied out his wallet. There's
nothing left spiritually that God can give us.
It's all been given to us in Christ. And that's
why we should always praise Him. We've been blessed
with the best. So these blessings, they give
us peace and joy. And this peace and joy should
go so deep that we praise God. even in the most
dark and painful moments. We see this in the
structure of our passage. So in our passage,
it starts with, praise be to the God and Father,
and as you go through, you notice that there's
this little bit about praise as we hit each member
of the Trinity. So it starts with, praise be
to the God and Father, and then in verse six,
it's to the praise of His glorious grace, and
then it shifts to the Son. And then it goes in
verse 12 to the praise of His glory and then
it shifts to the Holy Spirit and then it finishes
with the Holy Spirit to the praise of His glory.
So in the structure we're meant to be praising
the Trinitarian God. The Trinitarian God is working
as a team to bless us. And so that shapes what
this passage is all about. Here's what it's about.
Three things. Praise God the Father for choosing
us. Praise God the Son for redeeming us and praise
God the Spirit for sealing us. These are the
three things we need to see, the blessings we
have in Christ that lead us to praise Him. So
let's look at the first one. Praise God the Father
for choosing us. Come with me to verses three
to six. who has blessed us in the heavenly realms
with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For
he chose us in him before the creation of the
world, to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his
pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious
grace which he has freely given us in the one
he loves. So it's saying that we've been chosen,
we've been predestined and that this adoption
we have is God's will. Christians were chosen
by God before they ever chose God. Before they
even contemplated choosing Him. He chose you.
Your conversion, do you know who to blame for
it? It's God's fault. It's God's fault that you're
saved. It's God's fault that you're... converted.
We were dead in our sins. We couldn't do anything.
We couldn't even lift a finger to help ourselves.
It's God who chose us, who chose to save us.
And it's not that God used a big telescope, you
know, that God looked down this giant telescope
of time and he went, oh, okay, they're the ones
who are going to choose me. I'll choose them.
No, it's that God chose us. before the world
began. He chose us so that it's His grace, it's
His mercy. I mean, what a privilege. We've been
chosen not just to be saved, but to be adopted.
Did you see that? We're adopted into God's family.
We're loved by Him. He chose us to be part of
His family. It can't get any better than that,
can it? A couple of years ago, we added two new
members to our family. It was Jake's birthday,
and we went out and bought two guinea pigs. I
can't even remember their names. It shows that
we're good parents. But we adopted them. And
I remember I went to buy these two guinea pigs.
I think one of them was, what was it, fluffy?
Snowy and muddy. There we go. Snowy and muddy.
Here's my criteria. As we went out, we looked
around. This lady had like 60 guinea pigs in
her backyard. It was pretty hectic. But I'm looking
at all these guinea pigs and I'm trying to choose
which one would be fluffiest. That was the thing.
That was my criteria. Which one would be the
fluffiest guinea pig, the most cuddly? Because
then they can have the privilege of being ours,
you know, a nice cage and a playpen and food,
you know, but they had to be the fluffiest. We
didn't want any sort of shaggy raggy, no, you
had to be fluffy. But that's not how God does
it, is it? He doesn't go to the lady's backyard
and go, well, there's some people there. Oh,
yeah, they're really nice and awesome. I'm going
to choose them. No, he chooses the undeserving.
and then treats them as if they were his own
son. His adoption is full of mercy and undeserved
love, and it's all his choice. He doesn't go,
who's the fluffiest? He goes, I will choose whoever
I want to choose. And it will always be by grace.
Isn't that amazing? And here's the thing, when
you see that, when you take that to heart, it's
so powerful. especially in our deepest pain.
I mean, let's say as a kid, you had your dad
abandon you as a kid. I mean, that's going to
take a psychological toll on you, isn't it? But
if you're a Christian, you have a father who
chose you, who loves you so deeply, who's adopted
you. That's so incredibly healing, isn't it?
Or maybe you're there and you're plagued by doubt.
What if I fall away and your nails, you have
no nails because you've just bitten them off
so much, you know, you're so stressed about doubt
and you know what? You've got a father who's
holding onto you tighter than you're ever holding
onto him. He's chosen you. He won't lose any
one of his children. And it also keeps us humble.
You know, some Christians have this arrogant
swagger about them. Oh, yes, well, I chose Jesus.
You know, I'm better than that person down the
road because I chose Jesus. No, you only chose
Jesus because God chose you. You've got nothing
to boast in. It keeps you humble and grounded.
Now I know things like predestination and God
choosing us and Him being sovereign over everything.
There are tricky questions that flow out of this.
But I want to say to you, don't avoid the trickiness.
Thinking these things through is awesome. It
gives you great joy and security. Have a look
at what Article 17 of the Anglican Prayer Book
says. It says this, the godly consideration of
predestination and our election in Christ is
full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort.
It's awesome to think these things through. So
I want to ask you today, have you experienced
this comfort? You won't if you never ponder these
things and absorb them deeply within. Maybe as
you're in the car sometime this week, why don't...
chew over these things, chew over these verses,
maybe listen to a podcast on them and consider
how good it is to be chosen by God. But it's
not just the Father choosing us that gives us
peace and joy that leads to praise. The work
of the Son does that too and that's the next
thing we need to see this morning. Praise God
the Father for choosing us but here's the second
thing, praise God the Son for redeeming us. Have
a look with me at verses 7 to 12. In him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins in accordance with the riches of God's
grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom
and understanding he made known to us the mystery
of his will according to his good pleasure which
he purposed in Christ. to be put into effect
when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring
to unity all things in heaven and on earth under
Christ. In Him we were also chosen, having been
predestined according to the plan of Him who
works out everything in conformity with the purpose
of His will, in order that we who were the first
to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise
of His glory. Now, how rich a blessing is this
that we have in Jesus? We have redemption and
forgiveness. Think Israel, when they're there
in slavery in Egypt, slavery under Pharaoh, and
what happens? God sends the plagues and the Passover
lamb, the Passover lamb who dies, so that God's
judgment would pass over Israel, and they end
up being freed. And that's like what Jesus does
with us. He's freed us from sin. He's our Passover
lamb who's died so that God's judgment would
pass over us. He paid the ultimate price like
a ransom to rescue us and He's forgiven us fully
of all our sins. And not only that, we know God's
plan. If you're a Christian, you know where the
universe is going. You know that all things are
going to be united in Christ. We live in a fragney
verse at the moment, not a universe. It's fragmented
by sin and brokenness. But we know that it's
all going to be united one day in Jesus. And
we've been chosen, we've been made heirs, we've
got an allotment for an inheritance. Our inheritance
is going to be that universe. That's our hope,
is that we get to share in the new creation with
Jesus. Jesus, God the Son, won all this by His
death on the cross. He suffered horribly. He
suffered hell on the cross so that all this could
be yours. I might have mentioned before about
John Paul Getty. He was an oil tycoon and many
years ago his grandson got kidnapped and the
kidnappers demanded a $17 million ransom. He
refused to pay. John Paul Getty was a very stingy
man and so they sent the severed ear of his grandson
to him. You'd think at that point you'd go, all
right, all right, I'll pay. No, he proceeded
to negotiate with them until he negotiated them
down to 2 .2 million dollars. That's just messed
up, isn't it? But contrast that with Jesus, who
gives his life as a ransom for us. He endured
the worst pain imaginable. He was willing to
pay any cost. to bear God's wrath for us. You're
free from sin. One day you'll enter the promised
land and it's all because Jesus paid that for
you. Isn't that awesome? Now if you see that
Jesus has done that for you, if you take that
to heart, You're going to feel incredibly loved,
aren't you, no matter what circumstances you're
going through. Horatio Spafford, I reckon the
best verse in the whole hymn of It Is Well With
My Soul is this one. He says, my sin, oh the
bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in
part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and
I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the
Lord, oh my soul. Despite everything he went
through, in the horrors of the fires, losing
so much of his wealth, in the horrors of losing
his four daughters, he could still write that
and sing that. Because he could still see how
loved he was in Jesus and how blessed he was
in him. And it's the same for us. All our sin
has been paid for. We have this glorious hope
in Jesus of eternal life. We know we're saved.
I want you to think of those dark times where
you've been crushed by guilt or overwhelmed by
the hopelessness and despair of horrible circumstances.
The sort of times that keep you up at 3 a .m.
at night and your hearts in absolute anguish.
And it just feels like you've run out of tears.
Well, it's these realities, these realities here
that will comfort you and calm you in those times.
It's when you draw to your mind, oh yes, I'm
redeemed and I'm forgiven. I can't out sin the
Saviour. When you let that sink in, it changes
your outlook. Or when something's going horribly
wrong with your health, with your work, with
your marriage, with your kids, whatever it is,
you can go, oh, that's right, I know where it's
all going. I know that one day I'm going to be
part of that united universe of glory in Jesus.
I know where it's headed. This is not the last
word on things. I'm going to keep remembering
that. See, when we're in guilt, when our circumstances
are, painful, whatever it might be, we've got
to take our eyes off those things and lift them
on to Jesus. To see again the blessings we have
in Christ, not just the dark times, but to see
what we have in Him. And to see it not just in
the dark times, but all the time that we have
that in Him. That's the key to peace and joy
in the Christian life. But there's one more way
in which we are incredibly blessed that we need
to see. Here's the third way. Praise God the
Son for redeeming us, and here's the third thing,
praise God the Spirit for sealing us. Have a
look with me at verses 13 to 14. And you also
were included in Christ when you heard the message
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. when
you believed you were marked in Him with a seal,
the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing
our inheritance until the redemption of those
who are God's possession to the praise of His
glory." So you've been marked with a seal, you've
got a deposit. It's trying to fill us with confidence
here that these blessings are ours, that we belong
to God. And more than that, there are four tastes
of the spiritual blessings that are ours in eternity.
In Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit, and He transforms
us so that we more and more reflect heaven's
glory. God's Spirit is the entrée of glory. He's
the deposit that confirms that glory is ours.
Over the years, Laura and I have bought and sold
a few different houses in Perth and then in Broken
Hill, and now we're living here. And you start
to get a feel for the whole process of buying
a house. When you buy a house, you get to that
watershed moment. I find it stresses me out to
no end. It's that point where you place the deposit.
Because when you place the deposit, it's kind
of like there's no going back after that, isn't
there? You only do it if you're really keen.
Here, take my $50 ,000, take my $100 ,000, because
we really want this place. And if you back out,
oh boy, that's like, no, too much is invested,
I'm going to buy it even if it falls apart, you
know. Well, God's Spirit is like that. You know,
God giving you His Spirit shows that God is invested
in you. that He's committed to getting you to
glory. He's giving you a taste, a down payment
of glory in His Spirit so that you can know,
yes, glory will be mine one day. And the amazing
thing God's Spirit does as we believe the Gospel
is He uses the things that we're going through
in our life, our suffering, to refine us. to
make us more like Jesus, to make us more joyful.
That's part of what the down payment is about.
We can be heavenly people even in hellish suffering.
I think back to a dear friend of mine in Geraldton
who had one of the hardest lives I'd ever seen.
Her daughter had been hit by a car. at a very
young age and she spent much of her life caring
for her daughter. And people, she copped it from
people and people blamed her for that and all
sorts of things. It was just horrible. It wasn't
her fault at all. But this lovely woman was so
caring and kind. Immensely generous. And you'd
think suffering like that would make you bitter
and resentful. But with her it didn't. It made
her loving and heavenly. Because God's Spirit
kept her through that suffering and even used
it to make her more like Jesus. And God's Spirit
does that with all God's people. Sometimes our
suffering, especially chronic suffering, just
tears us down and makes us want to give up. But
that's why we need to keep our eyes fixed on
the blessings we have in Christ. That's why we
need to occasionally look in the rear view mirror
and go, wow, I've been through this suffering
for ages and God's Spirit has kept me through
this and has moulded me into something different
through this. Isn't that amazing? And that gives
you the confidence to keep going, that God will
lead you to glory. We need to try and see our
pain not just as an obstacle, but as an opportunity.
An opportunity to grow in Christ -likeness and
joy, and to grow in our confidence that glory
is truly ours. Do you stop and see things like
that when you're in pain? I find it hard. It's
so easy to focus on the pain, isn't it? But I
forget to focus on the blessings in Christ. Well,
let's wrap up. We started by asking, how can
we have peace and joy in immense pain? Such peace
and joy that it leads us to praise God in the
pain. And the answer we saw was the blessings
given to us by the Trinitarian God. We praise
God the Father for choosing us. We praise God
the Son for redeeming us, and we praise God the
Spirit for sealing us. And here's the overarching
thing, the big key to all of this. God's given
us every spiritual blessing, so we should always
praise Him. God's given us every spiritual blessing,
so we should always praise Him. Now, how does
this apply to our lives, our daily lives, you
know, what you're going to do today and tomorrow
morning? Well, for some of us here, we don't
actually have these blessings. Some of us aren't
yet Christians. And if that's you, I want to
ask you, do you want to keep living without these
amazing blessings? And I hope the answer is no.
And if the answer is no, if you want these blessings,
here's what you do. If you're ready to turn to
Jesus, come have a chat with me after church.
I'll pray with you. I'll be up at the info point.
Come and pray with me and I'll walk you through
it. And if you're not ready, go on a quest to
work it out. Work out what you need answered
to make a decision. It's the best decision you'll
ever make. And again, you can come chat with
me at the info point. I'm very happy to talk
you through that. But for those of us who are
here who already trust in Jesus, who received
these blessings long ago, our danger is that
we forget them. I mean, it's easy normally, but
especially in suffering, it's just so easy to
suffer from spiritual amnesia, isn't it? to stop
remembering Christ and all the blessings He's
given us, all the benefits He's given us, and
we rob ourselves of deep joy, peace, and security
if we forget these blessings. Now if you had
to remember something, if you had to remember
anything, how do you go about it? You know, Laura
often says to me, Can you go to the shops and
get, you know, milk, bread and cheese? And I'll
go to the shops and I'll go, what was I getting?
Tacos? Meat? Like, I have a terrible memory.
So what do I have to do? I put reminders in my
phone. Sometimes to remember things I put a post
-it note on the mirror or on my desk. I rehearse
things in the car. I do those things so that
I remember things that are important. Well, these
blessings are so important. We need to find ways
to rehearse them, to remind ourselves of them.
What way could you do that? See, we need to do
it because they change how we see everything,
how we see ourselves, how we see God, how we
see our circumstances. And when we take them
to heart, not only does it give us joy, peace
and security, it makes us want to praise God.
We need them to reshape our perspective. Will
you find ways to remember these blessings? Yet
with all that said, I want to give two words
of caution. We need to make sure we feel our
pain before we reframe things and see these blessings.
If we don't feel our pain first, if we don't
allow ourselves that process to feel the pain
of our circumstances and our suffering, do you
know what our feelings are like? They're like
a tourist in another country who doesn't get
heard. You know what they do? Do you take card?
And they don't speak English, and so they go,
I know, I'll just try louder. Do you take card?
And that's what tourists in other countries do
when they're misheard, don't they? Our feelings
are like that. If we don't let them be heard,
they will just speak louder and louder and louder.
So we need to allow ourselves to feel our pain,
but then we reframe. We go to these wonderful
truths and let them reshape our perspective.
So make sure you do that process. Allow yourself
to feel the pain and then reframe. My second
word of caution is we mustn't use this passage
like a baseball bat. Be very easy to go around
with this passage and go, oh there's someone
suffering, I'm going to use it to remind them
of their blessings, you know. No, we're to weep
with those who weep, we mourn with those who
mourn. We need to use these truths but use them
sensitively. Otherwise we might push people away
from the comfort. that these wonderful blessings
give. So let's sit with people, let's sit with
them in their pain and when the time is right,
gently remind them of the blessings they have
in Christ. And we need to because these blessings
are so good. They were for me, especially in
that awful year back in 2024. They were a lifeline
when I was drowning in pain. And better than
that, they've provided unimaginable joy, peace
and security throughout my whole Christian life.
Actually, joy, peace and security that's so good,
it leads me to want to praise God. But again,
I so easily forget. I suffer from spiritual amnesia.
And so I need to keep these blessings at the
forefront of my mind. And I think we all do,
don't we? So let's pray that we would. Heavenly
Father, we thank you so much for the amazing
blessings you've given us in Christ. Sometimes
we don't have material blessings, sometimes our
life and our circumstances are incredibly hard.
But we thank you that if we trust in Jesus, we
always have these spiritual blessings. And we
pray, Father, that you would help us to fix our
eyes on them. to find great peace, joy, and security
in them, and that we would see how good they
are, how rich they are, so much so that it would
lead us to praise, worship, and honour you. And
we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.