Was invited to this by our good Pastor Joedy. I know I’m going through the Colossians, but this is going to keep me on my toes.
Leadership Mentoring – Ephesians
facilitated by Ptr Joedy
(Here we go again with Paul’s wonderful compound sentences)
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.Ephesians 1:15-21
As mentioned to the Philippians, Christ is also mentioned here as exalted, far above all principality and power and might and dominion. It’s a common start Paul has to the Epistles, to mention the greatness of Christ and also emphasize His finished and complete work.
What did Christ do? First, Christ accomplished salvation for all of us. Second, Christ established the church, His body, here in this existence and this reality.
Pastor Joedy split his study of the book of Ephesians to 4 parts, ‘Elevated’ (Redeemed), ‘Entwined’ (Unity), ‘Equipped’ (Living the New Man’s life), ‘Empowered’ (Fighting from victory).
The Church, or the Body of Christ, is the Ecclesia. To say that we are the ‘Ecclesia’ is further elaborated on in 1 Peter 2:9-10:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
We are the ‘called-out’ ones. We’ve been brought from darkness into the marvelous light, or into the kingdom of His beloved Son. (as Paul mentioned in Colossians. How about that.)
When we talk about Jesus being the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, consider that, because it was mentioned that we were a royal priesthood, we are the aforementioned kings, and we are the aforementioned lords.
We are His special people, and the authority we’ve been given by way of His authority is for us to testify – rather, to proclaim the praises of Christ, who saved us, who delivered us; to rephrase, Christ, who gave us our salvation, and IS our salvation, and Christ, who established us as the body of Christ, reigning here on earth as we are seated in the heavenly places.
There is emphasis on our role here on earth. The prayer Christ gave the disciples was for His kingdom to come, and for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We’re to establish and enforce the kingdom of God here on earth.
(The way I see it, Christ is God’s will here on earth as in heaven, His finished work God’s kingdom come)
Study focus on Verses 1-9:
3 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, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in HimselfEphesians 1:3-9
Because of Jesus Christ’s finished and complete work, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.
Observations by the rest of the folks in the online meeting: We are adopted, we are chosen. We are forgiven. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit. We are accepted in the beloved.
Paul told the Colossians that they were praying for them, that the knowledge of God’s will would lead to their being established.
Here, I see that Paul prays for the Ephesians to be blessed, having made known to us the mystery of His will. Different wording, but same prayer point.
What’s the common denominator? All of them are spiritual blessings. All of them are free of charge. All of them point to Jesus, and are from Jesus.
Pastor Joedy emphasized that these blessings, the one thing in common in all of them is that they are in the past tense – they have already been given to us. They have already been done and established.
We are therefore secure and confident, knowing that we are not waiting on these things to happen – we are ALREADY accepted in the beloved. We are ALREADY forgiven and chosen. We are ALREADY blessed with every spiritual blessing. Christ’s complete and finished work has us reveling and enjoying all of these, here and now.
How does this impact us? It ought to impact us – our prayers would be different. Our outlook on ourselves and our beings is different. We’d be more joyful – by God’s grace we’re able to speak to Him with joy and gratefulness even when going through problems.
Another fellow said that we aren’t feeling so shameful, we’re more confident in coming to Him, before His throne of grace. We’re not as shy as we probably used to be. To know that we’ve been adopted is to know that we are now sons and daughters of the Most High – and that changes how we talk to Him.
The lady who said we were joyful also added that we have authority, and we are confident that our Father hears us and listens to us.
We’re secure. We have security, we have assurance. I shared that we’re thanking the Lord more, and we’re begging Him less.
There’s no doubt that we’re saved, and because we have the Holy Spirit, we are not going to lose our salvation. The Holy Spirit is the Seal and Guarantee of our salvation.
It’s all in the past tense, and we just continue to thank Him!
And in our expressing thanks, we give all glory and praise to Jesus. We rest in His finished work.
But Pastor Joedy mentioned, that there’s a need for us to clarify ‘rest’; What is this rest? Someone mentioned ‘peace’, and this is true. So is joy, or rejoicing. Rest is also trusting.
On the Seventh Day of Creation, God rested. He didn’t rest because He was tired, He rested because the work has been finished. On the same note, we are resting because the work of Christ, again, is finished and completed.
Note: Only after the crucified Christ said ‘It is finished!’ did He rest His head; Only after did He commit His Spirit to the Father.
Resting doesn’t mean that we don’t do anything; It’s not a passive thing – In Hebrews, we labor to enter His rest, don’t we? No, this resting we’re talking about is not striving to do all these past-tense things that have already been done and given to us by Christ.
We rest by not trying to be accepted, but by our enforcing, our LIVING from the Truth that we have ALREADY been accepted. We rest by not trying to be forgiven, but we work BECAUSE we have been forgiven.
We don’t work to GET blessing, but because we are ALREADY blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places – and, indeed, let His will be done on the earth as it is in heaven!
Putting this together with what I was writing about regarding Colossians – Well, being filled with the knowledge of the will of God is knowing that we’re ALREADY saved, and this has been guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.
It’s knowing that we’ve ALREADY been made fruitful, we’ve ALREADY been strengthened and given wisdom, here and now. It is FINISHED.
Amen.
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