Every Spiritual Blessing: Part 3-4

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.

In his message titled Every Spiritual Blessing, Part 3, Pastor Rich reminds us that Christ is our greatest benefit and pleasure. A day is coming when God will bring all things back to the main point. The main point is not a concept, but a person, our Savior Jesus Christ. You see, truth is not just a concept. Truth isn't just a list of facts. Truth isn't just data. Truth is a person.

That person has a name. He is the focal point of all time in history. For Christians, a clear understanding of our current status and our future inheritance in Christ equips us to live for Him with a confident joy and hope today. You don't bring God into your world and your existence. God has brought you into His. All things were created by Him and for Him.

We are picking up today in the fourth and final part of this message. If truth wasn't exclusive, there would be no such thing as truth. If truth is exclusive, that means that there is that which is false.

How do we know that truth is exclusive? Well, we need to go back to verse 10, that He might gather together in one all things in Christ, all things united in Him. He is the point of reality. Truth is exclusive because all of this is done by His counsel according to His will.

It's His plan. Listen, it's His universe. He is the one that created and established reality with a specific plan and a specific purpose. He brought you into it. He brought you into it. You don't bring God into your world and your existence. That is a delusion of a fallen created being. You don't bring God into your world and your existence. God has brought you into His.

All things were created by Him and for Him. That's reality in a nutshell right there. And until any person comes to grips with that truth, they're not going to be able to make sense of everything that's going on.

Life and death. You see, truth is not just a concept. Truth isn't just a list of facts. Truth isn't just data. Truth is a person.

That person has a name. Truth is exclusive. And truth is derived from His character and His purpose. You can have your opinions, but you cannot have your own truth.

Not possible. Truth is exclusive. So a point of emphasis here is the exclusiveness of truth.

Let me mention a second one here. The second point of emphasis is the inclusiveness of the Gospel. The inclusiveness of the Gospel. I want you to look at some pronouns with me beginning at verse 12. That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

What is Paul referring to there? The we in verse 12 refers to the Jews. As Jesus said, John 4, salvation is of the Jews.

What does he mean by that? God's plan of salvation is through Messiah and Messiah came through the Jewish nation. And they were the ones to whom the Gospel was preached first. Paul was a Jew.

All the apostles were Jews. And they were the ones who preached the Gospel. They were the ones who first trusted in Christ to the praise of His glory. To the praise of His glory. That was the whole purpose of their proclaiming the message of the Gospel to the praise of His glory. This was a purpose that was described all the way back in Isaiah chapter 43. The people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.

Listen folks, listen to me please. That is the essence of evangelism. It's not trying to convince people about spiritual facts. It's not trying to convince people that there is a God. The essence of evangelism is declaring His praise. Please learn that. And let yourself be freed from the clutches of fear. Thinking that you have to convince people that you're right.

No. Evangelism is declaring His praise. Verse 1, 8, you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Sumeria to the end of the earth.

First Peter 2, 9, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation of people for His own possession that you may what? Convince people that there is a God. Know that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. That is the single most powerful apologetic. The Gospel lived. You enjoying God and finding your satisfaction in Him is the single most powerful apologetic.

That's what we're called to. You see, in us, others will see the satisfying goodness of God. And that is why Paul continues with another pronoun in verse 13. Verse 12, we, the Jews, who first heard the Gospel and trusted Christ, verse 13, in Him you also trusted after you heard the Word of Truth in the Gospel of your salvation. That's the Gentiles.

This is nations. They learned the Word of Truth. They heard the Word of God.

They surrendered themselves to it. And this is available to all people. All people.

It is not limited by any human distinction. That is the inclusiveness of the Gospel of grace. And then the third one is the certainty of our hope. The certainty of our hope. God gives Himself to us yet again through the indwelling Holy Spirit. It says we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. That means we are secured.

We are guaranteed safe arrival at destination. Something that is sealed, that is the last thing that happens to it before it arrives at destination. He also speaks of the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. This is the word.

It means down payment. We have a taste of our inheritance now in the newness that He has created in us. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. But that is just a taste of this inheritance that God has for us.

And the Holy Spirit is that guarantee. The down payment implying that full payment, if you will, is coming later. But also this is a predestined inheritance.

The inheritance there is a portion of land that is assigned to an individual, to an heir. Our home is fixed for us. This is not one of those things where God says, okay, you are my child. Now let's set you out to sea and see where this takes you.

No. It is a fixed thing. Our destiny is fixed. The writer of Hebrews talks about it like an anchor of the soul. And that is like in a stormy harbor. There is a rope that goes out with an anchor all the way to shore. And that rope is what pulls the boat in. And Jesus Christ is that forerunner, to use the language of Hebrews 6.

Jesus Christ is our forerunner. He is the anchor. And our boat will be pulled into shore regardless of the storm that's going around us now. It's a fixed destiny. And it's not up to me to get there.

Aren't you glad for that? Two things I want you to think about as we conclude this morning. Number one, the realization of these truths that we've mentioned this morning requires your trust.

The grace that God has lavished on us is not a man-made thing. It is His work. Yours is but to surrender and entrust yourself to it. Please heed that. Listen. Your autonomy is your ruin. This requires your surrendered trust. Your autonomy is your ruin. Second point in conclusion that I want you to think about. What you believe about the future controls how you experience the present.

I'm going to borrow this from Tim Keller in his book, Making Sense of God. In conclusion, you have two women of the same age, the same socioeconomic status, the same educational level, and even the same temperament. You hire both and say to each, you are part of an assembly line and I want you to put part A into slot B and then hand what you have assembled to someone else. I want you to do that over and over for eight hours a day. You put these two women in identical rooms with identical lighting, temperature, and ventilation, you give them the very same number of breaks in a day. It is very boring work.

Their conditions are the same in every way except one difference. You tell the first woman that at the end of the year you will pay her $30,000 and you tell the second woman that at the end of the year you will pay her $30 million. After a couple of weeks, the first woman will be saying, isn't this tedious? Isn't it driving you insane? What's you thinking about quitting? And the second woman will say, no, this is perfectly acceptable.

In fact, I whistle while I work. What's going on here? You have two human beings who are experiencing identical circumstances in radically different ways.

What makes the difference? It is their expectation of the future. What we believe about our future completely controls how we are experiencing our present.

We are irreducibly hope-based creatures. And so I commend to you this morning, people, Ephesians 1, 3 to 14, every spiritual blessing. This is who God is and this is what he has for you.

What are you doing with that? We will just conclude with a word of prayer now and forego the closing song. But I do want you to contemplate these things. This is the word of God. It is the self-disclosure of your infinite creator, Redeemer. We are bound to these truths, whether right now you choose to believe them or not. We are bound to them. This is truth.

This is reality. This is God. May he work in our hearts to draw us to trust in him and surrender ourselves to him. May he work in our hearts to rest our hope in him fully so that based on what we expect in the future controls how we experience today with every spiritual blessing. Father, thank you for your love. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your revelation, your self-disclosure to us. Thank you for these spiritual blessings that you have lavished upon us. Take these truths, Father, plant them deep in us in shape and fashion us in your likeness. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. You've been listening to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, lead pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Visit our church website to see upcoming events or to listen to more messages at www.gbcwinston.com. To discover how to live by grace, tune in with us on weekdays at 10 a.m.