Every Spiritual Blessing: Part 3-2

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. He is the focal point of all time and 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.

Let's continue with the second part of this message. The Apostle Paul gives to us here is what he calls our inheritance. Verse 11, in him also we have obtained an inheritance. What is our inheritance? This is what God has for us.

This is what awaits us. This is why Christ died. This is why He gave His life.

He forfeited His life. He experienced the separation from God so that you and I wouldn't have to, so that we could indeed receive this inheritance. And what is our inheritance? As he mentions a couple of times in this paragraph, it is what is promised in Christ. Our inheritance is this, it is our greatest benefit and our highest pleasure. Our greatest benefit and our highest pleasure, more than anything you can imagine on this earth in terms of benefit and pleasure. What we have in Christ and what we will enjoy with Him is far beyond what we can imagine here. We can only get but a taste of it here.

Why is that? Because we will be in a condition of perfection and absolute goodness. That will be our environment and within us we will have a state of righteousness, righteousness that has been given to us by Christ. And we will have nothing but the desire and the passion to please God and to know Him and to enjoy Him. Think of that.

That is our inheritance. This condition of perfection and absolute goodness. In other words, we will be at a time and a place where everything will be as it ought to be. Everything will be as it ought to be. Now that is a trouble for us here in the world today because we as mere mortals all have a different definition of what that should look like. That is why we need a reference point.

That is why we need an infinite reference point because otherwise we have no way of defining good or how things ought to be. But we will be in a time and place where everything is as it ought to be and you and I will be able to operate at full capacity, spirit, mind and body, operating at full capacity. We will not have the diminished sense of the corruptible fallen flesh. The image of God in us will not be broken. It will be whole and we will be whole beings, body, soul and spirit and we will be fully alive, fully alive. The church father Irenaeus said the glory of God is man fully alive and that is what we will be in the presence of Christ when we are united together with Him.

That is our inheritance. We will have the complete likeness of Christ at that time and John affirms that as well. It has not yet been revealed what we shall be but we know that when He is revealed we shall be like Him. That is God's destiny for us.

It is already set. That is our inheritance. This is what is revealed to us in the scriptures. All things united in Him reconciled to Him perfectly like Him forever with Him.

It is what we are headed for and we have to admit that there is a degree to which that is beyond our imagination right now, isn't it? But this is what God has in store for us. So in the struggles, the brokenness of this world, the disappointments, the despair, the discouragements, death, all of that will become something in the past and our reality in Christ united together with Him will become this inheritance of ours.

As we continue in this text and on this study today I want to point out three important threes. A bit of a theological study, an apologetic study too, but these are truths that we must know from God's Word. It is His self-disclosure and we are bound to the Word of God.

He is our infinite Creator who has made Himself known to us. This is unchangeable truth and so we must know it. We must know it accurately. We must know it as completely as we can.

We must seek to understand it as best we can. Three important threes. The first one is the Trinity in redemption. The triune Godhead, all of Him involved in redemption. And what becomes clear from this passage is whole paragraph, chapter 1, verses 3-14. Number one is that redemption is totally initiated by God.

Totally initiated by God. Verse 11, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. He is in fact a sovereign God. He is absolutely free to do His will.

You and I can't say that. It is His creation, it is His plan. You are in His creation and you are in His plan. It's something we need to understand.

That is a paradigm that every human being needs to come to grips with. And when it says He does, He works all things according to the counsel of His will. That word will there means a desire springing from emotion. So this is something that God is passionate about. He strongly desires this.

But it's not just an emotional outburst. It says He works all things according to the counsel of His will. And that word counsel means that which is governed by reason and planning, deliberation.

It is a well thought through plan. It is God's purpose from before time began. And He's orchestrated it all. And He is leading history to a particular destination.

And yet He does it with great desire and great passion. That is why God is so faithful to His character and His purpose. So the Trinity and redemption, number one, it is all initiated by God. Number two, it is mediated by Christ. That is how we experience the reality.

That is how it is taken from the mind of the artist and put onto the canvas of history where you and I are. It is mediated by Christ. Our redemption, the fact that we in Christ are set free from the bondage and the penalty of sin. That is mediated by Christ. It is based on His sacrifice.

The fact that Christ, the God-man, God who came and invaded our planet. He limited Himself and He came to us and He died on a cross. His body was nailed to a cross. He died. He was buried and He rose again.

These things that happened to an actual person in actual time and space in history. That is the basis of Christianity. And because He has done these things, it makes it possible for us to realize and to claim these truths that God is revealing to us this morning. It is mediated by Christ and that means it necessitates our trust in Him. He is our mediator and it necessitates our trust in Him because this is God's revelation. God makes known to us that which we could not otherwise know.

It is His self-disclosure. God has disclosed Himself to us not only inward but in very person. And so it is necessary for me to trust, to entrust myself to this person who is the mediator of this redemption. This freedom that God has for us.

I must entrust myself to Him. These things cannot be arrived at by mere human reason. Does it require our reason?

Yes it does. We are created in the image of God and we believe using our reason. But if we use merely human reason apart from God's self-disclosure, apart from revelation, we will not arrive at redemption. Man can't come up with this.

Man can't accomplish this. It is God's revelation. It is initiated by God. It is mediated by Christ and that requires our trust. Thirdly, this redemption is experienced by us through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity in redemption. This redemption is experienced through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. It is what we have in verse 13. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed with a Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance. He is the guarantee of our inheritance.

So what is this? The Holy Spirit of promise. The promised Holy Spirit, God indwelling each believer child. As Peter says it, we have become partakers of. We share in the divine nature. Listen, that doesn't make you and me God. But God is willing to share His righteous holy nature with us.

That's amazing when you think about that. And He does so through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. To what end? That we become like Christ. That we think His thoughts. That we follow His steps.

You see, it's not done just by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and checking into your grit and saying, I'm going to do this by God. No, it's done through the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. It's why we're studying the fruit of the Spirit in Sunday School. But we realize His blessing. These blessings where He says He's given us every spiritual blessing. It is realized through the indwelling work and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So redemption is initiated by God. It is mediated by Christ and we experience it through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. 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.