This morning I don't want to focus on our value.
We have a lot of value in Christ.
We know because of the way he loved us and he died for us.
As we sang in the worship this morning, I want to ask this
question of what value is Christ to us?
That's the question of what value is he to us?
Of what value he is to us is evident by how we live.
See, people go to yard sales, flea markets, antique stores and
pick up old stuff, sometimes very cheap.
And once in a while they come across something that may be
cheap, but only to discover later on this actually has a lot
of value. There are things that maybe
don't seem to have any value, but when you start researching,
maybe there's one it's one of it's a rare item maybe or it's a
it's a special item maybe like an old baseball card.
I don't know anything about baseball cards, but I hear some
baseball cards are very expensive or maybe a coin
collection. Coins can be very expensive
because of a rare. There may be a special coin,
maybe paintings. Somebody buys a painting and
finds out, oh, that was a one-of-a-kind or very special
painting. In our sermon this morning we
want to talk about the value. We could talk about the value we
have in God's eyes, but we want to talk about the value we
expressed toward Christ. In John 316 we read how much God
loved us, how much He valued us. God so loved the world, He sent
his only Son, Jesus, who's of infinite value for us.
That's how much he values us. And there's nothing in this
world that we can equal to Christ.
When we think of Jesus Christ, what he did and what he went
through to achieve salvation for us, how much we value that is
evident by how we live. So this morning we want to
consider what we have in Jesus Christ, what we have in him,
what Jesus has in US, what what he gains by having us.
That's maybe a topic for another sermon.
But this morning what we have in Christ, let's focus on that.
Our sermon title is what we have in Christ, What we have in
Christ. Last Sunday we began a new
sermon series out of the book of Ephesians.
We started with how we as God's Saints have been blessed.
We saw that it was God's plan from before time to chose choose
a people, then predestined this people for His glory.
God had a plan for the people. He had created us in His image
and He has a lot more in store for us than just live here, work
here and die. He has a lot more in store than
what we think. He has an eternal plan for us.
And last Sunday we learned that it was God's plan to adopt us,
his children as Saints, as sons, and to for us to then live holy
lives and be blameless. And we learned repeatedly last
Sunday that it's all in him. That's how Paul begins the
letter to the Ephesians. It's all in Christ, all in him.
And this phrase in him is very important.
Last Sunday, I also showed a slide pictures of how different
bodies of water may not be that different on the surface.
They're all flat and you can't really see anything except this
is a body of water. But then once you've dive into
this water, a lake let's say, then it can be very different
one from another. One can be very deep, 1 can be
very shallow, and so on. In our Scripture passage this
morning, we will see at a greater depth what God really
has done for us, His people, His Saints, and we will see what we
have in Christ. That's what we want to look at
this morning. So I want you to take your
phones or your Bibles and read Ephesians chapter 1 beginning
verse 7 to verse 14. It reads this way.
Ephesians 17 to 14. In Him we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to
the riches of His grace, which He made to a bound toward us in
all wisdom and prudence. Having made known to us the
mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of
the times, He might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in Him.
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined
according to the purpose of Him who works all things according
to the council of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ
should be to the glory, praise of His glory.
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation, in whom also you have you, having
believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who
is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption
of the purchase, possession to the praise of His glory.
This is so dense and so tightly packed.
It's heavy, it's deep, it's powerful, and there's no way in
one short sermon we can do justice to all of it.
We could spend a lot of time just in one phrase here, but in
the in the King James Version, which I'm reading, the reference
to Christ is mentioned here 18 times.
He, him and so on. Christ and him and so on.
It's so densely packed that if it was a computer file, we'd say
it's a zip file. You can unzip it and a bunch of
stuff comes out. It may look short, but it's not.
It's like one of those mattresses you buy in a box and
then you bring this heavy box into your house and cut it open.
You can never put it back in the box.
That's how this passage is kind of once you start diving down,
you'll never you see stuff in there that you have never
thought of. It's deep enough for us to never
really fully grasp all of it. But let's, let's do what we can
in our short sermon this morning beginning verse 7 in him Christ,
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace.
Let's look first. Well, it's in him.
That means in Christ we have redemption, forgiveness and
grace. So let's part there.
Let's stop there. So number one, we are redeemed.
Paul begins his comments on redemptions with the phrase in
hymn to be redeemed is a good thing.
It's it's special and it's praiseworthy.
But what makes it all the more special is when what are we
redeemed in him in Christ? Let's put those two together,
redeemed in Christ. That's the qualification there.
Redemption is good, but to be redeemed in what?
In him, it makes it infinitely special, infinitely good.
And what is the purpose of this redemption?
It's to bring back, to restore to its original, to the oneness
that was separated, to bring together everything in Christ
again in him. We will see a little bit later
in verse 10 God's plan to bring it all together, heaven and
earth in him and all in one. The Bible teaches that God
redeemed for himself a people brought together in a community
of love and grace and fellowship and relationship.
This is very different than if God had conquered for himself a
people and overpowered for himself a people.
This is voluntary. It's His will, it's his desire,
it's his design, it's his calling, and we get to respond.
That's the beauty. What's so significant about this
is we couldn't do it ourselves. We can say yes to Him, and
that's as far as it goes. He does the work.
We're brought back from a place where we could not free
ourselves from to illustrate this meaning of the word
redemption. I've tried to find a word
picture that can do somewhat justice to this, and it's hard
to find a good word picture. Last month, Anna and I, we went
to Windsor, to the Devonshire Mall.
There's a good bookstore in there.
And so Anna and I took some of our granddaughters there and we,
I bought a book, They bought some books and I received a 20%
coupon when I bought a book. And I still have that coupon,
but it's outdated now. It's expired.
Anyway, I was thinking about that as I was preparing my
sermon, 20% off and what the coupon in, in, in in effect
means I can redeem $20 out of 100 if I spend 100 bucks there.
In a way, it may almost sound disrespectful or irreverent to
use a coupon word analogy in describing the love of Jesus,
what he's done for us. But there's a point here, a
coupon only represents 20% of what it's going to cost, but I
still have to do the rest. But I get to keep 20% of my
money that I would spend otherwise.
But there's a time frame on it, of course.
You see, when humanity came under the curse of death in the
Garden of Eden, of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, there was
no way out. There was a penalty that had to
be paid. There was no discount.
If you do this, then there's a discount.
Or if you do this much, then God will do the rest.
There's only one way to pay. There's no partial, no marginal,
no what if you do then this you can bargain with companies and
organizations will do this and you deal with God.
It's all or nothing, and with us it's nothing.
All Him. Redemption is a complete and
total 100% payment. It's not you do this much and
the rest will be forgiven. Or you do this much and then
there's a 20% off what you require to pay.
The penalty of sin is death complete and total complete.
There's no coupons, there's no, there's no kind of coverage.
It's all in him. We know from Scripture that our
works have no merit. They don't qualify.
They're not. They have no merit before God,
the Isaiah writes. They're like dirty rags.
There's nothing we can do to compensate for the debt we have
or erase the part of it. Even before God.
Our sins stand between us. They separate us, they remove
us. The cost is life.
That's the equation. There's no human able to present
any kind of coupon, if you will, to repay portion of it.
The Bible clearly says there's no one righteous, not one.
Paul talks about that in Romans, but you know, people try and sad
as it is, they start listing the good things they've done in
their life. And then hopefully the goodwill
overpower over over correct the bad.
And so they have their checklist of good deeds they've always
done. They got baptized and went to
church and gave money and served in Sunday school and all the
rest. And hopefully it outweighs the
bad. When judgment day comes, it's
not how it works. You know what's even worse than
that? You know what's even worse?
They come up with a list of bad things they didn't do.
Not only no, I I may not have done a lot of good hey, but hey,
look at how bad I wasn't. I didn't kill, I didn't steal, I
didn't rob, I all the bad things I didn't do.
Try taking that to the court trying to list the bad things
they haven't done. Imagine getting pulled over for
doing 80 in A50 or in a 40 cop once you write a ticket says
hey, but officer I wasn't doing 100.
Doesn't that count? That would be an insult, and
that's exactly what some people try to hold before God.
Well, I didn't do these bad things, so that should values
that should count for something, right?
No, we are bankrupt and destitute before God.
Redemption has a lot bigger meaning than we give it credit
for. We redeemed in Him.
We have redemption in Him. OK, let's go a little further
now. So what exactly does this
redemption then consist of? What's it made of?
What? What's the property of it?
What was it? Money?
Was it gold? No, the blood of Christ.
We're bought with blood. Now, what's so significant about
blood? Why blood?
Blood is described as the life of of a person in the book of
Genesis. We read that was it's the
carrier of life. When the blood is gone, life is
gone. The people of Israel, in their
day, they were not allowed to eat meat that had blood in it.
The life is in the blood. The Bible says so because life
was in the blood, people were not allowed to eat animal meat
that had blood in it. There's a verse in Deuteronomy I
want to read. The writer says only be sure
that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life.
You may not eat the life with the meat.
You shall not eat it. You shall pour it on the earth
like water. It had sacrificial value.
When sin was committed, the person had to offer sacrifice,
an animal sacrifice for their sin.
The animal had to be killed. The blood poured on the earth to
atone for the sin that had been committed.
The blood was not a true cleansing.
We find in the book of Hebrews that sacrificing animals was
only a foreshadow of what was to come, to be a reminder that sin
equals death. That's the equation.
It was, and then it was. Christ's death on the cross that
God planned would be the full sin payment for the world.
And how this payment works is that all of humanity's sins come
under the blood of Christ. There's no one who can say, well
Jesus died for part of my sins, not for all of them.
For Jesus death to apply to my sins, I have to give my life to
Christ. I have to repent, I have to
surrender, give myself to Christ.
I have to believe he's God's Son who came into this world to save
sinners. Then He must put my faith in
Him, trust Him, repent of my sins.
Well, OK, that's now we know it's we're redeemed by the
blood. What did it do?
Let's go further. Second point.
We're forgiven. That's what it accomplishes.
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is a much bigger,
broader, deeper thing than we often think of.
Forgiveness only works if someone is willing to pay for
something. To be forgiven, someone has to
be willing to lose something or get nothing in return.
Listen, every time something's forgiven, someone does the
paying the forgiver. The forgiver does the paying,
the forgiven does the benefiting.
We have to understand that. Let me explain this way.
Let's say you stole an expensive tool from your neighbor.
You could say, oh, I'm sorry I stole your, your drill or your
your tools, whatever. I'm sorry.
Here, here, there, I, I here. I'm giving them back.
That would settle the act of the theft, but that would still not
restore the trust. He might forgive you, meaning,
oh, I want 2 tools and and as as payment.
He could demand that. But let's say he doesn't.
It still does not unhappen what happened.
It still does not undo what you did or undoes the ACT.
You can, you can give back the tool, sure, but he may never
trust you again. The material value can be
straightened out, but that's not the real issue.
The heart is the issue. What happened?
The damaged trust takes time to rebuild.
If it can be rebuilt, it takes forgiveness on the part who was
robbed, who was hurt. Let's go a little bit deeper on
this one. Let's say it's a moral sin where
spouse has been unfaithful, has committed adultery.
How does one deal with that? Suppose someone would say and
apologize and ask for forgiveness.
Can you forgive me for what I did?
You say, well, yes, I forgive you, but it's so much bigger
than that. How do you deal with it?
It can't be paid by any kind of undoing.
It's impossible to pay for something like that.
Those pains can never be fixed. The emotional pain, the
rejection, betrayal cannot be undone by the one who committed
the sin. It can be taken on, absorbed,
taken in by the one who it was done to.
In other words, it can only be paid by the one it was done to.
Suppose someone might say, well, it was done to me, but I'm not
going to pay. No, you don't have to.
You don't have to forgive. That's a choice.
But that means that person who won't forgive then has to deal
with the bitterness, the resentment, the anger, the
unforgiveness in their own heart.
And yes, that gets very different, very difficult and
very complicated. I've learned in counseling,
ministry and training. One counselor put it this way.
He said when a person asked for forgiveness, the person may be
sorry for what they did, but often they don't know what
they're asking for. A true and sometimes better way
to ask for forgiveness would be to say it this way.
Let's say a spouse has been unfaithful and now the spouse is
sorry. The spouse wants to be forgiven.
The spouse could say I sinned when I was unfaithful to you,
causing you to experience pain through my betrayal and
rejection of our covenant and of you.
I'm sorry, would you choose to pay for the pain I caused you?
Would you be willing to pay from a sin of portrayal and and
adultery? Would you be willing to pay for
the rest of your life as long as you live?
That is the true statement. That is an accurate description
of what it means. Because it can't be undone.
I recently said in the service here that CS Lewis once said
every sin in its own right is a fresh fountain of evil flowing
on to the end of time. Even though forgiveness happens,
there's still that ongoing residue of pain Christ suffered
for us, and if we can experience emotional pain, so can He, much
more than we. We live in a fallen world and we
know sin happens all the time. We must live repentant lives.
But the scars remain. Even Jesus, He still carries the
scars of the nails and the spear wound.
In Christ, in him, we have this forgiveness.
He took the payment, is taking the payment, and is carrying the
payment. To benefit from this, we then
also must extend it. This is going a bit beyond the
passage here, but this is this is self-explanatory.
How much that forgiveness is worth to us is evident, but how
willingly we extended to others. Every wrong that's done must be
forgiven and God has forgiven it through Christ.
Sin can only be forgiven if there is a forgiver and with us
that is Jesus. How special is that?
Paul says we have redemption through his blood.
The forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is when the guilty 1
doesn't have to pay. The debt is made, the debt is
paid, The one who who has done too does the paying.
Martin King. Martin Luther King Junior was
quoted as having said this. Forgiveness is not an occasional
act. It is a permanent attitude.
That which I was not but could have been, that which I would
have done but did not do. Can I find the fortitude to
remember in truth, to understand, to submit, to
forgive and be free to move on in time?
To forgive someone for the wrong that person has done is to
release that person and no longer hold that person
accountable or responsible and expect payment.
I'm not talking about rebuilding trust at this point.
That can be done later. But we have to forgive.
The principle. Principle of forgiveness is one
of the most needed things in the world today.
If people could forgive, how much pain and struggle would
people be spared from? There's a story of Corey 10.
Boom. Some of you know the story of
this woman. She and her sister Betsy, with
their father, lived in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands
and Holland. During the years of the Second
World War. The Nazis overran Western Europe
and Eastern Europe for that matter.
They overran the whole of Europe, the European continent,
pretty much. And they were on a mission to
exterminate all the Jews and the 10 Boom family in Amsterdam,
they were Christians. And they decided, no, we're not
going to go along with that. We're going to protect Jews.
And so they hid Jews and they helped them escape and so on.
And they did it for a long time. But one day they got reported to
the German authorities, and, of course, they were apprehended.
They were arrested and sent off to a concentration camp called
Robbins Brooke. Mr. 10 Boom didn't survive much
beyond his arrest. A few days after, some days
after he was, he died. He passed away.
But Corey and her sister Betsy went to the concentration camp
and it was brutal there. It was horrific.
The, the, the, the guards, the, the brutality, the cruelty, the
murder, the the just the Jews. Jews are being exterminated.
And it was just awful. In the process of time in the
camp, Betsy died. Corey survived.
Eventually there was the Allied invasion of Western Europe and
they invaded and pushed the Germans back and eventually took
the country back pushing the Germans.
E prisoners were liberated from the concentration camps, and
Corey survived. And in time, she was able to
share her story of survival and God's grace to her in this
horrible ordeal. And she began traveling
internationally and on the European continent and so on.
And she would talk in churches, tell her story of God's mercy
and forgiveness, how important it was to forgive even the worst
of sinners. One day, Corey shared her story
in a church, and after she had finished sharing her message of
grace and forgiveness, people came up to her shaking her hand
and wishing, you know, thanking her for, for this wonderful
story of God's mercy and grace and forgiveness.
And then she sees a man coming up to extending his hand and
saying to her, the Lord has washed my heart too, and I
received his forgiveness, too. He didn't know who she was, but
she instantly recognized him. A former Robbins Brook
concentration camp guard. She recognized him, He did not
recognize her. She writes how in that instant
she had to fight, and then she prayed.
God, if you can forgive me a Sinner, then give me the
strength to forgive this man. And her hand wouldn't come up,
but when she prayed, she was able to stretch out her hand and
extend this man, this man's hand, who was thanking her for
her speech. It was tested.
Forgiveness is a way of life. God is a God who forgives
through Christ, through the blood of Christ.
It is through Christ that we have this gift.
It's in him. We're forgiven through His blood
that was shed on the cross. But you see, if it ended there,
that's one thing, but it gets better.
Redemption and forgiveness with God is not an end in itself.
It has a higher purpose. Forgiveness is not where it
stops. There's something that follows
being redeemed and forgiveness is a good thing, but there's a
bigger reason behind it. We redeem for a purpose.
We're forgiven for a purpose, and it's not self.
God did this generously for us. He has a purpose for this beyond
just the redemption itself. Paul writes further in verse 9
to 10. Let's read that again.
Having made known to us the mystery of His will, according
to His good pleasure, which he proposed in himself, that in the
dispensation of the fullness of the times, He might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are on earth. Get it in Him at creation, there
was no separation in the Garden of Eden between God and Adam and
Eve. Everything was in God.
There was perfection. There was perfect harmony.
There was perfect relationship. Now Paul says that's where it's
going in him. We see again the relational
component here. He's holy.
He wants holy followers. He wants us united in Him with
all that we are and all that we do.
And it's was because God, because God wants us in him,
that he redeemed us, forgave us, and has a plan for us.
We see that God takes pleasure in his plan, what he wants to
accomplish, and bringing together all things in Christ.
There's a coming together here, Paul says, in heaven and on
earth. It doesn't get better than that,
folks. God's character is to love, to
create, to take pleasure in what He does, and He wants us in on
it in the process. He wants His people, His
creation, to be part of this enjoyment in Him.
And it's by doing what we're made to do that we as people
find our deepest satisfaction. Let's look further at the depths
of this and the heights of this. Then Paul expands.
Let's keep going. We are given an inheritance in
him. Also verse 11, let's read and
him also we've obtained an inheritance being predestined
according to the purpose of him who works all things according
to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ
should be to the praise of his glory again in him.
Get it? There's that relationship part
again and him we've obtained an inheritance.
It's important to remind us here that this is again a complete
and total act of grace from God towards us.
We did not deserve anything from him, but God, because of who he
is, gave us an inheritance. We, as God's children, become
heirs with Christ, Paul writes in Romans.
We're to enjoy an eternal, everlasting relationship with
him, in him, with all the blessings he's planned for his
chosen ones, and that begins here now and will continue in
all eternity. That's the destiny, Paul writes.
This is what we're predestined for.
This inheritance we have in Jesus is a gift, not a reward,
not a coupon, not a payment, not for credit earned.
It is free. Sometimes people may think, oh,
I've served so and so long, volunteered so and so long.
They owe me by now. That's not the good mindset.
That's not the right mindset. To some people, everything's a
deal, an agreement and a bargain.
To God, it's just generosity. That's his character.
You see, friends, there's no measure of earthly value that we
can bring to the table that would even be worth mentioning
before God compared to what He's done for us and what we have in
Him. It's not earned, it's not worked
for, it's not wealth passed on from to earthly people.
It's an eternal inheritance based on Him who's passing it on
to us. Then fourthly, we're sealed.
Guaranteed. There's no doubt it is sure.
Verse 13 and on He says in him you also trusted after you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
In Him also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit
of promise, who's the guarantee of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his
glory. Notice the sequence here.
They heard the word of truth, they trusted, they believed, and
they were sealed. That's us.
We've heard the word of truth, we've trusted, we've believed,
and we're sealed in him. I've had conversations with
people who have repented, who believed in walking with God for
many years and all of a sudden they doubt.
They go into a valley, into a dark night of the soul.
They're wondering, am I still saved?
I tell them God is not a God who wanted to saves people the next
day that rejects them. Let me remind you our salvation
in Jesus is relationship based. We repeatedly read in him.
That's the relationship context. I know sometimes the question
becomes how secure am I in Christ?
I have news for you. In Christ we're 100% secure.
Not 99% secure, it's 100%. We don't have to worry about
that. Jesus talks about people being
in him and he in them. John chapter 15 to help
believers who are struggling and question their salvation.
I sometimes use the word picture like a marriage license, for
example. I tell a guy, so you got
married, you signed the license, you pronounced husband and wife.
What part of that are you not sure of?
And it's kind of OK, I guess I've sometimes said to a man
who's a believer, who's walking with the Lord, who's doubting
his salvation and said, do you go home and come to your house
running? Hey, honey, am I still married
to you? If you have to show ID, you
don't hesitate to show your health card or your driver's
license or your passport. I'm hoping it's still valid.
Does that now mean there's no need on our part for loyalty or
faithfulness? No, it's not what I'm saying to
people who are careless, proud and arrogant.
Once Upon a time I said the sinner's prayer, so the rest I
don't have to think about. That's not true.
Relationships can be violated. Jesus will never violate his
relationship with a person. But a person can't violate their
relationship with Jesus. And we have enough warning, tons
of it in Scripture, where we're cautioned, where we're warned.
It can be compromised. Covenants can be broken.
We can turn our back on God, but Jesus will never walk away from
us. He gives us insurance.
In him we're safe. To me, when I see a follower of
Jesus who's anxious and worried, perhaps they've walked away from
God. I usually don't worry about a
person like that. And I tell them that they're
secure in Christ. They're not walking where
they're chasing after God. That's why they're anxious
sometimes. They're seeking God.
They're fighting to stay close to Him.
They're not the kind of people that worry me.
God will never disown them. They're fighting a battle
against Satan, and Satan's trying to get him down, but
nothing can remove them from God.
But people that do worry me are those who smugly talk about, Oh
yeah, when I was 6, I became a believer.
I gave my life to Jesus Christ. And so now they live an outright
rebellion and apostasy and sin, and there's no repentance.
They've gone back into the life they once left.
They call it good. It's not.
They need to repent. God has done and is doing
everything that's necessary for us to come to salvation, for us
to remain in Him, for us to enjoy the inheritance He has for
us. But it's a gift that we must
receive. Let's wrap up.
In Christ we have redemption. In Christ, we're forgiven.
In Christ, we have an inheritance.
In Christ, we're sealed. Value it, enjoy it, live it.
The gifts we have in Jesus surpass and value anything the
world can ever produce. God created us in his image for
his glory. Genesis says to reflect him what
God is and should be seen in US. And it's a sad reality and a sad
truth that so many people who claim the name of Christ go to
church on Sunday mornings. But then other than that,
there's not a shred of evidence that has any value or meaning.
They treat the relationship of God with God as if it's cheap, A
cheap yard sale item, a cheap flea market item.
So the question we could ask ourselves is if my relationship
with Jesus is secondary isn't real.
Many people claim to be followers of Jesus.
There's no evidence. There's nothing that points to
Christ. So where do we stand today?
Have you experienced this grace, tasted and experienced the grace
of God? Has God called you and to walk
with Him? If he has, don't waste time and
delay. Our time on earth is short if
we're in him. If we're in Christ, we're
redeemed, we're forgiven, we have an inheritance, and we're
sealed. We're secure.
So now let's rejoice in that. Let's live in that.
And may God's Kingdom on earth come as we live in Him.
Let's pray or thank you for what you've done for us in the cross.
Thank you for the gifts we have in you.
We have forgiveness of sins because of what you did for us,
we have a relationship with you that's secure because of what
you did for us, and we have an eternal life because of what you
did for us. Thank you Lord, we pray in Jesus
name, Amen.