Ephesians 1:7-10
Date: September 15th
Speaker: Sam Crites
Scripture: Ephesians 1:7-10
Exegetical Outline
MIT: The Father’s eternal plan has been revealed, namely, to forgive sins by the sacrifice of Christ and unite his people to Christ in the Church.
7-8: The Father has graciously forgiven the sins of his people because they have been redeemed by the sacrifice of his Son.
9-10: The mysterious plan of God has now been revealed to both save his people through redemption and to unite them to Christ in the Church.
9: Through the redemption of Christ, God’s eternal plan is now made known.
10: God’s plan has always been to unite his people to Christ in the Church.
Homiletical Outline
MIS: The sacrifice of the Son redeems us and unites us to the Father in the Church.
The sacrifice of Christ redeems the Church from the Father because it allows the Father to forgive our sins.
The sacrifice of Christ unites the Church to Christ, and by Christ to the Father.
Introduction:
How many times have you asked God to forgive you? I know, because I have talked to you, that some of us wonder if he will ever grow weary of our weakness. If, perhaps, the next time that we go and ask him to forgive our sins will be our last chance. Can we ever exhaust God’s patience with us?
We have been studying the first 14 verses in Ephesians, and today, we are going to consider these questions. Let’s read Ephesians 1:7-10 and think together about the redemptive work of Christ and the Father’s forgiveness of sin.
Ephesians 1:7-10
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Why is God able to forgive sins? Have you ever thought about that questions? One of the ways that God has blessed his people is that he has forgiven their sins. In fact, as we have been studying Ephesians 1:3-14, this is one of the five ways that Paul says God has blessed us. Two weeks ago, we saw that God has blessed his people by choosing them in eternity to be holy and blameless before him. Meaning, he has made you righteous before time began. Last week we saw that God, because of the decision that he made, predestined all of time and space to bring about that choice. He ordered history so that you would be adopted to himself as a son or a daughter, and the great price that he paid to accomplish that purpose was the death of his only begotten Son as a payment for your sins.
This week, we will see how that payment works. God’s great plan of election is being played out exactly as he ordained. The Father can forgive your sins because they were paid for by Christ. Once you stand before him, holy and blameless, he can unite you to himself through the body of Christ because of the sacrifice of the Son. You can actually have the paternal relationship you were meant to have with your Creator because he, himself, ransomed you from himself to unite you to himself. This is what we are going to see in our sermon text this week. The main idea of our sermon is this: The sacrifice of the Son redeems us and unites us to the Father in the Church.
If Jesus did not die on a cross and rise from the dead, we are the people who should be the most pitied. Because that would mean that we believe a lie and our hope is unfounded. The sacrificial death of Christ is everything. It is necessary to be redeemed from and forgiven for our sins. It is necessary to be in fellowship with God the Father. The one foundation of the Church is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and him alone.
This is the very clear message in our sermon text. Our sermon will have two points. The first will come right out of verses 7 and 8. We will see that the sacrifice of Christ redeems the Church from the Father because it allows the Father to forgive our sins. One of the challenges with verse 7 is identifying which pronouns belong to the Father and which belong to the Son. The first “him” in verse 7 refers to the Son. He is the beloved. In Christ, we have redemption. The role of the Son in the salvation of the Godhead was to be the sacrifice for our sins. He became like us in every way, yet without sin, so that he could hang in our place and die the death that we deserve.
His death and resurrection purchased for us forgiveness for our sins. But forgiveness from whom? The forgiveness of the third pronoun in the verse, “according to the riches of ‘his’ grace”. As we have seen, the riches of grace are poured out on us by the Father. The Father forgives because the Son has paid the penalty for sin. It must be this way or God is not just. There must be a payment for sin or forgiveness is not possible. Redemption is a bloody work that allows for the beautiful work of merciful forgiveness and we will see this in verses 7 and 8.
But the work of redemption does not just secure the Father’s forgiveness, it makes known a greater plan than merely allowing you to escape your punishment for sins. In verse 9 and 10 we will learn the second thing about redemption, namely, that the sacrifice of Christ unites the Church to Christ, and by Christ to the Father. A relationship with God is only possible because of the redemption offered in Christ and only accomplished through the body of Christ, his Church. We are united to the Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit that is in the Church, and in doing this, God has accomplished in time what he purposed outside of time in eternity passed. In the body of Christ, he has united heaven and earth by the redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus.
Remember, Paul is teaching us the deep truth about salvation. His target is not actually our minds but our hearts. He wants us to bless the God who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. How can you adequately bless the Father for his kindness when you don’t know what it cost him to give it to you? The value of God’s grace is measured in costliness of price. The sacrifice of his only begotten Son means that you, his people, are infinitely precious and valuable to him. He loves you with a love you can only begin to imagine. Ephesians 1:7-10 is about the sacrifice of the Son as he redeems us and unites us to the Father in the Church.
The sacrifice of Christ redeems the Church from the Father because it allows the Father to forgive our sins.
Let’s look at our first point together. We owed God a great debt for the offenses and infractions we have committed against him. We were responsible to pay a penalty to a holy Father who is a just judge. Were God to simply forgive sins, it would not demonstrate his goodness, but would fundamentally be an act of injustice. The first thing that we will see in verses 7 and 8 is that the sacrifice of Christ redeems the Church from the Father because it allows the Father to forgive our sins. Salvation is the act of God saving man from God. Let’s see that in verses 7 and 8. Read with me one more time.
Ephesians 1:7-8
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
The sacrifice of Christ redeemed the people of God. What does that mean? What does it mean to redeem something?
One of the shows that I loved watching when I was younger was Pawn Stars. I always thought pawning an item was just a fancy term for selling something at a place that was known for buying almost anything from anyone. But actually, that’s not what pawning is. You can go into a pawn shop and sell something, but when you pawn something, you are actually putting a valuable item up as collateral for a short term loan. The whole idea is that if you do not pay back the loan, grandma’s wedding ring becomes the property of the shop and they have the right to sell it to recoup their money.
Redemption is like this. It is the process of going back to the pawn shop and purchasing back what is valuable to you, paying a great price to rescue something or someone from danger. So if Paul is saying that God has blessed us because Christ rescued us from danger, we must ask the question, who is Christ rescuing us from? What was putting us in such great peril that we needed the Second Person of the Trinity to become a man to save us?
The prophet Zephaniah answers this question in Zephaniah 1:14-18:
Zephaniah 1:14-18
14 The great day of the Lord is near,
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;
the mighty man cries aloud there.
15 A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
16 a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities
and against the lofty battlements.
17 I will bring distress on mankind,
so that they shall walk like the blind,
because they have sinned against the Lord;
their blood shall be poured out like dust,
and their flesh like dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold
shall be able to deliver them
on the day of the wrath of the Lord.
In the fire of his jealousy,
all the earth shall be consumed;
for a full and sudden end
he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.
There is a very real and present danger that every person on this earth finds themselves in, namely, that God is angry about sin. His goodness, righteousness, and holiness are offended by our rebellion and transgression. This is a universal problem. Every single person, Romans 3:23, says has fallen short of the glory of God. To be redeemed is to be rescued from that danger, being ransomed from captivity to sin, death, and the grave. God’s blessing is seen in the fact that Christ redeemed us from the imminent danger of the Father’s anger as an act of the Father’s gracious love.
How does that work!? Paul says in verse 7, such a small phrase, but so packed with meaning. He says through his blood. Christ had to sacrifice himself, he had to stand in your place in order to pay the penalty, not for sin in general, but for your sin. He had to personally redeem each person the Father put into his hands.
And we should ask, why did it have to be this way? God is all-powerful and all-knowing. He exists in all time and in all places at the same time and outside of time. If anyone could have come up with a less brutal plan than the sacrificial death of Christ, couldn’t God have done that? Why did the Son have to become the man, Jesus Christ, live a perfect life, die on a cross in our place, and rise from the dead? Why did he have to go through such humiliation?
Because God can’t just forgive sins. Because God’s goodness requires divine justice. Because your sin really is that sinful.
This is a fundamental thing to understand. So many lost people think that God should just forgive sins because he is kind. So I want to state this with absolute clarity. If God merely forgave sins, without the debt for sin being paid, he would not be good, he would be evil. He would not be just, he would be unjust. This is Paul’s point in Romans 3:22-26:
Romans 3:22-26
For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Look closely at the end of verse 25. This, Paul says, that is, the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, was to show God’s righteousness.
You know many would say that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is actually unrighteous. How could a loving and righteous Father sentence his only Son to death? In some sense, some would say that the cross is a profound moment of injustice on God’s part, because he unjustly punished someone that was perfect. They misunderstand salvation. The Father is not forcing the Son, the Son is willing submitting to the Father and agrees with the righteousness of his plan.
This is what Paul is saying. The redemptive work of Jesus Christ demonstrates God’s justice, because the Son knows there has to be a payment for sin, all sin. Not just some sins, not just the sins of the people he doesn’t like. There must be a payment for every single sin of every single person that has ever lived, or God is not just. He is not good. He is not righteous. The payment for sin can either be paid by the sinner or by Christ.
But that doesn’t explain why redemption demonstrates God’s justice. You see, the problem that God has is that up to the point that Christ died on the cross, he had not dealt with all sins equally. For some people, Pharoah, Jezebel, Abimelech, Haman, King Herod, God did not show them mercy. He did right by them and dealt with them justly, according to their sin, and they got the punishment that they deserved. For others, David, Moses, Jacob, and Abraham he was unjustly merciful and kind. He had passed over their sins without dealing the punishment they deserved.
The righteousness of God is demonstrated in the redemptive sacrifice of Christ because all of those former sins that were passed over were paid for in Christ. The grace that he showed the heroes of the Old Testament was purchased in that moment by the Son. At the cross, the goodness of God’s justice and the goodness of his grace meet in perfect harmony.
As we think about what Paul is saying in Ephesians 1:7, we see in summary form what Paul was explaining in greater detail in Romans 3. Ephesians 1:7 is a little more challenging to interpret, because of pronouns. Pronouns are tricky things. A pronoun is a word that stands in for a proper noun to be more efficient and avoid repetition. In English, we were all trained to make certain that the subject of your pronoun is clear. The Greeks were not as careful. Sometimes, they switch between pronouns without making the antecedent, the subject of the pronoun, clear. This is the problem we have in verse 7.
Look at the beginning of verse 7, “In him.” Who is the him? Well, if we look back at verse 6, the “him” is the Beloved one. The Father has predestined us to be adopted to the praise of his glory that is seen in his Beloved or in Christ. So, Christ is the one that is redeeming. The Son is the Person in the Godhead that took on flesh, was like us in every way yet without sin, died in our place, and paid our penalty.
So where does the Father take over? Remember, Paul is describing the work of the Father in salvation. The Son and the Spirit play major roles, but all of Ephesians 1:3-14 is focused on the Father, and it is pretty clear that there is a transition to the Father by the time we get to verse 9. So, at some point between verse 7 and verse 9, Paul’s subject changes from the Son to the Father.
Based on what we learned in Romans 3, I think the transition takes place right in the middle of verse 7 beginning with the phrase “the forgiveness of our trespasses.” As we saw, the Father is the justifier. He is the one that forgives sins which Paul says is an act of his grace. Which is interesting. You might think, well there it is right there. God forgives sin because of grace, not because of the death of his Son. Forgiveness is a free gift. This is not Paul’s point.
Let’s put all the pieces that we have been seeing together. Paul asserts in verse 3, bless the God that has blessed us, and then he precedes to explain how we have been blessed. The blessing of God is seen when he put forward his Son as our payment. In eternity, the Father chose those that would be his people. He ordered all of time and space to bring about his decision, and at the right time, the Son became flesh and redeemed the elect at the cost of his own life. The Father looked at the substitutionary sacrifice of his Son and then he looked at the ones that his Son redeemed and he declared that justice had been done.
The grace of forgiveness is not that God forgives sins willy nilly, like Oprah, “You get forgiveness, and you get forgiveness.” No. The grace of forgiveness is that the value of Christ redemption is credited to your account. It is grace because you do not deserve, not because the forgiveness is free. The forgiveness was not free. It came at a profound cost. And the value of the payment offered not only justified the forgiveness of your personal sins, it justified the forgiveness of every sin of every person that puts their faith in Christ. The value of Christ’s sacrifice can never be exhausted. He is sufficient to forgive any and all sin of all the people that simply trust him.
The forgiveness is not free. The credit of the forgiveness is free. And in this, God is both just and the justifier of the one that has faith in Jesus. Whether they were born 4,000 years ago or this morning. The Father is right to forgive sins, because the sacrifice of Christ redeems the Church from the Father.
The sacrifice of Christ unites the Church to Christ, and by Christ to the Father.
But the redemptive sacrifice of Christ does not merely save us from sin, but it also saves us for a purpose. The second point of our sermon comes from verses 9 and 10. Our second point is, the sacrifice of Christ unites the Church to Christ, and by Christ to the Father. Take a look at verse 9 one more time.
Ephesians 1:9-10
9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Redemption is the grounds for our forgiveness, but it also reveals God’s greater eternal plan, namely, to unite us to himself through his Son. In Christ, God is uniting heaven and earth together in the Church.
This is the unique contribution of Ephesians. We saw this when we overviewed the book. Paul is teaching us that our salvation is both personal and corporate. In our first point, we saw its personal nature. Every single individual person must have a personal encounter with Christ and put their faith in Jesus. You have to understand that your sins were what nailed Jesus to the cross. He didn’t just hang there for this abstract concept of “sin.” He hung there for my sins: my lies, my selfishness, my fits of rage, for every time I stole, or distrusted God, or spoke harshly to Molly. His sacrifice was personally for me. Every single person that is born again must wrestle with their own sinfulness and need for a savior.
But our salvation is also corporate, in that, we are being united to the Father through Christ. And this mystery is something that God has been planning before the ages began. God wants to give you himself, and the means by which you are united to him is in the spiritual body of his Son, the Church.
In John 17, Jesus prays one of his most famous prayers. It is called the high priestly prayer. This prayer takes place in the Upper Room just before Jesus is betrayed. It is his capstone prayer given at the end of his last teaching that he gave to his disciples. He first prays for himself, then he prays for the eleven remaining disciples, and finally listen to who he prays for beginning in John 17:20:
John 17:20-26
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Who does Christ pray for? He prays for us, for all those who will believe in him. What do we call that group of people? Who are those that are in Christ? They are the Church. And look at what he prays for the Church. He prays two things.
First, from verses 20 to 23, he prays for a supernatural unity on earth that is the same kind of unity that he has with the Father in heaven. It is the kind of unity that is being described in Ephesians 1. A union of heaven with earth that is so unique that it stands out in this world as a divine testimony that Jesus is who he said he was and was sent by the Father.
This is the unity that the Church is supposed to have. Church unity is not merely “getting along.” It is at least that, but it is far more. It is actually a union of heaven and earth together. It is about making the love of God known in this world. The community that we have with each other across generations, race, socio-economic status, nationality is not natural. It is supernatural. The greatest testimony that we have to this dying world of the love that the Father has for them is the love that we have for one another. It testifies to the truthfulness of our message, because that love it could not possible come from us. It has to come from God.
And when the Church is living out this kind of unity, the unity that Christ is praying for, he says that the glory the Father has given the Son begins to shine in his people. Your love for each other will make you shine with the glory of Christ, and people will see it. They will know that there is something special going on and they will be attracted to it.
Is this what you are looking for in the Church? Are you looking for a supernatural community or are you looking for convenience, for people in your own life stage or the right kind of programming, the right kind of music or a preacher that is charismatic? What you are looking for in the Church is not too big, it is too small. What the Church is and what your local church should be is something far greater. That is what Mosaic Church can be.
This was Christ’s prayer! Isn’t that amazing? Your Lord and Savior prayed for Mosaic Church on the night that he was betrayed. He prayed that you would have the same unity with each other that he has with the Father. That you would sacrifice for each other. That you would include each other in your lives. That you would find a greater reason to love each other than how attractive you find one another. In essence, he prayed that you would live out your membership covenant with one another. That you would fulfill all the commands he gave you for how to live out heaven on this earth. Christ prayed for the unity of this church.
The second thing that he prayed for comes in verses 24-26. He prayed that you would not merely love each other the way he loves the Father, but that you would be united to the love of the Father through him. Look at the way he finishes the prayer. He prays that the love with which the Father has loved him would be in us, even as Christ is in us.
The Father’s great end for the redemptive work of the Son is to unite you to himself. He is going to bring you, the church, into the same timeless love that the Persons of the Trinity share with one another. This has been his plan from before the foundation of the world. It is the purpose that he set forth in Christ to unite all things in him, the things in heaven and the things on earth.
What an amazing plan. And notice that it didn’t come too early and it also didn’t come too late. This perfect plan is the plan that God decided upon in eternity and it is the plan that he has been working since before the foundation of the world. We are blessed to be able to stand at this point in history and see it clearly. It has unfolded in Christ and we can look back on God’s glorious grace as we look back on the cross.
This is what the Church is. It is such a bigger concept than most Christian’s believe it to be. We treat this timeless gift of God that we have in our Christian community as nothing more than a country club, a social gathering that we can come to when we want and abandon when it is not convenient. If something superficial is not to our liking, there are 15 other churches down the street that will satisfy our preferences.
The wrath of God against sin is what you were saved from. The Church is what you have been saved for. It is the means by which you abide in Christ and Christ abides in you and it is the means by which the Father will bring you into his eternal love. That is what is at stake every Sunday morning. That is what is at stake every Member’s Meeting. That is what is at stake every time you have your brothers and sisters over to your house to watch football or when you take them groceries or go with them around the world to share the Gospel.
Eternity walks among us as we walk with each other in the Church. That is the kind of Church that I want to be a part of, the kind of Church that I want to build and the kind of Church that Christ prayed we would have. The kind of Church where the redemption of Christ unites us to Christ, and through Christ to the Father.
Conclusion
As we conclude, I want to return to the original question: can you exhaust the forgiveness of God? Will he grow weary and tired of your failings and weakness? The answer is no. Not because we stop sinning, but because it never depended on you to begin with. The beauty of the Gospel is that salvation is not your work, it is God’s. The Father planned it, the Son purchased it, and the Spirit guarantees that the good work God began in you will be completed. You cannot exhaust grace, because you cannot exhaust Christ. “My worth is not in what I own // Not in the strength of flesh and bone // But in the costly wounds of love // At the cross.”
If you are a follower of Jesus this morning, be encouraged. You are loved by God. He chose you before the foundation of the world, he superintends the river of time to accomplish his plan, and he forgives your sin, making you holy and blameless, because his Son redeemed you from the consequences of your sins. That is good news.
If you are not a follower of Jesus this morning, be encouraged. You can find this love. The good news is that salvation is not hard to find or to understand. You are a sinner. You sins must be paid for. You can pay them, or you can let Christ pay them for you. If you put your trust in Jesus to save you from the consequences of your sin, you can be redeemed. You can find the forgiveness of the Father. Come join this great love story that God has been writing from before time and find salvation for your soul.
Let’s pray.