Let's take a look at our passage. I'm going to read for us Ephesians, and we're going to start from verse 1 and go down to verse 14, and then we'll pray and jump into the study. So let's take a look at the passage, and it says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus, praise to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him. With a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is a summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

In him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.

Let's take a moment to pray. Lord, we thank you for your incredible grace. And Father, as we study this passage, we recognize that your grace is abounding. Lord, the way that you have expressed your love, it's incredible. Father, in the many multifaceted ways in which you have blessed us, God, we can only begin to appreciate and understand.

We pray, God, that you grant to us just hearts of faith, hearts of gratitude. Lord, as we look upon all that you have done for us in Christ, we thank you it's in Christ and we pray, amen. Okay, I'd like to begin with some just introductory remarks. As we read that, I mean, that is a pretty incredible section of scripture.

As a matter of fact, there are lots of people who will note that this portion of scripture in Ephesians is their favorite passage of all time. Because in such an incredible way, just in these short verses, 11 verses or so, it summarizes like what God has been doing in redemption, right?

It summarizes all the blessings we have. It summarizes the heavenly things that we can look forward to. I mean, it just gives to us so much. And that's the kind of introductory remark I would like to say is that verse three through 14 is like a rhapsody. And what a rhapsody is, is when you think of somebody who is just giving this eloquent, lyrical, almost like genius kind of expression of intense emotion, intense thought, that's a rhapsody, okay?

And that's exactly what Apostle Paul is doing. He is enthusiastically expressing how we ought to bless God because God has blessed us in such incredible fashion, right? And the incredible thing about all this is that although in the English language, as it's translated, it's broken up into about three sentences, this long, long paragraph starting from verse three all the way to verse 14 is actually one incredible run-on sentence in the Greek.

There is this like overflowing excitement in Apostle Paul. And a lot of people actually look at this and they'll say, "This is one of the most lyrically and literally like genius pieces because it almost feels like it can be sung." And a lot of people say there's this rhythm and there is this movement to this section.

And the reason why I'm highlighting this to you is because then what you see in Apostle Paul is somebody who is just so enamored with the truth of Christ. And if you've ever seen somebody who really gets it, right? If you've ever interacted with somebody who really truly understands, what you'll see is that that person has looked at this precious truth, this precious faith that we have in multiple angles so that he can summarize incredible truths into short, condensed ways.

And when you see that, you realize like this person understands. But what's more, he can extrapolate and say, "Let me give you examples." Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so what we say, you know, in a kind of idiomatic way is, "He knows it in and out." That's what you feel when Apostle Paul is walking through with us.

Look at the way God has blessed us. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? And then he can summarize it all in such great ways. And so as we say this, I ask you this question, "Do you feel Apostle Paul exhorting us to something? Is there a command in here?" And what's really interesting, the answer is yes and no.

The no is because there is no command. There is actually no verb in verse 3, which is kind of weird, okay? And what's more, what Apostle Paul is doing is he is just, in a weird way to say, is going off, right? He's going off about how amazing God is.

But there is a thrust there because when you look at verse 3, he says, "Blessed be God." Now that's not a command. It's not an imperative. What it is is an adjective. But he puts it right at the beginning of that long, long paragraph in an emphatic way to tell us this is what we need to do.

Praise be to God because of the incredible multifaceted way by which he has blessed us, okay? All right. So then as we look at that, what we're gonna do now is walk through the passage together. And just to kind of remind us, remember that our number one step in good Bible study is to make sure we're making keen observations about the passage.

Please know, especially in a passage like this where it's just rich, right? He's summarizing massive truths. There's tons of truths coming at us in rapid fashion. You're gonna probably have to read that passage a couple times, right? And what I like to typically advise is when there is this kind of paragraph and there's long stretches of thought, it is good for you to observe the flow of thought, okay?

Because as you read, you wanna just track with him because there is very organized flow of thought in Apostle Paul. And what's more, break it down phrase by phrase. And you guys know that I like to do this in the Bible studies whenever I get an opportunity is, if there's a long, long sentence, trying to read it in a paragraph form is tough.

Visually, it really helps to break it down phrase by phrase and then ask the question, what is the relationship between those phrases? And then when you look at this long list, actually create a list. I hope that when you did your Bible study and you recognize like, "Oh, he's just listing off every single way that we're blessed in Christ." I hope you actually then created a list, one, two, three, four, five, six, and start to appreciate, look at the many ways I can number them, right?

I can number them so that you too, just like Apostle Paul, know in and out detail but also grand summary, okay? So that's just an encouragement on observation, especially in a passage like this. And then let's begin with verse three. Here it is. It says, "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." Okay?

I may mention for you that that little portion right there is not a verb, but it's an adjective, okay? It is an emphatic adjective where he's saying, "God is blessed." But as he's doing that, I believe there is then kind of an exhortational expectation as Apostle Paul is praising, "You need to too." Now when, again, when you take a look at this passage like this, sometimes it's hard to appreciate all the elements.

So what I like to do is break it down. And this is what I've done for you on your handout, right? I did that so that we can run through it pretty quickly where we make observations on the five verses that we have today. Okay? So when we take a look at this, in my mind as I see that first segment, that first phrase, again, I would like to label that as a command and say, "Apostle Paul is challenging us.

Blessed be God." And the thing about it is he gives us to us then several phrases describing that concept. And the way that I like to do is I like to make these arrows and show you that when he says, "Blessed be God," he has this positive phrase where he says, "Who has blessed us?" How has he blessed us?

With every spiritual blessing. These spiritual blessings are in the heavenly places in Christ. You see how I broke it up into little phrases? Da-da-da-da-da-da? And the thing is, these little terms, which are, whether it be a positive just pronoun, whether it be a preposition, I know we're getting into English grammar now, okay?

Preposition, they all help to signify for you the relationship between these phrases, okay? In order to do good observation, again, I like to label so that I can see, okay, this is what he's saying, and then quickly, easily see patterns. So how am I labeling? First, there is this kind of command adjective at the beginning.

There is this positive definition. This is the God who has blessed you. And then, oh, sorry. And then there are the second and prepositional phrases where it says, "With every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ," okay? And as we do good Bible study, when you break it down like that, that's how you start asking really good questions or just questions that are more specific and detailed.

What do I mean? You could ask the question, "If he's blessed us, how has he blessed us?" That sets you up for the rest of the paragraph. If it's every spiritual blessing, what does this even refer to? The question should be, "What is this every spiritual blessing?" What is his concept of every spiritual blessing?

Why is it in the heavenlies? That's what I'm talking about, okay? All right. So here we have a breakdown in verse three. Here we have a great topic sentence for the paragraph. Remember how I was saying that you want to just follow Apostle Paul's flow of thought? It's incredible as Apostle Paul has a way, he's very organized, of giving us this amazing succinct like topic sentence.

You know, when you guys write essays, you guys have to write that. And he does that for us here. God is to be blessed because he's blessed us with everything. Let me show you how. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? That's how this paragraph runs. Okay. And so, not to make much of this, but the transition is there for us.

He says, "Just as," and I gave you some other translations too, "Just to show us," Apostle Paul is extrapolating the every spiritual blessings in the heavenlies that he's thinking about. He is showing us what they are line item at a time. And again, he says, "The first one, as he's thinking about the spiritual blessings that we receive, is he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him." Okay?

Now, I'm going to again break that up for us into small, succinct phrases. It's a little bit different than what I have in the packet. Your packet was just kind of like a cursory run. So then I broke down little smaller sections. For example, even the thing as, "In him." Okay?

We could even break this down and separate, "Just as," separate it, "He chose us." The idea of him choosing us is an incredible blessing. Have you guys ever thought about it that way? Predestination, election is not a theological topic just to be debated. Here he's presenting to you in his mind of the list of ways that God has blessed you, it comes first.

Pretty incredible, right? And he says, "He chose you," chose us, "in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him." Here now I broke down those phrases, but as good students of the scriptures, as trying to make strong observations, we have to now identify and tag the phrases.

Okay? And the way I'm going to do it for you is like this. First, clearly this is the first blessing. So I'll just tag it as this is number one on the list of things, the blessing that he has for us. But what's more, he describes in detail when.

Okay? I'm saving the "in him" part of it for an emphatic point later. By saying, "before the foundation of the world," think about that. Before the expanse, before the waters and the waters, and before the land coming up, before the light, the foundation, before the foundation of the world, that is when God has enacted his masterful plan.

What's more, the why, that we would be holy and blameless before him. This is an incredible, incredible blessing for us. And I'm going to make much of this a little bit later on when we start drawing some conclusions, but I want you to just take a moment to think about that.

This blessing that God has for us is not a blessing by which he simply permits you to go to heaven as you are. No. God in his redemption, he's transforming you. He is radically changing every single one of us, taking us from stained, unholy, rebellious sinners and making us so pure that we are blameless before the holy eyes of God.

That's crazy. Right? That's incredible. We can't miss the point. This is an incredible, heavenly blessing in Christ. When he's thinking blessings, he's thinking, "Think about the way he chose you." Okay. Moving forward to verse four. He says, "In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved." See, again, if we just run through a passage like this in paragraph form, it's very difficult to appreciate all the little elements.

So you break it down a little bit, and we again want to label. Notice how the concept of choosing and predestining is repeated there. Okay? It's repeated there. But this time, he adds the idea that the predestining was to adoption. And so I want you to think about that for a moment.

Right? Some people will say the doctrine of election is cold, mechanical, and fatalistic, but not here. There is incredible intentionality. There is incredible purpose to the election that God exercises. And it is an election to adoption, an incredibly intimate and unique relationship between father and child. Right? And what's more, we see the similar phrases that you probably saw as repetitions.

There is through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will. Now I want you to do something for a moment. There is clearly a pattern that's going to start building. He's going to list multiple blessings. He's going to talk about the means that by which that blessing came, which is through Jesus Christ.

And then he's going to talk about the purpose, to his praise, to his glory, to himself. And you see that pattern repeated now. But I ask you this question. How would you identify, how will you classify this phrase? According to the kind intention of his will. Take a moment to think about that.

It's like, hmm. We could clearly tag the blessings. Those are easy. You have adoption. You have been chosen. You have redemption. You have forgiveness. What about when he starts to reveal like this is all in accordance to the kind intention of my will? That's a kind of tough one, huh?

What would you label that? I want you to take a moment to just do it, like on your sheet. You know, like what is this? Because these are the moments that you start to classify and you say, oh man, God is revealing his heart. This is his motivation, right?

This is his intention. This is the source of why he's doing this. And all of a sudden you start to appreciate that phrase even in greater fashion when you start to try to identify what is this, okay? So perhaps you might want to put in there, this is God's motivation.

This is his heart, okay? Verse six, he talks about to the praise of the glory of his grace, which is purpose, which he freely bestowed on us, that I label as a blessing, okay? I'm not sure if you were making your list, you saw adoption, clearly blessing. You saw being chosen, clearly blessing.

But this idea of his grace, there should be this weird thing where he says his grace is to be praised by how just the reality of how marvelous it is. But then he says that grace he freely bestowed on you. Then that is to you, your blessing, okay? Did you guys get all this here?

We see purpose, we see another blessing, and we see the means. It's in the beloved. Next, verse seven, he says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us, okay? So we have two blessings here.

One is you have redemption. Second is you have forgiveness of our trespasses. If you're studying and you label it like this, this would be like blessing number four, blessing number five, right? And then you should ask the question, hmm, the sentence runs on, is he trying to see this as like a synonymous thing?

What's the difference between redemption? What's the difference between that and forgiveness? Is there conceptually some nuances that I should appreciate? Those are some questions you should be asking, right? And then he has that phrase again, according to the riches of his grace, which is so similar to according to the kind intention of his will.

So I put there, this is God's motive, right? This is God's motive. All right. So we ran through verses three through eight, and I hope that was an encouragement to you, right? If you're able to take those paragraphs and those phrases, and then you divide it by the phrases that you see, what you'll realize is you're getting his thought and flow.

And once you ask and you highlight these terms through, oh no, through, according, which now you see relationships between his thoughts. You see that, right? Through shows you means. This is through his blood. Lavishing means this is according to his heart. This is his motive, or you can even say this is then his agenda, his pattern, his heart.

And then which he lavished, this is manner, right? Because this is lavishing. All right. So as we walk through that, I hope that was an encouragement to you. I want to give you this general outline. Within this general outline, I ask you this question, like in verse three through 14, what's the main point here?

And what we see in this general outline is Apostle Paul summarizing why God is to be blessed. And as he's doing that, he is basically in a rapid fire fashion giving us all the different ways that God has blessed us. Since we're dealing with verses three through eight, we see a couple main blessings that God has given.

Namely, he chose us for holiness and adoption. Secondly, he has graced us with redemption and forgiveness. Okay? Now, what's pretty incredible is this is not the only outline that you can use. What's really incredible is for the next study, I'm going to ask you, how is the Trinity involved in this redemptive process?

How is the Trinity involved in all of salvation? And what you'll notice is Apostle Paul not only categorized it in the choosing in the redemption, a lot of commentators noticed, wow, so there's past blessings, present blessings, future blessings. Later you will realize there is seal for the future, right?

Seal for the inheritance. But then there's also an organization between the Trinity as God is decreeing and he is working what the Lord Jesus Christ is accomplishing and what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing. So what you'll find in the organization of this passage is Apostle Paul kind of beautifully applying multiple categories to help us conceptually understand, look how blessed you are.

Look how much God is to be praised. Okay. So drawing some conclusions, we want to move to really appreciating some of these elements. I just mentioned by segue, the first conclusion or I guess like exhortation, first takeaway that we should really see from this passage is that we should recognize truly how spiritually blessed we are, right?

I mean we're getting a laundry list of blessings, but emphatically so we're seeing some like monumental, monumental blessings that we have in Christ. And the very first thing that we see is being chosen, but I wanted to show you and highlight that in terms of repeated concept, this is the greatest.

Okay. So here I'm going to read the passage for us again, just highlighting the things that Apostle Paul highlighted for us as blessings to us. 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.

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoptions as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of the grace, which he lavished on us. One of the brothers in our table group, he said, man, when you look at this, you feel almost smothered. That's how you should feel. You should feel a sense of this incredible, overflowing grace upon you.

And we can appreciate that just by thinking about the one concept of being chosen. I want to ask you this question. As we looked at this passage, this is one of the clearer passages, one of the main passages people go to when they talk about the doctrine of election.

It is a hot topic for a lot of people. They're like, no, it just doesn't sound fair. It doesn't sound right. It just sounds like God's going, you and you and you. It's just completely arbitrary. But that's not true. That's not the way the scripture describes it. When we take a moment to appreciate the doctrine of election, and we actually ask those questions of when, why, how, who is doing the electing, which persons is he electing?

All of a sudden, that whole doctrine becomes an incredible, incredible blessing of his love. Just take a moment to think together. When we think about God's choosing, and we think about when, have you ever thought about the fact that then that means, yes, God is eternal and he is beyond time.

But we can't just bypass the fact that then his kind heart intention has been expressing itself for thousands of years. I want you to take a moment just to think about time. Who in your life has loved you the longest? That's the person you should be most grateful for.

I mean, I want you to think about this. There are people in your life who have become close friends really fast, and you're so thankful for them because you connect. But there is a different kind of gratitude you give to somebody who has been for a long, long period of time being faithful and loyal to you, laboring with their kind intention to do you good across time.

I gave this example a long time ago in one of the sermons I gave. I could buy you a meal tomorrow and say, "Let me take you out." Why? Because I care for you. I want to feed you. You would say, "Thank you, Pastor Mark. That's so nice of you." But you owe a different kind of gratitude to your parents who have fed you for like 18, 20, some of you much longer than that, fed you every meal, planned for your nutrition.

You see what I'm saying? Me taking you out for lunch, is it nice? Yes. But somebody who has been intentionally taking care of you for the course of your life, you owe a different kind of gratitude. Yes? But when you think about this, he reveals to you and opens up a mystery that God has had his perfect plan for you prior to the foundation of the world.

Just imagine that. It's incredible. What's more, his choosing was a kind of choosing for the purpose of making you holy and blameless. That means setting you apart. That means making you blameless. That means making you so pure and holy that you can stand before the holy eyes of the holy judge and stand completely unashamed.

What is going to cause those who are in Christ to be so pure, you stand before God without an inch of nervousness like, "Oh my gosh, is he going to?" Can you imagine that? And I want you to appreciate this even from a greater degree because the kind of love that we have for people, when we love somebody, we want their good.

But I want you to think about it in just that whole concept of who it is he's loving and who he is. Here's the example. Ladies, if you see a guy who's just filthy, his hygiene is like negative 10. He's wearing the same old dingy sweater. It smells like BO.

And clearly he's been to the gym with it and he hasn't changed. He doesn't shave. He doesn't comb his hair. And there's grease coming out, dripping from his locks. Is your thought to be like, "Oh dear, I need to wash you. I need to bathe you." Would you even offer that?

No. You would be annoyed. You would say, "Get away." You'd just be appalled like, "Do you not see yourself?" I want you to think about this. The kind of mercy and kind intention God must have to see the utter filth of mankind where every intention of man was wicked.

And then to desire to wash us, to make us holy and blameless. Have you ever conceded that God's push for you to be holy is one incredible blessing? If we've ever been burdened by the scripture's expectation for us to be holy and sanctified, have you ever considered that that is not a burden to us?

It is one incredible act of love. He rephrased it, "It's an ongoing incredible act of love." That is to us our blessing. And then to say, "I have predestined you for adoption." If we took a moment to think, the kind of choosing that God chose us, it's God Almighty.

He's not one celebrity. He's not one incredible authoritative figure. He is God Almighty of the universe choosing wretched children of the devil. And if proponents who are minions or whoever it may be who deny the election of God, they think, "It's just this cold, it's just this arbitrary, mechanical, fatalistic choosing by God.

It's not fair." They have to look at this. God's choosing is not just simply some lofty figure, some distant king saying, "I give you permission. You can go to heaven. Fine by me." No, no. This is Father figure coming to bring you into his home. That's God's election. That is so different from the mechanical, cold election that people think it may be.

And this is to us. I mean, think about blessing. This is to us our blessing. For abandoned children, we have a father. You know, I have this quote from J.I. Packer. I was reading his commentary on Ephesians and it's really awesome. And he says, "If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father.

If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new and better than the old, everything that is distinctly Christian as opposed to merely Jewish is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God.

Father is a Christian's name for God." Right? That to us is great as blessing. That to us is great as blessing. And so he repeats that multiple times in the book. Scripture repeats that multiple times. We have an incredible blessing to be able to call him Abba Father. What's more, there is being redeemed and forgiven.

And for the sake of time, I want to challenge you. I challenge you with this question. What is redemption? What is forgiveness? How are they different? Right? I want to highlight the fact that for us, redemption typically means like, "I overcame." Right? It's like, you know, back four years ago in the Olympics, I utterly failed.

I tripped and I fell and never even made it to the goal line. This time around in the Olympics, I go on gold. Redemption. Right? Like that's typically redemption in our thought is you fail but you overcame. Now there is that kind of concept in Scripture. But Scripture's concept of redemption is even more rich than that.

What you have to do is you have to look at where the times in the Bible he uses the word redeemed. And typically what he says in the Scriptures is that he purchased you. Right? He paid the price for you. And that's why even in this passage he says, "You have been redeemed through the blood, the payment of the priceless life of Christ." The payment's been made.

Scripture talks about redeemed as individuals, let's say, who are slaves, who are owned. Redemption doesn't mean just simply like, "Woohoo, I'm free." Redemption means you have been bought under new ownership. Redemption even in the, like, you know, kinsmen redeemer, right? You have somebody who passes away and now this person is without protection, without provision, without anything.

But then someone comes to redeem. They claim this is mine. Right? Really rich, really rich concepts that we should look into. But the goal, again, the effect reminding us when we walk through this passage we should come out with the sense, "Oh my goodness, I am so blessed." Right?

You should feel smothered. You should feel overjoyed. And you should feel like, "Oh my goodness, if I sat here and counted all the ways I'm never going to be done." Right? That's the thought we should have. And what's more, that's one of the conclusions that we have to make is that we find as a repetition in this passage that every blessing is in Christ.

It is in Christ and through Christ. Take a look at this again. Remember he says that every spiritual blessing is in the heavenly places in Christ just as he chose us in him. Right? In love he predestined us to adoptions as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. And then all this to the praise and glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood. There is no blessings for heaven outside of Christ. There is no eternal weight outside of Christ. Right? There is only one place we should be looking for things that last, for things that are weighty, for things that are valuable. When it comes to even your self-esteem, when it comes to even your identity, we as believers have to understand it is all wrapped up in Christ.

And then the third point is all the blessings are in accord to his kind intention. And I wanted to make mention of this just briefly because man, praise be to God. Because one of the things we see highlighted in this passage is the manner by which he has expressed his heart.

Right? I don't know if some of you have ever sat and took an account of how you perceive God. Where if God is this far, for a lot of people, God is this far and distant figure waiting for you to shape up. And then once you do, he might bless you.

Do you ever feel like that? You're this long track on life. It's hard. Sometimes it's slow going and very difficult. God is watching from far, far away and he's waiting to see if you'll be faithful. And when you are, then God will help you. That is bad theology. Right?

Because look at the way that scripture is talking about the way God loves us. He is freely lavishing his children with his kind intention. So if all of a sudden we have this moment where we're like, "Why in the world do I feel like this? Why in the world do I think like this?" We have to start asking the question, "Have my eyes been opened to appreciate and see what are the actual blessings that God is trying to give me?" The fact of the matter is scripture paints it like he's overflowing and freely giving it to you.

Then in some ways I must be missing it. So by way of application, I want to ask you this question. Have you been seeing by faith what it means to be blessed by God? Have you been seeing by faith what it means to be spiritually and in heavenly fashion blessed by the Lord?

And do you purely appreciate this? Have you been walking in a way where according to Psalm 1, "I am blessed, I am rich, I'm strong and healthy because I've been abiding in the presence of God. I've been meditating on his word and it's richly dwelling in me." Have you been operating by the faith that knowing I have been chosen by God Almighty to have a relationship with him?

You are filthy rich because your father has everything at his disposal. Those are the ways we should be thinking. Do you believe this? I pray, I pray against this many times that I fall into this duped thinking when I see that guy with the truck that I want, when I see that guy with the house that I want, when I see that guy with the height, the intellect and the blessings that I want, then all of a sudden I conclude, "Man, that guy is blessed." I pray that our church and our Christian individuals do not interpret life like that.

You see some guy, he eats all that he wants and he doesn't get fat. Man, he's blessed with great metabolism. What does it mean to be blessed for you? What have you concluded with your eyes? Because we need to be concluding and interpreting with faith. Every single one of us, by the mercies of God, when we have been united with Christ, we are blessed through and through, amen?

And it is a challenge to us that we not walk by sight and that we not interpret the world of what is blessedness and what is not blessedness by what we see. It has to be done in faith. And that's why if you turn to a future portion, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18, this is what he says.

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him up from the dead, seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places.

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come." Christ is already there. And the spiritual truth for us is that by faith, it'll all be ours in inheritance. Christ is going to share his glory, his authority, the blessedness that he has with the Father in heaven, with every single believer.

Though that to us is riches. There's another passage. "Even when you are dead and in our transgressions, you made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him, seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show," what?

"The surpassing riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." Later on he says, "You're already there. It's as good as done." And so if any of us are feeling like, "Oh my goodness, I'm so sad, I'm so disappointed, I'm so joyless, I'm so joyless," we have to make sure that we are exercising this faith that we have.

And so the last application is, after seeing a portion like this, we should be ready with gratitude in our hearts. If your mind is on the level, like you're just this technical dude and you're just like, "Wait a minute, I don't understand how choosing works. How does he elect?

Did he long see us and then he's a," if you're like that, just take a moment to pause and stop. Just stop and listen to what he's saying. I have predestined to adopt you that I might have a unique relationship with you where I will be yours and you will be mine.

I will be your father and you will be my child. Why in the world do we sometimes, "Wait a minute, but how does that work? Why do we do that? One of them must not be listening." What we should do in application when we see stuff like that is we should thank him.

Thank you for choosing me to have this unique relationship with you. Amen. Let's pray. Lord God, we want to thank you so much. And Father, I pray that we would never grow tired, we would never grow weary, and we would never grow so accustomed to giving you thanks and praise and prayer that God may it never ever grow old to us.

But Lord, may we be enriched, may our hearts be so thankful and overflowing with gratitude. God, you chose sinners, wretched sinners. We can't even explain that. We thank you so much that you operate according to your heart and your kind intention towards us. We thank you, Lord Jesus Christ.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.