Every Spiritual Blessing

Grace and peace to you.

I have set before you already how this letter opens — grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me take you further into the words that follow, for I could not hold them back when I wrote them, and I cannot hold them back now. They pour out as one long breath of praise, because when a man begins to count what God has done for him in Christ, he does not easily stop to draw breath.

Hear how it begins: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). Mark that word blessed, and mark how it turns. We bless God — that is, we speak well of him, we praise him — because he has first blessed us. And what has he given? Not one blessing, or a handful, but every spiritual blessing. There is nothing your soul truly needs that God has withheld from you in his Son. You may feel poor this morning. You may feel that the store is empty. But hear it: in Christ the store is full, and it is already yours. The question is not whether God has given, but whether you will open your hands and receive what is already there.

And see where these blessings are — "in the heavenly places," and "in Christ." Everything in this passage is in Christ. I will say it again and again because I cannot help it, and neither can the text: in him, in him, in him. Cut yourself off from Christ and you have nothing. Joined to Christ, you have everything the Father has to give. So do not go looking for blessing anywhere else. It is all in one place, and that place is a Person.

Now the Father's hand reaches back before the world was made. "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Ephesians 1:4). Sit with that a moment. Before there was a sun to rise or a sea to fill, before you had done anything good or bad, God set his love on those who are his. Some of you tremble at this word, thinking it cold or cruel. It is neither. It is the warmest word there is. It means your standing with God does not rest on the shifting sand of your performance yesterday or your feelings today. It rests on a choice God made in eternity, and God does not change his mind. And notice the purpose of it — that you should be holy and blameless. He did not choose you to leave you as you were. He chose you to make you clean. "In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" (Ephesians 1:5).

Adoption. There is the heart of it. You were not merely acquitted in a courtroom and sent away. You were brought into the house, given a name, seated at the table as a son, as a daughter. And why? "According to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:5-6). Not because you were lovely. Because he is gracious. It is all "to the praise of his glorious grace" — that God might be seen for the generous God he is. If you have been trying to earn what has already been freely given, lay that burden down today. You cannot pay for a gift. You can only take it and give thanks.

Then I turn to the Son and to the price. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" (Ephesians 1:7). Do not rush past his blood. Redemption is not a soft word; it is the price paid to set a slave free, and the price was the life of the Son of God poured out on a cross. Your forgiveness was not cheap. It cost everything. But — and here is the wonder — it cost him everything so that it would cost you nothing but the empty hands of faith. And measure it not against the size of your sin but "according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us" (Ephesians 1:7-8). Lavished. He did not measure out forgiveness in careful drops. He poured it out like a man who is not counting the cost, because in Christ the cost was already counted and paid in full.

And there is a plan in all of this, larger than you and larger than me. God has made known to us "the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:9-10). The world seems to you a scattered, broken thing — and it is, for now. But it is not spinning without an end. God is drawing all things toward a single center, and the center is his Son. When the fullness of time has come, everything torn apart by sin will be gathered up and made one in Christ. Your small life, with its griefs and its labors, is not adrift. It is being drawn into that great gathering. Live today as one who knows where the story ends.

And you are in it. "In him we have obtained an inheritance" (Ephesians 1:11) — an inheritance that does not fade, kept for children of the house. This too is "according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will," so that we "who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:11-12). There is that refrain a second time — to the praise of his glory. Do you hear the drumbeat of this passage? Everything God does for you is finally so that God should be glorified. And this is no small or grudging thing, for a soul is never so full of joy as when it is full of the praise of God.

Now, lest anyone reading think this is a word only for others, hear how I turn and speak it straight to you: "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 1:13). Do you see the order? You heard — the gospel came to your ears. You believed — you laid hold of Christ. And you were sealed — God set his own mark upon you by his Spirit, the way a king presses his seal into wax to say, this is mine, and it shall arrive safely. If you have heard and believed, the Spirit himself now lives in you as God's pledge. And the Spirit "is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:14).

A guarantee — a down payment, the first installment that promises all the rest is surely coming. The Spirit you have now is not the whole of your inheritance; he is the foretaste of it, God's own deposit given to say the day is coming when you will have it all. So when you feel the Spirit stir in you — a longing for holiness, a hunger for God, a comfort in your grief — know that this is the firstfruits, and the harvest is certain.

And there, a third time, the passage lays down its refrain: to the praise of his glory. Chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, sealed by the Spirit — the whole of the Godhead bent toward your salvation, and the whole of it aimed at one great end, that God should be praised.

So how shall you live today, having heard this? I will tell you plainly. Begin the day where I begin — with blessed be God. Before you count your troubles, count what is already yours in Christ, and let the counting turn your mouth to praise. When the accuser whispers that you are not chosen, not forgiven, not kept — answer him from this text: it was settled before the foundation of the world, bought with blood, sealed by the Spirit, and none of it rested on you. And when the day is hard and the fullness of time seems far off, remember that you carry a guarantee within you, and the God who paid the deposit will not fail to pay the rest.

You have every spiritual blessing in Christ. Live today like a rich man who has only just learned what he owns.

To him be the praise of his glory. Grace be with you.