BLESSINGS WHEREWITH
WE HAVE BEEN BLESSED
David H Marshall
Ephesians 1: 3-10
It is really difficult to stop when you read this passage because it follows on; but what has impressed me, beloved brethren, and I would like to say something about, is the blessings wherewith we have been blessed. This occurred to me today as looking at this scripture. It is a long time since we have gathered together like this. Much has happened in the last six months that none of us could have forecast. There has been much sorrow, much suffering, and much death. Restrictions have come in which have interrupted how we normally gather, how we normally proceed, even how we meet in each other’s homes; restrictions in travel and holidays, and things like that cancelled. Much disruption has occurred, and it occurred to me that against that backdrop the believer still has a lot to be thankful for. We have been blessed with wonderful blessings; you could never go over all the blessings that we have been blessed with, but I thought it would be good just to reflect by way of encouragement, to cheer our hearts so that we gain some fresh impression as to the greatness of the blessings wherewith we have been blessed.
It is a wonderful matter that we have a God that we have come to know as a Saviour God, who is not willing that any should perish. And how rich the provision of salvation that our God and Father has made available through the work of His well-beloved Son. He seeks to attract men to this blessing. He makes the way clear; even in Old Testament scriptures He tells us, “Come now, let us reason together ... though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”, Isa 1: 18. What a wonderful matter, that even then the great matter of sins and sinnership was something that God had in mind to resolve.
When we come to Acts of the Apostles, the Philippian jailer said, “what must I do that I may be saved?”, chap 16: 30. Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”: the way to salvation made abundantly clear in a handful of words to a man in desperate circumstances. How wonderful! When you come to Romans, it tells us there that “the goodness of God leads thee to repentance”, chap 2: 4. How wonderful that God should make such a blessing so readily available. Even although we have been restricted in our gatherings to a large degree, we have been able to proclaim the word of God; the preaching has gone forth. That is an encouragement, and that shows as well how God has in mind to continue to bless men and to attract men, even in their desperation, to His heart of love.
But when we look at a scripture like this we see that these things were foreknown even before time began. How wonderful that we have come to know a God in such a way. We sometimes sing -
Our God whom we have known,
Well known in Jesus’ love (Hymn 72).
What a matter that we were foreknown; with a natural mind you can hardly take that in, but with a spiritual mind you can.
And a further blessing is made available when a soul comes to know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour; there is great cause for rejoicing, and it is a blessing that we will always value, and it is an everlasting blessing because it can never be taken away. But there is a further blessing. There is the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and what a blessing that is, because the Father has in mind that we are to receive that gift, that blessing, from Him; that is what opens up Christianity to the believer besides his eternal salvation. That is what leads him into the joy of his current salvation; a living link with the Holy Spirit. Think of that gift. Think of that blessing that is given to us to have a divine Person indwelling us, to sustain us, to support us, to guide us. One service of the Spirit is, “he shall guide you into all the truth”, John 16: 13. How wonderful that is! What a blessing that is, because we need guidance; we need understanding. We do not get everything at once; we need things to be opened up to us; we need things to be explained to us. We need our appreciation of divine things to be increased and enhanced, and in that role the Holy Spirit plays such an excellent service. He serves the Father, and He serves the Son; and He seeks to cause us to understand, and to appreciate, and to increase in, our knowledge and our affections for divine Persons.
What a blessing the gift of the Holy Spirit is to the believer, something that the world knows nothing of! It is a secret to the believer. In John’s gospel, the Lord says, “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”, chap 14: 16. How much we need comfort in these days. But the comfort is available, and what a blessing that is. We do not need to be stressed about all that is taking place. It is right to be concerned about these things; I understand that these things never have happened in the lifetime of anyone in this room, what is happening in these present days across the whole habitable earth, but we can take great comfort that we can, as the hymn says -
praise Him for all that is past,
And trust Him for all that’s to come
(Hymn 23).
What a blessing it is to have that reassurance, that the believer can sit and be calm about these things. He can be calm because there is an assurance that our blessed God and Father is over all these things, and we can accept that, and we can go on and be occupied with the blessings that He has in mind for us, because they are spiritual blessings. They are heavenly blessings; they are not earthly blessings. We will not be blessed with material things here, or riches here or anything like that; that is not the thought at all.
It says in the passage that we read, “Blessed be the God and Father …”, and I want to stop there because that is another blessing. “Father” - what a matter that we have come to understand this wonderful relationship of Father, these words were spoken on the resurrection morn, “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”, John 20: 17. What a matter that there is such a relationship, that we have a heavenly Father that we can speak to. Night or day we have access in prayer, in the privacy of our chamber, in a household setting, and when we are together. How wonderful that we have come to know that wonderful relationship with the Father! A Father who cares, a Father who knows our needs and can fulfil them.
It says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. Nothing has been held back. How wonderful, what generosity! What grace, what outstanding giving, that everything, everything, that the Father has in mind He has blessed us with. It is not subsistence living; the manna was there in the wilderness, and how essential that provision was that they had to gather every day. But then the spies went to a land, a land flowing with milk and honey. What blessings are in mind for the believer.
And it goes on, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation”. We have touched on that to some degree. “That we should be holy and blameless before him in love”; the Father wants us there on His terms; He wants to bless us with what He had in mind. We often think of that in relation to the younger son, who we often refer to in the glad tidings, Luke 15. He said that there was an abundance of bread in his Father’s house; there was much more than that. There was the fatted calf, there was a best robe, there was a ring, the sandals on his feet, the merriment: all of that was there. The divine standard of blessing, is much greater that what we may have in mind. The Father did not have in mind simply to ensure that he was fed and clad; He had blessings, rich blessings, in mind for that returning son.
It says, “that we should be holy” - what a matter that we should be made holy - “and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”. What a matter that we are taken into favour in the Beloved; there could be nothing finer. Our blessing is in Him! In Him, when we enjoy that relationship of sonship. We are not there alone; we are there with the Son. We are there, and our blessing is in Him. It says,
In Him Thy love and glory
Find there eternal rest;
The many sons - His brethren -
In Him, how near, how blest!
(Hymn 67)
“Wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”. Think of that: the One in whom He found His delight, and we are blessed Him. Blessed with that wonderful blessing. Nearer we could not be. Of course His distinctiveness will forever remain, and rightly so, but our blessing is in Him. In that sense, we are seen by the Father in Him. Then it goes on to say, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace”. Think of that, because that blessing involved that beloved One’s life being laid down, and His precious blood being shed. We sometimes sing,
Great the cost to Thee, blest Father
For Thou didst not spare Thy Son.
(Hymn 330)
There was no other way. In the Old Testament there was a ram that was caught in a thicket, and there was an escape for Isaac (Gen 22: 13), but there was no escape for the Lord Jesus. He had to go that way, and His precious blood must be shed:
Precious, precious blood of Jesus,
Shed on Calvary! (Hymn 167)
But what has flowed out from that is wonderful blessing that continues right down through the dispensation to this very day. Still many can come under the shelter of that precious, precious blood. But the touching thing is to appreciate that for the Lord Jesus it meant that ultimate sacrifice; He had to go that way. And He delighted His God and Father in doing it in subjection, in perfection and in love, fulfilling the will of God in its scope and detail.
So indeed it can say, “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace; which he has caused to abound towards us in all wisdom and intelligence, having made known to us the mystery of his will”. These are further things that are revealed. We do not get everything at once; we continue to get things, and will continue as long as we are here, and as long as this dispensation continues. There is much to be formed, and continue to be formed in us. And that is a wonderful thing, and I link that very closely with our links with the Father, with the Lord Jesus in His current position - the Man in the glory - and with the distinctive service of the Holy Spirit to help us in these things, and to cause us to have not only spiritual knowledge but appreciation. We are to gain an appreciation and further understanding of the precious Divine things that are not known to the man in the world.
But, our heavenly Father seeks to unveil these things, because He has in mind “every spiritual blessing”; you cannot get anything fuller than that. It is nothing partial; it is nothing that has a limit on it; everything that the Father had in mind is available by the way of blessing to us. How wonderful. It would be good for us when times are difficult at the moment to acknowledge that. There is much pressure, and there is much strain, and there is much fear in the world around us, but it is good, against that backdrop, not to become overawed with it, but to appreciate the blessings wherewith we have been blessed, to enjoy them, and to enter into them in a fuller way. That would be a positive occupation for each one of us, and would help us individually and collectively, and it is wonderful to have that reassurance that we have a wonderful living link with the Blesser. We can enjoy that and experience it, to steady and help and encourage us in these days.
May the Lord bless the word.
Word in Ministry Meeting, Edinburgh
15th September 2020