Redeemed How I love to Proclaim It

Well, if you have a Bible with you this morning, and I hope you do, I want you
to turn with me to the first chapter in the book of Ephesians. The book of
Ephesians is in the last 20 % of your Bible, so you can start in Revelation and go
backwards if you need to find Ephesians. We are going to be looking at a couple of
verses in Chapter 1 this morning as we are continuing with an ongoing study through
this of Ephesians. And I want to start by finding out where the generation gap is
in our congregation. So I'm going to put this up on the screen, and I want to
know who recognizes this sign, this symbol. Okay. So if you have never seen this
before, raise your hand. Okay, see, it's mostly the younger folks here who go, I
have no idea what that is, but we older folks, we know about the S &H green For
almost a hundred years, the Sperry and Hutchison Corporation maintained a thriving
business, working with supermarkets and gas stations and retail stores to give their
customers green stamps, these stamps with every purchase that you made. In our home
growing up, we had a shoebox that had in it both the green stamps and the booklets
that you would paste the stamps in. These were the, in modern parlance, this is the
cash back you would get for your credit card or the points or the miles that you
would get on your credit card. So you would go and buy something at the store, and
with every purchase, they would give you stamps corresponding to how much money you
spent. You spent $10, you might get 100 stamps. I don't know, remember how it all
work, but then you would take those stamps home, and you would post them in a
booklet, And you would, if you lick them, it got really old quick because there
were a lot that you, so we used a sponge to do ours, put it in the booklet. Once
your booklet was full, then you could trade that in at the S &H Green Stamps
Redemption Center to get some wonderful gifts, some wonderful appliances.
I mean, you could get anything from a clock radio to a blender, to a bicycle, to
a set of carving knives. I mean, it was just all of that in exchange for whatever
number of booklets you had. These were really popular. They started taking off during
the Great Depression, but in the 50s and the 60s, green stamps were a big deal.
And the company would not only have the stores, but they would mail out this
catalog, this idea book. This was 180 pages of items that you could redeem your
green stamps for in order to get these prizes back or these products back.
And at one point, it was estimated that there were more S &H green stamps being
manufactured every year than there were U .S. postage stamps. That's how popular this
was. And it was because of the S &H green stamps phenomenon that I first heard the
word that is at the center of what we're going to talk about this morning, the
word redeem, the word redemption. You took your green stamps and you redeemed them.
You took them to redemption centers. And when your books were filled with stamps,
you could turn them in for whatever your heart desired. Whatever you took home was
now yours. It had been bought with a price with these booklets. And the item
belonged to you because You had paid for it with the stamps, which was necessary
for you to possess whatever the item was. Now, when we started our study in the
book of Ephesians last month, I told you that this would be a slow walk through
this book, that we were not going to hurry our way through it. And we've been
doing that. We've been stopping to look at a verse or two each week because there's
so much in this study. But I don't want us to lose the big picture of where we
are in our look at Ephesians. So Ephesians is divided into two parts. The first
part is what God has done for us in Christ. The second part is how we are to
respond to what God has done for us. So the first part is what is true about God.
We call it the indicatives. What does it indicate? The second part are the
imperatives. How are we to live in response to that. And the letter opens in
Chapter 1 with the Apostle Paul giving a standard greeting, grace and peace, grace
to you, and peace through God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he
moves from that standard greeting into an extended outburst of praise for God for
all that he's done for us. That's where this letter begins. It's a long sentence
that that starts in verse 3 and ends in verse 14, and it's just one outburst of
praise to God for what he has done for us. And by the way, I just want to
mention this. Next fall, I'm going to be leading a tour in Greece and Turkey that
is actually going to stop in Ephesus for a day. You guys are invited to go on
this if you'd like to with us, but we've got, it's a bus and cruise tour that
starts in Greece. We go over to Turkey.
link to that in the newsletter this week. It's going to, it's going to be about $5
,000 per person that includes airfare, and if you want the Rome extension, that's
another $2 ,200 you add on top of that. Okay, so just so you know about that. Back
to the, to what we're talking about here. By the way, if you're not currently
getting the newsletter, you can sign up for that at the welcome desk, okay? So back
to our study. We've already seen this letter beginning with this outpouring of
praise, and then in verse three, the outpouring of praise begins by saying,
God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.
And then the rest of verses 3 through 14, he's outlining for us what are those
spiritual blessings. So we've already seen one of those spiritual blessings is that
we're chosen in Christ. Another is that we are adopted into the family of God.
And he's telling us that before God created anything, he loved us.
He predestined us for adoption. We are chosen in him. We're predestined. And that
brings us to the next spiritual blessing that is ours, the one we're going to look
at this morning. Jesus, the Son, has blessed us by redeeming us and forgiving us,
forgiving our sins or remitting our sins, and we're going to explore what it means
to be redeemed and to be forgiven this morning and why both of these matter. These
are spiritual blessings for us. And don't forget, as we began this study, I told
you these spiritual blessings are ultimately what really matters in life. We tend to
think about blessings in material terms. We tend to think that we are blessed if we
have more stuff. And God is trying to refashion our thinking to say stuff is fine
and God blesses some people with more stuff than others, but every believer is
blessed with every spiritual blessing. That's what you have in Christ. And that is
greater than whatever material blessing you could ever have. Your material blessings
are going to be gone someday. They're going to rust or they're going to rot or
they're going to be in somebody else's hands. Your spiritual blessings are yours for
eternity. They are the blessings for your soul. And that's where Paul is focused as
he begins this letter to say, it's your soul that matters, not that your body
doesn't matter, but your soul is where God is focused on restoring and redeeming
your soul for him. And we have every spiritual blessing. So as we look at what
this passage tells us about redemption and forgiveness, keep in mind that all of it
is pointing to the ultimate spiritual blessing, and that is this, we are one day
going to be finally, fully united with Christ. The spiritual blessing in life is to
be reconciled to God, and that begins in this life and is completed in eternity.
And all of these spiritual blessings being listed here are the blessings that get
us.
for your word. We thank you that you have given us your Holy Spirit so that we
can know and understand your word. And I pray this morning that we would have soft
and humble hearts to hear what your spirit would say to us, that we would be open
and ready to respond, that we would not just be hearers of your word, but we would
be doers. Bless this reading of your word. We pray in your name. Amen.
This is the Word of God for the people of God, Ephesians chapter one beginning at
verse one. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God,
to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace 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 in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love,
he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with
which He has blessed 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 upon us in all wisdom and insight, making 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 Christ, things in heaven, and things on
earth in Him. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined
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. 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,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the
praise of his glory. Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass
withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. As I
said, our focus this morning is going to be on two verses, verses seven and eight,
which talk about two big ideas, redemption and forgiveness. Those are the two big
words that we're going to be looking at. So we're going to look at the spiritual
benefit of redemption and the spiritual benefit of forgiveness. I also like the word
remittance. That's a synonym, remittance. And we'll talk more about that. It's a
pretty simple outline for this morning, all who
again,
be amazed again at what this means, what these verses are telling us.
I want you to be amazed at God's work of redemption and at God's work of
forgiveness in your life, forgiving your trespasses. So the first point, verse 7,
in Him we have redemption. I want you to say that, personally, I want you to say
that loud with me, in him I have redemption. Say that. In him, I have redemption.
You just said a mouthful. I don't know if you realize how big what you just said
was, but that's huge. And to help you understand what you just said,
that you have redemption in him, I want you to turn in your Bible back to Exodus
chapter six. Exodus chapter six. This is where the idea of redemption first shows up
in the Bible. So turn back to Exodus, Genesis, then Exodus. Look at chapter six.
You can't understand the spiritual gift of redemption until you first understand the
spiritual problem of slavery. The spiritual problem that each one of us has as human
beings being in bondage to our sin. So the context for Exodus chapter six,
this is before the Jews are led out of Egypt, but they have been enslaved in Egypt
for years. God has raised up Moses to be the one to go to Pharaoh, to say,
let my people go, and to start the Exodus. The Jews are in an oppressive slavery.
You read in chapter five about how their overseers have come to them and said more
bricks, less straw, they're working them harder, they're exhausting them, they don't
care if they die, they're expendable, and so they're being oppressed. And God comes
to Moses and says, I'm going to deliver my people from the bondage that they're in
in Egypt. So look at verse one. I'm going to read eight verses here. The Lord said
to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand,
he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.
God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham,
to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name,
the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with
them and gave them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.
Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians sold
as slaves, and have remembered my covenant. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel,
I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
I will deliver you from slavery to them, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm
and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people. I will be your
God. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from
under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to
give to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession, I
am the Lord. You can stop right there. God's people were enslaved. There was nothing
they could do to free themselves from their slavery in Egypt, and God comes to them
and says, I see you, I see your predicament, I see your slavery, I see your
suffering, I hear your cry, I will redeem you. I'm going to fix this for you.
I will bring you out of the slavery you're in and I'm going to deliver you to a
land of promise, and I will make you mine. That's what redemption is. It is being
brought out from slavery and brought into freedom. The physical slavery that the Jews
were experiencing here in Egypt, and God's deliverance of them is a picture of a
bigger slavery, the spiritual slavery that each one of us is born into, and the
spiritual deliverance that we need that comes from God.
Back in Ephesians 1, as we've seen, the Bible tells us that God has chosen a
people for himself. He's predestined us for adoption, but then there's a problem. So
God has this plan. I've chosen you. I'm going to adopt you, but here's the
obstacle. You're a sinner, and I can't have a sinner in my family. I have to fix
this problem. There's an obstacle in God's way. Our rebellion against him, our
hostility toward him, is keeping him from being able to welcome us into his family
as adopted children. But before we can understand the blessing of redemption, we have
to pull back and understand the reality and the necessity of curing this problem
dealing with the sin why redemption is necessary for us to be adopted. It's
necessary because like the Israelites in Egypt, we are slaves. We are in slaves.
We are slaves to get this, you're a slave to yourself.
You think, well, that doesn't sound bad. I like being in charge of myself. But
here's the problem. You are a slave to your own passions, your own desires, your
own appetites, and no matter how hard you try, you can't break free from that. Let
me show you this. Flip over now in the New Testament to John Chapter 8. We're
doing some flipping here this morning. John 8, the Gospel of John, so it's Matthew,
Mark, Luke, John, turn to John 8. Jesus is having a dispute with the religious
leaders in John 8, and he's telling them that they have a problem, and their
problem is that their unbelief, the fact that they refuse to believe that he is the
Messiah, that is keeping them in bondage. Because they refuse to accept him as the
Messiah, they are enslaved. And John 8, look at verse 31, Jesus said to the Jews
who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
Now, let me just note there. They had believed in him. Jesus is saying, yes, and
you must abide. Believing leads to abiding. If believing doesn't lead to abiding,
it's not real believing.
It's a momentary knot of the head, but it's not real belief. Believing leads to
abiding. Jesus says to those who had believed, if you abide, you are truly my
disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
In other words, the key to real freedom for your soul is to believe, to abide,
to know the truth, and find freedom for your soul. But the Jews have a reaction to
this in verse 33. They say, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been
enslaved to anyone. Well, maybe the people talking there haven't been, although
they're under Roman oppression at the moment while they say this, and maybe they've
forgotten that their family tree was in Egypt at one point, but they're proud of
this sense of liberty. We've never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say
we will be free? They don't recognize their own slavery problem and how Jesus can
set them free. So Jesus answers them and says, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone
who practices sin is a slave to sin. That's what I wanted you to see in this
passage. You and I are born slaves to our own sin. You are a slave to your
passions, your desires, your appetites, which have been corrupted because of the fall
of Adam. Slave to sin. This is who we are apart from Christ. Just like the Jews
were slaves in Egypt, we are slaves to our own desires. and we have no way to
liberate ourselves from those passions, appetites, and desires that control us.
Now, some of you are hearing that and saying, well, that doesn't sound right. It
seems like we have the power, the ability as human beings, to make choices, and to
do good things, okay? I'm a slave to sin, but is everything, are you telling me
that every action I do is sinful? I mean, I'm not that kind of guy. I do nice
things. I do good things. I help people, I help old ladies across the street. I,
you know, I give some money when the Girl Scouts come to the door and are selling
cookies, whatever it is. But yes, what I'm telling you is you are a slave to sin
and everything you do is a bad thing. But you say, but are you telling me my non
-Christian friends who do good things, that they're sinners, that even their Good
things are sin. Let me explain. When the Bible talks about our sin, it doesn't just
talk about the behavior. It talks about the heart behind the behavior. And the heart
behind your behavior when you're living apart from Christ is you do what's pleasing
to you. You do what makes sense to you. You do what you think is going to bring
you the greatest happiness or the greatest satisfaction. You are at the center of
your world, the center of your life and you're living your life for you. And so
you are making choices. Whatever choice it is, when you make a choice to be kind
to somebody, you're doing it because it pleases you to do that. It's in your best
interest. You're non -Christian friends or any of us before we came to Christ.
Our motivation for everything we did was what makes the most sense to us, what will
be pleasing to us, what do we think will bring us the greatest joy and happiness
in life. And having you at the center of your life, that's the problem.
That's what sin is, because you were created to have God at the center of your
life. And by putting yourself where God belongs and pushing him out,
that's what makes you a slave to sin. And that's what keeps you from the family of
God. You can't belong in his family as long as you're at the center of your life
and he's not at the center. The first sin, the one which all of us were affected
by. Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve are in the garden. The serpent comes to Eve
and he says to her, he tempts her, wouldn't you like to be like God.
In other words, wouldn't you like to be in charge of you and everything else?
Wouldn't you like to not have to listen to what God says and do what you think is
right? Wouldn't you like to decide what's good and what's evil? And she's tempted by
that and the fruit looks good and she takes a bite and gives it to Adam and he
takes a bite and all of a sudden they are plunged into this condition of saying,
God, we've turned away from following you. We're going to follow us now. We're going
to follow ourselves. And as a result, all of Adam's progeny,
you and me, were born with this kind of a sinful predisposition. We can't do
anything in and of ourselves except live for ourselves because we've said to God,
we reject you as king and ruler over our lives. We're going to rule our own lives.
I'm in charge, not you.
Theologians have said it this way for years. They use a Latin phrase. The Latin
phrase is non -Pase, non -Picare. That's a Latin way of saying it's not possible to
not sin. For a human being who is unregenerate, who doesn't know Christ,
who's not surrendered to Christ, they are non -Pase, non -Pacare. It's not possible to
not sin. And so here back in Ephesians 1, God from eternity past predestined that
we would be adopted as his sons has this problem. We are sinners. We are rebels.
We are alienated to him. He can't bring hardened rebels who refuse to repent of
their sin and bring them into his family and adopt them. He has to find a way to
bring liberation from the slavery to sin that we all experience.
And this is where the biblical idea of redemption goes beyond the S &H green stamps,
okay? Because the biblical idea of redemption is buying back something that once
belonged to you, but that was, it's more like a pawn shop than like an S &H green
stamp, right? you're buying back something that belongs to you.
Here's the biblical idea of redemption. The ESB study Bible says redemption in the
context of the Bible is the act of buying back someone who has become enslaved or
something that has been lost to someone else. Okay, so follow me here. If we are,
as the Bible says, enslaved to sin and addicted to self, and we only care about
God as long as it pleases us or serves us to care about him. And if God wants to
free us from our slavery to sin and redeem us, he can fulfill his plan,
he wants to fulfill his plan and to adopt us into his family. What does he have
to do? What price does he have to pay to buy us back? If we are slaves to sin,
what's the purchase price to get us out of our slavery? And the purchase price is
blood,
which is a synonym for death. In order to buy us back from slavery,
someone has to die. The wages of sin, the Bible says,
is death. You can't be free from slavery to sin without death.
And this is why throughout the Old Testament, Jews would go to Jerusalem with lambs
and would put them on the altar and they would sacrifice those lambs. They would
put them to death, first praying that God would transfer their sins onto the animal
and put their sin to death and then they would be free from their sin except as
soon as they walked away, they were back in the same problem. They stumbled right
away because that death was temporary. It had no permanent lasting effect for them.
So back to our text, it says in him, we have redemption through his blood,
through the blood of Jesus. That's where redemption. That's how redemption happens.
God in eternity past knew that in order for us to be brought into his family, he
was going to have to pay a high price to satisfy the demands of his own law. The
law says the wages of sin is death. You can't be free from sin unless that debt
price has been paid. And he knew that the only one who would be able to pay that
debt price for us would be his own son. His blood would be required.
Required by who? Required by God himself, required by the demands of his law.
And this is important. Some people think that when Jesus died on the cross, God was
paying a debt to Satan.
Now, Satan doesn't have control over any of this. God is in control of everything.
He's paying a debt to himself, to his own law. Christ's ransom was a debt paid to
God. Now, stick with me, because this is important. One more place to turn. Romans
3, Romans 3.
So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and then Romans. Romans 3,
this is where this is spelled out, and we see what redemption is all about.
Romans 3 .23 says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
That's the universal human condition. You've sinned, I've sinned, we've all sinned and
come short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Our justification comes through the redemption
that is the price being paid by Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by
his blood to be received by faith. God puts Jesus forward,
propitiation is a word that means to be satisfied, to pay the debt, and it is
something we received by faith. And then you jump down to verse 26. It says,
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. God is paying the debt he owes
to himself for his law so that he can both satisfy the demands of the law and he
can rescue us from our sin at the same time. God can't just look at sinners and
say, okay, it's no big deal. I forgive you. You're fine. No, the debt has to be
paid for our sin. The wages of sin is debt. But God finds a way in Christ to
satisfy the demands of the law and still affect our liberation. So let me sum all
this up for you. The spiritual blessing of redemption is this. God, who deserves our
allegiance and our fidelity and our devotion, decides before the world was ever
created, to adopt you and me into his family and to welcome us home,
but before he can do that, he has to pay a price to buy us out of the condition
that we're in. It's a slave price to redeem us, and he does it.
He pays the redemption price with the blood, the death of his own son in our
place. In him, you have redemption through his blood. You are no longer a slave to
sin. Okay, let me say that again. You are no longer a slave to sin. You now have
the ability, not just to live for self, not just to be a slave to your own
appetites, desires. You can now live for something greater than you, which is the
glory of God. You never had that ability, desire, or capacity until you became a
Christian. When you become a Christian, you now can put the glory of God ahead of
your own desires and appetites and say, that's what I'm living for. You're free from
your bondage to your controlling appetites. You are not your own anymore.
You've been bought with a price. You can now glorify God in your body. This is
what the Bible means when it says Jesus died to save us from our sins.
Now, some of you may be wondering, How can I know if I'm one of the ones that
Jesus died for? If I'm one of the ones who he chose and who's predestined for
adoption, how can I know if he's redeemed me? It's really simple. Really,
do you want to be adopted into his family? Do you? Do you want to live with him
forever?
Do you want it badly enough that you're ready to surrender your life and say, this
is what I want. I'll give my whole life for this. And in surrendering your life to
him, you keep doing that every day for the rest of your life, just like all of us
do. If you want that, then you're chosen.
If you're in, you're predestined for adoption. Because here's what the Bible says.
Anyone who wants the gift of eternal life can have it. Anyone who wants adoption
can have it. It's a gift. Do you want it?
People who aren't Christians don't want it. They don't care. You tell them about it,
they say, yeah, it's not for me. Now, maybe one day, those who say not for me,
one day the light gets turned on, they go, oh, maybe that is for me. We're seeing
a lot of people in our day who are starting to go, maybe I need to think about
this. Maybe I've let this go for, I need to reconsider this.
I had a conversation this week after I was, I know many of you are going to find
this hard to believe, I was at the gym, okay, I'd go there occasionally,
and I go to a class and I was in my class and it was just me in the class this
day. So it was me and the trainer. And we got to talking and I said, are you,
do you do this full time? Do you have another job? I was finding out, are you
interested in management? No, I like to train. He said, what do you do? I said, I
do a lot. I said, my main thing is I pastor a local church. And I said,
do you have a church? So you go to, you grow up going to a church. He did grow
up going to a church. He's not going to church now, but he goes, I've been, I've
been starting to wonder if that's something I need to get back to. And I said,
well, if you're starting to wonder that, that's not just circumstances that are
making you wonder that. You better pay attention to that little voice that's talking
to you and say, you need to do that, because that's a stirring you need to pay
attention to. I mean, I'm seeing more and more spiritual conversations are,
people are open to this. There are people who are lost today, but who God has set
apart for salvation, and we need to share the good news with them. We need to be
telling them about redemption in Christ so that they can hear and believe.
You're one of his. Respond to that. Believe it.
It's the best news ever.
But wait, there's more, like they say on the commercials, okay? Because God doesn't
just buy us out of slavery. He also, in the process, forgives our trespasses.
That's what this verse says. It's not just that you're redeemed from the slavery,
but your sins are forgiven. It's the second big word in this text, forgiveness. It's
the Greek word athesis.
word for sin in the Bible is a word that means to miss the mark. It's an archery
term. But that's not the word he's using here. He uses a different word that means
to trespass or to cross a boundary. God's put boundaries in our world and in our
lives. Sinning is deciding we don't want to pay any attention to those boundaries
anymore. We're going to cross those boundaries. The word literally means to fall by
the wayside. And that's what we do when we sin. We ignore the boundaries that God
has put in place for our good. We say, I know better, and we go where we want to
go. So this second spiritual blessing, in addition to redeeming us, God puts the
trespasses that we've committed. He puts those away from us. The guilt and
condemnation, the penalty and power of our sin, God removes. And I like the synonym
that is sometimes used. He remits our sins, remittance. It adds an extra layer to
this. Jesus is not just forgiven your sin, he has paid for your sin. Okay,
that's what remittance is. You know, you get a bill sometimes and it will say,
please remit. And they're saying, pay up, you owe this, please pay it upon receipt.
Our sins have been paid for, not just forgiven, but God had to pay for them for
forgiveness to happen. And here's what makes all of this good news. Two things that
are good about having your trespasses removed from you. First of all, it means that
the debt that you owed to God is paid for. That debt has no power over you
anymore. Some of you have been in debt. Like we probably all had experiences with
debt where you feel the weight, the pressure, the cloud that hangs over you when
you're in debt. Maybe you've gotten calls from the collection agency. Yes, is this
so -and -so? Yes. Do you live at such and such? I'm calling about the amount you
owe to the credit card company. You owe this amount, and what are you going to do
about it? And we need to do this. And we're going to, you know, the demand letters
you get, the threatening letters from folks. Maybe you've been there. If you've been
there, you know that in the middle of that, you feel the way to that. You have a
hard time sleeping at night. Every time the phone rings, you don't want to answer
the call because your stomach tightens up, because you owe somebody something, and
you know, you don't know how you're going to pay for it, and you know how to get
off the hook from this. But imagine that one day you get a call and they say,
you know that debt you owe to the credit card company? It's been taken care of.
You're free from that. First of all, you would say, thank you, Lord, hallelujah.
Praise Lord, is that true? Is it real? My debt is paid? Yes. Then the next time
the credit card guy calls, you take the call. And he says, I'm calling about your
debt. And you go, paid for? No, I don't owe that anymore. I am free from that
debt. That's a hallelujah right there, right? This is the blessing you have in
Christ. Your sins have been remitted. They've been paid for. So
Master Matt read for us this morning. We have to say there is no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus. My sin is forgiven. It's paid for. Satan, take a
hike. Quit calling me. Right? When the accuser of the brethren comes and accuses you
of your sin, you point him to the cross. I love the hymn we sometimes sing that
says, when Satan tempts me to despair, because I get there, and tells me of the
guilt within, and it's there, upward I look and see him there, who made an end to
all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free.
That's redemption. God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me,
redemption and forgiveness of sins.
What we have to recognize when Satan calls, we say, I have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of my trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which
he has lavished on me. Just read him, Ephesians 1.
In my study of this passage this week, I found this helpful insight from a pastor
named Rick Phillips. He says this, he says, most of us could stand to have a
healthier appreciation of the extent and cost of our sin, but some of us are
weighed down with sin that we have committed that seems beyond redemption. If that's
you, consider the price with which you were redeemed, the precious blood of the Son
of God. What debt can you have that cannot be purchased by that? What sin can you
commit that God's son's blood is insufficient to pay the debt for?
there's none.
His sacrifice is the great sacrifice that can cleanse every sin.
And according, don't ignore that Paul says that he has forgiven our trespasses
according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us. When it comes to
forgiveness, we don't have to worry about whether God has enough grace to cover our
sin. He has an abundance of grace. He has an infinite supply of grace.
You don't have to think twice about whether it's forgiving our sin fits in the
budget for God, whether he can afford to forgive you. Does he have enough grace to
be able to forgive my sin? God is full of grace, and he is not stingy with his
grace. When it comes to money, we tend to think that there are people, some people
are stingy, some people are thrifty, There are some people who are moderate,
some people who are generous. When it comes to God's grace, he is lavish. Okay,
you understand? He doesn't just look and say, well, I don't know if you deserve
this, because you don't. He doesn't look at it and say, well, I don't know if I
have enough to come. No, he lavishes his grace on you. Lavish is a word that we
would not endorse when it comes to spending money, maybe occasionally on your
anniversary or on a special occasion, but when it comes to grace, God is not stingy
or thrifty or prudent. He lavishes his grace on us. What does it mean that he
lavishes his grace? I like what Brian Chappell, who's another pastor who says about
this. He says it means the abundance of his heavenly goodness is raining down on
me, immersing me, washing me, taking my sins away as far as the east is from the
west, so that now continually and forever, because I am united to Christ,
I am clothed with the righteousness of God's own son. He lavishes his grace on you.
And Paul wants to make sure we know that when God lavishes his grace on us,
he's not being reckless with his grace. He is exercising wisdom and insight.
That's what this verse says. God is lavishing his grace with all wisdom and insight.
In other words, he's using good judgment, sound judgment, he knows what he's doing.
The spiritual blessing that comes with redemption and forgiveness is a blessing that
reconciles us into a relationship with God, and it's a part of God's master plan
that he's using wisdom and prudence and good judgment to accomplish.
Probably the greatest example of redemption in the Old Testament is the story of
Gomer and Josea. Do you know that story? There's a book in the Bible called Josea,
and God comes to a prophet named Josea, and he says to her, I want you to marry
that woman over there. Josea says, great. God says, here's what you need to know.
She's going to leave you, and she's going to become unfaithful to you. Not just one
time. She's going to be serially unfaithful and unrepentantly unfaithful.
She's going to offer herself as a prostitute. And that's exactly what happens.
Josea marries Gomer. She leaves him. She goes down to the temple of the bales and
makes herself a prostitute there. And in the process, She becomes indebted to those
who now control and own her. And one day, she is put up for auction in the slave
market. This is in Hosea 3. The Lord says to Hosea, go again,
show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as
the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love and cakes.
So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and nine bushels of barley and I said to
her, you are to live with me many days. You must not be promiscuous or belong to
any man and I will act the same way toward you. What a stunning scene at the
beginning of this chapter. Because Gomer is still Josea's wife. They've not gotten
divorced. Now he goes down, she's in the slave market, put up for auction.
And rather than saying, wait, she's my wife, he says, I will buy, I will pay her
debts. I will buy her back, even though she has been unfaithful to me.
Legally,
Josea could have said she deserves to be stoned. She's an adulteress.
But he doesn't do that. He buys her back with silver and barley. He's still her
husband, but he pays to buy her back. This is as vivid a picture as you're going
to find in the Bible of what it means to be redeemed and forgiven. Gomer was
brought back from slavery by silver and grain. You and I were bought back from
slavery to sin through the blood of the spotless lamb who takes away the sin of
the world. And I'm going to give Rick Phillips, that pastor, the last word this
morning. He says this. He says, we as sinners need to be saved from God.
God is rightly angry with us, and to propitiate his wrath, Christ died for us.
God poured out the infinite hell of his wrath upon his son, who by the power of
his infinite life could bear it, and thus God's wrath is turned aside from us or
propitiated by the blood of Christ. That's the spiritual blessing of redemption. Jesus
has taken on himself the righteous wrath of God, the wrath we deserve, and has as
a result turned God's wrath away from us for all who are in Christ.
Are you in Christ? Do you want to be in Christ? Do you want to be saved from the
wrath to come? Do you want to be adopted into God's family? You can be right here,
right now, by turning to God and saying, I surrender. I don't want me in charge of
my life anymore. I want you in charge of my life. I want to follow you and honor
you and obey you.
I'll end with where I started this morning. What the book of Ephesians is telling
us in chapter one is that being chosen by God, being predestined for adoption,
being redeemed and forgiven. All of this, as we continue in the text to see these
other spiritual blessings, all of these work together to accomplish what our soul
really needs the most, the joy and the peace that comes when we are reconciled to
God, when we are in Him. The spiritual blessing you really need is to be in
Christ,
to be found in him. Is that where you are this morning? You can be just by crying
out to him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the glory of this passage.
Thank you that we could take a few minutes just to reflect on what it means, that
you paid the price so that we could be redeemed and what forgiveness means for us
in Christ. Lord, I pray for everyone here that we would not only understand that in
our heads, but we would understand it in our hearts and in our hands, that we
would live according to this truth,
that it would direct our thinking and our steps and our choices this week, that we
would be reminded regularly, that we have been redeemed through the blood,
and that you have lavished forgiveness on us. And Lord, for any who are here who
don't know you, I pray that this word this morning might be how you would awaken
them to their need, that they would recognize that they have had their own passions
and desires controlling their lives, and it's made a mess of their lives, and they
are ready to surrender and to give their lives to you. Lord,
I pray you would do that work in their hearts, and they would tell somebody about
that today. I ask it in your name. Amen.