Do you ever find yourself comparing yourself to other people? There is an unhealthy obsession today with drawing comparisons between our life and that of others. In part, social media fuels this. You're forever being invited to look at your life and put it on show so other people can look at your life and match up against you. So you're comparing your house with their house, your kids with their kids, your job with their job, your holiday, your food—and you can't go to a restaurant these days and enjoy a good meal without taking a photograph of it first. Why? I don't know. It's going cold!
Let me ask you, therefore, a question: how does your God compare to the gods of other people? If it were possible to take a photograph of your God, and you put that photo on your Facebook and said, “Wow, just look at my God,” would other people be looking at it, going, “I want one like that,” or would they be going, “Mine's better”? How does your God compare to their god?
There are lots and lots of other gods around today. We are increasingly aware of it—perhaps more than in previous generations. Whether it's RE in schools teaching the full range of different faiths and Ofsted complaining if you conclude your primary education without having visited the place of worship of another faith, we are all more aware, even from our school days, of what is out there. Or the opportunity for cheaper airfares to allow people to take holidays abroad means that more people from Britain have wandered through a Buddhist temple in Thailand than would have been the case in generations past. Or just simply large-scale immigration to our own cities means that there are many cities in Britain, whole sections of which have a culture that is more resembling that of a country from abroad.
So, as we are aware of more and more gods being out there, how does your God compare to the others in the marketplace? If you're a Christian, that is. If you're not a Christian, let me ask you: which god do you worship, and how does your god compare to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?
But it's not just other religions out there. There are lots of other ideologies—ways of seeing the world: capitalism, materialism, the idea that you can define your own identity, the making of an idol out of your own immediate family—whatever it might be. And just to raise a question: might there be some unseen spiritual powers lurking behind the scenes, pulling the strings of some of those things at those moments when they become destructive of society? Because we treat them as gods, they may not just be simple human constructions. There could be something more sinister and hidden that is making these things tear us apart. So how does your God compare to those things as well?
Go back to the ancient city of Ephesus. When Paul wrote this letter to the Christian church there, there were lots and lots of gods in Ephesus as well. At that time, there were in excess of 50 different temples in the city of Ephesus, each to different gods. The centrepiece was the temple of the ancient Greek goddess Artemis—the size of a rugby pitch, a huge building in the middle of the city, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. And they had different gods for different things. You'd have one god that you would go to to ensure that your family prospered, another one if you were concerned for your business, another one still if you wanted to go to war and wanted your war to be successful, and a different god would bring you favour in the realm of agriculture. And their approach in those days was simply to worship the lot. You would cover all your bases. You would hedge your bets. Far too risky just to pick a single god and put all your eggs in that basket.
And actually today, many people operate the same approach. Many people like to have their feet in several different camps: come to church, do your bit for the God of the Bible, but also make sure that you pay homage—maybe to your career, maybe to family, maybe to a particular sport as well. And your loyalties are... you're sort of wanting to play several sides at once. You may have the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as your main God, but maybe you have a different god when it comes to making sure that your business is successful or your family life goes well. It feels to us, as it did to them, too risky to commit only to a single god, to put all your eggs in one basket.
And yet, that is precisely what Jesus of Nazareth asks us to do. It's what he asked people to do in the days of the Apostle Paul and the ancient church in Ephesus. The question is: do we trust Jesus enough to give him everything? Do we trust that, insofar as there are other forces at work in the world—spiritual, physical, material—do we trust that Jesus is able to protect us from whatever harm those other things might do to us? Can we put—will we put—all of our eggs into his basket?
So Paul, in this opening portion of Ephesians, wants to show that the living God is more wonderful than any other god that is out there. He wants to show that the living God is more beautiful than any other god who is out there. He wants to show that if you know Jesus, he will give you everything you need and you will lack nothing. He wants us to see Jesus as a spiritual one-stop shop, where there is nowhere else that you need to go for anything. If you have him, you need nothing else.
So if you're here this morning as a Christian, let me invite you to compare our God with every other god who is worshipped, to see that he is the most wonderful God possible. And if you are here and you're still investigating the claims of Jesus, still trying to work out what you believe and which way you're going to go in your life—praise God that you're here. I want you to see that the God who is here is wonderful. Now I know you still have to then go away and work out if this God really exists and whether he's able to deliver and all of that. But I would love you to leave this morning wanting the answer to be yes, because this God here is the stuff of dreams. And if there's one like this around, you've just solved your life's search.
So here we are. We're part of Ephesians chapter 1, verses 1 to 14, in which Paul runs through all the blessings we have if we are in Christ. If you were here last week, you might remember Lee explained to us that phrase “in Christ.” If you are in him, then you have every blessing in the heavenly realms and you lack nothing. And those blessings are Trinitarian—they come from God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit.
So last week, God the Father chose us and adopted us to be his children. This week, we will see how Jesus, God the Son, redeems us and reveals God’s plan. And if you come next week, Lee will show us how God the Holy Spirit seals us to guarantee the future that God has for his people.
So today we're looking at these two blessings: we are redeemed, and God's plan is revealed.
We are redeemed
First one then: we are redeemed—verses 7 and 8:
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
There are two blessings here that are tied up together. The first is that we are forgiven—the forgiveness of sins—without which we would be God’s enemies, and none of the other blessings in this chapter would apply to us. We’re forgiven.
But also, we are freed. The language of redemption is language from the ancient slave market. Slavery was a thing back then—people could become the property of somebody else, often because you ended up in debt, and the only way to pay your debts was to give yourself to be owned by somebody else. And in return for that, they would pay whoever you owed money enough to discharge your debts. But then, for the rest of your life, you belong to them.
There are modern-day versions of that, as people try to make their way across the world to a place of safety. They sometimes come to this country and find that they are owned by the people who brought them here. So it's actually easier to relate to than we wish. But that was a very common reality in the ancient world, and it's how a lot of employment and business was done. And actually, slaves back then were pretty well treated.
But what could happen is you could have a wealthy relative who could come and who could pay the person who owns you the money required to buy you back. And then they could do that in order to set you free. And that language is what redemption was all about. So to be redeemed is to be set free. And without that, we would be enslaved to our sins, to our desires, to our habits. But wonderfully, God has freed us.
Just imagine then for a moment that you are in debt. You are so badly in debt that you have to sell yourself into slavery to discharge your debts. And there you are, at the ancient slave market, waiting to find out whether the person who will own you for the rest of your life will be kind, generous, and charitable—or harsh and brutal. And along comes somebody to talk to the stall holder, and they point to you, and they're obviously negotiating a price—they're trying to work out how much they're getting. And you're looking at this person, thinking, “I wonder if this person is kind or not. Are they going to give me enough food? Are they going to give me unreasonable jobs to do? Or are they going to look after me?” And you're beginning to form a conclusion in your mind: this person doesn't look too bad.
Well, finally, a sum is agreed, the money changes hands, and the moment of truth arrives as your new owner comes across to talk to you. And they say, “I've just bought you. And I did that so that you can be free. You're free to go.” What a wonderful gift. And that is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us—but at great cost.
“I've just bought you,” he says. Well, what did it cost for him to buy us?
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Through his blood. A little phrase that is a shorthand way of referring to the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus gave up his life on the cross to purchase our forgiveness and to purchase our freedom. Our forgiveness and freedom came at great cost to the God who redeemed us—at great cost to him—so that it can be totally free for us.
Okay, it's a bit like the NHS—the intention behind it. Okay, the NHS is a free health service, right or wrong? But at the point of delivery—discounting debates about hospital parking charges—it is free, okay? You go into hospital to deliver a baby—they don't give you a bill when you come out. They just give you the baby.
However, it is not free, is it? Because somebody has to pay for all of that system. Someone has to pay the doctors and nurses. And the way that's done in this country is that, through our taxation and National Insurance, the funds are raised to allow it to be free when you need it.
It’s like that with the Lord Jesus. God's forgiveness and freedom are free when you need it, because the extortionate sum has already been paid—and paid in full. So it's free for us.
He says it's to the praise of His glorious grace. It's in accordance with the riches of His grace—a word that means a free gift.
They say that nothing in this world that is of any good quality is ever free. If you're offered something free, it is either because it is cheap and tatty, or because there is a hidden cost that you will discover later—like the person I know who once won a free holiday to France, and what they had won was passage on a ferry for one foot passenger. In order to have your holiday to France, if you want to take a vehicle or stay anywhere, you have to pay for all of that. Free, but not so free. That's what they say.
Well, here is the best gift in the world—the forgiveness of God and God's offer to free you from all the things that hold you hostage. And for you, at the point of delivery, it is truly and genuinely, utterly free. And it says that this freedom, this grace, was lavished on us. God did not give it to us stingily, reluctantly, mentally tallying the cost and working out what He's going to have to go without next week because of it. It is a heaped-on generosity.
The word lavish sounds to me, in my mixed-up head, like the word lashing, which brings back memories of my childhood reading the novels of the Famous Five—a book of children who went on various adventures, and some of you will have read them. These children would always, on their adventures, the highlight of the adventure would be a picnic. And at the picnic, the beverage of choice would always be ginger beer. I never asked to see whether he likes ginger beer, but they never had a little bit of ginger beer. The Famous Five always had lashings of ginger beer.
Or you might think back to the 1990s, where a particular brand of pre-made custard suggested that every dessert you ever had should be served with lashings of custard. God's grace is lavish. He serves lashings and lashings of grace.
In fact, it is according to the riches of His grace. The measure of how much He gives is how rich He is. So, picture, if you will, two millionaires who decide to make a donation to charity. They each have a million pounds in their bank accounts, which means they can afford to be generous.
One gives five thousand pounds to a charity. Now, that is a lot of money, and that charity could do a lot with five thousand pounds. They won't get many unsolicited gifts as big as five thousand pounds. They've given out of their huge riches, but not according to them.
So the other millionaire gives the charity £500,000, because they haven't just given out of their riches—they have given according to their riches. The measure of how much they give is how rich they are, and to the extent that they are rich, that is the extent to which they will give.
And when it comes to God's grace, it is not just His grace out of His riches, but according to His riches.
Then you ask the question: so how rich is God? And you think of things like Psalm 50, that reminds you that the cattle on a thousand hills all belong to Him. God is infinitely rich, and out of those infinite riches, He comes to you in grace—to forgive you and free you.
Let me say, there is no other god on earth that is like this. There is no other god on earth that will forgive you everything you've ever done wrong, free you from every debt, to be the person you are made to be—and will do so with no cost to you and no snag. There is no god that will do that.
The only way that a god might conceivably do that is by being a god who just doesn't care about right and wrong, and says, “I know you've done some bad stuff, but never mind that, who cares?” Who wants a god like that?
We look at the bad stuff that happens in the world. We want a God who cares about right and wrong. We have a God who cares about right and wrong. We have a God who paid with His own blood to lavishly give you forgiveness and freedom—totally free of charge, permanent, forever.
There is no other god that can give you that on earth. What a God.
Revealed
Secondly, revealed.
So, verse 8: With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
God has not kept us in the dark. He has told us what He is up to. The night before He died, Jesus said this to His friends. It’s John chapter 15 verse 15: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
God the Father has a plan. It's a plan that He formed in Christ. God the Father and God the Son hatched this plan together. It's a plan that brings God utter delight—it's according to His good pleasure.
Well, there's more on that plan to come later in the letter. This isn't all there is to say about it. But what we get here is the destination of that plan. We get where things are heading at the very, very end.
Someone I know recently went for a long weekend to Holland, and they used the trains. Lots of the trains there are two-storey trains. The reason we don't have them in this country is they wouldn't fit in the tunnels. But it's great—you get more seats on the same length of track.
The Dutch timetables, though, were really interesting. It doesn't just tell you what time the train goes; it tells you how many seats on the ground floor, how many seats on the first floor, how many accessible seats.
Here's the thing that no British train company would ever admit: historically, this particular train at this particular slot in the timetable—what’s its punctuality been? They’d never admit to that in this country. 96 percent. If you get that one. Do you get the one that’s 10 minutes later? That’s only 94 percent punctual. Oh, interesting.
Now, if you're a sort of train geek, it's really interesting reading all these stats on the timetable that you never normally get to see. But the one thing you actually care about more than anything is where the train is going. Because no matter how punctual it is, no use getting to London King's Cross bang on time if your ultimate goal was to get to Edinburgh Waverley.
The destination is the thing that really matters. And that's what Paul gives us here. And it comes in verse 10: to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. That's where it's heading—absolute unity.
There's so much fighting in the world. There's so much disunity. There’s so much people falling out with each other, that we long for a world where everything is at peace. And God's destination in His grand plan is a united world, and it's united because of Jesus.
And there are two pictures here for how Jesus unites things. The language is rich and describes things in two different ways.
It's united around Him, with Jesus at the centre. So think of a bicycle wheel, where you have lots of spokes that go to all the bits on the rim of the wheel. So every bit on the rim of the wheel, wherever you are, is part of the one wheel because it's connected via the spokes to the thing at the middle—the hub. And Jesus is the one around whom everything is united.
And Jesus is the one under whom everything is united. It's united under Him. He is the ruler, the Lord, the King over everything—or at least, visibly, one day He will be: Christ over all, Christ in all. A united world with no rebellion anywhere. That is the future to which we're heading.
Now, don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not saying we will all enjoy that future. You see, for now, it is possible to fight against Jesus and to get away with it. That's why the world rips itself apart—because we're not agreed who is going to be king. We all want to be little kings of our own little empires, so we fight.
That's possible for now. When Jesus comes back, that won't be possible. You will either be wonderfully and freely forgiven, or you will be crushed and no longer able to resist. And the day to seek forgiveness, to make sure this is a good future for you—that's today, before it happens.
But the world will be united around and under the Lord Jesus.
In fact, it's bigger than just the united world. He says, things in heaven and on earth. Not just the world we can see that will be united—the world we can’t see, the spirit realm—that will be included as well. There will be no rebellion anywhere. And everything will be good, and only good, around and under the Lord Jesus.
That is the destination. It's something that the world longs for, is hungry for, and fails to achieve.
The number of times in the past two or three months I've seen people quote some of the tragic news coming out of Russia and the Ukraine at the moment, and they say this: “I can't believe this is still happening in 2022.”
I can. We're still sinful in 2022.
I do not know the date of Jesus's return. When He was on earth, He didn’t know that—His own return. So I'm not going to pretend that I know something that He didn't. But there is a date in the calendar. And when He comes, those kinds of things will happen no more.
We long for it, and we cannot achieve it on our own. An end to fighting, an end to conflict, and complete unity. And wonderfully, God has told us that this is where things are heading—so that we can live in the light of it now. And that is what the rest of the letter to the Ephesians will tell us how to do.
So, how does our God compare to the gods of other people?
There is no other god who forgives by shedding His own blood, surrendering His life so that we are genuinely free.
There is no other god who is truly infinite in riches and then lavishes His grace on people according to those infinite riches.
There is no other god who has a plan for the whole of human and cosmic history in which everything will be brought to complete unity.
There is no other god who has spoken to reveal His grand plan so that we can know how secure we are.
Jesus, and God His Father, and God the Holy Spirit are a God like no other.
There's a song which churches used to sing 20 years ago, and some of you may remember. Let me invite you just to reminisce back to the old days, those of you who know it. It was written in 1997.
Jesus, what a beautiful name
Truth revealed, my future sealed
Healed my pain
Love and freedom, life and warmth
Grace that blows all fears away
Jesus, what a beautiful name
Put that on your Facebook. Better than your roast dinner.
Jesus, what a beautiful name
Rescued my soul, my stronghold
Lifts me from shame
Forgiveness, security, power and love
Grace that blows all fears away
Jesus, what a beautiful name
He's like no other. Which means if we are in Him, if we are one of His people, we have all of these blessings. And we are eternally and totally secure.
So if you don't yet follow this Jesus, please find out more about Him—because wouldn't it be wonderful if this was true? If there really was a God this amazing?
And if, like many of us here, you do follow Him—don't hold back. Don’t hedge your bets, one foot in each camp. Worship Him. Worship Him alone, with everything you have and with everything you are.