Let's go to the Lord again in prayer before we look at His Word together. Father, you have Created us to praise you. We need therefore, Lord, you to so work in our life that you might turn us from a focus upon Self and this world that we might do that which is not only right but best and in most fulfilling. That we would praise you not only with our lips but with our lives. So use this passage now, Lord, to that end, we pray as we ask you that the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts would be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Recently, the movie version of Alexander Dumas' 19th Century Classic, the Count of Monochristos, came out, then received a lot of attention typical of Hollywood, the really good movies are under-advertised. It's a story about a very upstanding, guile-less, wise, young man of integrity named Edmund Antis, he's the protagonist who has just received a promotion. He was sort of really from the present class received a promotion to be a captain of a she vessel, was just newly engaged to marry the beautiful Mercedes. His life seemed headed on the right track until he was framed in part by his best friend to be as an inconspiracer with Napoleon. Napoleon at this time was exiled and out of power just about to re-emerge into power. And so Dumas is imprisoned and set off to a French island in a prison, sort of like our Alcatraz called Chateau d'Eve. And if anything but a chateau, I mean, when you say the word chateau, you think, oh, opulent, beautiful palace. This was the most gruesome, horrible existence you could ever imagine. And he was confined to spend the rest of his days there under extreme conditions of torture, being malnourished, while all by himself. He had no contact for a number of years with any other human being. Until one day, when another prisoner who was trying to tunnel his way out of this fortress, by mistake, tunneled into his cell. And this was a priest who had been imprisoned also wrongly. And they developed a wonderful relationship really with the priest mentors him because by this time, they learned animalistic with hatred. And through a series of events, they decided to tunnel together outside and break free. But before they were able to do so, one day while tunneling, the tunnel collapses. And the rocks end up crushing the life out of this older man, this priest. And as he is breathing his last breath of life, he tells Dantus to come closer to him and tells him of a great fortune, an untold unfathomable fortune that is now going to be his. He needs to, when he escapes, find an island called Monte Cristo and find that fortune. And so through a series of other events, he does escape from Chateau the if and finds his way to Monte Cristo. He looks and looks for this hidden treasure. Can't find it. And finally, he stumbles across a cave. And when he enters into the cave, he sees that there is a large pond deep, well-like pond inside this cave. And he dives into it. And sure enough, their submerged beneath those waters are treasure chest, spilling over with gold so much you could never imagine. He was now conceivably one of the wealthiest persons in the face of the earth, from an enslaved peasant to the count of Monte Cristo he became. And when you look at that, when you think about that which he experienced going from such an extreme to another extreme, you wonder how you would respond with that kind of extravagance. I mean, how would you react if you stumbled across that kind of treasure? If you won the lottery, how would you react? What kind of a life would you lead from that point forward? It's not a stretch to think of that type of example when we think of our relationship with God because in the passage that we've got to look at this morning, verses 7 and 8 of chapter 1 in Ephesians, God describes his gift of grace to us in Christ in these very terms. He describes it this way. 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. That's what God has done. He has, in essence, given us, riches that we could never imagine and he has lavished them upon us by his grace. And now he says, enjoy. Live out your life in light of this incredible wealth that I have entrusted to you. That word lavish is one when I looked it up in the dictionary. It speaks of extravagance where the giver has been extremely generous or liberal in giving or spending. Abundance, bountiful, excessive, generous, immoderate, open-handed, wild. I mean, these are all words that describe the extravagant grace that is ours in Christ if you're a true believer. And yet for many of us, when I describe those kinds of words, that's not really what grace tends to mean to us at a heart level when we first think of it day in and day out. Now for some of you it is, and that's a great blessing, but for a lot of us, it ends up being, well, to vanilla, to ordinary, to normal. And what God would have us to do this morning, I think, is to dive into the waters of his grace that we might be able to behold in a fresh and beautiful way those overflowing treasure chests of his love to us. Now to do that, I want to look with you at, I think, the central concept in these couple of verses, the word redemption. Let me just back up just a second by way of reminder. We are in a series going all the way through the book of Ephesians, and I'm going very slowly, I promise not to go this slowly through the entire book, all right. But we're going very slowly through this first section, 3 through 14, which is in Greek, one sentence. Paul's hardly able to get out the words. He's so excited to share with us about these things. And so there's some very rich concepts, in a lot of ways, everything that you need to know about grace, and therefore about the book of Ephesians, is in a beautiful papistry form woven into these first verses. And so we're going to take it very slowly today, just those two verses, and then the next couple of weeks we'll finish out this section. We want to focus on the word redemption. In him, we have, we possess. It is ours today, if you are a Christian, we have redemption. What is that word? Well, it's a word that is very rich and pregnant in the Bible. In the Old Testament, it can refer to a number of things, all in the same field of meaning. You could have, through a series of circumstances, come to be in debt, and you, in the ancient world, might have sold yourself into slavery to another, to your creditors, because you were in debt. There was a provision in God's law for a relative to come along, and in essence purchase back your property, or purchase you back, a kinsman redeemer, beautiful thing that you see explained in the law in the first five books of the Bible, you see it in real life form applied in a number of different books in the Old Testament, powerful picture. The most vivid and important though picture of redemption that we find in the Old Testament deals with the nation of Israel as a whole. It's of course when they found themselves to be enslaved to the king or Pharaoh of Egypt, the entire nation of Israel was there, and were enslaved, ruthless slavery to the Pharaoh of Egypt. And God sent his appointed man, Moses, to tell Pharaoh to let my people go, that they might leave your service, your slavery, and come out into my wilderness and serve, or worship me. The Hebrew word there can either be serve or worship, very important term. And so the picture that you find there God tells Moses is this, this is Exodus 6 or 6 and 7, he says, I am the Lord, and I will bring out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people and I will be your God, beautiful picture. Later on in Israel's history, I mean of course they come out of slavery in Egypt by God's outstretched arm of grace, and he takes them into the promised land after 40 years because of their disobedience, they wander around, finally they go into the promised land, they're supposed to wipe out all of the nations in there, but they don't do that. And so they end up over time buying into the foreign gods of those nations that lived in the land of Palestine, so much so that God in a disciplinary form, out of love, takes the nation of Israel into exile, to a Syria and Babylon, and then he calls them out. Another beautiful picture of redemption recorded in Isaiah 48-20, listen to this magnificent couple of verses, go out from Babylon, flee from Caldria, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth, say the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob. So you have the Old Testament picture there in view, with that in mind, because that's what's in the mind of the New Testament writer as they're writing. When Paul writes this about redemption, he has this picture in mind, and so what is it that he is saying that we are redeemed from, what's not from a physical land or people, it's from a spiritual land and person. It's from a deliverance from evil, and from sin that has held us in bondage, and Paul uses this terminology in Romans chapter 6 to talk about our enslavement to sin. Isn't that the way of sin? I mean, doesn't that ring true to your heart when you think of our estrangement from God, of the way that we wander from the way that is right and true and holy? When we do that, we think as back in the Garden of Eden, that it will promise life and abundance and fruit and joy, but it doesn't, it never does. You never do sin, sin always does you, it boomerangs back, and it enslaves you and binds you in. And so what he is talking about here is a redemption, a deliverance from that sin. Another aspect to it that some of the commentators bring out, but I think it's very good, is it's also a deliverance from the just judgment of God. See, because it's not just that sin does us and we're enslaved to our sin naturally as human beings, but really because we've broken the Almighty Law, the Holy Law of God, by God's nature, he must be just. And therefore condemn those lawbreakers, all of us who have wandered from God's way. And so there is an essence, a sense in which God is redeeming us from that which he is bound to, the just judgment upon sin recorded in his law. How are we redeemed? What says in verse 7 through his blood? Now what another vivid picture here, because again, you've got to go back to the Old Testament and look, remember when Egypt, when Israel was enslaved in Egypt, what was it finally by which the Lord did redeem them out of the hands of Pharaoh in Egypt? Remember, there were all these plagues that he used, God did, to show his might and power and glory, but through them all Pharaoh's heart was hardened. And so finally the tenth climactic final plague was the plague of the firstborn, whereby every firstborn, human being and creature, would be struck down on this one night. As the angel of the Lord passes through Egypt. And yet God made a provision for his people. What did he tell them? He said, take a lamb, young male lamb without blemish and sacrifice it and take the blood of that lamb and wipe it across the door frame of your house. And then gather together with your family behind that blood, and I will pass over you. What an magnificent picture, why? Because as soon as Jesus comes on the scene, what are the very first public words that are spoken about Jesus Christ? Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sentient of the world. Isn't that a beautiful picture? Here is the true lamb of God that through his blood that spilled as we hide behind that blood so to speak. Neither God's judgment nor the enslaving devices of sin and this world and all its horrible evil will be able to conquer us. But God's blood, Jesus's blood, is our means through which we are redeemed. Isn't that a magnificent picture? A little bit later in the book of Acts, when Luke is recording the Apostle Paul's final words to the leaders of the church in Ephesus, listen to how he instructs them. He says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the Church of God which he obtained with his own blood. Isn't that beautiful? See, in a general sense, it is very true that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, that is, all people in the world, all kinds of people. There's no no nook, there's no cranny, there's no pocket in this world where the blood of Jesus is not available. And yet it is for those people that the father we learned a couple of weeks ago has chosen from eternity past before the foundation of the world. Those people are the ones for whom Jesus's blood was spilled. God is calling out this people that would be called the Church that we might declare his praises. Isn't that magnificent? It's a beautiful picture of redemption that we have here. Now, what's the result of it? Well, this passage gives us the result of it. Look back to verse 7, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Again, we have broken God's law. God is the judge of all the universe and what he must do is be faithful to his character. He must be just. And yet because he punished his son, he is able to pardon us. Because Jesus was bound on the cross, we are lost from our sin and there is forgiveness there for us. And this is something that as I talk to people, Christian and non-Christian alike, it is something that is inherent to us as human beings, that we sense there is a guilt there. And since there is a problem internally with us and we want redemption, we crave forgiveness from that guilt that's in us. John Scott talks about a famous secular humanist and novelist, Margarita Lasky, in 1988, shortly before she died, she was quoted as saying, What I envy most about you, Christians, is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me. See, that's the great hope of the Church of Jesus Christ, is that we are the guardians of the gospel. It is though the cradle of the gospel is here in the church and it's our responsibility to go out to the world and to allow the world to come in. That they might be able to see that there is one who has come to forgive and to redeem. Now, there's an attendant concept to forgiveness that I don't want you to miss here, it's the concept of freedom. And all the commentators talk about it because when forgiveness is used, follow me here, with the concept of redemption, what we're supposed to see forgiveness as is freedom. Because what happens in redemption, remember, is you are being delivered out of that which is bound to you, slavery to something, imprisonment. So you are forgiven of your sins, but really forgiveness takes on a beautiful picture of freedom. Dr. Frankl, some of you are familiar with his research and writing. He was really popular in the 60s and 70s. He was a Jew that was imprisoned in both Dachau and Auschwitz during World War II, and survived. Ended up writing a good bit on the experiences that he had and different interviews that he was able to have with those who were imprisoned together with him. And he developed a whole model of psychoanalysis. But one of the stories that he tells is that an individual who when the allies came in and liberated these prison camps, they would go into the depths of these prison camps into the dungeon-like rooms and release the prisoners. One of these individuals, when he was released, he came out, the light was offensive to him. He was led out by the hand out into the full daylight, and it was almost oppressive to him, and everything was foreign. And the allies, those who are there, are expecting what you would expect, and I would expect which would be that he would begin to catch on, and he would just be exhilarated. Leap for joy, you know, do a herky or something like that, but he doesn't do that. Instead, after a while, with sort of a confused malaise look, he turns around, walks somberly back into the prison camp into his cell and shuts the door.
Why? Well, could it be that he is the length of time which he had been enslaved and prisons had so transformed his way of thinking that there was a bizarre liberty in being enslaved, so that he couldn't even begin to grasp what it would be like to be free? The Bible shouts at us, that does not need to be the case, and yet it is so much the case for many of us, back to the story of the count of Monica Christo. I mean, after you discovered, as he did, this enormous treasure, and I ask you, how would you respond? You had in mind all sorts of things, right? But you know how he responded? He couldn't enjoy it. It was impossible for him to enjoy it. He couldn't even manufacture a smile on his face because he was enslaved with the concept of taking revenge on those who had falsely accused him. That gripped him, so that even if he got this abundance of wealth, he couldn't do anything with it to enjoy it. And so I really want to press home to all of you today, regardless of where you are in the spiritual spectrum. This is a critical picture for us to keep in mind, that God has given us the opportunity for redemption, for the forgiveness of sins, for the freedom and liberty that comes, and yet we don't enjoy it. So let's spend the rest of our time in just exploring that a little bit. How is it that we can, as the prophet Isaiah said, go out from Babylon, flee from the calvians, and shout with joy, declare it to the ends of the earth? What is it that we need to be thinking about in order to truly enjoy this type of freedom of Lord is given? Well, first of all, we have to get it. We have to get it. And so the first two words there, where it says, in him, we have redemption, those words are key. You see them sprinkled throughout all of Paul's writing, but they're saturating the first section in Ephesians. You see either in him or in Christ, you see that? Even in the very few words right before verse 7, in the beloved, which it should be capitalized, it's talking about Jesus, in him. What's it talking about? It's talking about our union with Christ, that if you come to believe in Jesus Christ, admitting that you are lost and sinful on your own, trusting in what God has done for you in Christ, that God literally engrossed you into himself, like in the Gregorian culture, you might engraft a branch into a tree. Did you know that's literally what happens, for instance, in pecan farming? The stock, the tree that provides a strong root so that the tree doesn't blow over and it grows into a strong tree, that tree is not the tree that you want to eat the nut from. So what they do is they let the root take and then they chop off the tree and engraft a different tree that is going to produce years down the road, the fruit that you will enjoy. So it's that picture that we are engrafted into Christ, it's code language for union with Christ. Listen to just one verse, Romans 323, very familiar verse, but do you know the second part of it, for all of sinned and fall short at the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is what? In Christ Jesus, and it's all over the place, it's like when you begin to read Paul's writings through this lens, it just jumps out at you and shouts at you. Now I want you to see the redemptive picture involved in union with Christ. Have you ever noticed those inigmatic words that you just frankly don't know what to do with at the beginning of the gospel of Matthew where it's telling us about how you know Herod wanted to seek out and kill the baby Jesus. Do you remember that hearing about that? And so Mary and Joseph took their little baby to where Egypt until Herod died. But Matthew comments on it from a theological standpoint, and what does he say? He quotes from Hosea 111, and he says, out of Egypt, I have called my son. Very interesting, hold that in mind, and then let's listen to Hosea 111, Old Testament, what Matthew is quoting, talking about Jesus coming out of Egypt. When Israel was a child, I loved him. And out of Egypt, I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the bales and burning offerings to idols. Okay, this is something you get really excited about because what's lodged in here is the depth of the meaning of in Christ. When he says out of Egypt, I called my son in the Hosea passage. It's literally the nation of Israel that is being called God's son is called out of Egypt when God redeemed them from Pharaoh's hand. What did he call them to do to serve and worship him? But what is Hosea comment on that the more they were called, what did they do? The more they went away. That sound like you and me. Yes, it does. It's human nature. God calls us, but we are weak rather than strong. And so the whole Bible is pointing towards the ultimate son who would come. The only begotten son of the father who would in essence be a representative or a substitute for all of God's people, the nation of Israel and the Old Testament who would wander away. Now he symbolically is called out of Egypt as God's son. Now when Jesus grows up, he enters into public ministry by being baptized by John the Baptist so that he is identified with this wandering vagrant people. But what happens at that point, the heavens part you still with me the heavens part and a voice speaks it's God the Father and he says what this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Look now back at Ephesians chapter one and look at verse six to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us what in the beloved. Are you getting that aha moment? It's beautiful because though you and I just like Israel have wandered away from God the more and more he calls the more we wander away. He sent the true son brought him out of Egypt identified him with us lived obediently for 33 years and thus merited for us righteousness and the pleasure of God in whom I am well pleased he said it's this one that he loved this son he loved. So that when you become a believer in Jesus Christ here's the final connection when you become a believer in Jesus Christ God doesn't look at you and all your dirt and sin and all of your unfaithfulness he looks at his beloved son in whom he is well pleased and therefore looks at you and is what also well pleased. That's the gospel that you don't have to be seen before God based on your resume and track record but it can be if you come by faith alone Jesus and his track record and resume by which God views you that's why in the him that we sang earlier it's so beautiful the pictures being clothed in Christ so that God sees his son and not us. That's the getting it you need to come by faith alone now the enjoyment of it is really just getting into it like I am right now see I've had a whole week to think about these things I'm pretty excited about some of you going boy he's a little fanatic about these things but. What do we need we need to get fanatical about and we need to get excited about these things and God has given us the ability and the way to do that real quickly the ability notice it says that he lavish upon us. With all wisdom and insight. Those commentators agree those are not two different things it's a figure of speech and dio this that's using two words to point to one concept that's it's very big very pregnant. It's this that when you become a Christian when you are in Christ God only not only gives you redemption but he gives you the ability to understand it to make the most of it to let the gospel run in your life so that you are a very different person he's given us by the gift of his spirit that wisdom and insight we need to cultivate it through prayer pray say God I don't feel like. Like I am redeemed I feel guilty we need to take his word meditate on it and allow his spirit to lead us into all wisdom and insight as Paul actually prays a little bit later in this same book. You need to recognize the present tenseness of this alright before these verses in Ephesians everything is being talked about in eternity before the foundation of the world in verse seven all of a sudden it's dealing with present tense. And with human beings let me just quote one commentator who's quasi liberal but actually at this point right on target Marcus Bart he says the literal translation we have redemption forgiveness of our trespasses fails to make the reader aware of the boastful assertiveness of each one of the key words used listen now we possess is stronger than the trite we have. Suddenly men instead of God of the subject of a sentence a statement about the present rather than the remote past or future is made the assertion of verse seven has a triumphant ring freedom is the clear purpose and result of redemption in this verse Paul does not speak of a way to be followed a function to be fulfilled or an action to be completed but the complete attainment of the ultimate. In that magnificent so meditate on these things chew on them and allow God to lead you into all wisdom and insight that you may enjoy not run back into your enslavement but lead that enslavement in the joy of the Lord. The final concept here you go back to the Passover the old testament background to this you know what God did when he was teaching the Israelites about this the original Passover he said this in chapter 12 of Exodus he said this month shall be for you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year for you. And then he goes on to explain it and that's just a little thing and I may be reading too much in here but I don't think so isn't it significant God says because of what I'm about to do in redeeming you out of this enslavement I'm going to blow your categories I'm going to redefine the whole way you think about life I'm going to redefine your concept of time and even the way you think of your calendar I'm going to say you have a new beginning today because of the blood that has been spilled. It's been spilled by that lamb without blemish friends some of you come today many of you come today beaten down tired some of you really under guilt others of you are frankly just apathetic about God maybe because of a cumulative effect of being distant from him the gospel of Jesus Christ always comes to us and gives us a new beginning. He said you can start over today this is January 1 today why because the cross of Jesus Christ is still vitally real and powerful for you just come back he's done all that is necessary it is finished you have been redeemed now enter in in a fresh way and delight in that which he has done. In result will be that we will do as the apostle Paul did throughout this very long sentence praise and worship the Lord what was Israel to have done when they left Egypt praise and worship the Lord what did they do they made a golden calf you and I do not need to do that today we can leave our dungeons we can dive into the waters of God's grace be cloned in the riches of Christ with a smile on our face and sing God's praises forever more let's pray our Lord thank you that you have called us out of the darkness of this world you have called us as your people chosen by you and precious to you because of the blood of your son and you have done this that we might declare your praises unto eternity and all God's people said amen.