What’s In It for Me?
An exposition of Ephesians 1:1-14
Everyone always does everything they do because they think it’s best for them. People do what they do because they think it will make them happiest.
“Disinterested benevolence” and “willing to be damned for the glory of God”?
To hear what’s in it for you from Ephesians 1:1-14, click:
Who It Is From and Who It Is For
from: Paul an apostle, not by aspiration, or manipulation, or nomination but God’s designation.
for: Saints (“holy ones” set aside by God) and believers, the faithful
How Is God “Blessed”?
God is in a state of joy, receiving benefits, happiness, and fulfillment, He is satisfied. To hear how, click on the YouTube link above.
Blesses Us
The satisfied, joyous God, satisfies and makes us joyous. (1:3)
Christ is the sole source of all our blessings so He is the only one we go to for them.
He Chooses Us
Making us happy makes Him happy and He wants to make Himself happy by making people who don’t think first of how to make themselves happy.
The choice is God’s and change is the point.
He Predestined Us
He determined our destiny as children of God. (1:5) To hear about predestination, listen to the YouTube video linked above.
He chooses to love some people, make them His children, and ensures that that will happen.
We Get Redemption
The amount of forgiveness we get is in proportion to the amount of grace He has.
God supplied the blood so we could have forgiveness.
God Makes Known To Us The Mystery Of His Will
God’s plan, is for Jesus to head up everything, including you. God likes to show His people that they are His sons and daughters.
We Get An Inheritance
God will work through everything to get His inheritance to His children. To hear how God controls all things, listen to the YouTube video linked above.
He Seals Us With the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is also the guarantee — like a down-payment — of the whole inheritance yet to come; the foretaste. Listen how at the YouTube video above.
What’s in it for you?
God Himself, protecting you, bequeathing to you, speaking to you, buying you out of sin and hell, predestining you, choosing you, blessing you by giving you the same good pleasure He has perfectly. Everything good.
John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022) and the Covenant Caswell substack.