Eph. 1:11-13a Where’s Jesus our Wealth In Christ part 11

Captivate in Our Riches in Christ v.7-12

Evaluate For Us How We Are Satisfied v.11-12

Impact Us With Value v.11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance

Impale Us With Vision being predestinated according

Implement Us With Veneration v.12 That we should be to the praise of his glory

Imprint Us With Validation who first trusted in Christ to the purpose of him

Identify For Us Victory who works all things after the counsel of his own will

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14

Declare To Us How The Spirit Pursues v.13 In whom ye also trusted,

I often feel I fall so short of the expressions I want to yield in writing as words are jockeyed to isolate the feelings about the text and our experience of Jesus in it.

How absorbed or attracted and engrossed are we in Christ as we face each day. Paul was in prison and writing to others from a very bleak surrounding and abusive conditions.

That seems like such an impossibility to encourage others in their riches while you’re in an impoverished condition. The jail system in the present time in Turkey is extremely debasing.

I’ve been in Turkey and seen the prison compounds from outside. I’ve spent time with others when I was on missionary teams who spent time imprisoned in the late 60s and early 70’s because they tried to share Jesus with people in Turkey.

They had been beat while in jail, they ended up with fungal infections and other skin irritations that we’re incurable and caused constant itching.

I knew girls who we’re in jail there who got head lice so bad that they lost large amounts of their hair so that their scalp density was very scarce. All they had done is share their affection for Jesus with others.

They had the beauty of Christ in their facial expressions. They left a lasting impression on my mind and feelings.

Now we have a current Politian’s who wants to laud this medieval slave mongering culture in the Islamic countries. Cultures which hate the freedom and forgiveness found in the liberation of Christ Jesus in person’s life.

When Paul said He knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound he wasn’t talking about abounding in a sleek convertible on a spring day a little north of Palm Springs.

He was abounding in the filth and depredating degradation of prison and all while feeling deep affections in Christ. We are living really in the final days of the affluences of this world, as I see it.

Jesus told us that in this period we’re in, that people are going to say Christ is over here, and Christ is over there. We can look for Him in these various places and come up empty.

The so called Church remakes of some kind of religious Woodstock that we’re seeing in our present day, which simulates this externalized absorption in some kind of amalgamation of amplified noise immersion and lauding of Jesus in frantic clatter called music, but really is this Jesus?

I don’t want to launch much further in the direction I’m taking but the rapt fascination with informal and formalistic flavors for religious incorporation to produce a valuing in Christ and hopefully engage our spirits in worship are really worthy of challenge. Let’s leave that alone for now.

Are our affections for Jesus leading us into a path with Him of real life change and deepening character? Are we energizing each other for Christ or alienating and pushing away.

Estrangement and divorce are as rampant in Christianity as if we we’re living the lives of movie stars. Desperate housewives and disaffected husbands are us. Relational rupture is growing faster than the aids virus.

Chemistry is a name of one of the dot com dating venues and it’s an interesting grip we’re longing after. We want to find a material that will engage and involve us in a meaningful relational draw. We want to be embroiled in real love that rivets our affections.

Like the song The Who sang at Woodstock we’re crying in our soul the same thing. See me, feel me, touch me heal me. I often have wondered if this echo of listening to you, gazing at you, following you that The Who bellowed out in odd moans in a retake at half time at last year’s super bowl isn’t the yearning of our culture.

They screamed, on you I see the millions, on you I get opinions, in you I see the glory, I get excitement at your feet. Yes, I hear the lyrics but I see it only in Christ and find that the total completion can only be in Jesus.

He is the Chemistry that can bring relationship to this passion we long for. We’re torn up in the discord, the fracture and fissure of rapport and connection. We want affinity, empathy, union and a bond that will complete us. I find it only in Jesus and He’s worthy of our passionate pursuit.

In verses 11-12 we sum up the introduction on our riches in Christ.

Our first section was our riches in Paul’s introductory greeting. This gave us his situation and the expressions of his relational connection.

Then Paul explores our riches in God our Sovereign which looked into what’s considered eternity past.

The third section of riches are the verses we are here finishing. These are thoughts on God our Savior, Jesus Christ and that looks at history and what He achieved for us in His coming to earth, intersecting world events with His life, death and resurrection and our blessing in Him.

Incredible that Jesus actually splits the timetable of history in half into BC and AD. No one in time has ever made that collision of personal impact. History is truly HIS Story.

Next we’ll look at our riches in God the Spirit. This is present history or current experiences as the Spirit works in our lives all the riches of our relationship in God.

There is an interesting play in words on the “we” of verses 11 and 12 and the word “ye or you” in verse 13.

The “we” refers to the Hebrew believers and the “you” refer to the Gentile or all outside of the Jewish ancestry who had opened their hearts to Christ.

These both are all one and make up this new entity and unit of humanity called the Church the body of Christ. The Church local is two or three gathered together in Jesus name, and the Church universal is all local gatherings throughout the earth.

What we see today in the Church is both what is true and false in structure, teaching and practice. There is the Spirit lead Church, which is the Christ led, truth exalting loyal followers.

Then unfortunately there is a great development in that which is completely alien to God’s Spirit. This is that which is spawned in the natural inclinations or is fleshly and carnal. It is grieving to the Spirit of Christ.

Then there are satanic fabrications, forgeries that are rampant with incredible falsehood. These are the counterfeit Church, imitations and phony shams which may have actual demonic powers that simulate and conjure up a form of power, influence and character reproduction and sensation but it all leads to the depths of hell.

Hopefully as we progress through this letter we can expand on the true and warn of the false experiences and exposures that are floating around.

Let’s sum up a few more riches in Christ.

Evaluate For Us How We Are Satisfied v.11-12

Impact Us With Value v.11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,

To obtain or acquire a privilege and benefit is a special honor. This inheritance or future entitlement is in view as already in possession.

It didn’t need to be earned or merited based on a payment or purchased by some sum of imbursement. Our inheritance is not secured by some achieved behavior or consistency of practice.

This inheritance is a value of the future that we possess already in and through Christ. The frame of thought that’s being expressed is that we as believers can be impacted with the immense value of our future lifestyle in this coming joint reign with Christ now.

This is a privileged asset and joy of anticipation to be savored in the present. “In whom” is our benefactor, and “we have obtained” means that the right and opportunity was already secured. This is another aspect to our wonderful mystery and its revelation.

Impale Us With Vision being predestinated according to the purpose of him

Here is another facet or piece of predetermination and that is that God purposed to bless His chosen Jewish believers in Christ in this future millennial gathering together around the coronation and reign of Christ on earth.

This was His purpose and goal before time and He will do it. To have the delight of this vision of the Lord as our vision circulating through our spiritual veins is a heightening prospect. This reflects on the Jewish believers and later of the Gentile believers and finally Paul point to the fact that we are all one in Christ.

Identify For Us Victory who works all things after the counsel of his own will

Knowing that God works all things, not just a few things, or some scattered events, but all things after the counsel of His own will.

All things are a perception that needs to stay in our awareness. The word counsel means a reasoned deliberation. God is consistent to His promises and principles and articulates His character and attributes in precise expressions to us which all blend with His will and plan.

The pattern is comprehensible and clear. He includes us in His counsel as trusted participants and allows us to commune in all His interests and intimacies.

Implement Us With Veneration v.12 That we should be to the praise of his glory

Imprint Us With Validation who first trusted in Christ

Here again we see the “we” which would be inclusive of Paul and all the Jewish believers who were bold to step out in faith in their promised Messiah, the Christ.

They were those who first trusted, the apostles, the early believers in Jerusalem who saw Christ ascend after the resurrection and waited in worship and prayer on the Lord in those early chapters of the Churches history in the Acts. They were to be credited with praise to God’s glory for their stand of faith.

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14

Declare To Us How The Spirit Pursues v.13 In whom ye also trusted,

The Lord didn’t just stop at Jerusalem and Judea but stretched His invitation to an intimate walk of liberation with a trust in Jesus to the uttermost parts of the earth. He is still reaching out with His compelling love and life changing personality and that is the “ye” or “you” here referred to.

Paul is connecting his thoughts and greetings to the non-Jewish believers not only during this letters reception but right up to the here and now.

If we have trusted in Jesus we are “the you” who have also trusted and evidence of the Spirit of God’s pursuing love. In believing in Him we rein with Him.

Christ who is the anointed king is like David of early years who was in exile as King. Public ridicule, chased and badgered, pursued with murderous cause by the self filled dictator of the day.

David found himself in caves with edgy followers, roamed the mountain’s and experienced deprivation and distresses.

Jesus is on the move and He will return to take His throne and we are inheritors who will soon administrate with Him. Just as each new president brings in those who agree with their principles and positions to offices of close association and influence we also will share with Christ for His glory.