Hopewell ARP Church is a Biblical, Reformed, Presbyterian church, serving the Lord in Culleoka, TN, since 1820. Lord's Day Morning, set your gps to arrive by 11a.m. at 3886 Hopewell Road, Culleoka, TN 38451
Read Ephesians 1:3-14
Questions from the Scripture text: Of Whom is God the Father (Ephesians 1:3)? With what spiritual blessings has He blessed us? Where? In Whom? What else did God do to/for us in Christ (Ephesians 1:4)? When? For what end purpose/result? To what has He predestined us (Ephesians 1:5)? By what means? According to what reason? For what further/ultimate purpose (Ephesians 1:6)? What did He make us by that grace? What do we have through His blood (Ephesians 1:7)? According to the riches of what? What has He made known to us (Ephesians 1:9)? Where/in-Whom did He purpose His good pleasure? In whom did He plan to gather together all things (Ephesians 1:10)? For when did He plan this to happen? What did we obtain in Christ (Ephesians 1:11)? How many things does God work according to the counsel of His will? What was God’s purpose for the first believers’ trusting in Christ (Ephesians 1:12)? What brought about the Ephesians’ faith (Ephesians 1:13)? How were they sealed when they believed? What is the Holy Spirit to us (Ephesians 1:14)? Until when? Unto what ultimate purpose?
What is God doing? Ephesians 1:3–14 helps us prepare to hear Ephesians 2:1–5 proclaimed in the morning public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these twelve verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that God does all things, to bring us into our inheritance with Christ, unto the praise of His glorious grace.
This passage teaches us why God created the heavens and earth. The answer, of course, goes back into eternity (Ephesians 1:4). God had predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself (Ephesians 1:5).
But how could this come about? How could creatures come to be united to the God the Son, the Creator? Because God, who had chosen us to be holy and blameless before Him in love refused to allow us to perish in our sin.
This adoption in everlasting love has its own “why” purpose. To the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:6).
His giving us the inheritance of being like Him and with Him forever has the same purpose. That believers would be to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:12).
When at last we are displayed as the blood-purchased possession of Christ, it will also be unto the same purpose. To the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:14).
This is the chief end of man: that the elect would glorify God by eternally enjoying Him as His own dear children as the glorified brethren of the Firstborn, our Lord Jesus Christ!
Whatever you are going through, this is what your trial is accomplishing! Whatever else God intends to do through the task in front of you, this is what the duty before you will ultimately accomplish!
Indeed, everything that God does, in all places, at all times, is for the purpose of bringing us into our inheritance (Ephesians 1:11): conformed to Christ, and blessed with His own blessedness (Ephesians 1:3), as adopted children, to the praise of God’s glorious grace. And the greatest thing that He has ever done, the great mystery of all of history, was the shedding of Christ’s blood to obtain that inheritance for us (Ephesians 1:7-10).
There is no more comfort-assuring, joy-enlarging, purpose-giving doctrine than God’s eternal, adopting election to the praise of His glorious grace!
What are you going through? What tasks lie before you? What is happening in all the world? What is God doing through all of these things?
Sample prayer: Lord, we bless Your Name, as Christ’s God and Father, and our God and Father. Thank You for adopting us as Your children in Him, and purchasing this adoption by His blood. Grant that, just as You have done all things for the praise of Your grace, that we also would do all things for the praise of Your glorious grace. Unto that end, keep helping us by Your Spirit, we ask through Your Son, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP128 “How Blessed Are All” or TPH425 “How Sweet and Awesome”
Read Ephesians 1:1–2
Questions from the Scripture text: Who wrote this letter (Ephesians 1:1)? What is his title? Of Whom is he an apostle? How did this come about? To whom is he writing—what title does he give them? What else does he call them? In Whom are they faithful? What two-part blessing/greeting does the apostle pronounce upon them (Ephesians 1:2)? From what two Persons does the apostle pronounce these?
What does Ephesians teach? Ephesians 1:1–2 helps us prepare to hear Ephesians 2:1–5 proclaimed in the morning public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these two verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that Ephesians, the gospel, the Bible, and the whole of reality, are all about Jesus.
Immediately, in the opening of Ephesians, we know that this is going to be a glorious book about Jesus Christ!
This letter has been particularly precious to the church throughout the ages.
Do you recognize the pattern? What is the theme of this wonderful book about salvation, justification, reconciliation, evangelism, the church, Christian living, and Christian warfare? That all of these things are only for Jesus’s glory, only by Jesus’s power, only through Jesus’s method, only by faith in Jesus and fellowship with Jesus!
So, it is no surprise at all that Jesus is central to the blessing at the end of the book (Ephesians 6:23–24). And here in Ephesians 1:1-2, even in the “customary” greeting, Paul tells us.
He’s setting us up for the entire letter. That our salvation (and his apostleship) is “by the will of God.” That our being set apart in the church and grown in godliness is “in Christ Jesus.” And that both the grace by which we wage the warfare and the peace in which we are reconciled to God as not only His allies but His children come from “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And of course, at the very heart of all of this. Is Jesus!
In what parts of what Ephesians teaches do you most need to grow? How does it connect to Jesus?
Sample prayer: Lord, thank You for choosing especially to glorify Yourself in Your Son, and in His redeeming us. Grant that we would have all that we need from You, in Him, by Your Spirit, to live as those Whom You have consecrated to Yourself in Christ, we ask in His Name, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP32AB “What Blessedness” or TPH265 “In Christ Alone”