I was working on the new building this last week and I was praying for us as a church. I was praying for the community around us that I’ve begun to affectionately refer to as “Hastings South of The Tracks”. And as I was praying for our first Sunday gathering here I sensed the Holy Spirit was speaking to me about what he wanted me to preach this morning for our first gathering on B street.
And to be honest, I am really excited. I am excited not only that we as a church family get to set up shop right here on B street but I’m also excited as I dream of the possibilities of loving and serving the community that sits south of the tracks here in Hastings. And… I am excited that this message is the first message I get to preach on B Street.
You might ask, why is he so excited for this message? My simple explanation is that if God would use my preaching today then I pray he would use it in a couple different ways. I pray he would use it to encourage, strengthen and challenge each and every one of us but I also pray that somehow God would weave this message for the second time into our DNA as a church family and that this message would be the single message that we are known for as we seek to serve the community of Hastings that sits south of the tracks. That being said, please turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians 1:7 – 10…
Ephesians 1:7 – 10…
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 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Introduction…
Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think: “I feel worthless”? I struggle with my own sense of worthlessness too. It’s easy for me to feel valuable when I’ve done something right or when someone treats me nice. But when I fail at something or when someone treats me unfairly it’s easy for me to fall into self-pity or despair thinking that I must be worthless. In other words, I struggle with letting my behavior or someone else’s behavior dictate what I believe about my sense of worth.
And into this mess, the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians speaks clearly. And it’s as though, God is thundering down from heaven saying “You are priceless because you’ve been redeemed.” When we struggle with believing that we are worthless, God says, “I’ve created you and I’ve purchased you with the blood of my son. I’ve showered you with the benefits of redemption. I’ve forgiven you. I’ve poured out my grace over you and I’ve opened your heart to understand the message of the gospel. You are priceless because you’ve been redeemed.”
This is essentially the message of Ephesians 1:7 – 10. As we study this text I want to explain the meaning of redemption and the benefits of redemption. And my prayer is that this study will help some of you walk away from here knowing that you are priceless because you’ve been redeemed.
Think about what it means to be redeemed… (7)
I want you to imagine a little boy playing with a remote control boat on his family’s lake. This little boy, with the help of his parents, spent hours upon hours creating this little boat. They imagined what the boat would look like. They drew up the plans. They bought the supplies and they created the boat.
And once the boat was built the little boy spent hours upon hours enjoying his creation. And then one day the boat went missing. It was nowhere to be found. A violent and destructive storm had come rolling through the area the night before and it got caught up in the waves and was carried away from the little boy and his family.
So the little boy searched everywhere for his boat. And one day he found it in the window of a dirty, skuzzy pawnshop in a nearby town. And when the little boy saw the boat he had created he went right into that pawnshop and explained that the boat belonged to him.
But to his horror, the pawnshop owner, the greasy scumbag that he was, told the little boy that it would cost him thousands of dollars to buy back the boat that he had created. This dirty pawnshop owner didn’t want to let go of the boat because he’d been renting the lost boat out to travelers who wanted to have some fun with it. This boat was his slave
So the little boy went home and explained the predicament to his parents. And the cool thing is that, the little boy and his parents had already planned for such a day as this. They’d all agreed ahead of time to stash away as much cash as possible so that in the event that the boat was lost or stolen or damaged they could find it and buy it back and fix it up. The only problem was that the purchase price for the boat would totally wipe out every penny of this family’s savings. They literally would have to give this little boy’s life-savings to get the boat back.
But the little boy and his parents were happy to give everything they had to purchase what already belonged to them. And in the words of another storyteller, as the little boy left that skuzzy pawnshop with the boat in his arms, he said, “You are twice-mine because I created you and I bought you.” This is the picture of the biblical concept of redemption. Being redeemed means being twice owned by the God who created you and bought you back from an evil pawnshop owner. You are priceless because the God who created you paid the price to purchase you.
- Being redeemed means you are owned by the God who created you.
When the apostle Paul tells the Ephesian believers that, “In (Christ) we have redemption through his blood” he’s reminding them that they’ve been redeemed. When the apostle Paul found the Ephesian people in the book of Acts they were excited to hear the message of redemption and they wholeheartedly embraced the good news that the God who had created them had redeemed them as his own possession and therefore they were priceless because they belonged to God. And they responded to that message with such radical repentance that they tossed their books of witchcraft (their major money-making industry) out the door. Our worth is tied to the one who owns us and created us.
Think about the apostle Paul too. Paul was a man who had committed unthinkable crimes in his terroristic rampage against God and his people. And then one day he met Jesus on the road of redemption where Jesus called him away from his sinful enslavement in the pawnshop of self-promotion. And in the blink of an eye, Paul met the God who had created him and redeemed him as his own possession and he now understood that he was priceless because he belonged to God. Our worth is tied to the one who owns us and created us.
- Being redeemed means you are owned by the God who purchased you.
The apostle Paul and the Ephesian believers had tremendous reasons to celebrate their redemption. But that celebration of redemption could easily be drowned out by the shouting voices of sin and shame and blame.
Have you ever had those days where you question your worth and your value because of your sin, shame, guilt or doubt? I think the apostle Paul knew that these Ephesian believers would struggle with this. So Paul reminds them of the blessings of redemption. He reminds us that not only does God own us because he created us but he also owns us because he purchased us. He bought us. He paid the price to the shop owner of our sin that we were enslaved to. We belong to him because he purchased us and therefore we are priceless.
The Ephesian believers, the apostle Paul, you, and I… we’re all like little boats stuck in the pawnshop of our sin and our shame and our guilt and our fear with no hope of getting ourselves out. But the God who created us gave his Son Jesus to die upon the cross so that the price for our sin could be paid. Jesus’ broken body and shed blood at the cross removes the sin, the guilt and the shame of anyone who believes in him. We are not worthless. We are priceless because we’ve been redeemed. We are priceless because the God who created us also bought us back from the clutches of Satan, sin and death.
How often do you screw things up and think you’re worthless? How often do you believe lies about how worthless you think you are because someone hurt you? How often do you look in the mirror and hate the image of you that you see because you think you aren’t as worthwhile as someone else?
I want you to hear this. There’s no amount of makeup, or weight loss, or love from another human being, or earthly accomplishments, or religious accomplishments that will ever make you more worthy. You are not worthless because of your failures and you are not priceless because of your accomplishments. You are priceless because the God who created you paid the price to purchase you.
This is an invitation to believe that your value isn’t dictated by your performance, by your possessions or by what others think or say about you or do to you. God’s word to us today, for the believer and for the unbeliever, is that you are priceless because the God who created you also paid the price to purchase you back from the clutches of Satan, sin and death.
This is your identity if you are a believer. This is your invitation to come and believe if you’re an unbeliever. Jesus is standing next to you and he’s saying, “You are twice-mine because I created you and I purchased you. You are redeemed. You are priceless because the God who created you paid the price to purchase you.” Do you believe this? Will you receive this?
Think about the benefits of being redeemed… (7-10)
If you are redeemed then you have received the benefit of forgiveness, the benefit of God’s grace and the benefit of understanding the gospel. This is like the benefits we get from having an insurance policy. We pay a monthly or annual premium to have an insurance policy and then we receive benefits from that insurance policy when something goes wrong.
The bad news of the benefits of redemption is that you and I cannot pay the cost of the premium to cover or remove our sin therefore we’ve lost the benefits of God’s insurance plan. But the good news is that God paid the premium for us at the cross of Christ and we now have access to the best insurance plan and the best insurance provider ever. And to top it all off the plan has been paid for by the provider himself. We are priceless because we’ve been redeemed and if we’ve been redeemed then we get to enjoy the benefit of God’s forgiveness, the benefit of God’s grace and the benefit of understanding the gospel.
- If you are redeemed you have received the benefit of forgiveness… (7)
The apostle Paul reminds us that, if we’ve believed in Jesus, then we’ve been redeemed and if we’ve been redeemed then we’ve received the benefit of God’s forgiveness. The dirty slate of the chalkboard of our lives has been washed clean. Our criminal record has been erased. Our filthy stains from that sinful relationship, those dirty thoughts, the angry words, the selfish behavior, the hateful actions, every last bit of it and more has been erased. In Christ, the price was paid for our sin and we have been forgiven. You and I are priceless because we are redeemed and if we are redeemed then we’ve received the benefit of forgiveness.
- If you are redeemed you have received the benefit of God’s grace… (7-8)
It’s not like God saw us as poor beggars on the street that he wanted to take pity on and therefore he reached into his pocket and tossed us a couple coins from his leftover wealth. He actually snatched us up from our rotten place in life. And he took us back to his mansion where he gave us a brand new home and a brand new family and he made us his brand new children and he continuously pours out his love and his forgiveness upon us “according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.”
You’re not a leftover afterthought of mistaken worthlessness. You are priceless and redeemed by the God who declares that you are priceless. You are priceless because the wealthiest person who’s ever existed has redeemed you. And because you are redeemed you’ve been showered by the benefit of God’s grace. Grace simply means, “unmerited favor or unearned gift”. God has lavished his benefits of redemption upon you even though you didn’t deserve it or earn it. This is what makes you priceless. God is the one who dictates your value.
God simply looked at us in our poor state of sin and he said, “You are priceless because I say you are priceless and I will spend everything I have to make you mine so that you can receive the benefits of redemption according to the riches of my grace.” Do you believe this today? Do you believe that there’s no end to the wealth of God’s grace being offered to you for free? You and I are priceless because we are redeemed and if we are redeemed we’ve received the benefit of God’s grace.
- If you are redeemed you have received the benefit of understanding the gospel… (8-10)
Paul explains that God has “showered us with forgiveness according to his grace in all wisdom and insight and that he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to the purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” These final verses are a beasty statement of doctrinal theology. We could swim in the river of these final verses for days talking about the mystery of the gospel, God’s will, God’s purpose, unity and how our future home relates to our current home.
But the simplicity of what Paul is saying in verses 8 – 10 flows from the fountain of the truth that we are priceless and redeemed. If you’re hearing this and you’re a believer, then God’s simple encouragement to you is that he has given you wisdom and insight and knowledge of the good news that you’ve been pricelessly redeemed to be united to Jesus in the completion of God’s plan to redeem all of heaven and earth.
In other words… if you are redeemed then you have been given the benefit of understanding the gospel. If you understand that God created you to be with him and then you got carried away by the raging storm of sin and were enslaved by an evil pawnshop owner and then Jesus went to the cross to purchase you back from Satan, sin and death and now you’ve trusted in Christ and received forgiveness because of God’s grace then you’ve been given the gift of understanding the gospel.
There is no way that any human could explain the mystery of the gospel adequately enough for you to understand it. This gift of being able to understand the gospel is a benefit that only God could give. The Spirit of God is the one who opens sinful hearts to the good news of the gospel. If you are redeemed then you have been given the benefit of understanding the gospel.
What prevents you from receiving and walking in these truths?
There are barriers to believing the truth of our priceless redemption. There are things that plug our ears from hearing this truth. There are things that blind our eyes from seeing this truth. There are things that prevent us from believing that we are priceless. There are things that restrict us from receiving the benefits of our priceless redemption. The pain and the suffering of living in this broken world are the massive barriers I’m thinking about.
What is the pain point of suffering for you that stops you from believing that you are priceless? Is it the mirror of your own sin? Is it the mirror of other people’s sin against you? We struggle to believe that we are priceless, because we hear the words of an enemy speaking lies into our hearts as we suffer with our sin and other people’s sin.
We look into the mirror and we think that we are worthless in our suffering. But the truth is that we are priceless because we’ve been redeemed. Which mirror are you looking into today? Is it the mirror of suffering with your sin? Is it the mirror of suffering with other people’s sin against you? Or is it the mirror of who God says you are? I pray that the Spirit of the living God would break through those barriers for you today.
In Conclusion…
Close your eyes for a few minutes and hear this… To my friend who struggles with addiction to porn and believes he’s worthless… God says you are priceless. To my friend who believes he’s worthless because he’s still single… God says you are priceless. To my friend who believes she’s worthless because her parents have abused her… God says you are priceless. To my friend who is struggling with the fact that her mommy or her daddy left her and therefore she feels worthless… God says you are priceless. To my friend who believes he’s worthless because of his physical and emotional weaknesses… God says you are priceless.
To my friend who believes he is worthless because he’s faced the pain of divorce in his family… God says you are priceless. To my friend who looks in the mirror each morning and tries to cover up her sense of worthlessness with more makeup… God says you are priceless. To my friend who believes she is worthless because she will never be beautiful enough to overcome her sense of worthlessness… God says you are priceless.
You are priceless because you’ve been redeemed. The God who created you also paid the price to purchase you and if you are redeemed then you get to enjoy the benefit of God’s forgiveness, the benefit of God’s grace and the benefit of understanding the gospel.
Do you believe this today? Will you receive this today? Which mirror are you looking into today?