Dr.
Jeremy Westbrook
Living
Hope Church, Marysville, Ohio
Emotional
To Devotional: Insecurity: “Your identity
Determines Your Eternity”
Missionary
Prayer Partners: The Bartlett Family.
“Do
you ever wake up and say, ‘God look what you’ve done for me.’ You
overwhelmingly feel his grace. That is a missionaries heart. They never get
over what He has done for them. They go when He says go. They do when He says
do. – Jeremy Westbrook
Small Group Announcement: See the website, or
bulletin.
Who has emotions? All of us. Some of us have
it more than others.
We all have emotion. God gave us emotion. John 11:35, Jesus wept.
He had emotion. The bible said that God was sorry for His creation. This is the
Father having emotion. And the Holy Spirit can be grieved. This is an emotion.
There is emotions all within the trinity. The emotions just need to be in
check.
The first step is looking into the Word of God.
Ephesians 1:1-14
New Living Translation (NLT)
Greetings from Paul
1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God
to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.
I am writing to God’s holy
people in Ephesus,[a] who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.
2 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give
you grace and peace.
Spiritual Blessings
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms
because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world,
God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God
decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself
through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great
pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured
out on us who belong to his dear Son.[b] 7 He is so rich in
kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and
forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with
all wisdom and understanding.
9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan
regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. 10 And
this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the
authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore,
because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,[c]
for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his
plan.
12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to
trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you
Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when
you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own[d] by giving you
the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s
guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has
purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify
him.
Footnotes:
1:1 The most ancient
manuscripts do not include in Ephesus.
1:6 Greek to us in the
beloved.
1:11 Or we have become God’s
inheritance.
1:13 Or he put his seal on
you.
This is the
longest sentence in the Greek New Testament. It’s like Paul just keeps going.
For English majors, it’s a nightmare. There is no punctuation. Paul get’s
excited about the Glory of God and His greatness.
Who is our identity?
Who are we?
We find our self in our job status, a
boyfriend, a friend, a theme, or many other things.
The theme of
Ephesians is “IN CHRIST”.
John 8. Says
that you have an identity. You are either IN
CHRIST of OUT OF CHRIST.
You are a child of Christ, or a Child of Satan.
Ephesians 4:14:
New Living Translation (NLT)
4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you
have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
Paul uses banking and lawyer and legal
terms. Sometimes we think banker and lawyers are greedy and all. This begins in
GRACE and ends with GLORY.
EMOTIONS ARE
GOOD IF THEY LEAD TO DEVOTION.
How to be secure:
1. God the
Father Selects Us. (Ephesians 1:1-6)
“When we are confident about the
future. We can concentrate on the present.” –Unknown
1 John 2:2
New
Living Translation (NLT)
2 He himself is the sacrifice
that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
IN CHRIST: That is our identity. We are adopted into our own family. That is
the beauty of the Gospel. Do you understand the ministry and the power of
adoption this morning? It is critical to a child of God. It is critical in
ministry. We are not insecure. If we are in Christ WE ARE SECURE. You can’t let someone down that you aren’t holding up. Focus on what you can do. Not on what you
can do. God the Father has selected you. I don’t know what your childhood was
like, but BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
WORLD. HE SAW YOU. HE SELECTED YOU. AND HE SENT HIS ONLY SON TO DIE FOR YOU. HE
LOVES YOU.
How much does Jesus love you?
John 17:23
New Living Translation (NLT)
23 I am in them and you are in me. May they experience
such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love
them as much as you love me.
Ecclesiastes
4: 12
New Living Translation (NLT)
12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated,
but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a
triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
The
strongest chord of three strands in Ephesians.
Cate and Chris Franke adopted
baby Jonah Friday. This has been a long journey. God is working through
adoption in our church. Get excited. T“his is the GOSPEL.
(We have an adoption ministry
called Hope for Every Child” Monday, January, 20, 2013. )
2. God the Son
Saves Us. (Ephesians 1:7-12)
There were a million slaves in
Roman during this time. Jesus purchased our freedom with the blood of the
cross. And freed us from our sin. We have been transferred from slaves, to
saintly sons. Forgive, the idea word picture of the great high priest in the
new testament. The high priest would take two goats and they would atone for
the sins of the people. (The book of Hebrews is the theme that Jesus is the
ultimate High Priest. Without the shedding of blood there is no shedding of
blood for sins.) The high priest would slit the throat and take the blood and
put it on the mercy seat for sin. In the garden with Adam and Eve, after sin,
God has always required blood as a sacrifice. (The wages of sin is death. Death
and blood are associated with us.) Then the other Goat got set free. This was
the escape goat. We are the escape goat. And Jesus freed us with His blood.
There is no need to feel insecure
of what you know. Because you have the mind of Christ. Are
you using what God’s given you? With what He has gifted you with?
YOU ARE A CHILD OF THE KING. DO
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE GOT?
3. The Holy Spirit of God is Our Seal. (Ephesians
1:13-14)
(underline Guarantee in verse 13) “People
are fickle. But GOD is FATIHFUL.”
Seal: a legal term. It is a
transfer that has been complete. Your ownership has been transferred if you
have been saved. The seal is a document of your transfer.
Security is not found in a place.
And it is only found in the person of Christ.
If you are ME, you are secure, no
matter where you are. God never takes you off His list. He never takes you out
of the Book of Life. Once you are saved, you are always saved. There is nothing
you have to do with salvation. John 10: no one can pluck you from His hand.
If we must share His glory, we
must also share His suffering.
God calls you not to a place, but to HIMSELF. He called Noah in
the ark. Which means that God was already in the Ark. This means that God calls
you not to a place but to himself.
THANK God for grace. Noah may have fallen into the ark, but he
never fell out of the ark.
In 1937 they built the golden
gate bridge. 23 people died building that bridge. Then they spent 100,000
dollars to buy a security net. This kept death away, and made the works secure
so they increased production. We all want to be secure. But we will never truly
be secure, until we are secure in Christ. This doesn’t mean you won’t struggle,
or have those moments. But if you are secure in Christ, that is SECURITY.
Are you truly in Christ? Are you
truly saved?
1 John 2:2.
New Living Translation (NLT)
2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our
sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
Yes. God had you in mind. But will you
repent of your sins. Will you put your trust and faith in Christ?
Other wise.
You are not saved. And your security isn’t in Christ. But hell is your
guarantee. He wants to redeem you.
He wants you to feel secure.
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