Inheritance - Ephesians 1:11-12

Our study of Ephesians has taken us now to Ephesians 1:11-12. You'll recall that in this first chapter, Paul gives to us some of the blessings that we have received as Christians. Blessed are those people who know the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, Ephesians 1:3. Now we discovered that we have blessings from God the Father in Ephesians 1:1-6. He has chosen us, He has adopted us, He has made us accepted in the Beloved. These are the blessings from God the Father. And then Ephesians 1:7-12, we have the blessings of God the Son. He has redeemed us and forgiven us, Ephesians 1:7. He has revealed God's will to us and made us a part of God's will, Ephesians 1:8-10. And he has made us an inheritance, Ephesians 1:11-12. These two verses will be the basis for our consideration today. We have the blessings of God the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1:13-14, in that he has sealed us and the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. The blessings now of God the Son conclude in Ephesians 1:11-12 with these words: "In whom, in Christ, also we have obtained an inheritance," or literally, "we have been chosen as his inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we, believers, should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ." Now here the word of God tells us that we believers have been made an inheritance. You'll notice up in Ephesians 1:18, that Paul prays, "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened," he wants our eyes to be opened, "that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

Now, all of us realize that when we are saved, God gives us a future. The unsaved man has no future. Over in Ephesians 4, and Ephesians 2, we are told that the unsaved man is without hope. He has no hope. If I speak to someone right now who has never trusted Jesus Christ as his own Savior, regardless of how bright your tomorrows may seem, you have no hope, you have no future apart from Jesus Christ. This is why it's important that you trust him as your Savior. For when you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your own Savior, the word of God says in Proverbs 4, "The path of the just, of the saved man, is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Physically speaking, everything gets darker and darker. But spiritually speaking, everything gets brighter and brighter until one day, the Lord takes us to that place where there is no night and where the gates are never shut, and where it gets brighter and brighter with the glory of God. Now the path of the wicked is as darkness, they know not at what they stumble, but the path of the just, the future of the saved man is bright as the shining light.

Now the word of God tells us, God has not only given us an inheritance, but he has made us his inheritance. Now the word inheritance reminds us of the Old Testament. God called the Jewish nation and God gave to them an inheritance. This inheritance was Canaan land. The Jews were enslaved in Egypt. They were in bondage and servitude, sorrow and pain. Exodus 1 tells us how they groaned and cried out to God for deliverance, and God delivered them. On Passover night through the blood of the lamb, God delivered the Jewish nation from the land of Egypt. It's a picture of what he does for us. There was a time when I was in the bondage and the servitude, the slavery of sin. The Lord Jesus tells us in John 8 that any man who practices sin is the servant of sin. But through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lamb, I was delivered from the bondage of sin. Now, God delivers us from the bondage of sin that he may put us into a wonderful inheritance. God's purpose for the nation of Israel was to deliver them from the land of Egypt and take them to the land of Canaan. The land of Canaan was their inheritance. If you'll read the book of Deuteronomy, you'll find the word inheritance used over and over again. For in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is preparing the Jewish nation, the new generation, to receive their inheritance. Now what God did for the Jews physically, he has done for you and me spiritually. He has given us a wonderful spiritual inheritance, but then he has gone one step farther. He has made us a part of his inheritance. We are a precious inheritance to the Lord.

If you have your Bible in front of you, you may want to turn to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1:3. It sounds like Ephesians 1:3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." How does one receive this inheritance? By being born again. You pick up your newspaper and you read about someone who has died and has left an inheritance to his family. Now God sent his son, and his son died, and he arose again from the dead. Jesus Christ died that we might be delivered from the bondage of sin, and then he arose again that he might put us into this wonderful spiritual inheritance. We are born again unto a living hope, not a dead hope. All of the hopes that this world may have, each one of them is a dead hope. Every hope is a dead hope, but we have a living hope because we have a living Savior. A dead Savior can't save anyone. But a living Savior gives to us an inheritance incorruptible. It'll never rot. A man dies and leaves to his son a wonderful mansion, but he has to take care of it, the termites will eat it out. If he isn't careful, the paint will rot off, if he isn't careful, the wood is going to begin to crack. But the inheritance God has given to us is incorruptible, it'll never rot, it is undefiled, it'll never lose its value, never lose its beauty, and that fadeth not away.

Now over in 1 Peter 1:24, the word of God says, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass, the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." Everything that man makes is corruptible, defiled, and it fades away. It's amazing when you go to the big cities of our nation, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the great beautiful buildings of 50 years ago are now being torn down. They have become corrupt, they've been defiled, they're dirty, and they're fading away, their glory and their beauty has faded. Now everything that man does fades away, but that which the Lord does is forever. And he has given to us an inheritance in glory, we are the possessors of it right now. It doesn't say we shall obtain an inheritance, it says we have obtained an inheritance by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now not only has God given us an inheritance in Christ, but he has made us his inheritance in Christ. This is the meaning of Ephesians 1:18, "that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints." In other words, the church of Jesus Christ is God's precious inheritance. You see, we have been purchased by his blood. "For as much as ye know that you were redeemed not with corruptible things," says the Apostle Peter in the first chapter of his first letter, "but incorruptible things, even the precious blood of the Lord Jesus as a lamb without spot and without blemish." Think of the tremendous price that God paid for his church. Now his church is his inheritance.

This, by the way, is another evidence in the word of God that once a person has been saved, he's not going to lose that salvation. There are some people who have the idea that you can be saved one day, lost the next day, born again one day, unborn the next day, a member of the body of Christ one day and then fall from his body the next day, but my Bible tells me in Ephesians 1:11 that I am a part of his inheritance. He has paid dearly for me. He rejoices over his church, he loves his church. He's not going to allow me to lose my salvation.

Over in John 17, when the Lord Jesus Christ is praying his high priestly prayer before he goes to the cross, he explains salvation from an entirely different point of view. You see, we often think of salvation as a transaction between Jesus Christ and a sinner. But in John 17, it is pointed out as our Lord prays, that salvation is a transaction between God the Father and God the Son. Long before any man ever appeared on the earth, long before Genesis 1:1, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit entered into covenant together to redeem lost souls and to form the church. This is why the Lord Jesus prays in John 17:4, "I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." What was that work? The work of redemption. The work of saving, the work of going to the cross and paying the price for sin. The work of taking wretched sinners and turning them into jewels for God's inheritance. The work of quarrying out lost sinners from the pit of sin and building them into the temple. This is why on the cross our Lord said, "It is finished." What was finished? The work that he came to do.

Now in John 17:6, he says, "I have manifested, I have revealed thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world." The believers who trusted Christ when he was on earth were God the Father's love gift to his son. "Thine they were and thou gavest them me." Now here's an amazing thing. The Lord Jesus Christ when he was here on earth received from the Father a gift. Now God the Son was God's gift to us, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. But he has given something to his son. God the Father has given to his son believers. You'll recall in some of the parables, the Lord Jesus talked about a king who would have a wedding feast for his son. God the Father is presenting to his son a bride, and someday God the Son will present the bride to God the Father in all glory and splendor. In John 17:9, Jesus says, "I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me." Over and over again in John 17, the Lord Jesus Christ refers to believers as those whom God the Father has given him. In other words, we are God's inheritance, a precious inheritance. This is why several times in the Bible God's people are called his peculiar people. Over in Titus, in 1 Peter, back in the Old Testament, the Jews, the earthly people of God, were called his peculiar people. The word peculiar simply means purchased, precious, a people for himself, his own precious people. In other words, if you are one of God's children, you belong to God's inheritance.

Now he tells us how he worked all of this out, Ephesians 1:11. "In whom also we have been made an inheritance, being predestinated." Now there's that word we, we met back in Ephesians 1:5, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children." I've mentioned in our previous lesson that the word predestined simply means to mark off beforehand. God knows what he's doing. Predestination is God's program for his people. Now election emphasizes people. Predestination emphasizes purpose. Election is tied into grace. Predestination is tied into glory. Election looks to the past where God the Father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Predestination looks to the future. Predestination is simply God's plan for his people. God is not caught off guard. God knows what he's going to do with his children. He has predestinated us according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. In other words, God the Father has a plan for his church. We are his peculiar people, we are his inheritance. He has a plan for this inheritance. Now what is this plan? Ephesians 1:12, "that we should be to the praise of his glory."

Now I have pointed out in previous lessons that at the end of each of these sections, God's glory is mentioned, God's praise. In Ephesians 1:1-6, we have the blessings from God the Father. Ephesians 1:4, he chose us. Ephesians 1:5, he adopted us. In Ephesians 1:6, he made us accepted. And Ephesians 1:6 tells us why he did all of this, "to the praise of the glory of his grace." Then we have the blessings of God the Son. Ephesians 1:7, he redeemed us, he forgave us. Ephesians 1:8-10, he revealed God's will to us. Ephesians 1:11-12, he made us an inheritance. Why? Ephesians 1:12, "that we should be to the praise of his glory." In Ephesians 1:13, the Holy Spirit sealed us. And Ephesians 1:14, the Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance. Why? "Unto the praise of his glory." We commonly think that God saves people for their own good. Well, he does. When God gets a hold of a lost sinner who is wallowing around in the, in the muck and the mire of sin, or when God gets a hold of a lost sinner who may be clean and moral and upright but still lost, God changes that person. A man is always better for having met Jesus Christ. God transforms that person. Salvation is for the sinner's good, but primarily salvation is for God's glory. Why has he done this? "To the praise of his glory." In other words, Ephesians 1:11-12 teach us this, that one day God is going to call home all of his children. One of these days Jesus Christ is going to appear in the air suddenly, without warning. There'll be the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. God'll empty the graves of believers, their bodies. Then we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, we shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And Jesus Christ is going to gather together his inheritance. And he's going to take his inheritance to glory.

Now down here on earth people criticize Christians, they laugh at Christians, they persecute Christians. But when we get to glory, we are going to be to the praise of the glory of his grace. Over in Ephesians 5, Paul goes into a little more detail on this. He says in Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives." How much? "Even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it." The word sanctify means set it apart. When a girl gets married to a fellow, she is set apart, she's sanctified, she belongs to him. "That he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." This is not baptism, this is the word of God. The word of God cleanses us. John 15, the Lord Jesus said, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." Now Ephesians 5:27, "That he, Christ, might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." God's church today seems to have a lot of spots and a lot of wrinkles. Now we realize that not everyone who belongs to a local church is a member of the body of Christ, the church which he purchased with his blood. It's possible to be a member of an organization and not belong to Christ. But churches today are full of spots and wrinkles and people criticize them. Unsaved people say, "Well, I don't want to become a Christian if so and so is a Christian, I don't want to be one." This is too bad. But one of these days when Jesus Christ takes his inheritance home and fulfills this purpose that he has already predestined, his church is going to shine in glory without spot, without wrinkle. "Unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." Jude 1:24. When Jesus Christ comes back, he's going to take his church home. He is going to reveal the church in glory. No spots, no wrinkles, no one will be able to criticize.

We are his inheritance. Now if we are his inheritance, we ought to start glorifying him today. Don't wait till you get to heaven. We should be to the praise of his glory today. We should glorify God in our bodies today. Paul says in Philippians 1, "I want to magnify Christ in my body today." "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven today." You are his inheritance, if you have been saved, and our responsibility and our privilege is to glorify him today, that we should live to the praise of his glory. Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the wonderful position we have in Christ. That we are the inheritance of God, the purchased possession, precious. And we pray that thou will help us to walk and to live to the praise of thy glory, that when Jesus comes, we may not be ashamed. For we pray in his name and for his sake. Amen.