Ephesians: "Praise be to God..."

In this message, we explore Ephesians 1:3–14 and the breathtaking reality of what God has done for us in Christ. We discover the spiritual blessings that belong to every believer: chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, sealed by the Spirit, and guaranteed an eternal inheritance.

This sermon examines four major themes from the passage:

• Unrestrained Praise — God is worthy of worship in every season.
• Unlimited Blessing — In Christ, we have been given every spiritual blessing.
• The Unseen Realm — We must learn to see beyond the temporary and live with eternal vision.
• In Christ — The Christian life is not merely religious activity but a transformed identity rooted in Jesus.

The greatest battle for many believers is not earning God's favor but believing the gospel. As Paul reminds us, everything that belongs to Christ has been given to those who are in Him.

See Jesus. Surrender to Jesus. Submit to Jesus. Stay with Jesus.

Scripture: Ephesians 1:3–14

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Morning. It is so good to see you guys. It's fun to be up here and get to see all the faces and everything. And like Blake said, my name is Emily Blessing. My husband Danny is back there as well. Just gave a little wave. And we are just so grateful to call Kingdom City home. Essentially, about a year ago in February of 2025, we got married, bought a house, and realized there was no local church. And so it was something we were a little disappointed about, kind of parade over. And shortly after we found Kingdom City, actually online, which is pretty cool. And then they decided to plant at St. Pius, which is literally our backyard. So we couldn't be luckier with the distance and the community and the family that we have really kind of grown into here. So I hope you guys all feel that as well. And this morning I will be bringing us the word from Ephesians. So I'll be reading Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 14, if you would like to join along. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach for fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. And you were also included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Let's go. Applause for reading of the Word reading of the Word. So we're in a little bit of a conundrum here. We are in a borrowed space. I don't know if you notice this. And the table I usually use has been has has been taken somewhere. And so And so we're just gonna trust that you're not gonna be distracted by what God wants to do today through his word. We'll we'll figure this out in just a moment. You're just gonna have to deal with maybe potentially any distractions that happen as someone potentially brings me another table, maybe, Lord willing. But if not, welcome to church plant. Yeah, we're just gonna we're just gonna leave that there for a second. Oh man. Well, like I said, if we uh if we haven't got a chance to meet, my name is Blake, and and I do get to serve here as the lead pastor. And we just launched a series through Ephesians last week. And and man, I I I don't know, I said this last week, I don't know that I've ever been this excited to preach through a book or to preach through a series in my life. Part of this is because of how much I love this particular book, how much it's deeply impacted my life. But also one of the things about the book of Ephesians is how deeply it's impacted so many lives and so many churches throughout the history of the church. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul from prison, and he he wrote this to a series of churches. So one of the things that you'll notice throughout the letter to Ephesians is that Paul doesn't use very intimate language like he does in a lot of his other letters. He writes to a very specific group of people in a lot of letters. He mentions memories, he mentions names. He doesn't do this in the book of Ephesians. And the reason that we think he does that is because he didn't write this to one church in Ephesians or in Ephesus. He wrote this to a group of churches that have been planted out of the mission hub that was the church at Ephesus. One of the things we talked about last week is that when Paul started his ministry in Ephesus on his third missionary journey, that he he essentially started a discipleship school in the hall of Tyrannis. You can read about this in Acts chapter 19. He takes a group of 12 men and starts a discipleship school in the hall of Tyrannis and spends two years there. It's the longest that Paul spent in any of the cities doing ministry. And he made disciples, developed disciples, and then multiplied disciples in this place for two years. So until the point that Acts 19 actually says that all of Asia Minor, both the Jews and the Greeks, had heard the word of the Lord. So you're talking about a city that has a quarter of a million people. And you're talking about a region that has much more than that. And obviously, as we read that as people who live in the city of Atlanta, that claims to have 6.2 million people who lives within it, and you start thinking, man, how can we, how can we actually make a difference in our city? How can we actually begin to do this? And I think the temptation is to always think the way that we do that is to get as much money as possible, buy as big of a building as possible, and launch as big of a church as possible. And what Paul actually does is almost the opposite of that. He says, What we're actually gonna do is we're gonna take 12 people and we're gonna invest our lives into those people to the point that they are so cultivated and developed in their mission, in their relationship with Jesus and for the and the purpose and intention that God has for their lives, that they're gonna take this and begin to multiply this relationally through people. And so what we talk about here at our church all the time is the impact that could happen if you find two or three people and you invest their life into them for a year and then you do that over and over and over again and have them do that over and over and over again throughout your life. Do you realize then the span of 20 or 30 years that multiplication effect would reach the entire world? And we see Paul do this in two years in Asia, in Asia. And the temptation for us a lot of times is to try to try to find another way to maybe shortcut the system. But the reality is that the mission of Jesus flows through people, through people. Why do we care so much about people? Why do we engage so much about people? Why do we talk about hospitality and trying to welcome people and invite people into something? It's because it's through people that the mission of Jesus goes through, that goes forward. It's through people. He's not going to shortcut the system and try to create something else that leaves you away from the responsibility of being involved in the mission of Jesus. What it means to follow Jesus is to be included in what he's doing. The reason he fills you with his spirit, the reason he gifts you by his spirit is for the sake of empowering you to do what? Something for Jesus, for the sake of the mission of Jesus in your context. One of the things that we read last week, starting out in Ephesians chapter one, is Paul announcing who he is, his calling and God's will for his life, that he is an apostle. Literally means to be a sent one. And Paul's role as an apostle was he's not just talking about an apostolic gifting. He's talking about, he's talking about his purpose, his position in the story that God is writing, that he played a specific role as an apostle in that season, in that season of the church. And God had a specific role for him, but not everyone was an apostle. Everyone had been sent on the mission of Jesus. Everyone had a role to play, but not everyone had Paul's role to play. Very few people played a role like that. And so the reality for you is that every single one of you are existing in a different context in a different season of life. God has gifted you all in different ways. He's placed you in different spaces in different seasons. And yet, every single one of us are called and gifted by God to be involved in the mission of Jesus where we are. So he's riding to this church, this group of people in Ephesus, a large city, large metropolitan city, that that that then a mission that became a missional hub that other churches began to sp to burst out of. And one of the things that we talk about here at Kingdom City is that this is a lot of our vision for what our church can become, is that our desire wasn't can we, how can we move to Atlanta and try to launch as big of a church as possible and build this thing to be as big as possible? It's not what we're trying to do. Why? Well, partly because that's not the mission and vision that God's given us, but two, we actually see that it's not as effective as people think or hope that it would be. When it comes to actually seeing communities transform, people's lives be transformed, it happens through the slow, steady grind of relational discipleship. That's how it happens. And so what we aim to do is to bring bring people together who can leverage their lives and serve and love one another, become more like Jesus increasingly over time, and then to see multiplication begin to happen in other places and spaces around our city so that we can see people transformed by Jesus, homes and neighborhoods transformed by Jesus. And if we get enough of that happening, we can see an entire city transformed by Jesus. Does that make sense? And this is the example that we see in the Church of Ephesus is let's go. Let's go. Ignore that. It's gonna be a smooth transition here. But uh give it up for Lauren and yeah, thank you guys. Moment of truth. Let's go. I like this right here. That's awesome. Man, balling on a budget, baby. So so yeah, this is like this is ultimately the vision that we have as a church because we see this be the example over and over and over again throughout the gospel and throughout the book of Acts. You notice Jesus narrows his life down into a single, into a single region, a single community ultimately. And what does he do? Invests his life into a few people and then sends them and multiplies that. So what does Paul do? Oh, well, Jesus said to follow him and do what he did. So let me just follow Jesus and do what he did. And he does this, and we see the effects be astronomical. The reality is though, it takes patience, it takes faith, it takes consistency over time in order to see this happen. And we don't have that in a in a culture that values efficiency and speed, right? And so there's a way in which we've been formed by our culture that desperately needs to die in us if we're gonna see the the power and the effect that we see happen in the gospels and in the book of Acts. And so Paul is writing this to these churches, and it essentially becomes a foundational letter, I believe, that was probably was probably taught in this school and then expanded through the through these discipleship relationships to say, hey, I'm gonna give you six chapters that kind of sum up all of what God is trying to do in your lives and in our community. And I want you to read this and study this, and I want you to ingrain it into your lives, and I want you to multiply this through. And so I say all that to say Ephesians is that powerful of a letter because I believe it was Paul's, it was Paul's goal to have this letter and gift it to disciples in order to form them in a summary way for the Christian life and mission. And so it's meant to be like that for us. Ephesians is what you call a visionary letter, meaning that Paul's entire goal is to get you to see something. A lot of us, uh a lot of our issue for for us, I believe, today, is is is that we end up compromising on our relationship with Jesus and the mission of Jesus because we don't see what Jesus wants us to see, right? We don't see what he's trying to show us. And a lot of this comes back to our ability to commit to a relationship and embrace the slow grind of what it takes for Jesus to reveal something to us, having that abiding relationship where we're consistently walking with him and asking for him to show us. I think a lot of us had a moment where maybe uh you maybe you would call it a salvation moment or a moment that you had with the Lord, and you've been trying to sustain all of your life with God and all of your life in all of your day-to-day through that one relation or through that one experience with Jesus, rather than abiding in him and having him increasingly show you more and more and more about himself and about the life that he's called you to. So Paul's entire goal is to get you to see something. Why? Because the enemy, we have a very real enemy, uh, some people he's called the devil, he's called Satan, and and he has a spirit of darkness. And what's his goal to do? His goal is to keep you from seeing. That's his goal. He wants to keep you from seeing. We see this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, where it literally says the enemy blinds minds of unbelievers to keep them from what? To keep them from seeing. That's his goal. He does he doesn't want you to see what Jesus wants you to see. And so his goal is to blind you. And sometimes this looks, this can look very serious like demonic attack. Other times it's just allowing you to find to stuff your life full of triviality. More often than not, that's what it looks like for us. I heard one pastor say one time, and I was like, man, that's so good. As he said, Man, the devil doesn't really care what it takes to keep you from being faithful to Jesus. Right? He doesn't care. For some people, that's act of rebellion and and and and and reckless living. You know, and people think about this and they go, Oh, yeah, yeah, drug addiction and sex addiction, and this over here, and all this crazy stuff. And he goes, No, no, no. He will use money, he'll use success, he'll use the stuff of life. This is what Jesus, Jesus says in in Mark chapter four when he's given the par when he's teaching the parable of the sowers, is he said, he said, he says that there's stuff that just crowd out the kingdom of God in your life. And he literally defines it as this is this is wealth, the deceitfulness of riches, and then he just calls it and the desire of other things. He just says, like, it just gets crowded out with the stuff of life. And his goal is to keep you from seeing, and he'll use whatever it takes to keep you from seeing. From seeing what? From seeing Christ. Second Corinthians 4 continues to go on. He's like, because the glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus. And he's saying, What he what God wants to do is is is reveal himself to you in the face of Jesus, and the enemy wants to keep you from seeing Jesus. So a huge majority of Ephesians is actually a prayer from Paul for you. Ephesians chapter 1 is literally a prayer from Paul. And the key passage that reveals the purpose of the entire letter is found in Ephesians chapter 1, 17 through 19, which we're going to work through in a few weeks. But but Paul's prayer literally says this I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. He's saying, I pray that the Spirit of God would help you see and understand who he is and what he's doing. I pray that the eyes of your heart, did you know your heart had has eyes? I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength. So Paul writes, his prayer and his goal in writing this is that the Spirit of God would give you new eyes, revelation that you would see, wisdom that you would understand, that your heart may be enlightened, that it may see what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. And so he spends this entire letter trying to get you to see, specifically the first three chapters, trying to get you to see this and to step into this. It's a visionary letter. John McKay, former president of Princeton Seminary, once said this about Ephesians. I saw a new world, everything was new. I had a new outlook, new experiences, new attitudes to other people. All of a sudden I loved God. Jesus Christ became the center of everything. I had been quickened, I really was alive. And he said, This happened to me as a result of reading and studying this letter. Today, uh last week we focused on verses one and two. Today we're gonna kind of start moving into this next next section of scripture. And essentially, it it starts the the main verse that we're gonna that we're gonna look at today is verse three. Okay, I know we just read a bunch of verses, but a lot of that is try to support what we're gonna talk about in verse three. And so I'm gonna reread verses one and two and then read three, and then we're gonna talk about it. So, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, he's telling us who's writing this. Hey, this is the apostle Paul writing from prison. You find that out in Ephesians chapter six. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and he's writing to God's holy people. God set apart chosen people in Ephesus, in the in the region of Ephesus. He's he's calling them holy, and then he calls them the faithful in Jesus Christ. He says, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And then verse three, he says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. So in verse three, Paul Paul essentially sums this up and he says, He says, Look, I got one primary goal in this in this passage. And you have to read this, you have to read this verse in the way that the grammar, the grammar has it worked out. Is he he tells us the goal in the verse part of in the first part of the verse. He says, Look, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's like, This is what this is what I want to erupt in your heart. This is what I want to erupt, this is what I want to see come to life in you. Is I want you to see, I want you to praise God as a result of what I'm about to show you. And verses three through 14 are one long sentence in the Greek. And so Paul wants this. This is the reason we read all of this, is because Paul wants this to be read as one continuous thought. Is essentially he says, Hey, my name's Paul. I'm writing to the church in Ephesus. And then he just erupts into one continuous long stream of praise. And he says, I want to praise God, and I want you to praise God. And so, and so he says, he says, the goal of all this is I want, I want there to be praise to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason that I want you to praise him is because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. And how does he bless us? How has he blessed us with every spiritual blessing in in the heavenly realms? He's done this in Christ. And so this is the way we read this text. Man, we want to praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because he's blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, and how has he done this? He's done this in Christ. This is how he's done this. And and and honestly, the next few verses from four to fourteen are just telling you all that he has done in Christ to help give you supporting text and evidence of why you should praise God. And so, and so you go, man, I I want you to, I want you to praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because he's blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. He's done this in Christ. What has he done, Paul? Man, he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood. We have the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory. And you also, he's talking to Jews and Gentiles, and he's saying, All of you were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. So he goes, Man, praise God. Why? Because he's blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. What does that look like, Paul? All of these things. And so, what does he say should happen as a result of that? He's like, You should praise God as a result of that. You should bless God as a result of that. Like, you shouldn't be able to hear that and go, man, that's nice. Like, that is sweet, Jesus. He is so sweet to do that for us. No, he goes, No, this should do something in you. This should produce something in you. He's like, this should lead you to why, why? You know one of the things that that separates Christianity from other religions and other faiths? Singing. Singing. Singing with joy, singing with adoration, lifting your hands, crying tears, being on your knees, laying flat down. You may have been to some other church other churches where it's like people got flags. Why? Because we got something to celebrate. I don't know what expression you're comfortable with or whatever. But Jesus is just like, no, show me that you care. Show me that you get it. Like this should flow out of you. And not just as you gather, but also like in your time with the Lord. Like, when's the last time you just got caught up praising God in your room? In your truck or car, Prius, you know, whatever. Bike. We live in the city. Marta. Tough, but Marta. Praise the Lord on Marta. Bring revival to Marta in Jesus' name. And so, like, when's the last time you just got caught up? Because your your eyes, the eyes of your heart had been enlightened, had been opened up. You know, and so one of the one of the best things that I get to do is I get to sit with people after Jesus has changed their lives. And it's amazing. They they sometimes they don't use these words, but they'll use some kind of language that paints a picture of, dude, I was this way, and then something happened, and it was like I saw a brand new world. And you're like, that's it, dude. Like, that's it. That's what Jesus wants you to do. He wants to do something in you, he wants to bring you to life. He wants to, he wants to make you alive in Christ to give you new vision and insight to see what you couldn't see before. Why? So that you can respond in a way that you never responded before. Haven't you noticed for some of you, you used to, you maybe have grown, you maybe grew up in church, and you used to hear a lot of the same things you hear now, and it did nothing for you. Did nothing for you. And then something happened, and now the same things that you used to hear, you now hear and you go, Oh my gosh, that's the best thing I've ever heard. I've literally seen people, I've shared the gospel with people before. This is one of the, you know, it's like, it's gonna happen. But like you, you give your, like you dedicate your life to someone, you're like, man, I'm just gonna like, I'm gonna evangelize to you, I'm gonna share the gospel with you, I'm just gonna pour my life into you. And then something happens with somebody else somewhere else, and they say it, and they're like, dude, I've never heard that before. It's like, yes, you have, yes, you have. I've said that 17 times. Like, but I've never heard it like that. Yes, you have. But that was me, that was my story. Like, I was I I was at Lee University on a for a basketball camp. I wasn't at Lee University because I wanted to go to Pentecostal college and hear more about Jesus. I was at I was there for a basketball camp. And I had this roommate by the name of Connor, and and man, I I grew up at Bethel Baptist Church. You know, I did VBS's, I did the things, and and then I was in this room and I was with this guy. And he asked me about my life, and I began to share about my life. And then he said one line that I know I've heard 50 times before then. And he goes, Man, all the things that you've walked through and that you've been through, I think it's amazing that God has given you that story so that he can use you for his glory. You know how often I heard God wants to use you for his glory? But for whatever reason, Connor said it in this context, and I was like, that's the first time I've ever heard that in my life. And something happened to me. Something happened to me. It was like, it was like a door got kicked down and light began to shine through. And I was like, I exist for the glory of God. Like he actually wants to invite me in what he's doing in life, in and in the world. Like I get I have a role to play. It's like, oh my gosh, why has no one ever told me this before? But I saw and I couldn't unsee what I saw. And all of a sudden, every day looked different. It had purpose that it didn't have before. It had life that it didn't have before. People had meaning that they had never had before. Every day had potential that it had never had before. And now everything was different. Because I had an encounter with God and my eyes were open and I could see what I could not see anymore. Amen. I truly believe there's some, there's some of you here that your mind is still kind of darkened. Like, like the way that 2 Corinthians 4 would say is like you're an unbeliever. You're an unbeliever. Why? Because you can't see. You can't, you know, you've heard people like, oh, you have to believe in something you can't see. No, no, no. The beauty of Jesus in the gospel is like actually the Holy Spirit wants to reveal so that you can see. Like faith isn't just faith in the unseen totally. He's like, no, no, I'm gonna give you spiritual eyes so that you can see things that you didn't see before. And then you put your faith in what you can see in Christ. And there's some of you like you're darkened, you're darkened. But I'm wondering if there's if there's something that could be said today, or there's something that could be said in a community, or there's something that could be said by someone else who's gonna say something, you're gonna say, I've never heard that before, even though you heard it today. Whatever it is, or all of a sudden, all of a sudden you see. You see. I'm hoping it's today, selfishly. And he says, Man, this should lead you to praise. Like praise. Did you know God loves to be praised? He loves to be praised. Because he's in because he's egomaniacal and he really needs it. No. Because he's the greatest good and greatest treasure. He wants you to leverage your life and give your heart to something that matters. And he's going, look, the reality of praising me is you're praising someone who, one, is worthy of it. They can actually carry the weight of it. There's a lot of us that you praise things that can't carry the weight of your praise, can't carry the weight of your devotion. But he's saying, look, I'm I'm actually worthy of it. I can carry the weight of it. And then two, I love you. Like you're gonna praise and worship and devote yourself to someone who is for you, who like wants to give good to you, who like doesn't want to withhold from you, but but wants to what? Give you every spiritual blessing. Man, this is good. This is good stuff, Paul. So there's three things I kind of want to just point out from the text. Three things that I think that I think Paul wants us to see. And and the first thing, the first thing that I I think Paul wants to produce in this is unrestrained praise. Unrestrained praise. When's the last time you felt unrestrained? Another word for this is freedom. Freedom. Like I think one of the one of the things that I've noticed in my life, I'm 30 now, I have a three-year-old. And one of the things that I I think I I've felt over the past decade is the weight of responsibility, right? I think if you're in a if you're an adult in the room, like you're you feel this increasingly more like throughout your lives, is that you feel the weight of responsibility. And and what happens in our lives is that is that we get more and more weight that we carry, or for some of us feels like maybe we're dragging around, or for some of you, you're like, you know, I'm like flat on the ground and I'm being buried. But like you feel the weight of things. And and one of the things that that that Jesus wants to do in our lives, right? In the Gospels, he says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And in Galatians chapter 5, he says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. So it's like, Christ has set us free. Why? So that you can be free. Like we go, why does Christ want to set me free? So you can be free. Like, that's why he wants to set you free. You know, Matthew chapter 11, when he talks about his yoke being easy and his burden being light, what's he describing? He's describing if you join your life to me, you're gonna experience freedom. You're gonna experience a lightness, an ease that you've never experienced before. And there's some of you here that you you have found an identity in the weight that you carry. I think maybe it's even ego. Like you love being the one that carries a lot. And you're like, look how like oh you you see my bat, you see, you see the burden? You see what I'm carrying? Can you see it now? I want you to see it. I'm carrying a lot, and that's what you get. You're like, don't you see how much I'm carrying? I'm carrying so much. And yeah, we all have things that we're carrying, we all have burdens, and those burdens are real. But if you're a follower of Jesus, your your burden, and and I also want to acknowledge that there there are seasons of of unique burdens, right? Like there are some seasons that you genuinely are suffering, attack, different things happen in our lives that are a unique season of burden. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a posture of burdened. And I and you go, like, hey, he's going, hey, do you believe the gospel? Like, like that you're there's meant to be a freedom that you experience as a result of your relationship with Jesus. Like if you, if, if, if your burden, if your if your yoke isn't easy and your burden isn't light, you're not following Jesus the right way. Something's wrong. Because he's saying if you if you attach yourself to me and walk with me and do life my way, your yoke is going to be easy, your burden is gonna be light. And so for a lot of us, we just we have everything's so heavy all the time. And what happens to us is we get into a space where now, where now God is saying, like, I want you to praise me, I want you to worship me. And can I tell you this that if that thing that you're carrying is affecting your praise and worship of Jesus, it's an idol. It's an idol. Doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter how good it is, it doesn't matter how important it is, it doesn't matter how special it is, if your joy is being zapped from it and your worship is being pulled is being taken from it, your your adoration of Jesus is being taken from it, it's an idol because it's keeping you from responding to Jesus the way that he is meant to be responded to in the way that he wants you to respond to him. And so does it mean that you pretend like nothing's going wrong? No. It just means that there, that, that when you adore Jesus and give him what he's worthy of, I think he's gonna minister to you in such a way that it will lighten your load. And then he he also says like a lot of that happens in community, right? Like one of the reasons that we gather as a community, one of the reasons we do communities, one of the reasons we serve on teams is because we're better together and life gets lighter when we're in community. And you need people to lighten your load. How do they lighten it? By getting your by getting your eyes on Jesus and getting your affection stirred for Jesus to let you know that the things that we're making bigger and uh bigger than Jesus is not the way that we're supposed to be operating. Like someone needs to know, hey, I think you're making that bigger than Jesus. Things are big in life, things matter, and Jesus cares about the things that you care about, but they're not bigger than him. I want you to remind yourself who's writing this? The apostle Paul is writing this from what? Jail, a prison. Potentially, potentially thinking he's going to die, like on death row. He knows he's eventually gonna die. But it's like, is this gonna be the is this gonna be it? And he's writing and he's going, he's going, I want you to praise. I want you to praise God. The the praising apostle from a prison. He's like, I want you to praise God. Why? Because it doesn't matter about these other circumstances and things. He's still worthy. And he's saying you need eyes to get your, to get your sight off of these things, these circumstances, and get them back on him. Like, stop finding a reason to be frustrated, stop finding a reason to not have life or to not have freedom or to not have joy. You're looking for reasons to not enjoy Jesus or enjoy life or enjoy the freedom and the things that he's gotten for you. He's like, man, you should praise yourself, praise yourself into a posture of freedom. If you look at the Bible, one of the things you realize is that the story of Scripture, the story of humanity is the story of a God who takes the initiative in seeking out men and women. And God's plan and purpose is not to make our lives tranquil, to answer all of our, or to answer all of our questions, but in order that we might be to the praise of his glory. Like once again, God, God's desire isn't to make our lives easy, but to make them powerful, right? Like, like your life isn't going to be easy, but he wants to saturate it with power and meaning and purpose. That we might be to the praise of his glory. What does it look like to live for the praise or to operate for the praise and the blessing of and to bless God? It means to live a life of worship. How does Romans 12 describe this? It says, It says, present yourselves to him as a living sacrifice. What does that mean? I belong to you. I belong to you. Like Jesus, I'm yours. I belong to you. My body belongs to you. My life belongs to you, my heart belongs to you. And he says, that's the worship that I want. Like he goes, no, no, it's not, it's not, it's not these little sacrifices over here. It's not your little behaviors, it's not your traditions that I want. I don't want your empty-hearted show up, grit your teeth, do things you don't want to do, to pretend and perform for other people. He goes, No, no, I want you. I want you. I want all you are and all you have. He says, that's what I want. To be living sacrifices. So, real quick, praise. Like, what kind of practically, like, what can this, what can this look like? Like, what how does praise impact our lives? Well, first and foremost, like we praise why for one another. For one another. Ephesians chapter 5 literally tells us to sing, and it, and and you might be surprised the language that it uses. It uses, it doesn't say sing to God, it says sing to one another. Isn't this interesting? He says that why do we gather and do this? Are we gonna worship God? Yes, absolutely. We're gonna thank God, we're gonna bless God. But he says, one of the reasons that you gather and do this, why? Is because one another, you need to sing to one another. You need to you need to encourage one another. Have you ever had maybe that moment on when you're in a gathering and you literally can't sing the words? You want to, but you can't, and then you hear another song. You hear someone else singing. And slowly, as you hear them sing, out of tune but really passionate. Right? It's not a pretty noise, but it's a joyful one. All of a sudden it gives you a little bit more courage. And you begin to sing as a result of their singing. And he goes, Man, sing to one another. This is why we gather, because you need this. Why do we get in communities? Because we need this. Because you're bad at remembering why God deserves to be praised. So you need people to remind you why God deserves to be praised. And the calling for all of us to praise God in seasons where we don't want to praise. So we we do this for one another. We do it for our own hearts. One of the things we talk about all the time is that sometimes we're singing words that we don't actually believe in the moment but are true. And that's the beauty of worship, is that it's meant to form our hearts according to truth, not our feelings. And so we sing songs that are true to get our hearts to believe what they need to believe. Psalm 42, David actually speaks to his own soul, speaks to his own heart. He says, Why are you so downcast, oh my soul? And then what does he do? He gives it a command. Put your hope in God. He's like, he kind of steps outside himself and looks at his soul and he goes, What's wrong with you? Put your hope in God. And there's some of us, we just, we actually, we actually allow our souls to turn inward to us and be like, hey, you don't want to put your hope in God. And we and we we cave to our feelings and our emotions. But what David actually teaches us to do is to step outside our emotions and command command ourselves to praise despite what we're feeling in the moment. And he says, put your hope in God. Stop bowing down to the idol of your emotions and put your hope in God. And you do this until until your emotions kind of get into the right posture. Then thirdly, we praise for the world. One of the things that attracted people to the early church in Acts is that it was a suffering people praising God. In a culture that was obsessed with power, in a culture that was obsessed with power. They were a suffering people praising God with no power. They had no power. They were praising God, believing that God had all power and that God was in control and that God was sovereign over everything that was happening. To the point that we actually see in Acts, there's multiple times where it says that they were persecuted, they were hurt, they were abused, and it says, and they they praised God that they were counted worthy to suffer for Him. They praised because of their suffering. They're going, God, thank you for letting us be part of what you're doing. It hurts, but this is so, this matters more than anything else. A suffering people living in freedom and operating in thanksgiving shames the world and offers a window into glory for them to peer through and see Jesus. A suffering people living in freedom and operating in Thanksgiving shames the world and offers a window into glory for them to peer through and see Jesus. What do I mean by shames the world? It shames the culture and their ways that they try to get people to follow something other than Jesus. Like you're saying, hey, your way doesn't work. Have you noticed that there are certain things that the world has increased or developed in and people have gotten more unhealthy? Like, like people aren't getting better. People are getting worse. We're getting smarter, we're getting more information, we're creating more things, and yet people are getting worse. Why? Because the ways of the world do not work for the human condition. And what we're seeing right now is a bounce back of that. Or we're seeing young people begin to have an openness towards faith, but specifically a curiosity about Jesus because they're experiencing something in him that they cannot get or they cannot experience in the world. Unrestrained praise. Some of you guys need to let loose and praise the Lord. I don't know if you grew up in a tradition where you weren't allowed to lift your hands or it was weird or whatever it may be. Some of you are like this away from experiencing a lot of freedom. Like just, you're like, you know, it's like just you got it. Just do it. Some of you are like getting on your hands and knees in the presence of God in the morning away from experiencing a power you've never experienced before. Like unrestrained. I'm not thinking about you. I'm not listening to the resistance. I'm giving God what he's worthy of. Why? Because he's worthy. Second thing, unlimited blessing. Unlimited blessing. This is an amazing text. Oh my gosh. He says, every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing. Like, how many of them? All of them. Every single one of them. He's like some of us, I while studying this, I saw this line and I thought it was phenomenal. But it said, many of us live below the level of our privileges. Man. It was like many of us have have a privilege in the Lord that we do not, that we do not access or take advantage of. Like we have every spiritual blessing in Christ that we have access to. It doesn't mean that you have every spiritual gift. It doesn't mean that God's gonna give the same calling to each person. So he's not saying that you're gonna have the same calling or the same gift. He's saying that you're gonna have the same blessing that God isn't withholding from you in order to give to somebody else. And this happens in a lot of us when we begin to care compare our lives to other people and we begin to feel like uh like maybe the older brother and the prodigal son. We're just going, why are you giving him something you're not giving me? And when you start looking at other people rather than the promise of God's word, and you're going, this happens to me as a church planner. We're eight months in, and and man, the enemy would love for me to look at you and not feel grateful. He would love for me to look at you and go, like, man, only 100 chairs in here, man. There's some open ones. Like, I didn't know you people eight months ago. Like, this is a miracle. What I'm looking at is a miracle. But what he would love for me to do is hop on Instagram, go look at my buddy Noah, who planted a church in Nashville, and they're having six gatherings and thousands of people, and be like, but look at that. You know what I get to do? Man, this is a blessing. That is a blessing. Praise God for all of his blessings. Right? Like every spiritual blessing. He said, get your eyes off of other people and what they have and what you don't have and the scarcity that you have. Guess what? Other people are looking at you feeling the same things. And look at Jesus and know that you have every spiritual blessing in him. Everything is yours. The reality of the gospel is that Christ took your place to take what was rightfully yours, the punishment, so that you could stand in Christ and receive what's rightfully his. This is what this is what the scriptures teach is that everything that belongs to Christ belongs to you. We said this last we read this last week, Romans 8. He says, How for him who did not withhold his own son, how much more will he not give you all things? All things. And yet we look at God, the one who did not withhold his own son, but gave him generously for you, and we go, I think you're holding out on me. Why aren't you giving me more? And he's going to know every spiritual blessing is yours. Everything I have is yours. This is in the in the story of the prodigal son. The older son comes up to him and goes, Man, I've been faithful, you have done all the right things, and you've never given me a party like you gave him. And what does the father say back to you? You're my son, everything I have is yours. But somewhere along the way, he began to buy into a scarcity mindset, and he began to operate in a way that he was trying to serve his father for the sake of trying to get from him. And the father was going, But you're mine, everything I already have is yours. And there's some of you right now that you are earning and striving for a blessing that's already yours. It's already yours. But it's in Christ. Many of us live as victims under a curse, which is to live as atheists who don't believe in the gospel. Like we live in light of the curse rather than understanding that we're blessed in Christ. He's going to know. This has already happened for you in Christ. Stop living under a curse and live as someone who was blessed by God as a son and daughter. And what happens for us is we have a spiritual insecurity that seeks to find solace in other things. This is what Eve does. As soon as she believes the lie that God is holding out on her, what does she do? She reaches for something else. And this is what happens to a lot of us your spiritual insecurity. The fear that you have or the thought that you have that you're not a son and daughter and that God's holding out on you is leading you to find solace, to find peace, to find satisfaction in other things. Why? Because you don't believe or see the blessing that God gives you. So you seek to find it and secure it yourself. And what you realize is that the hardest battle for each of us is simply believing the gospel. Believe in the gospel. For you to wake up and believe what God says over your own feelings and over the lives of the enemy and the promises of a culture that can't satisfy you. The last thing that you notice is the unseen realm. The unseen realm. Paul talks a lot about this throughout the book of Ephesians. We're going to hit on this a lot when we get to Ephesians chapter six and we talk about spiritual warfare. But one of the things that you realize in our cultural moment is that secularism wants you to believe that there's no other realm, right? That all that there is is what you feel, taste, see, touch right here in the moment, right now. Why? Because that keeps you enslaved to your desires. That's what it does. If there's no other realm, if there's nothing else beyond this, then you stay enslaved. And you stay dependent on other things. And what God wants to do is set you free by what? Giving you insight to see beyond just the physical and material. I'll give you this that if you're going to build your theology based on just the material blessings of life, you're not going to make it. Like if your entire relationship with God, your devotion to Him is all predicated upon Him giving you what you want materially, you're not going to make it.

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Why?

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Because what does he say? I'm giving you every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing. And if you're dependent on the material things, what are you going to do? You're going to stop following Jesus the moment, the moment that it gets hard and you don't get what you wanted. I mean, I know so many people who like you step into that job interview and you're like, I know God's going to give it to me. But what if he doesn't? What if he doesn't? Like some of us are hoping and longing for really good things, and God hasn't given it to you yet. And you don't understand why. And it brings you such pain and disappointment. And the enemy wants you to get fixated on that. To say, look, he doesn't care. And what he's trying to say is, look, look, I want you to see more. I want you to see more. Everything I have is yours. I'm not withholding from you, I'm not taking from you. Everything I have is yours. And you'll give up the moment that he doesn't give you materially if you're not seeing with spiritual eyes. So we must steward the physical with our eyes open to the spiritual. Like we must we must steward our physical disappointment, our material disappointment with eyes on the spiritual. We must have an eternal vision if we're going to properly live in the moment and in the physical. Like you have to have eternal vision because you will not make it if. You don't. This is why Jesus is constantly constantly preaching and he's saying, The kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of God is like, the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of God is like. Why? Because he's trying to get their eyes up. Because for them, for them, what it what did it mean to be blessed? To have stuff. To be materially blessed. They looked at it and said, That person's anointed, gifted, loved by God. And all of us, all of us aren't. And the people who who were experiencing that material blessing would use that as a way to push down everyone else. And he's going, No, no, no, no. Jesus suffered and died. The prophets suffered and died. The Israelites, the people of Israel, were an exiled, enslaved people who enjoyed seasons and moments of prosperity. The apostles and the early church were persecuted and isolated and abandoned. They were scattered. And then you look at your life. And somehow we flip our theology to where it doesn't even align with the text of scripture or the way God's worked throughout humanity. Martin Luther once said, Jesus donned a crown of thorns. Why would you assume a bed of roses? He let his life down for you. And then the calling is what? Attach yourself to me. And where's he going? To the cross. Follow me. Submit to me. Go with me. But what's his promise? All the things that last the longest, I will give you. The things that last forever, I will give you. If you trust me here and now that every spiritual blessing is yours. And you are and you are piling up a weight of glory in eternity as you trust in me. One of the temptations that we have is to think spiritual or physical. Right? We don't think both. We think spiritual or we think physical. Like if someone is experiencing suffering, they typically think one of two ways. It's a demonic attack, or you just wild it out and you got what you deserve. Right? You're like, man, I'm really experiencing demonic attack in my finances. It's like, nope, got too many subscriptions and not enough income. Okay? Really experiencing demonic attack in my relationships. Nope. You just be looking in the wrong place for the wrong kind of folks. I'm really experiencing demonic attack in my relationship with Jesus. Nope. You isolated, detached from the community, never go to church, and don't study God's word. Don't get in his presence. Like, but there's also levels in which like demonic attack is happening in our lives because we have a very real enemy and no one thinks that way. It's like, oh, we can just systematize our way out of that. And it's like, no, sometimes there's deliverance that needs to happen. And so it's it's a it's a both end. What he's trying to do is like, hey, this the physical is real, but the spiritual, I need you to give, I need you to get spiritual eyes. After after Jesus calls Peter, he tells Peter, hey, you're gonna play a really essential role in building my church. Peter, Peter begins to rebuke Jesus because Jesus tells him he's got to go to the cross and he's gotta die. And Peter goes, No, no, no, you can't do that. And what does Jesus do? Just moments after he rebukes Peter and says, Peter, get behind me. He calls him Satan. And he says, Why? Because you're you're not seeing with spiritual eyes. You're not thinking the way God thinks you're thinking like a man. And so he goes, and you're you're becoming you're becoming a tool of Satan to get in the way. You're trying to pull me away from the calling of God on my life. And so he's man, you gotta see with spiritual eyes. And know and trust that one day your faith will be made sight. Like one day Jesus is gonna restore, renew all things, and one day your faith will be made sight. You will have all things. And then lastly, I'll close with this, is he says, all of these things come how? In Christ. In Christ. I think the temptation for a lot of us is we start to try to think of okay, what way do I need to live my life in order to get all this stuff? Right? And he goes, no, no, this is yours in Christ. In Christ. Like I it would it would benefit me personally to tell you, hey, you want all these things? You gotta you gotta come to church every Sunday, you gotta give more than 10%, you gotta give a lot. You gotta join a community, you gotta serve on a team. And you gotta give your life to this thing. That's not that's not what he says. It's not in Kingdom City Church. It's in Christ. It's in Christ. That's why one of the things that we always say here, like our first and our first priority is to pursue the presence of Jesus. Why? Because everything you long for is in him. It's in him. He says, lift up the Son of Man and He will draw all men to himself, all men and women to himself. So what do we want to do? We want to lift Jesus up so you can see him, be drawn to him, and receive everything that he has. It's in him that all of these things are there. The only way to get what God offers is to be in Christ. To be in Christ. The term Christian is only used three times in the New Testament, interestingly enough. And most of the times we think it's used derogatorily, like it's used as an insult. Um, they were like, oh, look at those little Christs. That's what they call them. But the dominant description for the believer is these words. In Christ. In Christ. Paul uses it 11 times in this passage. In Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ. Hey Paul, how do I get this? In Christ, in Christ, in Christ. This isn't prayer, prayer, perform religious duties. This isn't, you know, some kind of transformation, you know, rooted in making yourself a little bit better, cleansing yourself up, hoping that you get to the end and God says, that'll work. No, no, no. He's like, man, this is this is identity transformation rooted in self-death and surrender. And you go, man, self-death, that sounds terrible, terrible. But what does Jesus say? He says, No, you have to die to that old, broken way of living. Why? So that you can be made alive in me. And there's so many of you here, you're like, it's just y'all, it's just not working for you. And you're sitting here and you're like philosophizing, you know, that's a good word. Like you're like literally working, trying to work it out in your mind and going like, yeah, I you go, no, no. Jesus' Lord's saying, hey, you gotta die. You gotta die. You gotta die to your own way. You gotta just, you just gotta surrender. Like that's the look of surrender, right? It's just like I remember reading in uh C. S. Lewis's biography, he talks about his conversion moment. He calls himself the most reluctant convert in all of England. He was like, I got I converted, I didn't want to. And he literally paints the picture and he says, it was it was truth with a knife pushing me down a hill to submission. And there's some of you that feel that way. Like you're trying so hard. And and Jesus is back there just lovingly going, like, you gotta die. Not necessarily with a knife, but you know, you gotta die. You just gotta surrender, you just gotta submit. I think ultimately what Paul is trying to get to is these these four things. For those of us who desperately need it, is one, you gotta see Jesus. You gotta see Jesus. This is what he's trying to do. He's trying to get you to see Jesus. He's like, look at him, look at him, look at him, look at what he's done, look at what he gives you, look at what he offers, look at him. See him. Like, man, this is a call to relationship. Like, this is what separates us from every other thing, is he's not trying to get you to come and do stuff for him, he's trying to get you to come to him and to see him, see his love for you, and to be drawn into relationship with love personified, to see him and then to surrender to him. Surrender. Like, not take some of him and keep some for yourself. No, surrender to him because you trust that he's good and he's gonna take care of you. To submit to him. He talks in John 15, he talks about abiding in him. He talks about those who obey his commands, abide in his love. Why? Because, man, if you listen to me and you obey me and you submit to me, man, you belong to me. Like, this is how you enjoy me, this is how you enjoy the life that I have for you. And the last thing he says is just stay with him. Like I think there's a lot of you, you're all over the map today, and some of you today, the thing is like, you need to see Jesus. You need to ask the Spirit of God to give you insight to see Jesus, to give you revelation to see Jesus. Some of you, it's time for you to finally surrender to Jesus. You've seen him, you've studied him, you've talked about him, you've been curious about him, you've asked him questions, you've shown up, you've done the thing. Surrender to Jesus. Just surrender your life to Jesus. Some of you, you you had a moment of surrender, and now you're living in disobedience, and you're trying to get both. You're straddling the fence, and you need to submit to Jesus. You need to, you need to re-up on your commitment to him. And then others of you, you just need this encouragement. Stay with Jesus. It's hard. You're not getting what you signed up for. You thought it was gonna look one way, now it looks like something else. Stay with Jesus. Stay with him. There's a weight of glory awaiting you. We're gonna move into a time of response. We're gonna have a prayer team around. Amen. Like, it's just an opportunity for you to respond to Jesus, to respond to him. Some of you need to make a commitment, a verbal commitment to Jesus. Others of you need to make a verbal commitment to someone else who's gonna pray over you or help pray with you and read up that commitment with Jesus. Some of you need to just pray for spiritual insight, revelation, because you you don't see, but you want to see. Those of you just need you just need someone to pray some power and encouragement into you so that you stay with him, even though you're tempted to go a different way. Some of you need to praise a spirit of submission so you'll submit to Jesus. So, Holy Spirit, we just ask you to come. We invite you, we say we're we're here for you. We welcome you, we want you, we desire you. Every single person here, you know exactly what they need. You know exactly the longings and the desperation of their heart. We pray that you would answer the prayers that they're not even praying. You would answer the longings of their heart. You would turn their eyes towards towards you, Jesus, and you would give them what they need, even if they don't want it, that they would you would give them what they need, what they desperately need. Would you come and move in this place? Help us respond in the way that our hearts need to, our lives need to, so that you can change us into what we're meant to be. In Jesus' name, we're gonna stand and sing.