According to the Trinity (Eph 1:3-14)

Here’s a sermon on my favorite passage, Eph 1:3-14, that I delivered at BeachCities Church in Huntington Beach. The congregation is used to pretty careful exposition, so I went long with a careful look at what makes this passage work.

Our passage is the perfect introduction to all of Ephesians, which later on talks about:

The immeasurable greatness of God’s power 1:19
The immeasurable riches of God’s grace in kindness toward us (2:7)
The unsearchable riches of Christ,. (3:8)
the love of Christ surpasses knowledge 3:19
and praises “him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20)

I mean, Just look at the nouns: Blessing, adoption, purpose, praise, grace, the Beloved, redemption, forgiveness, wisdom, insight, a plan, an inheritance, truth, gospel, salvation, guarantee, glory.

Now ignore the nouns and just look at the verbs: Blessed, chose, predestined, lavished, making known, to unite, to hope, sealed, acquire.

Look take away the nouns and the verbs and just look at the prepositions:
in, with, before… No, just kidding, that was a test to see if you’re my kind of people.

But actually, in context these prepositions are awesome. Okay, let me show you one:

“ACCORDING to.”

It’s a prepositional phrase that occurs about 5 or 6 times in here, but look especially at this one:

7: “We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

Think about this: Paul could have said, “from his grace.”  That’d be good. It’s true. But more:

“from the riches of his grace.” God has lots of grace, he’s “rich in mercy,” (2:4), so Paul could have said “he gave us redemption out of the riches of his grace.”

But he says “according to.” Not just from but according to. Think about that:

R.A. Torrey, first dean of Biola, used this illustration. If you had a wealthy friend who gave you a generous gift, you would be grateful. If your billionaire friends gave you something from their wealth, that would be great. But What If they gave you ACCORDING TO their wealth.

So in the case of this Ephesian blessing, this spiritual blessing, this spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, this spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, God has given redemption ACCORDING to … the riches of his own grace, which is infinite.

This little “according to” is actually the pivot: How great is the gospel? It’s the gospel “according to” God, that is, in proportion to God, that is, a salvation so great that it corresponds fittingly to the greatness and perfection and fullness of God the Trinity.

Okay, you can see that’s just the nouns, just the verbs, just the amazing prepositions. But let’s do what we can to get inside the whole sentences as one big thing.