All Spiritual Blessings — William MacDonald

The Meaning of Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Good morning. Good morning. Would you please turn in your Bibles back to where we were in the Scripture reading, Ephesians chapter 1, I'm just going to read verse 3, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.

That is our subject today. May every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. When I was a young man, I was very familiar with these words, but if you asked me what they meant, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.

They were just kind of a collection of holy words. They were ethereal, they were off there floating in the air somewhere, but they didn't present a concrete image to my mind. If I asked you today, what do they mean?

Could you tell me? Could you tell your junior high students exactly what they meant? That's what we want to think about this morning. I never did get help on this subject until I learned to contrast earthly material blessings in earthly places with spiritual blessings in heavenly places.

Let's think about that for a minute. Would you turn back in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 7, Deuteronomy chapter 7, the seventh book of the Bible, the fifth book in the Bible, chapter 7. Verse 13, now here God is speaking to the nation of Israel and promising them that if they obey him, if they walk in fellowship with him, he will bless them.

Notice how he's going to bless them. Verse 13, chapter 7, Deuteronomy 7, and he will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, the land of which he swore to your fathers to give you.

You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be a male or a female barren among you or among your livestock. Verse 15, and the Lord will take away from you all sickness. Verse 16, and you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you.

Your eyes shall have no pity on them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. If you look at those blessings, you'll find out they were material blessings. They had to do with fertility, fertility of your family, fertility of your livestock, fertility of your crops, all material blessings in earthly places.

That is the type of blessing that Israel was promised in the Old Testament. Now spiritual blessings are completely different. That's the blessings that are ours in this dispensation, in this era of the grace of God in a special way.

We're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I'd like to go over some of these spiritual blessings with you today. We're not going to finish them, not because of the picnic, but because just isn't time.

The Word of God as an Eternal Spiritual Blessing

And first of all, I'd like to mention one of the great spiritual blessings that we have today is the Word of God. Do you realize what a marvelous thing it is to have the sacred scriptures at our hands today?

God has spoken, God has revealed his mind to us, God has given us in this book all things that pertain to life and godliness. Did you know that this book is the book of eternity? We're going to have this book in heaven.

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. Forever, O Lord, my word is settled in heaven. The Word of God is going to be the conversation in heaven, the subject of conversation.

I like to remind myself of that. Someday I'm going to sit beside Zephaniah and he's going to say to me, how did you enjoy my book when you were down there? And you're going to say, you what? The conversation will come to a screeching halt, I'm afraid, with many of us, but I want to tell you, this book is going to be the subject of conversation in heaven and it's inexhaustible.

Isn't that wonderful? You can never come to the end of what's found in this sacred book. We don't value it the way we should. We don't give it the place in our lives that we should either. We have in this book all the great precious promises of God.

Just think of this. If I go away, I will come again and receive you into myself, that where I am, there you may be also. What a precious promise, huh? And the road to heaven is just paved with them. It's just paved with promises like that and they're ours to make them our own during our time down here.

Election and Predestination in Christ

Well, the verses that follow verse three begin to list some of the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus and one of the first ones is that chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ here today, saved by the grace of God, cleansed by the blood of Christ, you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. You say, oh, we're getting into Calvinism now.

No, we're not getting into Calvinism, we're just saying what the Bible says. Chosen in Christ. Just think of that. Before you had done anything right or wrong, before you even knew about a God, before you ever existed, God chose you in Christ.

Well, you say, I'm here today and I don't know whether I was chosen or not. Well, you know, there's only one way of finding out. That's to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The minute you do that, you can know that back in a bygone eternity, he chose you to belong to himself.

But I don't think we should ever mention chosen in Christ without mentioning the other side of the coin, and that is man's responsibility. I believe with all my heart that Christ chose me to belong to himself.

Well, back there before time began, but I believe just as strongly that there was a time in my life when by a definite act of faith, I had to receive Christ as my only hope for heaven. The truth doesn't lie somewhere between the two.

It lies both extremes. The same Bible that teaches election teaches man's responsibility. Don't overemphasize one at the expense of the other. Another blessing that's ours here is predestinated. Verse 5, having predestinated us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Well, a lot of people say predestination, that's the same as election. Well, it's not quite the same. There's a technical difference. Election means we were chosen. Predestination has that to which we were chosen.

We were predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. You know, that's enough to make angels gasp that God in his marvelous wisdom, grace, and power has destined to fill heaven with people just like his son.

You say, well, I sure fall short of it today. I know. He's not through with us yet. He's not through with us. When we present it to himself, we'll be without spot or wrinkle, birthmark, or any such thing.

We'll be just like Jesus. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Does that mean we'll look like him? No, it doesn't mean that. We'll all have our individual appearance, but it means we'll have a glorified body.

And a lot of us here today are looking forward to that day when we have a glorified body. Isn't that wonderful? Wonderful, really. And we'll be free from sin forever. I long for that time. I long for that time.

Free from sin forever, predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son. Wonderful, wonderful grace of Jesus. We're born again. Well, you're used to that expression, I know. What's it all about? Well, Jesus said in John chapter 3, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit, must be born again.

And when by grace we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are born. A new birth takes place. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. But the flesh is evil, corrupt, hopeless, and can only reproduce after itself.

There has to be a new birth in order for man's problems to be solved. Get this, we're saved from the penalty and power of sin. That's a spiritual blessing. How much would you give for it? I tell you, it's better than having fertile fields, better than having a big family, better than all those blessings we read about in Deuteronomy chapter 7.

Wonderful, wonderful Savior. We're saved from the penalty of sin. The moment you trust the Savior, the penalty is gone. It's hidden in the depths of the sea. And God himself cannot find a single sin with which to punish you with eternal death.

And from the power of sin, sin shall not have dominion over you. It's wonderful, really, when you see, when you meet fellow Christians, and they tell you what they were like before they were saved, and then you know them as they are today.

I tell you, they're new people. They're not the same person. And they're living lives of victory in Christ Jesus. We're saved from the wrath to come, Paul tells us in writing to the Thessalonians. Saved from the wrath to come.

Well, that could mean two things. It could mean the tribulation period that's coming upon the earth. We're saved from that. Or it could mean the wrath of eternal hell, too. So we don't have to choose.

We can say, well, both of them are true, and they are true. What a wonderful thing. The torment and the fire my eyes will never see. The Lord Jesus endured it all for me as my substitute. And now I can go free.

There is no condemnation. There is no death for me. Paul tells us that we're perfected forever. But if you look within your heart today, you might object to that. Perfected forever. This is what he's done for us.

He's given us a perfect standing before God. He's given all that we need to make us fit for heaven. Dear friends, if you have Jesus today, you're as fit for heaven as God can make you. And the Spirit of God doesn't hesitate to say perfected forever.

We might hesitate to say it, but he doesn't. We're justified. That's wonderful. People say, well, justified means just as if we had never sinned. It means something more than that. It means that we stand before God absolutely perfect in Christ.

With all charges against us gone. Reckoned righteous by a holy God. Imagine. I who am so unrighteous in many ways. God sees me in Christ and says justified. We're sanctified. That does not mean made holy.

As many people think it means set apart to God from the world. God has separated us from the world to belong to himself forever and forever. And then in Romans chapter eight, it tells us that we're glorified as if it had already happened.

In other words, the believers glorification is just as sure as if it had already taken place. Which means that the people in heaven, the redeemed in heaven, might be more happy than we are, but they're not more sure of heaven than we are.

How do you like that? What would you give for these spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus? See, I couldn't put a price on it. And that's exactly right. All those material blessings, I suppose that you could have put a price on them.

Reconciliation, Redemption, and Forgiveness

You can't under spiritual blessings that are ours. We're reconciled, Paul tells us in Colossians chapter one. What's that all about? Well, before we were saved, we were at enmity with God. I was an enemy of God.

Against the God who built the sky, I fought with hands up, lifted high, despised the mention of his grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. When the Lord Jesus came into my life, I was reconciled to God.

God wasn't reconciled. He didn't need to be. I needed to be reconciled. That meant that I now am a friend of God and not an enemy of his. Then, of course, we're redeemed. That's a common expression that we use today.

The marvel of it is that we were redeemed at the cost of the precious blood of our creator, God. We were singing about the Lord of the planets and the Lord of the galaxies. That same Lord died for you and me.

To me, this is the most outstanding, astounding fact of Christianity. That the one who died on a cross of wood outside the gates of Jerusalem was a God who counts the stars and calls them all by name.

The same God who heals the brokenhearted wonder of wonders. We receive forgiveness of sins. I think that's what most of us think of all. First of all, the spiritual blessing of knowing that our sins are forgiven.

Just think of that for a moment. A sinner comes and repents of his sins. A million sins are forgiven in a moment of time. Isn't that wonderful? That's what happened in my life. That time when I came to Jesus, all the sins of the past, all the sins of the past, the penalty was gone forever and ever that I was forgiven by a holy God through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ of the cross of Calvary.

We're free from condemnation. We're free from condemnation. That's wonderful. Who shall condemn us now? No one. Oh, a lot of people could try, but they can't successfully condemn us because God has already justified us.

And if God has justified us, it doesn't matter what other people say about us. We're accepted in the beloved. We have that here in Ephesians chapter 1, where he had made us accepted in the beloved. I'm so glad for that.

He doesn't accept me for who I am or what I have done. He accepts me because I come to him in all the merits of his lovely son, Jesus. That's how he accepts me. First he sees my Savior, then he sees me in the beloved, accepted and free.

Accepted in the beloved. We are complete in Christ. Complete in Christ. We already have a suggestion of that. Paul brings it out in Colossians. Complete in Christ. As far as our eternal salvation is concerned, if we have Christ, we don't need anything more.

I like to emphasize that in speaking to unsaved people. Salvation is in a person. And his name is Jesus. If you have Jesus, you're saved. You're saved as God can make you. That's wonderful, isn't it? The gospel is so simple that even a fool or a wayfaring man could understand it.

Could understand it fully. We receive eternal life. We receive eternal life. Eternal life is more than length of life. It's a quality of life. It's the new life that we have in Christ. It's the life of Christ in us.

And we enjoy it here, down here. A lot of people can enjoy eternal life long before they go to heaven. Good for us to know that. We receive a new nature that is a divine nature. We receive the life of Christ.

Honestly, you can't explain Christian people apart from that fact. You can't explain it. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. All the flesh can do is reproduce itself. That which is born of the spirit is spirit.

And I just love to come to the break of the bread to hear my brothers up there worshiping the Lord. And I tell you, a few years ago, they were cursing his name. Why? New life has come into their hearts.

That's what has happened. We're brought near by the blood of Christ. In our unsaved condition, we were far from God. Far from God. Now we're brought near by the blood of Christ. So that the poet didn't hesitate to say near.

So very near to God, I could not nearer be. For in the person of his Son, I'm as near as he. Shocking? It's absolutely true. In the person of God's Son, I'm as near as he. Dear, so very dear to God, dearer I could not be.

The love wherewith he loves his Son, such is his love to me. I'll never forget the time I first read that in John chapter 17. That God loves us, believers, just as he loves his Son. Can you believe it?

Yeah, of course you believe it. The Bible says so. We're loved by the Father, just the same as Christ is loved. We become children of God. We become children of God. What a privilege to be a child of the God of the universe.

And we're not only children of God, but we're adopted into the family as sons of God. This is women to expression, sons of God. That means that he adopts us not only as kiddies, children, but he adopts us as mature sons with all the privileges and responsibilities of sons.

The difference between being a child of God and being a son of God. Paul describes that difference in Galatians chapter 4. And he tells us that one of the great things that happens whenever a person is saved, the Spirit of God comes within him.

And one of the first words he says is, Father. That's wonderful. One of the first things a believer says when he saved his father. You say, why is that so wonderful? Well, because no Jew in the Old Testament, no individual Jew in the Old Testament, as far as the Bible is concerned, ever called God Father.

But there's that new relationship of intimacy with God. We not only call him God, we call him Abba Father. And Abba is such an intimate word that the translators were afraid to translate it. And so they just brought the word into the English language, Abba Father.

Think today what it means to you if you're a believer. What it means to you to get down on your knees and say, Father. Priceless, a priceless privilege. Our names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

That's wonderful. God keeps good records. He's a good record keeper. And the minute you trust Christ as your Savior, your name is written down in the book there. And I tell you, no name will ever be erased from that book.

Our names are written in other places, too. The priest in the Old Testament, the names of Israel's tribes were on his shoulder and on his breastplate. Well, I'm going to tell you, my name is on the shoulders of the Lord Jesus.

My name is on the shoulder of the Lord Jesus, the place of power. My name is on the breastplate of the Lord Jesus, the place of affection. My name is carved in the palm of his hands, carved there by the nails that pierced it at Calvary.

Righteousness, Citizenship, and Heirship

What a Savior we have. What a Savior we have. We become the righteousness of God in Christ. God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.

That means that you and I, I know this sounds presumptuous. It's not. You and I, saved by the grace of God, can look up into the face of God and say, God, Father, I am clothed with your righteousness.

Clothed with your righteousness. We become citizens of heaven. Paul tells us that in Philippians chapter 3, doesn't he? New citizenship. We were citizens of the world and went away with all its false ways.

Now we're citizens of heaven. That should make us walk with a dignity to our steps, too. The world looks on us and they expect to see something different about us, and I hope that they do. We become heirs of God.

Some of these things are breathtaking. We become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. These are spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. What does that mean, heirs of God? It means everything he has, we have, too.

That's what it means. Everything that belongs to him belongs to us. You say, well, it doesn't look like that today. No, it doesn't look like that today, but it will when he comes back to reign, when the Savior comes back to reign.

Then we'll see it acted out in truth. All things are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's. Just think of it, heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. That's a wonderful thing.

Peace, Mediation, and the Security of the Believer

Peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a wonderful thing to know that your sins are forgiven. In fact, I think that's the sting of death. The sting of death is sin, unconfessed and unforgiven.

What a wonderful thing it is today to bask in the sunshine of God's love and know my sins are gone. Gone forever. And I have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, but I have the peace of God in my heart, which means that the scaffolding can be crushing around us and all the rest.

And I can have peace knowing that my Father is in control of all. And my Father never allows anything to come into my life that isn't first coming through his wisdom, love and power. It means something to be a Christian, dear friends, and to be blessed with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.

We have Christ as our mediator, as our comforter, as our advocate and as our great high priest. That's wonderful. There's somebody in heaven today that's there for you and for me. His ministry in heaven today is for you and for me.

And Satan comes before God night and day, it says, telling God all about McDonald's failures and faults. And he says, that's okay. Just charge it to my account. Just charge it to my account. Priceless position.

One in heaven pleading for me. And then we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. How do you know? You know it because the Bible says so, but you should know it in other ways as well. The indwelling Spirit.

Whenever you trust the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit of God comes and lives in your body. Your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's why there's such a change in people's lives. Because he's there.

Because he's there. And he's guiding our thoughts and the intents of our heart as well. We have the Holy Spirit as our seal. The seal speaks of ownership. We belong to God. And it speaks of security. Yes, we are secure in Christ.

Eternally secure. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Dear friend, the believer in Christ is eternally secure. Eternally secure. We know it because Christ says it over and over again in his precious Word. And then we have the earnest of the Spirit. The earnest is the down payment.

The Spirit of God comes into our life as a down payment. What does that mean? It means that his presence there is the guarantee of everything that God has promised to me will be mine. Everything that God has promised will be mine in that coming day.

And we have the anointing of the Spirit. I have that in 1 John chapter 2. And that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit in helping us read and study the Bible. You've had that experience, I'm sure, if you know Christ.

When you're reading the Bible and all of a sudden it just lights up for you. It's like a neon light and you see something you didn't see before. That's the anointing of the Spirit. Teaching us the Word of God and guarding us against error, too.

The same one who teaches us the truth warns us against the encroaching of the evil one. We receive gifts from the Holy Spirit. This is one of the great blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. Where God can take a man whose poor weak base and all the rest of it and use him for his glory.

Where he can take a Spurgeon without formal education, an Ironside, a Tozer, and people flock to hear them speak the Word of God. The gift of the Holy Spirit. There are more gifts, I think, than we know in the Scriptures.

Priesthood and Membership in the Body of Christ

We become holy and royal priests. Only one family and one tribe in the Old Testament could become priests. Every believer is now a priest. We're holy priests. We come to God as holy priests and worship him.

What do you mean, worship him? Well, we worship him with our person, present our bodies a living sacrifice. We worship him with our possessions. We come to him and give of our possessions to him. We come to him with our service.

These are the presentations of a priest today. And then we're royal priests as well. We go forth to tell the marvels of him who brought us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Wonderful, wonderful Jesus.

We become members of the body of Christ, the greatest system in the world, the body of Christ, made up of true believers in the Lord Jesus. It's a wonderful thing to be a member of the body of Christ.

The other day Ron Shin and I were coming out of Denny's up at 150th Street. We had lunch there. And as we were walking to the parking lot, two dear black fellows were behind us and a Caucasian, three of them.

And I had watched those men. And I had seen them embrace one another. And I saw them talking animatedly to one another. So as they were coming behind us, I turned around and I said rather sternly, I said, are you fellows Christians?

And they said, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. It was great. I said, born again Christians? They said, what else? There's no other kind. And I said, you know why? You know why I stopped and asked you that?

I said, only Christians would embrace one another the way you do. That was true. We had a wonderful time, a fellowship together. It's a wonderful thing to be a member of the body of Christ. I don't know their names.

And I didn't ask them what church they went to. All I need to know is they were cleansed by the precious blood of Christ. And we were members of the same body. I like this one. I'm going to close with this one.

Friendship with Christ and Closing Prayer

We become the friends of Christ. Isn't it wonderful? He calls us his friend. And it's marvelous to me to flip through a hymn book and see how many of the old hymns have to do with the friendship with Jesus.

What a friend we have in Jesus. Boy, that tugs at every believer's heart. What a friend we have in Jesus. Look, I have two more pages. And they don't tell the whole story. They don't tell the whole story.

Shall we look to the Lord in prayer? Blessed God, we call you Father now. We come this morning to express our deep, deep thanks for the way you have enriched us, blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ.

Help us to walk worthy of the great vocation of which we are called, we pray. Help us always to bring the fragrance of Christ with us wherever we go. And we pray, Lord, for as the assembly goes forth, for the spickness that you'll walk over, walk with us, protect us from evil, and give us a time of happy fellowship, one with another.

We pray in the Savior's name, amen.