Ephesians; 1:3 – the Trinity; the Father of all believers.

Wednesday October 3, 2018

 

Ephesians; 1:3 - the Trinity; the Father of all believers.

 

We have seen the Father related to all creation, to Israel specifically, and to God the Son. Now we look at the Fatherhood of all believers.

 

God the Father of all believers.

 

All people long to be connected to another in devotion and love. However, man is flawed. Even the best believer is not capable of filling this need. Yet God has given to us His devotion and love in Christ. All believers can call God their Father.

 

Men are either perfectly lost or perfectly saved. When a man believes in Christ as his Savior, the Holy Spirit enters him into union with Christ and makes him a brand-new creature in Christ.

 

One of the many blessings that the believer receives is the Fatherhood of God while he becomes a son of God.

 

This fact fulfills our desire for union with another in a perfect relationship. God is faithful. If a person could lose their salvation or if their salvation depended upon works then it would not be the perfect relationship that it is.

 

Relationships with people can break apart. There is always some threshold in a personal relationship, which if crossed, will destroy the relationship. Our relationship with God is not like this. He will never leave us or forsake us. Those who teach salvation by works attempt to rob Christians of this wonderful and comforting eternal security.

 

HEB 13:5 for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,"

 

HEB 13:6 so that we confidently say,

"The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.

What shall man do to me?"

 

Now look at the context of this passage.

 

HEB 13:1 Let love of the brethren continue.

 

HEB 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

 

HEB 13:3 Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.

 

HEB 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

 

HEB 13:5 Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,"

 

HEB 13:6 so that we confidently say,

"The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.

What shall man do to me?"

 

Love of the brethren (these you know and share something special in common), hospitality to strangers (these you don’t know but you might share something special in common), pray for and assist those of the royal family in trouble, hold your marriage in honor and do not defile the marriage bed (in thought as well as in practice, i.e. pornography or voyeurism), do not love money but be content with whatever you currently have.

 

Your perfectly devoted Father keeps all material, emotional, psychological, environmental needs always full. We can give to others with joy, always being full.  

 

These all relate to the fact that your Father is always your perfect Father.

 

If we are looking for the brethren to fulfill our need of connection and devoted love, we will eventually become disillusioned with the church.

 

If we look to ourselves, selfishness in personal comfort as our fulfillment then we will eventually draw into ourselves and never experience the fulfillment of our need for connection and devoted love.

 

If we look to our marriage, our spouse, as the fulfillment of this need, then we will become disillusioned with them and begin to look for supplemental fulfillment of our need for sexuality and personal love, even if it is only in our imaginations, which imagined adultery and fornication will also eventually destroy the intimacy of marriage as God designed it.

 

If we look to riches as the fulfillment of our need for devotion and unconditional love, as if we could buy it out of the material things of the world, then we will become overwhelmed by greed. Material things cannot provide our desire for love and loyalty, and we will conclude that we simply need more material, and so more wealth. All the wealth in the world cannot provide what God the Father can provide to a person’s soul in a moment in which His love is revealed through the cross of Christ, the ultimate sign of eternal devotion, love, faithfulness, loyalty, comfort, and security.

 

That is why the cross is always used as the example of love in the NT. In the OT the example was always redemption from Egypt. Now it is a God/Man hanging on a cross, dying for you. There is no greater love.

 

And so, when our Father says, “I will never ever (ou’ me) leave you, nor will I ever ever (ou’ me) forsake you.” He says, “I fulfill your need. Now love and give to others from your storehouse that will always remain full.”

 

Remember when our Lord fed the 5,000 and the 4,000 and the baskets were always full. When they were done distributing the food and the people were full, the baskets remained full. These weren’t scraps that were picked up. Jesus made sure that the baskets always remained full no matter how much was given out of it.

 

When we give to the brethren, forgo comfort for the brethren in need, give to strangers, give to our spouses, feel the comfort of being content with whatever material possessions we currently have, we never deplete our storehouses that the Father has filled by any amount.

 

We must see our Father for what He is and what He is to us. We cry out Abba, Father. He provides everything to us in abundance “for good deeds”. The fool wants the Father to supply him everything for sin and selfishness. This is not life, but death. The Father keeps our storehouses full so that every energy, time, or dollar given to others is instantly restored to our coffers.

 

If our smartphones blinged every time we gave, and our bank account showed a deposit in the same amount or more, faith would not be needed. The same is true for energy and time. Often, we will get exhausted, limited, and poorer, but faith knows that the storehouse is always full.

 

Faith is in terrible short supply in the church. We must have faith that our Father is just that, and that He alone will fulfill every need. It’s not that we don’t receive from others, but no one can fulfill us.

 

We must have faith that the supply to give will always be there and that restoration will come, no matter how bleak things may look. We walk by faith and not by sight.   

 

If we don’t depend upon the Father as Father, comforter, giver of grace and peace, then we will always feel as if we don’t have enough to give, and we won’t give.

 

2CO 9:6 Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.

 

2CO 9:7 Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver.

 

He’s cheerful because he knows that he’ll never not be full of gifts to give to others.  

 

2CO 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;

 

“all sufficiency” - pasan autarkeian (literally: self-strong) = all contentment

 

1TI 6:6-7

But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.

 

2CO 9:9 as it is written, [PSA 112:5,9]

"He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor,

His righteousness abides forever."

 

2CO 9:10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness;

 

2CO 9:11 you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.

 

We are thankful and the ones we serve may be thankful; some of them definitely will be.

 

The Father has entrusted the honor of His name to us. He said to Israel, “You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain.” This does not refer to profanity, but that those who were called by the name of the Lord were responsible to magnify that name. Instead of that, the apostle Paul says of them, “Through you the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.”

 

The Gentiles saw that Israel was as wicked and corrupt as most and concluded that their God was the same as any of the pagan gods.

 

MAT 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

 

MAT 5:15 Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the peck-measure, but on the lampstand; and it gives light to all who are in the house.

 

MAT 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

 

Not everyone recognizes our good works, our love, our grace, our mercy, our service, but if we don’t give as those who always have full storehouses from our Father, no one will see the name of the Father in us. Christ said, “Suffer for My name’s sake.” We magnify the name. There will always be some who see. Do they say, as they behold the grace of God in our lives, “How marvelous must be the love and holiness of God to whom these people belong, and whose sons they profess to be.”

 

When you use a concordance to look up “our Father” this is what you get.

 

ROM 1:7 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

1CO 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

2CO 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

GAL 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,

 

EPH 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

PHI 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

COL 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

 

2TH 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

2TH 2:16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace,

 

2TH 2:17 comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.

 

God the Father is the Father of every believer and He constantly and forever gives His children grace, and between them there is always peace.