we're going to read together from our New Testament scripture reading which is
Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 to 14 and Lizzie is going to come and read for us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in
Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us
in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and
blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as
sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise
of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have
redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according
to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and
insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose
which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all
things in him things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an
inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who
works all things according to the counsel of his will so that we who were
the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also
when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed
in him was sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our
inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
Amen. Two weeks ago we started a series on the letter of Paul to the Ephesians and
so we're picking back up with that this morning. Paul writes this letter and in
between 8060 and 62 he's a prisoner in the city of Rome writing back to a church
that he had planted a few years before that and he really loved the Ephesians
dearly and he wanted it he wanted this letter to be a letter that was meant for
all local churches to read so it's called it we call it a circular letter so
Paul really we know intended it to be copied and then sent around to all the
churches near Ephesus and then beyond that and so when it says to the saints
who are in Ephesus we said last time you can say to the saints by God's word who
are in are in Edinburgh so it's written to the local church and that means
because this is written by God to us it's to us today and it's a really
important letter for us to study and think about part of the reason for that
is because we are in a season of transition still and will be for a while
we're in a new era here at St. Columbus after 22 years with Derek and Katrina
and leading and right now it's a really important time to be asking the
fundamental question that Ephesians asked which is who is the church what's the
church what does the church do who are we gonna be in the future that's exactly
what the book of Ephesians the letter that Paul's written here addresses and
in this very long sentence that Lizzie read for us verses 3 to 14 Paul talks
about that and it is a long sentence so in the Greek text it's one sentence
there are multiple sentences here in your English Bible but in the Greek Paul
just kept going and going and going it's one big long sentence and what this
long sentence does is Paul is trying to get you at the beginning of thinking
who is the church to take a God's eye perspective on it so he's trying to
sort of pull us out of ourselves and say stop just simply seeing the world from
your vantage point and see all that God is doing and up to in your life in the
life of the church and life of the world from his perspective and his
perspective starts from eternity from before time began we looked at that last
time all the way to right now in this moment so he's drawing you up and
every single week we will answer the question who is the church with a new
answer and so we said he's already told us the church is blessed because we were
chosen predestined in him from before the foundation of the world and then this
week the next answer he gives us is that we're blessed because we are redeemed
redeemed and forgiven so that's the focus verse just verses 7 to 8 and let's
ask what is redemption what's the meaning of it the meaning of redemption and
what are the gifts the blessings that come from it so those two things the
meaning of redemption we'll spend almost all of our time on that and then
lastly consider what are some of the gifts and the blessings that come from
that that help Paul help you today to say blessed be God to worship like he
does here so the meaning of redemption in verse 7 we've got just a few a
clause in him in Jesus we have redemption through his blood and in every
every single word that Paul writes right there there is something distinct and
what he's talking about the idea of redemption from the way that modern
Western people are conditioned to understand redemption so what Paul gives
you there is different from the way we've received the idea of redemption in our
modern Western world this is a Greek word redemption that means that's the
word apollutron in Greek and it means actually ransom so it can be translated
either redemption or ransom and ransom ransom this first century idea of
ransom means that you a person that needs ransom or redemption you are totally
incapacitated you are completely imprisoned you have a debt that you can
never pay you are dead and you cannot make yourself alive and the idea of
ransom is that somebody has to come and pay every single debt that you owe so
that you might be released from your bondage so deep in the heart of the
idea of ancient ransom or redemption is an exchange and it's an exchange that
you are not involved in it's an exchange that takes place completely apart from
anything that you do now the reason that this strikes against the modern notion
of redemption is because we have so many great stories so many great tales books
TV film that are redemption stories redemption stories are probably the
most classic and popular genre of literature and film that are out there
and there if you read film critics literary buffs about redemption and
story in modern story redemption typically takes place in a couple of
ways there are redemption characters that have big redemption arcs Severus
Snape Ebenezer Scrooge Oscar Schindler Anakin Skywalker Darth Vader if you
don't know Boromir Katniss Everdeen Woody Toy Story hopefully there's
something I believe there's something there for everybody these are redemption
characters with redemption stories and big redemption arcs sometimes about
multiple films and books and when you look at redemption characters in our
time there are basically two ways that redemption happens in most stories one
is that you are born into or find yourself in the midst of really hard
circumstances so you know that you might be born in it as an orphan and you you
overcome that that circumstance and you you seek your destiny and against all the
odds you finally you get there remember Bambi you remember Bambi Bambi that
little deer that fawn Bambi this is the book version by the way was meant to be
a great prince of the forest his father was but he never knew his dad and he was
so attached to his mother and he had she was all he had but the evil malevolent
force that enters into the woods is man and man hunts deer and man shoots kills
Bambi's mother and he's orphaned and all he has left in the world is his little
rabbit friend Thumper and against against every expectation Bambi grows up he
has a wife and there's a moment where his wife is surrounded by hunters and
Bambi could have never saved his mother when when he was too small but now he
has that opportunity and he comes in and he saves his wife from the hunters and
he gets shot but he survives it and he overcomes and against all odds the
orphan Bambi becomes the great prince of the forest now that's a redemption story
and it's a redemption from horrible circumstances or from a circumstance of
deep loss or pain or overcoming the odds that's one type of redemption arc that
we find in modern story the other is the most the most common and that's
redeeming yourself after the midst of great failure after a great failure you
know it's the story of redemption because of something you've done that
you've made horribly wrong but you get a second chance and that's the story of
Woody in Toy Story Woody Woody is selfish ego maniacal and when when Buzz
Lightyear comes into the scene you know he takes away from Woody the one thing
Woody is always priced and that's the love of Andy and so Woody pushes Buzz
out of a window and through guilt and shame and eventual repentance Woody
rescues Buzz the man who tried to kill Buzz goes and realizes he has to rescue
Buzz and Woody you know Buzz gets rescued but who is it that's redeemed
it's Woody he's redeemed from his selfishness and he becomes friends with
Buzz and he gives Buzz a share in the leadership of all the toys now this is
the second type of redemption story it's when you've failed greatly in your life
you've really messed it up and you've been imprisoned or some other cost has
come into your life but you get a second chance and you redeem yourself Flannery
O'Connor the great southern fiction writer in the United States she wrote a
little essay in the mid 20th century called thinking about books and she
really saw the problem of modern stories of redemption and she really nails it
here this is what she says she says the reader of today is indeed looking for
redemption aren't we all and rightly so but what she has forgotten is the cost
of redemption and she goes on she says the reader's sense of evil is lacking so
lacking in the modern world so diluted that he has forgotten the true price of
restoration and redemption now there's a lot of great redemption stories and
maybe you have one in your life you've you've overcome stuff in your life that
put you against the odds of having any success or you came back from a great
failure and you had a second chance and you seized it but let me say that the
only way that these stories actually find meaning and the only way that they
truly can give you a sense of fulfillment at last is if you see them in
the light of the great redemption story and these stories are mere shadows
little flickers and glimmers of something so much bigger so much better so much
greater something that's capital R redemption and that's what Paul and
God are talking to us about in this letter and we have to see in it the
big differences between the way we often are taught to think of redemption and
what redemption really means and here we have it Paul says first in Jesus in
him we have redemption and when he says that to us he's he's pushing against
every sense of modernity where redemption means when you get a second
chance you better grab it when you get a second chance you better lift yourself
up by your bootstraps and instead did you hear what Paul said he says in Jesus we
have redemption and that means Paul is saying that if you want real redemption
it's not something you can accomplish it's something that you have to receive
you see what he doesn't say we can achieve redemption he says in him we
have it in other words he's pointing to the fact that redemption if you're
really gonna have it it has to be given to you it has to be found in him outside
of you and be given as a gift to you you may you may have in your life so
far a pretty good redemption story very those are great overcoming a failure but
you know let me just this is what you came for today remember Bambi still
died and so did his wife and toy you know have you seen toy story too what he
was still selfish he overcame his selfishness for a moment and then it came
right back and you know you see the thing is is that the great problems that
we need redemption from we cannot redeem ourselves in him we have it we don't
achieve it you can't you can't get it yourself you have to find it from the
outside this is actually embedded into the myth the myth of the Western
mindset from the time of the Enlightenment forward the Enlightenment in
large part began on the Royal Mile right outside and the Enlightenment was a
time of introducing modernity and modernity is a time where we as humans
believe we can progress we can achieve we can reach utopia and one of the
fundamental heartbeats of that movement was what does it look like for us to
redeem our city redeem our nation redeem our society redeem in all sorts of
ways and people have in modernity have said well you know if we're really
redeeming society we need a classless society if we're really gonna redeem
society we need bigger government if we're really gonna redeem society we
need smaller government if we're really gonna redeem society we need we need
better access to therapy we need better education systems and what we have after
that entire movement is the same exact problems that were identified from the
beginning and the true story is contra every modern sensibility you can't
redeem yourself you can't redeem the city you can't redeem society the same
problems will always come back redemption has to come from outside now
the second thing Paul says here that's a different that's different from our
modern mindset in him we have redemption the word redemption
apollutron this Greek word which means ransom remember it means to be purchased
or to be exchanged for this is my last literary slash film reference of the day
redemption in the Bible is much less like Bambi and much more like the story
of Jean Valjean Jean Valjean from Les Miserables and if you've seen it you'll
know if you haven't you'll get this remember Jean Valjean prisoner number
24601 he was imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his family 17 years
hard labor and he was released in France and he became homeless and he's on
the streets he's in parole and he's invited one night into the home of a
bishop in France and the bishop feeds him a hot meal for the first time in
years he gives him a bed to sleep in and in the middle of the night with the
Jean Valjean do he steals all the silver from the home and he runs and you know
he he stole to give food to his family in the beginning but he really became a
thief in prison and after that he still is a thief and he steals and the
police catch him and they bring him back to the bishop and they say you know
here he is the thief he's on parole he's done this before he's gonna get life in
prison for this in 18th century France and the bishop says to the police this
man did not steal my silver today I gifted to him and then he turns to Jean
Valjean and says with this silver with this gift I have redeemed you I've
ransomed you I've bought you back and that's ransom that's redemption that's
the biblical idea it's more like you're standing in a prison cell and the guard
comes and releases you and says go and be free and be transformed and you say
why and the guard says because somebody else has given enough to pay your debt
and set you free it's being redeemed by a debt that somebody else has paid for
paid for your debt has put something in the place has paid for you so that you
could go free that's redemption and so thirdly Paul says in him something you
can't do we have redemption and exchange that has to take place where you don't do
anything your debt gets paid for from outside of you and then finally through
his blood so what we learn is how costly this is this is what Flannery O'Connor
was talking about the costliness of real redemption this is lost in many modern
stories of redemption and what Paul tells to really make sense of this is he
says the cost of redemption is his blood the blood of Jesus Christ and then he
adds one little line at the end of that he says the forgiveness of our trespasses
so he ties the spilt blood of Jesus to forgiveness and when he does that what
what you learn what you can see here is that to be ransomed to be redeemed
means to be forgiven and how that takes place the primary idea is that when you
are ransomed when you were exchanged when somebody else pays your debt and
you're released being released is a metaphor for being forgiven in other
words the most central problem that the Bible is talking about in the idea of
redemption is that we are guilty people it's guilt it's not it's not just
picking yourself up from your circumstances it's not just overcoming
a bad being born into a really hard situation it's something much deeper
much greater much more difficult to deal with much more costly of a price and
it's the problem of guilt that's what he's talking about it's that somebody
else has paid the price so that when you go free it is as if it is it is truly
the case that your guilt has been washed away you're forgiven that's what
what he means here now think about this Jean Valjean you know who who
forgiveness is not free forgiveness is never free where's the cost well the
bishop is never gonna get a silver back he the bishop has to let it go he has
to eat the cost of that it's an example let me give you another example to help
you see this I heard this from someone else recently this is a this is a crime
we've all committed it's a crime I've come I've committed in ministry here at
St. Columbus once or twice you book to meet up with somebody for lunch for
coffee and you're going about your business and all of a sudden you get
that text message are you still coming and you realize that you never took the
time to put it into your diary you know you said yeah we'll meet for coffee we'll
meet on Thursday at 2 o'clock and that person has left their house they've
traveled into the city 30 minutes 40 minutes they've set for 20 minutes at
the coffee shop and you never showed up and they say are you still coming and
what do you say you say I'm so sorry you know I'm so sorry I'm such a fool I
didn't write it down I just I thought I would remember and I didn't remember
we've all we've all done this the person you say I'm sorry the person says I
forgive you what does it mean for them to forgive you truly it means does it
mean that there was no cost no they've lost an hour and a half of their lives
they'll never get it back you know you not only is there a cost of time there's
a cost in the relationship you've actually burdened them you've diminished
the trust that they once maybe had in your responsibility right and but here's
true forgiveness true forgiveness is when they say I forgive you and they
really do forget about it so that they don't walk around and say yeah you know
I forgive you and then they go and say the the minister sometimes he doesn't
show up for meetings you know he's not responsible and you know which may be
true but the true forgiveness true forgiveness is when you actually forget
and you say I'm not gonna go around and diminish your character for this it's
gonna be between me and you and it's gone forever I see you the same way I saw
you before I love you that's real forgiveness that's redemption when
you're when the price of your debt has been paid to such an extent that you
can be forgiven like that now listen forgiveness is costly and it is and at
the same time it is true release from all of your debts the doubt of guilt let
me move to the final point and our conclusion which is to say but before
that let me say guilt is serious it's real guilt we are told here our guilt is
human beings required the death of the Son of God the blood of Jesus and I just
want to ask have you really seen this have you really wrestled with this have
you really been willing in your life even as a father of Jesus to look at the
cross and understand the crux of the cross the cruciality of the cross the
fact that it is about your guilt that your guilt requires for the sake of
forgiveness the blood of the Son of God to be spilled and that means that in our
lives in every horizontal relationship we have self to other people self
centeredness to our family members to our friends to the people we know in our
neighborhoods every single time we are self-centered when we were meant to be
selfless that there is a vertical sin that takes place not only towards
somebody else but to God and every single time we are self-centered we
revolve the world around our kingdom that is a capital crime before the Lord
we have made a kingdom for ourselves that we do not deserve in the midst of
God's world and it requires do you see how serious it is how the necessity of
the cross screams at us and says our guilt requires the blood of the Son of
God to be spilled because God is holy he can't he doesn't just forgive sin willy
nilly and because God is love he desires so much to pay the price and so in the
cross we have redemption why because God's justice and his love and his mercy
all meet they all kiss in that moment and redemption pours forth into the world
forgiveness is so difficult it costs so much and until you see that you don't
really understand Christianity until you see the reality the crux of the cross
the real cost of it you've yet to have your life transformed to see the pain
of the cross and the love of the cross and the justice of the cross for your
redemption modern people we as modern people and maybe today you're
coming exploring the claims of faith as a modern person in the secular West and
you might say I don't know that I really feel like I'm in a person in need of
redemption you know I don't have a hard circumstances story I don't have a great
failure story and I don't yet see I don't know that I believe that I have a
vertical dimension to my action that my selfishness is actually sinning or
committing an offense against the living God the only thing I can say about it
because of time is this we all face a choice and this is the choice either
either either God exists there really is divine law there really is such a thing
is right and wrong and that you can transgress it or God doesn't exist and
there is no meaning in this world either God exists and there really is divine
law and there really is right and wrong and there really is a moral order and
you can transgress it or there is no meaning the moral right and wrong is
nothing but subjectivism it's nothing but feelings it's nothing but a
construct it's one or two it's the only options Friedrich Nietzsche the great
atheist philosopher of the 19th century he saw that he admitted it Bertrand
Russell he saw it great thinkers of our time that did not believe in God
admitted it they knew either God exists divine law is real or there is no meaning
in this world and that's the choice you have to face either Jesus Christ had to
die on the cross for their forgiveness or sins or there or there is no meaning
it's that big it's that serious it's that it's that real it's that necessary the
cost of our sins is the price of redemption is the blood of Jesus now
lastly let me bring this home by saying that means that when you when you see
this when you grasp this there are blessings that come into your life
their gifts and let me just point out four of them real quick and we'll be
done let me say first this is so anti-modern this idea this so it doesn't
matter if you're from a Western tradition or an Eastern tradition this
morning what's so anti-modern about this is there's a total relief in the need
to redeem yourself so every single culture that we come from gives you
ways gives you opportunities to redeem yourself to become a better person to
pick yourself up and whether it's Western whether it's Eastern whatever
culture it may be American Scottish German it doesn't matter what what the
gospel comes and offers you today is an opportunity to have total relief from
the need to redeem yourself we have redemption in Jesus Christ if you come
today saying I have a redemption story you know I have become become something
out of the midst of hard circumstances and failure can you see can you say
today can you see today how temporary those redemption stories are that you
can't you can't redeem yourself from death you can't redeem yourself from the
great problems you have Woody was still selfish and Bambi still died and all of
this is temporary you need redemption that's so much greater so much bigger
than that and if you're coming today as a follower of Jesus I just want to ask
one more time are you are you are you transformed by the redemption that's
purchased in the cross of Jesus Christ in your life and I know that that a lot
of us we do believe this we do believe this intellectually we believe it and
we in our hearts we believe it but we might find ourselves right now in a
season where our life is just not transformed by it and one of the ways
to break through that and to become a person who does what Paul does here and
says blessed be God in worships is to look once more look every day at the
cross are you looking at the cross are you seeing the cost of redemption and
the love that's been poured forth at the cross you'll if you if you can see it if
you'll look at it if you'll make it the object of your focus every day you'll
break through you'll break through a season where you're lacking transformation
in your life the second thing afford that the benefits the gifts that were
told about here when you if you're a follower of Jesus this morning when you
see the truth of redemption there is a beauty in it that means that you have
not only been known and loved predestined and chosen from before the
foundation of the world but that you've also been redeemed from before you were
ever a twinkle in your parents eye so in Ephesians 1 we're told that God from
maternity past for ordained predestined and shows his church from before time
ever existed you read 1 Peter 1 very similar to Ephesians it says that the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was foreknown and planned from before
the foundation of the world to and here in our text it says that God has done
this with all wisdom with all insight which are words of craftsmanship and
that means that if you come today as a follower of Jesus Christ do you know
that God redeemed you from before you were ever even a thought in any human
mind when did he do it he did it in the middle of history and so when Jesus
Christ came to the cross in the middle of human history Hebrews tells us it was
the joy set before him that he endured the cross what is that joy we're told
he was thinking of every single one of us in the middle of human history when
he went to the cross to redeem us you were redeemed not only from maternity
past but in the middle of history and also now in your present life it's that
big it's that old it's got that much that much craftsmanship that much
architecture to all that God's been up to in the middle of history I love the way
one writer puts it he says the God who hung the stars the God who hung the
stars was hung upon the cross with you in his heart that's how far back
redemption goes third that means worth being told here that redemption has
been accomplished we have it it's over with and so Paul uses the language that
he has lavished this gift of grace upon you and so let me just say that because
redemption has been accomplished the language of Paul is that he actually
today wants to God want God wants to pour redemption over you he is not a God
that is withholding he wants to he's just he's desiring so much to give this to
you to lavish you with his grace like treasure he just wants to bathe you in
it he wants to give it to you now if you're on Twitter X if you are in the
midst of the modern business world if you are studying in the university if
you're if you're a student right now in the midst of school or in primary school
you will know that sometimes in the modern world when you make a mistake
there is no forgiveness that when you make a big mistake and you come on
Twitter and people find out about it that you're never gonna be forgiven
you're only going to be canceled and let me say that unlike human beings unlike
the people of modernity unlike the modern West the God of the Bible comes to
redeem you and forget about your sins forever and to do it really to do it
truly you know the modern world will never forget the things of your past
but God actually does God dismisses your sin from his mind as far as the East is
from the West he will never remember the sins you really can be redeemed you
really can be guilt-free you really can be forgiven and then lastly the last one
is Paul is teaching us here about the church who is the church the church of
the redeemed we sang Psalm 107 a moment ago let the redeemed of the Lord say
that we are redeemed what is the church who are we so if you're a follower of
Jesus say who are you and Paul is saying to us today that you are the redeemed the
family of God the family of God the church is the people that have been
redeemed saved are you saved are you redeemed and if you are then you are the
church you're you're of the church you're in the church you're part of the church
there's a wonderful hymn 1866 by Anglican minister S.J. Stone the church is one
foundation the church is one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord he bought her
by his blood he bought her by his blood he bought her for her life he died now
that means do you see that the church is the biggest longest running institution
and body and all of human history it began in Genesis 3 15 and it's still
going and it's gonna go all the way into everlasting life every single empire
every single nation every single kingdom every single government are just small
little things the church is the biggest institution the longest lasting
institution in all of human history and it will never go away and it was the
church on the cross that Jesus lifted up his eyes and was able to endure because
of joy for her love for her now Jesus loved the church so much that he wants
to redeem her he wanted to and he did and that's that's me that's you that's
the bride of Christ and so let me just ask do you love the church do you love
the church like Jesus loves the church the church is the family of the redeemed
and so you know you can't just come and say I go to church you can't just come
and say I come to church here and there I'm a part of the church are do you do
you know you are the church the church the family of the redeemed and in that
the invitation of redemption is that the one who died for his bride to the
uttermost where she was the joy in front of his face he says now step into that
love the church as much as Jesus Christ loves the church there are a lot of
great stories of redemption every single modern story of redemption wants to be
this story it never will be but they will all find meaning if they find their
meaning in this story Jesus Christ the Redeemer he he is somebody worth living
for his church is something worth living for living in and living for Jesus
Christ is the Redeemer that we all need today let's pray Father we ask that you
will teach us the meaning of redemption and we thank you that you purchased us
by your blood we thank you Lord Jesus that you exchanged us in your death that
we might have freedom we thank you Lord for the great exchange so Lord we just
asked now that you would cast away our our boredom with the gospel we asked that
you would cast away our the scales that are over our eyes when it comes to the
cross and its meaning and its power we asked Lord that we would cut through that
we would be diagonalized that we would see the beauty and the power of the blood
of Jesus spilled for us we thank you for redemption redemption read we thank you
for our exodus story I just asked today I believe today that there is somebody
there are several here who need to find the truth of redemption for the first
time so I pray and ask for that Lord I pray also Lord for all of us who may be
struggling to actually be redeemed in our lives to live transformed lives
because of redemption so wake us up and shake us up we ask and we pray this in
Christ's name amen