The Blessed God Who Blesses

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI, take it with a grain of salt…

Now, there are 2 boys. These 2 boys are the same age. They go to the same school. They are good friends. They are raised together. And these 2 boys, they each have a father who happens to be a businessman, and it is promised to them that when they grow old enough, when they get to adulthood, and they learn, that this business will be given to them, that they will take over from the father when the time is right.

And so, as they grow old, they study so that they can be astute businessmen. They work hard so that they will be able to take over with much wisdom. And the time comes where they’re both told that they are finally going to be able to come into the business and prepare to take over from the father, and they’re filled with excitement, thinking that their whole life ahead of them is sorted, thinking that they are well-off, that they are preparing for a life of great ease.

And one of them, one of them takes over from his father, and he takes over a business that is thriving, he takes over a business that is doing so well, that there is much riches awaiting him. And the other one, well, he takes over a business that is drowning in debt, that is struggling, that is preparing almost to go under.

You see, they’ve been given the same promise, they’ve been given the promise of a business that will be their very own, they’ve been given it from their father, and yet we would say only one of them has actually been given something good.

You see, it matters where and whom we get things from. You see, if Malachi, as he a- grows up, came to me and asked me, asked me, “Hey, can you teach me, can you teach me what it means to live a self-sustaining lifestyle off the land? Can you teach me how to garden well, to care for plants and crops?” Well, that would be a pretty, pretty poor thing of him to do. I would tell him, “Go see your mother.” “She knows far more than I do about that.”

And yet, if he were to come to me and say something along the lines of, “Oh, this maths homework, it’s so difficult, I just need help understanding it,” well, I would hope that he would come to me.

You see, it matters where and whom we get things from. If you are in legal trouble, you don’t just go to your friend. You go to a lawyer. If you are severely sick, you go see a doctor.

You see, it matters where we receive things from.

And so, as we come to this passage all about the bl- spiritual blessings that we have, it matters where we get these blessings from. You see, if we sought blessings from someone who was not, in and of themselves, already blessed, they would not have the blessings to give to us.

We see this- We see this in the temptation of Christ. You see, the Devil, in twisting scripture, seeks to offer Christ great riches. But Christ, in knowing His Father, in knowing the scriptures, He knows that they are not the Devil’s to offer. You see, the Devil cannot bless Christ.

And so, the same is said here, that if we long to have great spiritual blessings, it is very important that we understand where we get that from. It is very important that we understand the one in whom we get it from is blessed.

You see, all of these blessings would mean nothing if they were to come from somewhere else. If I were to seek the blessing of, of being chosen for life from any one of you, well, that would do me no good. But the reason why it is a confident thing that I can claim is because it is the one who gives life that promises it.

And so, as we come to this section, we’re gonna begin by speaking about the Blessed God, the God who is already blessed.

Chapter, uh, verse 3 begins, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which would, I learned this week, be better translated, without the be, “Blessed God.” “Blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

You see, we worship a God who is extremely blessed.

If you would turn with me to 1 Timothy 6:15-16. The second half, starting on the second half of verse 15.

“He, who is the blest and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

You see, God, in and of Himself, is blessed. God, in and of Himself, is glorious. You see, God is not blessed because Paul says He’s blessed. It would be a circular argument to reason as such, because Paul’s authority, as we’ve discussed previously, comes from Christ Jesus. Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

So if God is the one who gave Him His authority to speak to the church, it would be circular to suggest that the blessing that Paul gives comes primarily from Him. The reason Paul can say that God is blessed in the authority of God is because God, in and of Himself, is blessed.

Let’s see this a bit further in the scriptures. If you’d turn with me to Acts 17:25. This well-known passage of Paul addressing men in the Areopagus, men who pray to the unknown God, and he’s speaking about the unknown God as the one true God, and he says this, from verse 24 onwards.

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by h- nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

You see, the God that we worship, the God in whom our blessings are found, has no need of man. So in Paul speaking of Him being blessed, it is not coming primarily from Paul that he gives Him this tag of being blessed. It is God Himself speaking through Paul. God is blessed regardless of how humans think about Him.

When there are humans, when there are those who speak wickedly against God, God is not suddenly put down on a lower tier because of their doing. God is God. God is blessed. When there are those of us who come and meet Sunday by Sunday in the praise of God, we do not suddenly make God out to be better than He is. We merely give Him the praise that is already due His name because God Himself is blessed.

Now, I want to, I want to cover some of the ways that God is blessed today. And in the providence of God, He has given us such great things, such as, such as the confessions. So He has given us the confessions which help us understand the things of the faith well. And so much of this will be based upon west- the Westminster Confession, Chapter 2.2, which is a statement about who God is.

And it reads as follows.

“God has all life, glory, goodness and blessedness in and of Himself. He alone is all sufficient in and to Himself, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, nor deriving any glory from them, but rather manifesting His own glory in, by, to, and on them. He alone is the fountain of all being, of whom thr- of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things. He has absolute sovereignty over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatever He pleases. In His sight, all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent of His creatures so that nothing to Him is contingent or uncertain. He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in all His commands. To Him is due from angels and men and every other creature whatever worship, service, or obedience He is pleased to require of them.”

Now, if that was quite wordy, I understand. Simply what it is saying is that we worship a God who is glorious, good, blessed, nothing to do with what other people give to Him, but completely of Himself. And that same God, who is all of these things, is the one in whom we have life and is the one in whom we are commanded to offer praise and worship to.

Another reason why we are going to be covering this idea of God being blessed as we enter this, and I think John Calvin paints it very well. He says this about this passage. “The lofty terms in which he extols the grace of God towards the Ephesians are intended to rouse their hearts to gratitude, to set them all on flame, to fill them even to overflowing with this thought.”

You see, Paul has given us this passage of our blessings in Christ and of the blessed God that our hearts would be roused to love Him, that they would be roused to gratitude towards Him.

So, let us see how God is blessed, how God is glorious.

So the first way that we know that God is glorious is that He is the author of life. You see, in verse 4 of Ephesians 1, it says, “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.”

What has He chosen us for? He has chosen us to be holy and blameless. Why? That we may have life in His name, that for eternity, as we said in the order of service, that with angelic beings, we would cry praise to God.

You see, God is the author of life. In Him is found life independent of others. And we see this all throughout the Scripture.

So firstly, turn with me to Psalm 103. Psalm 103, verse 4. This is a psalm of blessing. David is saying that we should bless the Lord, and he begins to reason why we should bless the Lord. first things in verse 3 are that He forgives our, all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. And then in verse 4 it reads, “Who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.”

You see, life is found in one place and one place alone. It is found in the Lord. It is found in God.

We see this elsewhere as well. Turn to the Gospel of John. If it’s not already apparent, we will be doing a fair bit of, uh, scripture-turning this evening, for we are seeing how the whole of Scripture paints this idea of a glorious, blessed God.

So John, start in ch- chapter 5, verses 25 and 26. John Chapter 5 Verse 25. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Verse 26. “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to life in Himself.”

You see, the Father has life in Him- Himself. We kinda struggle with this thought a little bit. I mean, I- I’ve- I’ve for many years have struggled with this idea. If there is a God who is eternal, surely he must have had a beginning, for all things have a beginning. We live in a finite existence. We understand beginnings and we understand ends. And yet, we worship a god in whom there is no beginning. We worship a god in whom life has just always been the state that he has been in. He has always had life. And in him always having life, he now grants to us who shall die, that in his son, we may too share in that life.

And so we begin to see that the blessed god, who in and of himself is blessed, is blessing those who love him.

And finally, on this point of life, let’s turn to John 17. This is the high priestly prayer. “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.’”

You see, one of the promises we are given in the blessed passage of Ephesians 1 is that, in Christ, we have life. And the reason we can say with confidence we have life is because God is Himself life.

What a blessed God we worship.

Next point. We see that God is full of glory, or He is glorious. It says in the confession that God has all life, glory in and of Himself. So we see that God is glorious.

So in Ephesians 1, we see this picture of His glory throughout as well. We see that in, uh, let me just, Verse 6. Verse 6. We see that He’s predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. And we see it at the end as well, in Verses 14, in 13 and 14, which says, “In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were 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.”

We worship a glorious God, a God full of glory. And we see that in the scriptures as well.

So as we continue to turn, let’s turn back to the Psalms, for they often paint a picture of a glorious God. We’ll turn first to Psalm 29. Psalm 29 Verses 1 and 2.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of hol- His holiness.”

You see, we are commanded here in the Psalms that we would give to God the glory due His name. What does that mean if there’s glory due His name? It means in and of Himself, He is deserving of the praise, for He is glorious. Of Himself, He is due glory because He is glorious.

And as we read earlier in John Chapter 17, in the High Priestly Prayer, just before He said that He has given authority over all flesh, what did Christ first say? “Father, the hour has c- come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify You.”

You see, the work of Christ, even, is chiefly for the glory of God. We discussed this last month. Because God, in and of Himself, is glorious, then the very m- mission, the very work of His Son in redeeming a people, is to bring forth that glory, that we may see it clearly. Not to add to the glory, for the glory is already there, but given for our benefit that we may see that glory.

We worship a very blessed God.

The next point is God’s goodness. You see, in the Confession, we see that God has all life, glory, goodness, in and of Himself. We see that He is good.

So turn with me yet again to Psalm 119, verse 68. Psalm 119, verse 68. Now we’ve been reading through this in the mornings. We’re not quite here yet, but this is a whole psalm primarily focused on the law of God. And in verse 68, it says this.

“You are good and do good. Teach me Your statutes.”

You see, the very reason why we long to follow the commandments of God, the very reason why we bel- why we trust the words of Christ when He says, “Love your ne- meowyour God and love your neighbor,” is that the law is good.

Now, why is the law good? The law can only be good if the one who gives it, in and of Himself, is good.

We long to do what God commands us to do, we long to do that which is right, because He Himself is good child: You see, we worship a God in whom there is only goodness. We worship a God in whom there is n- nothing, nothing bad, there is nothing wrong. We worship a God who is perfectly good, for we worship a blessed God.

The next way that God Himself is blessed is we see that God is sovereign. You see, throughout that chapter in the Confession, we see that God is the one of whom all things, all things, are done through. It says, “He alone is the fountain of all being, and of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things. He has absolute sovereignty over them, to do by them, for them, or upon them whatever He pleases.”

You see, God is sovereign over creation, for He is the one who has created it. God is sovereign over all things.

We see this all throughout these spiritual blessings. We see it constantly. I mean, the very fact that He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world shows that there is sovereignty in salvation. And then it says again in verse 9 and 10, He’s, “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.”

You see, all things are under the sovereignty of God. The plan that God has set forth in Christ is a plan what? To unite all things. That means there is nothing outside the will of God as He is moving history forward for the glory of Christ and for the glory of His own name. There is not a single thing in creation that stands outside of that sovereignty.

We, we say it in the, in, um, some of the catechisms. I mean the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer one, what does it say? “Not a single hair can fall from the head without the will of our God in heaven.” Not a single thing can happen outside of the will of God, for He is sovereign.

And we see that throughout the Scriptures as well. So if you will turn back with me yet again, Psalm 89 this time. Psalm 89, and we’ll read from verse 8.

“O Lord, God of Hosts, who is mighty as you are, O Lord, with your faithfulness all around you? You rule the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass. You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours. The earth also is yours. The world and all that is in it, you have founded them.”

You see, our God is a God in whom all things work through. The very breath that we breathe, the very life that we are given, everything we have is under the sovereign hand of a blessed God Everything.

You see, when In the book of Job, when Job is struggling under the weight of all that’s gone on for him, and his friends are telling him, “Curse God and die.” His wife is telling him, “Curse God and die,” for his life feels like it’s being slowly taken away from him, and he eventually dares to even speak a word against God. And how does God respond? God tells him, “Were you there when I founded the Earth? Were you there when I set everything in place? Are you there when I bring forth snow and rain, when I bring forth life?” For God alone is sovereign. God alone controls all that goes on in this life.

And in his sovereignty, we know that we are blessed because we read it here. We read that he has chosen us in Christ. We know that we have been set aside for adoption in Christ. We know that in his sovereignty, he has set his love upon his people.

And so his sovereignty is of comfort to the believer. His sovereignty is not something to fear. It is not something to concern ourselves with, but it is something to rejoice in, God is sovereign and God is good. And so he uses these things together for our good.

And as well, we see that this blessed God is a God who is holy, that God is holy. We see that in verse 4 of Ephesians 1, “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

See, God’s desire for us as believers is that we would be like him, that we would be like his son as well, Christ. God alone is holy. He is holy in and of himself. He is not holy by anything that anyone else can do, but he is holy.

And we see this in the scriptures as well. There’s a well-known passage, many of you are probably familiar with it, Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah, who is a prophet, has a vision. He has a vision of the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. And there are angels and there are seraphim, and they are, they are flying around calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. The whole Earth is full of his glory,” and the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, “Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”

You see, we worship a God who is immeasurably holy, a God in whom no deceit, no wickedness, no evil is found in the slightest, a God in whom there is only righteousness. And that, that scared Isaiah. That scared Isaiah deeply, for he recognized that he himself was not holy. He himself was not holy.

So why is that comfort? Why is that a comfort to us? Well, it’s because that in choosing us that we should be holy and blameless before him, it means that when we come before him, we come before him like him in that sense, that we come before him wrapped in righteousness that Christ has won for us, so that when we come before something that is holy, instead of recognizing the absolute justice there would be in the destruction upon us, we see that there is only goodness and glory to be found.

We see his holiness in this. We see his holiness in Revelation, Revelation chapter 4, if you will. Revelation chapter 4, verse 8.

You see, Isaiah saw a vision. Isaiah saw a vision of the throne room of God. And the apost- the Apostle John, as well, saw a vision. And what did he see a vision of? 4, verse 8.

“And the 4 living creatures, each of them with 6 wings, are full of eyes all around and within. And day and night, they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.’”

And do you notice, do you notice that John doesn’t react as Isaiah did? John, in seeing this vision, is not suddenly encaptured by his own sinful nature and suddenly wants to remove himself from the presence of God, but it is a wonderful thing that he has seen. And why is it a wonderful thing that he has seen? It is because he is in Christ, because he is wrapped in the righteousness of Christ. And so God’s holiness is of comfort to him. Rather than something to fear, it is now something to rejoice in.

So God, in and of Himself, is holy.

And finally, God, in and of Himself, in this section, is And there’s 3 words given to describe God’s knowledge in the, in the Westminster Confession. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent of His creatures. His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent of His creatures, so that nothing to Him is contingent or uncertain.

You see, in verses 9 and 10, where it talks about the mystery of God’s will, where it talks about this mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, this is a plan that is e- thought of, executed, and worked out. Why? Because God is the one doing it.

You see, what God intends to do, God will do. What God longs to see happen, God will make sure it happens. Because in His sovereignty and in His infinite knowledge, He knows that which is good for us. He knows that which is good for Him He knows that which is good for Christ. He knows that which He longs to do. And His knowledge is perfect. Infallible merely means that there is nothing wrong with His knowledge. His knowledge is perfect.

We see this shown in different parts. Psalm 147, verse 5 is an example of where we see this. Psalm 147, verse 5, which reads, “Great is our Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure.”

See, God, in His wisdom, in His knowledge, it is so much that the human mind cannot really grasp it. We cannot comprehend it. We have been given finite minds, and He, in Himself, has an infinite mind.

We see this as well in Romans chapter 11. Romans chapter 11, verses 33 to 34, which reads, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?”

It’s a rhetorical question. For no one can know the mind of the Lord truly. None of us could dare to think that we should be His counselor. For His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature.

Because God, in His knowledge, is perfect.

And this sh- should be of encouragement to us. This should be of encouragement to us because He has used this for our benefit.

So we see through these different ways, we see that He is the author of life, we see that He is glorious, we see that He is good, sovereign, holy. We see that His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent. And we’re beginning to paint this picture, as the confession describes it, of the self-sufficient blessedness of God.

And so, as I pointed out at the start, we should be beginning to see that if we hope for these blessings to be true, then we should be looking to the one in whom has given them to see whether we can have confidence in them. And I hope, so far, that we’re beginning to see that we have cause to be confident for these blessings because He Himself is blessed.

And we see as well another way that He is blessed. So if that section was that He is the blessed God, this next little bit is that He is the blessed Father.

So read with me verse 3 again. 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.

Now, we saw this morning as we looked at verse 2 that the way Paul describes God was “Our Father,” because we are seeing the f- the, the reality of the gospel as it plays out in the hearts of believers there. We are seeing the reality that God’s grace to us is so sufficient that He takes us from enemies into even children of God.

Well, we see it slight- worded slightly differently here. No longer is he specifically describing Him as Our Father, but we are seeing that the God is the Father of who? Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why is he doing this? Why has he changed the way that he has worded, worded this to the Ephesians? Well, the reality is because the focus here is different to the focus in verse 2. The focus in verse 2 was towards the believers. The focus here is on Christ.

You see, all of these spiritual blessings are given in Christ. These spiritual blessings that we see in these 12 verses, the focus primarily is not actually on the believer. The focus is on what the believer receives, yes, but it is imperative that the focus is on the believer receiving these things in Christ.

And so, Paul can say with confidence that the God and Father of Christ is blessed and He is blessed in that He is the Father of Christ. You see, when Christ came to this earth with the mission of redeeming sinners, when He came to the earth with the, the plan to unite all things under Him, He came sent by the Father. He came sent by the one in whom has loved Him dearly for this purpose. It was a Father sending His son, and so God being blessed is blessed because He is the Father of another who is blessed. He is blessed in that the second person of the God head, the second person of the Trinity, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as well is blessed.

And because He is blessed then all these blessings that we receive in Him are to our blessing, and we’ll quickly go back to a passage we’ve looked at twice already, John chapter 17.

You see, I think this is such a great passage when considering this idea because this is the Son in the role of the h- of being a high priest praying to His Father for the sake of all those in whom their plan for blessing that we see in Ephesians 1 would play out. He is praying to His Father that He would glorify His Father, that all those that the Father would give Him would be received.

So let’s look through this a little bit. For ex- we’ve looked at verses one and 2. Verse three and four, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”

What’s the work that He’s been given to do? That we would know God the Father and Christ the Son. That we would come to know the blessed ones, and in that find blessing. That we would come to know the Son, and we would come to know the Father.

You see, what does, uh, else does Christ say in his ministry? He says, “No one has seen the Father, but when they have seen the Son, they have seen the Father because He has come to make the Father known.”

So when we know Christ, we then know the Father. And although it’s not explicitly stated in the same way as verse 2 about being Our Father, we know that it is true that God is Our Father. He is not just the Father of Christ, but He is the Father of all the saints.

So for example, look at me, uh, look at Ephesians 4 verse 4, 4 to 6, “There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

You see, this blessed God is the Father of all the saints.

And so like the story I gave at the start of the fathers who promised to give to their sons all that is already theirs, who promised to offer an inheritance to bless them, well we have confidence that when we are given an inheritance by the Father in whom we have been adopted as sons through Christ Jesus, we have confidence that that inheritance is a blessing to us. We have confidence that that inheritance is to our benefit because we know that God is blessed, and we know that God is our Father.

And so finally, the third point we see is that we are the blessed saints through this.

You see, as we went through this list of how God was blessed, one of the key things we focused on, one of the key things we focused on with all of these are that these blessings come from within Him. That these, He is blessed in and of Himself. That He is, has no need for blessing from us to be blessed, and yet because of that we can say that the opposite rings true for us. That if these are indeed blessings for us, then these are blessings from outside of us. These are not blessings that we ourselves can seek to achieve in any way, shape, or form.

We cannot strive to achieve the blessing of life. We cannot strive to achieve the blessing of holiness. We cannot strive to achieve the blessing of being sealed with the Spirit by way of seeking to do it in our own way. There is one way, one hope that we hold, and that is that our blessing would come from God. That our blessing would come from God the Father, and our blessing would come from the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, anything else is just folly. Anything else is foolishness, and anything else will give us, get us nowhere.

So we are blessed not of ourselves, but we are blessed of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we are blessed to be like Christ. You see, all of these pictures of what God is like, well that’s Him laying out how we are to be. If He is the author of life, then we His people would be full of life. The promise that Christ gives us is one of eternal life. If God is glorious, then the picture is that we would participate in His glory for His glory. If God is all good, then the, then the outworking of that is that we would be good. If God is holy, then the outworking of that is that we would be holy.

You see, the way that God Himself is blessed is, many of them are the way that He has blessed us. For God, in Christ, is making a people after the image of His Son. God, in Christ, is making a people that they would be holy and blameless. That they would be full of life. That they would be extremely blessed.

And so what do we do with this information? We know that God is blessed. We know that He offers up blessing to us. What do we do with this information? What should it do for us?

Well, the truth is, it should magnify in our hearts the glory of God to us. It should magnify the joy of following Christ.

See, these blessings, they are incredible. And this is our state and this is our reality, but it, it’s not gonna feel blessed all the time. We’re not gonna live a life where all we have is joyful blessing or it’s, at least in the way that we see it. The cost to following Christ is great, though the, the, the promise is greater.

And so in doing, in understanding this and setting our eyes upon how great our God is, it should help focus our minds to the work that Christ has called us to. To the work in this life of being a light to the nations. To the work of raising children, our children to know and love the same Lord whom we declare mightily. It should enlighten our hearts to the work of glorifying the name of God in this life.

You see, this very blessed God, this very blessed God who is so rich in offering up blessings to sinners like you and I, well, we have great promises awaiting us. We have great joy awaiting us. But we have, we have a job to do now. We have a job to do. We have responsibilities. We have the duty of seeing this glory and seeing it displayed in the life arounds us around us. We have a duty to glorify Him in how we live.

And to do that, and to do that, we need to know the God whom we serve.

And so I’ll just read, yet again, the quote from John Calvin as I focus. “The lofty terms in which he extols the grace of God toward the Ephesians are intended to rouse their hearts to gratitude, to set them all on flame, to fill them even to overflowing with this thought.”

Does the thought of God make you desire to see the glory of God manifest in this world? To see it manifest in a way that no one can deny it, to see th- it in a way that those around us have no choice but to look upon Christ and say, “Wow, isn’t He amazing? Isn’t He precious? Aren’t I loved?”

For the God we worship is a blessed God.

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