PRIZED POSSESSIONS

Ephesians 1:7-14

It was in the spring of 1844 when the young German scholar made a most remarkable discovery. His name was Konstanin Von Tischendorf and he had been traveling through the Middle East. He came one night to an old Greek Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. Knocking upon the door, he was invited in by the Russian monks who lived there and invited to spend the night.

It was bitterly cold in the desert and the monks has baskets of old dry cordwood and vellum to throw into the fire place. Tischendorf was warming his hands at the fire when his eyes caught sight of one of the pieces of vellum and he did a double take. This particular piece of vellum had writing on it. Tischendorf had benefited from a classical education and he recognized the writing as a part of the Greek Bible. He began digging through the baskets of refuse and came up with 129 pages of what was to be the oldest manuscript of the Bible to be discovered up to that time.

The monks could see that he was excited and they became cautious. When he asked if he could take the manuscript with him, they allowed him to take only 43 of the 129 pages.

The rest of the manuscript was sent to mother Russia where it remained until after the Communist Revolution. It was not until 1933 that the Russian Communists, having no use for old copies of the Bible, agreed to sell the Codex Sinaiticus to Great Britain for a price of 100,000 pounds - one of the most expensive books in the world.

Buried treasure. The term fills us with images of glitter and gold. What is your most treasured possession? Your house? Your car? Some sort of family heirloom? The Lord has a treasured possession. It is YOU.

We are also described in this passage. We are pictured as the recipients of all that God has done.

This is what Christ has done for us. He came into this world of sin. And He paid the ultimate price for us - His own blood shed on our behalf.

Why is it, "By His BLOOD?" Why not merely, "By His death"? I think that the reason blood was necessary was to fulfill the type of the Old Testament sacrifice.

Do you remember to story of the Passover? The people of God were enslaved in Egypt. They were in a bitter bondage. Unable to free themselves. And to effect their freedom, God sent 10 terrible plagues against the nation of Egypt. The tenth plague was the worst of all. It was a pronouncement of death. All of the firstborn were to die. Animal and man. Slave and free. Egyptian and Israelite. All were under the sentence of death. There was only one way of escape. It was through the BLOOD of an innocent lamb. A lamb for each household was to be slain and its blood smeared upon the door posts and the lintels of each home.

Christ has become our Passover lamb. Because of the redemption that we have in Him, God's judgment has PASSED OVER us. And as a result, we have been FORGIVEN.

The bad news is really bad. But the corresponding good news is really God. It is that Christ took our blame and our guilt and our sin upon Himself. He was the perfect and holy sacrifice for sin. Forgiveness did not come cheap. It never does. Forgiveness always costs somebody something. When someone slaps your face and you forgive, that forgiveness costs you a slap in the face. Our forgiveness cost God the life of His Son. The payment was made at the cross. And because of the cross, we can be assured of total forgiveness.

There is a practical application here. It is that you are to forgive in the measure to which you have been forgiven. To what measure have you been forgiven? Totally!!! And it is to that measure that you are to forgive others.

Remember the words of the Lord's prayer? "Forgive us our debts AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS." This is the only part of the prayer on which Jesus comments. He goes on to say:

You say, "John, you don't know how badly I have been hurt. I just can't let go." The answer is to look at the cross. See the One who hangs there, nails piercing his mutilated flesh. See the spittle dripping from His beaten face. The bloody visage that barely looks human. The agonized labor to draw in each new drought of air. And hear His weary voice: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." And realize that He was praying, not only for the Romans soldiers who drove the nails, not only for the Jewish leaders to plotted to put Him there, but for YOU.

In the 1930's, millionaire John D. Rockefeller used to dress up in a suit and a top hat and have his picture taken giving some poor boy a dime. A dime was a lot of money in those days. It would be the equivalent of $10 today. But even so, the most that could be said of Rockefeller is that he was giving OUT of the abundance of his riches. However, if he had gone to one of those boys and had purchased for him a mansion in the country and given him a chauffeur-driven limousine, then it could be said that he was giving ACCORDING TO his riches.

That is the way God has saved us. Not merely out of His riches. But according to His riches. How rich is God? How much grace does He possess? An inexhaustible supply. All of God's attributes are of infinite measure. So that if He has graced us according to the riches of His grace, then He has graced us very richly indeed.

Dr. Stanley Livingston had a medical condition in which he was required to drink goat's milk. He was visited one day by a tribal king and he noticed that the king was eyeing his goat. Livingston felt led of the Lord to give the goat as a gift to the king and, in return, the king presented him with the staff that he was carrying.

Later that day, Livingston confided in a friend, "I don't know what I was thinking. How could I have been so foolish as to give my goat away. I don't know what I shall do with this stick." His friend replied, "You don't understand. That isn't a stick. It is a scepter. You don't just own one goat. Now you own all the goats in the tribe."

The Lord has given us an inheritance. It is a scepter. And we have been walking around thinking that it is just a stick.

That wasn't always the case. Throughout the Old Testament era, God spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but He did not tell them all that would come to pass. They were missing a key element of the puzzle. But that has changed for us. The key element has been revealed. It is JESUS.

In the Older Testament, they knew that there was a promise of a perfect seed who would come and destroy the works of Satan. They knew of a great prophet that would come. They knew of their need for a lasting sacrifice. They knew of God's covenant promises. And they knew of God's kingdom. But they did not know exactly how it would all work itself out in the plan of God. We do. The answer to the mystery is Jesus. He is the perfect seed of the woman. His death overthrew the devil and his angels. Through His blood we have entered into a greater and more perfect covenant. He is the Prophet, Priest and King. And we have entered into His kingdom through faith.

We have the whole story. We have the beginning of the story in the Old Testament. We have the middle of the story in the coming of Christ and in His death and His burial and His resurrection. And we even had the end of the story, for we have His promise that one day He shall return. It will be at that time - the fullness of the times - that we shall experience the summing up of all things in Christ (1:10).

When Christ returns, the entire universe - things in the heavens and things upon the earth - shall be brought into conformity and into submission to Him.

What is our response to this teaching? It is that we do not have to wait until the coming of Christ to involve ourselves in such conformity. We have been called today to be both conformed and transformed into the image of Jesus Christ.

1. We have been Signed from eternity.

2. We have been Sealed with the Spirit.

3. We have been Delivered to God as a prized package.