The Blessings of the New Covenant (Ephesians 1) - Steve Wheeler

We see that God has always been a blesser.

He's always wanted to bless.

When he created man in his own image and likeness, which was his greatest gift that he could give, the greatest blessing, scripture says that, "And then God blessed them." God wants us to live in blessing.

We were designed to live in blessing.

He, he, he, he, as a father wants a child, his child to be blessed, so the Father in creation.

And then man spurned that blessing.

He walked away from it, but God found Abraham, a man who believed him, and God said, "I'm gonna bless you, Abraham, and I'm gonna bless your seed to all nations." And then we see the story through the Old Testament of God directing a group of people as a nation into his blessing, but they kept falling off and stumbling, and God, in his graciousness and mercy, keeps them because it was through them that Christ the Messiah was coming, and through Christ the Messiah, that all nations would be blessed.

And that's why we're sitting here today.

That's why we can say we have been blessed.

And that prayer keeps echoing, "May the Lord bless you and keep you, and may He shine upon you, and may He be gracious to you, and may He lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace." It has been echoing through scripture from all time until Jesus comes, and Jesus saddled between old covenant and new covenant says, "Blessed are those of you that are mourning right now, in mourning.

Those of you who are being persecuted, those of you who are sorrowful, those of you who are being misjudged, and those of you being ostracized and vindicted against.

Blessed are you because the kingdom is yours.

The mercy of God, you're gonna be called sons of God." Jesus was straddled between Old Testament and he was prophesying New Testament blessing that would come as a result of his death, burial, and resurrection.

No wonder when Paul saw this, he starts here in verse 3 and he says, "Praise, [laughs] praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us." He saw this gospel so beautifully and he just burst.

That like little burst feeling you have sometimes in praise, where it's just like, "God, you are just so wonderful and so awesome, and we praise you because you have blessed us." Say, "He has blessed me." He has blessed.

This is not saying the God that's going to bless you, this is the God who has blessed you.

And how has he blessed you? He has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.

Now someone will stop there and go, "Yeah, I'm all for the spiritual blessings, but I, but I need some practical blessings right now." Well, the good news is that everything that starts in the spiritual makes its way into the natural.

We pray on Earth as it is in Heaven, not in Heaven as it is on Earth.

There's something of a transfer that takes place when we stand in agreement with Heaven that brings a manifestation into the world that includes and incorporates all those things that we need.

But it starts with these spiritual blessings of the new covenant that he's about to get into.

And we can go through them together, and we'll see why and how that flows from this realm we call the spirit.

The unseen maybe is a better word.

The heavenlies.

Not the stars in the sky.