Sr. High Youth Group Overview of Ephesians 1:3 through 1:13

Tonight JP gave a quick overview of Ephesians 1:3 through 1:13. As you can tell it is going to take a lot more time to go over these verses than the time we had tonight. This section of scripture, as JP taught tonight, deals with our union with Christ, and the spiritual blessings we have in our union with Christ. The five spiritual blessings we talked about were:

1. Election
2. Repentance & Forgiveness
3. Enlightenment/Illumination
4. Inheritance
5. The Holy Spirit

JP focused much of the lesson on Election and predestination. Election and predestination are subjects which are bound to raise some questions. Election is the idea that God has chosen for himself, before the creation of the world in eternity past based upon nothing of our doing, but based solely on His good grace and his perfect righteousness, a people to be his adopted sons and daughters. More simply put: God chose who would and would not be saved, before He even created the world. I’m not going to go much deeper than that right now, but in the future I do plan to do a blog entry which will deal with this subject more thoroughly.

The goal of this blog entry is to spark some conversation about the things we talked about tonight, whether it be our union with Christ, Election/Predestination, or any of the other spiritual blessings that we have due to our union with Christ. This conversation is not limited to people who go to Pike Creek, but to anyone who reads this blog. Please do not hesitate to post questions or comments concerning these subjects. My prayer is that God will use these conversations to bring glory to himself.

We will also be having a panel discussion (in Youth Group) on Sunday, December 2nd, where you guys can ask questions you have about this passage of scripture, so really look at this passage and think through it. The following weeks we will go through these verses more thoroughly in our small groups. We will look at the roles each person of the Godhead plays in salvation and the implications of it. We will look at the Father predestining us for salvation, Jesus making it possible for us to be saved, and the Holy Spirit sealing us for the day salvation. We will also be looking at our union with Christ more thoroughly.

With all that said, let’s dig in to God’s Word and pray that He would be gracious to open our eyes to the beauty of himself and the perfection of His plan for creation. To God alone be the Glory!!!!!!!