"Jesus, the Prince of Peace" Ephesians 1:1-2 Sunday Morning Worship Service

This morning, Ephesians 1, verses 1 and 2 is what we'll look at this morning.

Ephesians 1:1

Let me read them for us as we begin.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

By way of introduction, it is conventional wisdom that pastors ought not preach the book of Ephesians early in their pastoral ministry.

That's the typical advice.

When pastors go to a church for the first time, they are supposed to preach a gospel, some psalms, and then uh take people's temperature.

But definitely not Ephesians.

And the logic goes that Ephesians is just simply too controversial.

It rubs people the wrong way.

People aren't comfortable with the truth that they find there, so better to save that for year five, six, or eight or so.

And so that's where we find ourselves this morning, turning our attention to the book of Ephesians.

It is a very unique book in the New Testament in that it presents to you doctrinal truths, not from the typical perspective that you find throughout the rest of the New Testament, but it presents you doctrinal truths from the perspective of God Himself.

Chrysostom, the church father, a preacher actually not far from Ephesus, around 300 A.D., declared that Ephesians is the most masterful book in the New Testament, because in it, listen to his logic, why, in it, Paul has the forcefulness to say with clarity what the rest of the New Testament only alludes to.

In other words, Christosthen recognized only a couple hundred years after it was penned, that so much of the theology of the New Testament is made by allusions, and where you connect the dot and you take this and cross-reference this and see how this fulfills that prophecy, until you get to the book of Ephesians, where Paul just says with forceful clarity, this is the doctrine.

This is what the gospel is.

This book is also unique in the New Testament, especially among Paul's epistles, because it is not written to correct a wrong.

It is not written to immature believers.

It's not presenting salvation from man's perspective, begging people to be reconciled to God.

Rather, the book of Ephesians is written to mature believers, to pull them up in their knowledge of God, to pull them up in their knowledge of godliness and the gospel.

You think of some of Paul's other epistles.

The Corinthians.

You know, Paul could not give the Corinthians the kind of theology he has in the book of Ephesians.

The Corinthians were getting drunk at communion.

They were suing each other, they were having affairs with each other, they were divorcing their wives and marrying their stepmoms.

That was the Corinthians.

And so Paul says to them, you know, stop sinning and stop believing false teaching.

And that's what he conveys to them.

The Thessalonians were a church that Paul loved so much, but he was there for such a brief time and they loved him and he loved them, and then he left, and they got swept away by false teaching about the Antichrist having come.

And so the book of Thessalonians, first and second Thessalonians cannot contain the kind of theology Paul tells the Ephesians.

First and 2nd Thessalonians basically boil down to this.

Hey, stop listening to false teachers.

The Antichrist hasn't come yet because the rapture hasn't happened yet.

Oh, and go get a job.

That's my summary of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, right there.

Philippians, Paul loved them and they brought him so much joy, but now Paul is in prison for his faith, and so he's writing a joyful epistle about suffering for Christ to people that are joyfully praying for him.

But then the Ephesians.

These are Paul's people.

He was their pastor for years.

He brought brought this church to maturity.

There's no false teaching to be confronted in the book of Ephesians.

There's no getting drunk at communion and sexual immorality to be rebuked.

This is Paul unveiling his heart to them about what the gospel looks like from a divine perspective.

It's for this reason that John Calvin called the book of Ephesians his favorite book.

Preached 50 sermons on it every Lord's Day for a year.

He preached on it.

And then he hit it again at his midweek Bible study for another year.

You may not know this about Calvin's church, but Calvin preached in French, the music was in French, and after that the congregation cleared out, and a second language came in.

The English language service came next.

The church filled up again with English speakers and they sang English songs.

And the English language pastor at Calvin's church was John Knox, a Scottish reformer.

Later on in John Knox's life, years later, when he was on his deathbed, with his last words he was able to speak.

He asked his wife to go get and read to him Calvin's sermons on Ephesians.

That's what he wanted his last words to hear as he entered glory.

It was Martin Lloyd Jones who described the book of Ephesians as the most sublime book in the Bible.

S.

Lewis Johnson, the famous Dallas Seminary professor, said that Ephesians is the most forceful window into the will of God in all of Scripture.

P.

T.

O'Brien, a highly regarded biblical scholar of her own generation, writes that Ephesians is, quote, one of those, one of the most significant documents ever written.

That's speaking of all of human history right there.

I tell you all this that you know, as we start in our study in the book of Ephesians, this is not a typical book.

And I know there's no Bible book that is typical, but even more so with Ephesians.

The reason people often stay away from Ephesians is because it is challenging.

It does confront you in how you view your own autonomy, how you view your own freedom, how you view your own marriage, how you view your own godliness.

It gets right into your mind and into your heart, and it confronts what it finds there.

And so people generally have two responses to this book.

Some people, when they encounter it, grow in godliness.

They have an extreme growth in their appreciation for the gospel and the glory of God.

They see the glory of God in different ways throughout their life as a result of what they find here.

Other people encounter the book of Ephesians and either ignore it, stay away from it, or get angry at God because of it.

They don't like what they find here, and I know nobody would say I'm angry at God because of Ephesians rar.

But what is very typical is for people to say, I don't like what this book teaches because that's not how I think about God.

Which is the same as getting angry at God.

And that's fitting for this book to be a book where neutrality is not allowed.

It's fitting because of the nature of the church in Ephesus.

And Pastor Ryan so helpfully explained the background of the city of Ephesus the last two Sundays, so I'm not going to repeat everything that he said, but I do want to just remind you of some key points because it is very helpful as you encountered this book to know what Ephesus was like, to just have a grid for the kind of language that Paul uses here.

Ephesus was certainly the religious capital of the Roman Empire.

It was one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire, and it was a site of religious pilgrims.

They traveled from all over modern-day Africa and Asia and Europe, all over the Roman Empire to visit the temples that were there, specifically to see the statue of Diana and the temple of Diana.

The story was that the idol of Diana fell out of heaven right into the temple that was made for her.

How providential.

Artemis was the great god over the city of Ephesus, and the city revolved around this kind of idol worship that attracted tourists from everywhere.

It was very much a business industry.

In our own present day and age, we see religious pilgrims go to Mecca or to Rome or to Nepal, you know, to have a spiritual experience and spend your money a once-in-a-lifetime chance for a spiritual experience.

Back in the days of the Apostle Paul, Ephesus was that city.

The temple that was there was the largest building in the ancient world.

It was literally one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

It was being constructed during the lifetime of Alexander the Great, who took it upon himself to conquer Ephesus.

And as he moved in to invade the city, Ephesus at the time was part of the Persian Empire.

As he moved in to conquer it, he saw this massive temple.

It's bigger than an American football field.

It had, you know, well over a hundred of these marble pillars that surrounded it that were 70 feet tall.

I mean, we're talking, as I said earlier, it's literally one of the wonders of the ancient world.

As Alexander the Great surrounded the city, he saw the temple being built and he offered peace to the city in Ephesus if they would dedicate their temple to Diana, if they would dedicate it to him.

The people in Ephesus didn't want war with Alexander, but they certainly didn't want to capitulate to the Greeks.

They were proud of their Persian alliance, and so the leaders got together and conspired and they came up with this solution.

They went to Alexander and said, It's not right.

It wouldn't be proper for the temple to one God to be dedicated to another God.

That is some savvy diplomacy right there.

And Alexander the Great fell for it and left the city intact.

That solidified Ephesus, standing as the city of the gods, all the way until Paul starts pastoring his church that was there.

This is a city where the church in God's providence was brought to maturity.

As I mentioned, Ephesians is a very mature letter, and that is owing to what happened in the city of Ephesus.

If you remember the city, the history of the church, the church started in Jerusalem.

The church began in Acts chapter 2 when Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem for Pentecost gave their lives to Christ.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

They got saved, and tongues of fire fell from heaven.

They were sealed with the Spirit.

The first believers to be baptized by the Holy Spirit and placed into the church.

They spoke with the gift of languages, and everybody could hear the sermons and the speaking and the prophesying in their own languages.

This was the miraculous sign of the gift of tongues.

It authenticated the start of the church.

It demonstrated this was brand new, but it was all Jewish.

Nevertheless, the angel had told the apostles they were supposed to take the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world.

Jesus himself had said that the gospel was going to go to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles would be part of the church.

It took until Acts chapter 8 for the gospel to break free from Jerusalem, and Samaritans got converted.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Of course, on the road right through Samaria is where it happened.

And they too, when they were converted, they too spoke in tongues as they were baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Another visible sign that the gospel and the church will not just be for the Jews, but also for the Samaritans.

Then the Gentiles get saved.

And they too are filled with the Spirit.

They too speak in tongues.

This is described in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

Very interesting what city that took place in.

Caesarea Maritime was that city.

That was a city built by the Romans to be the capital of Israel.

For there's a port city.

It was the way they were going to import Roman culture into Israel.

The Romans built the city to be a conduit of Roman influence into the Holy Land, into Israel.

It was supposed to make Israel as a province more Roman.

That's why it's called Caesarea after Caesar.

That was the city where the first Gentiles got saved.

They spoke in tongues.

They were then added to the church.

Just amazing.

It just shows you God's cleverness, God's sense of irony.

That Romans build a city to celebrate Roman cultural influence on Israel, and God uses that to be the place where the first Gentiles get saved.

Believe in a Jewish Messiah.

And from there the gospel is exported.

That's the port that Paul leaves from.

And Paul then takes the gospel into the Roman world.

And the churches begin to be planted and the churches spread.

And the last group to be added to the church is added in Ephesus.

This is where the circles, the radiative effect of the gospel, it's oscillating out from Jerusalem.

It finally catches up to the last group to be added in Ephesus.

These were the disciples of John the Baptist.

This is Acts chapter 18, the end of it, and the start of Acts chapter 19.

Acts 18 · chapter mention Acts 19 · chapter mention

John the Baptist disciples, these were what we would call Old Testament saints.

They believed the Old Testament.

They believed in the necessity of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

They had placed their faith in the future Savior.

They just didn't know that Jesus had come.

And it was in Ephesus the gospel finally caught up to them.

And they were converted.

And they spoke in tongues.

This is the last reference to the gift of tongues being practiced in the church.

Was there because the church at this point became complete, it became mature.

All the different groups were added to it at that point.

From that point forward, from Acts 19 forward, you can no longer say, what about somebody that believes in the Old Testament?

They just don't believe in Jesus.

No, that loop was closed in Ephesus and Acts 19.

From Acts 19 forward, if you believe in the Old Testament, you believe in Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself said that the scriptures speak of him.

If you believed them, then you would believe in him.

That's why Ephesus is the site of the mature church.

When Paul hears about this, Paul gets there as fast as he can.

And Paul sets up shop in Ephesus.

He begins teaching there every day.

There's a theater there between the stadium.

There's a massive stadium, by the way, that Ryan talked about last week.

It sat between 25 and 30,000 people, this huge stadium.

Outside of the stadium, between that and the temple, was a theater for Roman plays.

It was empty between 11 and 4 in the afternoons.

11 a.m., 4 p.m.

Paul went into it every day for two years and taught people theology, taught people about Jesus.

Five-hour blocks every day for two years.

Well, it would look like the church at Ephesus.

We start nodding off after a 30-minute sermon.

We're like, yikes, is this thing ever gonna end?

Five hours.

I granted, I'm not the Apostle Paul.

I can barely stay awake for 30 minutes, and I gotta listen to it three times.

That's why the church in Ephesus is so mature.

Because of their upbringing.

That's why they're the church that Paul conveys these truths to.

Let me give you an outline as we tackle these first two verses and really an outline of the whole book of Ephesians.

Now your screen says two themes to help you grow like an Ephesian.

I want you to know that in my notes it says two themes so that you can walk like an Ephesian.

The book of Ephesians splits up into these two themes, and they're both alluded to in the first two verses here, but they're going to be what drags us through this passage, through this whole book, really.

Before we get to these two themes, let's look at verse 1.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus.

Paul was most certainly an apostle.

I refer to him as the 12th apostle.

Remember, there were 12 apostles.

Judas hung himself.

That leaves one opening.

Acts chapter 1, they draw lots and name Matthias as the 12th apostle, but you get the impression, my reading of Acts 1, is that they didn't know what they were doing.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

They were taking their best guess about how to fill out the ranks.

They knew there should be 12, and the lot fell to Matthias.

You don't hear about Matthias again.

I mean, he fades off the pages of the scripture.

Meanwhile, later on in the book of Acts, Paul comes to faith, and Paul is labeled an apostle and given tremendous authority in the church to take the gospel to the Gentile world.

And so, not that it's that important, but in my mind, Paul's functions as the twelfth apostle.

He declares that he has the authority to preach the gospel.

1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 17, he says he can preach the gospel because he's a true apostle.

1 Corinthians 1:17

Acts chapter 6, verse 4 says the apostles have the responsibility to teach the church and pray in the church.

Acts 6:4

And that's certainly what Paul does for the Gentile churches.

Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12, that they know he's an apostle because he does all the signs and wonders associated with being an apostle.

2 Corinthians 12:12

Remember, the gift of miracles and healing were not just gifts given to everyone in the church, but given to authenticate the identity of the apostles.

And so Paul tells the Corinthians, you know I'm a true apostle because I have the ability to do these things.

They saw it for themselves.

Acts 14, verse 23, the apostles are dedicated to building up the church, and that's what Paul spent his life doing.

Acts 14:23

2 Peter 1, verse 21, the apostles are the one who wrote the scripture now, and obviously Paul wrote this book of the scriptures.

2 Peter 1:21

Romans 11, verse 13, Paul describes himself as an apostle to the Gentiles.

Romans 11:13

The other 11 apostles were dedicated to laboring among the Jewish church and getting it off of the ground, whereas Paul was sent to the Gentile church.

Obviously, the the mystery of the gospel that it would take, it would grow like wildfire in the Gentile worlds.

The first apostles didn't fully appreciate that.

But it's evident by the end of Paul's life that the church is going to be stronger in the Gentile nations than it was even in Israel.

This is owing to Paul's apostleship.

This is the one writing this book.

Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

Now, that leads to our first point here.

God's will pulls you to salvation.

This is a huge theme in the book of Ephesians, that God's will pulls you to salvation.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul wants you to understand that your encounter with the gospel begins all the way in the mind and the heart and the affections of God all the way in eternity past.

That God has a will before he created the universe.

God has a will, and that will is impacting this world.

That will is personal for you.

And Paul hasn't encountered it.

Paul has encountered the will of God in that he's an apostle.

He describes his apostleship as being an apostle by the will of God.

He's letting everybody know he has a tether from him all the way back to the nature of God.

God's will does not change, of course.

God is unchanging and unchangeable.

He doesn't alter through time.

God doesn't change his mind.

1 Samuel 15 says, God is not a man that he could change his mind.

God's will is, it's not alterable, it's eternal.

And so when Paul declares that he's an apostle by the will of God, he's making a declaration that God's plan for his person, God's plan for his life is an eternal plan.

It goes back before creation.

And that's going to be explained so clearly through the book of Ephesians.

Now I notice that there are other New Testament books that begin the same way.

Paul begins his letter to the Corinthians by saying that he's an apostle by the will of God.

But when you read the books of 1st and 2 Corinthians, that reads differently there.

There it comes across like Paul's pulling rank.

Like, hey, I'm an apostle, so listen to me, and not those wacko false teachers you keep believing.

It does not come across that way in the book of Ephesians.

Here it comes across as Paul saying, I'm an apostle by the will of God, and God has a special will for you also.

Let me tell you about the will of God.

And that's the way this book reads.

You encounter the eternal will of God in a very personal way.

Paul is describing the will of God and its desire to pull you into salvation, to pull you up into the mind of heaven itself.

And again, that is one of the reasons that people are discouraged from studying Ephesians because just many people say the secret things belong to the Lord, I can't figure them out.

Why bother?

It would be presumptuous to try to know the mind of God.

I'm a person, God's mind can't be figured out.

So they can't completely figure out God's mind.

Best not to go down that road at all.

And if that's your thinking, Ephesians is not going to be a good book for you.

I mean, it is true, the secret things do belong to God.

It is true that you can't totally figure God out.

But it's not presumptuous if he's the one revealing himself to you.

You understand that, right?

God is the one who's inviting you to read about these truths.

He's inviting you to enter into his mind and see these things.

So in fact, he's saying, set aside your own personal agenda.

Set aside seeing things from your perspective.

Set aside talking about your free will for a second.

And let's talk about God's free will.

You can put it that way.

The book of Ephesians is going to be a book that's about the free and unrestrained will of God.

God can will what he wants to will when he wants to will it, namely in eternity past, and bring it to bear in this world.

That's the nature of the book of Ephesians.

And Paul is so eager to convey this to the Ephesians.

He's in jail when he's writing this epistle.

He loves the Ephesians and he's just got a sense of eagerness that bleeds off of the pages of this book as he's Wanting this mature church to have insight into the eternal will of God.

Now you can say it this way.

Ephesians 1 through 3 is about God's will for your salvation.

His eternal will for your salvation.

Ephesians 1, his will for your salvation begins in eternity past.

That's where Ephesians 1 takes place.

Before God created anything, he had people in mind, specific people in mind, whom he was going to save.

He set his affection on them.

He didn't choose them because they were more intelligent than the others, more insightful than the others, more spiritual than the others.

He chose them because he loved them and he set his love and his divine will in eternity past on them.

And then in time, this is Ephesians 2, in time, those people encounter the will of God, and it works for their salvation.

So in eternity past, God sets his affections on you.

In time, God saves you.

That's Ephesians 2.

And then Ephesians 3 is he's placed you, the end of 2 and the start of 3, he's placed you in this spiritual body called the church.

That every believer in Jesus Christ will be part of the same church.

This is a great mystery that had not been revealed before in Scripture until Paul wrote Ephesians.

It's a great mystery that Jew and Gentile, man and woman, husband and wife, mother and children, slave and free, rich and poor, will all be part of the same spiritual body.

There will be no class distinctions, there will be no ethnic distinctions, it will be Jew and Gentile together.

This is tearing down a huge part of the Old Testament because the Old Testament built a wall between Jew and Gentile.

It's a dividing wall designed to make the Gentiles realize that they are far off from the promises.

That wall is torn down, not brick by brick, but it is obliterated by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And in its place, the church is built.

And the dividing line in the world is no longer Jew and Gentile.

The dividing line in the world is those in the church and those out of the church.

That's Ephesians 3.

And God will bring that church to maturity.

It's God's will for our salvation.

Now, this first half of the book of Ephesians, you know, it is a breath of fresh air in our postmodern culture.

We live in a culture that doesn't like the concept of truth, it doesn't like the concept of absolute truth.

It definitely doesn't like the concept of absolute truth coming from an absolute God that can't be moved.

And so people are very delicate in our culture in our world when they talk about God or they talk about truth.

Ephesians just obliterates all that.

And if Ephesians just, you read Ephesians and it is all about divine truth that stretches back into eternity past.

Truth is not what people agree on, it is not what is culturally acceptable.

Truth is what reflects the mind and the will of God.

That is truth.

So the book of Ephesians is a powerful counter to the facade of individualism that is so celebrated in our world.

Another dynamic in our culture is those who say, I believe in love, not truth.

Our world loves to pit, our world loves to pit love and truth against each other.

And I like love, not truth.

You're too much about truth.

That's not about enough about love.

So what's amazing about the book of Ephesians, for the person who says, I prefer love over truth, Dr.

Paul says, no, no, no, you have a sickness.

I prescribe to you one book of Ephesians.

Read it, call me in the morning.

The book of Ephesians references God's love more than any other New Testament book.

There are more references to God's love in here than anywhere else.

And it is always yoked to the truth of God's immovable will.

Well, it's God's will for our salvation.

He begins that in eternity past, he applies it in this life, and then we are brought into the church.

The key part of this first theme of the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 2, verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace.

Ephesians 2:13

God chooses us before time, he saves us in time, and then unites us in the church.

This is a very eternal and Trinitarian book as it gives us God's perspective on salvation.

That's the first theme.

It's God's will that pulls us to salvation.

The second theme in this book, God's will pushes us to sanctification.

It pulls us up into heaven for our salvation and then pushes us to grow further in our godliness, further in our sanctification.

This book is not isolating spiritual realities from the demands of the physical life in this world.

Paul understands that the spiritual truths, the spiritual truths about God impact the way we live our life.

So chapters four through six are all about how we're supposed to grow in godliness, how we're supposed to press on to maturity.

How you, if you've had an encounter with Jesus Christ, that you will be faithful in Christ Jesus.

Look at the second half of verse one to the saints who are in Ephesus.

A saint is someone who is declared righteous by God through faith in the gospel.

A saint is not someone who leads who leads a very righteous life and has accumulated for himself excess merit that he can then share with others.

And that's the way many people think of a saint, is someone who has done enough good, more good than bad, so at the end of their life they can share their merit with others, and you can access their merit through prayer and veneration and so on.

That's not what a saint is.

In the Bible, a saint is any believer who has been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The blood of Jesus Christ has made peace between a holy God and a sinful man, a cosmic peace that unites us to God, and we are saints because of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

That then affects the way you live.

That's the second half of verse 1 there.

Who are faithful in Christ Jesus.

If you are a saint, you will be leading a faithful life.

There's a cause and effect there.

The cause is you are a saint, the effect is your life of faithfulness.

Remember, works righteous religions love to flip those and say, if you're faithful, you can become a saint.

Ern wrong way.

If you're a saint, you will be leading a faithful life.

That's the second half of the book of Ephesians, that there are mandates, there are commands on your life, that God's will does not terminate for you at your salvation.

Imagine a marriage where husband and wife are up on the stage right here and they exchange vows and they exchange rings, and the pastor says, And now pronounce you husband and wife.

And the the brand new husband says, Great, my work here is done.

I've experienced all there is to experience in marriage.

See you later, I'm off to live my own life.

And just leaves the wife right there, pastor right there, groomsman, bridesmaids, out the door he goes for his life.

Hey, he's married, he's experienced all there is to experience, right?

No.

There's some stuff missing, namely the rest of his life.

The idea of marriage doesn't terminate when you say I do, it carries through the rest of your life.

And so it is with the gospel.

When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, you are encountering an eternal plan from God that began before the foundation of time, that you experience in time, and should affect the rest of your life.

How shallow it would be for someone to say, I'm a Christian, I've experienced all of God's will that I can experience, and now I can live my life for myself.

Hardly.

That's Ephesians 4, 5, and 6.

That God has a plan.

His will carries on after your conversion.

You're supposed to grow in maturity.

Ephesians 4, verse 13, you're supposed to be spiritually mature.

Ephesians 4:13

Ephesians 4, verse 15, this is the will of God, that you speak the truth in love.

Ephesians 4:15

Ephesians 4, verse 17, God's will is that you walk with a new mind.

Ephesians 4:17

Ephesians 4, verse 25, it's God's will that you lay aside falsehood.

Ephesians 4:25

Ephesians 5, verse 1, that God wills that you would be imitators of God.

Ephesians 5:1

Ephesians 5, verse 18, this is the will of God that you would be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18

Ephesians 5, verse 21, this is the will of God that you would be submissive to earthly authorities.

Ephesians 5:21

Ephesians 6, verse 11, that you're to fight spiritual battles with the full armor of God.

Ephesians 6:11

So the first half of the book of Ephesians shows you how God has saved you.

The second half shows you how your salvation alters your life and compels you to lead a godly life.

And what's remarkable about this, as I said, is that this is a mature church.

Paul's not writing to immature brand new believers telling them, hey, stop with the sexual immorality, hey, stop getting drunk at communion, hey, quit quitting your jobs because you love Jesus, go work hard, like he is in some other letters.

He's writing to mature believers here who've sat under his teaching for years.

Nevertheless, even the mature believers benefit from seeing the demands of sanctification on their life.

In eternity past, God chose you for salvation.

In time, God has saved you.

In time, God has placed you into the church.

And then in time in your life, from this moment forward, that should affect the way you live.

And that is to say, sanctification is very spiritual and it is very practical.

And Paul brings that all together in Ephesians 6, verse 12, where he says, We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers and against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12

He's saying that all of the cosmic powers of sin, the world, the flesh, the devil, they're all united to keep you from growing in godliness.

They don't want you to be mature.

They don't want you to grow in godliness.

They want to stunch your growth.

And they're going to war against you.

Should you fear?

And Paul says you should not fear, because it's the will of God that you would put on the armor he gave you and go to war against them.

Go fight the fight.

Go be victorious over sin.

God has a plan for the church, and if you are a Christian, he has a plan for you in the church.

And that plan is to give you an abundantly full spiritual life.

A life of righteousness, a life that is spiritually prosperous, filled with spiritual growth.

That's God's desire for your life.

And he gives it to you through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 2, grace to you and peace from God our Father.

This is not a life you experience through self-effort.

It's a life you experience through God's grace that comes by reconciling you to God through peace.

The peace of God is seen through our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

By the way, in Greek, in English, it can be ambiguous, God.

You could almost read God, our Father, comma, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

But in Greek it's crystal clear.

God is the predicate nominative there, and then Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that are both in opposition.

They're both describing the same person.

The Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are both descriptions of the word God there.

He is God, He is our Father.

He is He this God is the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're going to encounter the Holy Spirit in a few verses.

And so you see all three members of the Trinity working for our salvation.

All three persons of the Trinity, not just working for our salvation, but working for our sanctification.

And one of the ways the three persons of the Trinity work for our sanctification is by giving us the book of Ephesians to grow in godliness, by experiencing the riches that are in it.

Many of you, I'm sure, have heard of the woman Hetty Green.

She was, she's arguably the richest American woman ever.

She died around 1916 or so, right before 1920, leaving a wealth of between 100 and 200 million, depending on how you count all of her stocks for inflation and whatnot, but easily the wealthiest American woman ever.

What makes her so notable?

She had inherited some of her money, which she invested quite shrewdly.

She had also stolen some of the money from some of her relatives by forging their wills.

The Supreme Court ruled that her wills were forgery, but I won't bore you with the story.

Nevertheless, in losing the cases about the will, she actually gained more wealth than had she won them.

So at the end of her life, she was ridiculously wealthy.

She had a house in Connecticut, a house in New York.

Her husband died, and so for the last several years of her life, she wore all black, the same black dress, the same black hat, as she walked everywhere.

She was known as the Witch of Wall Street.

You can imagine why.

If you've seen pictures of her, you know why she was called the Witch of Wall Street.

She was legendary for how miserly she was, how stingy she was with her money.

There's so many stories about her, some apocryphal, I'm sure, some true.

Her doorman said that she would only eat cold oatmeal for breakfast because she didn't want to spend money to warm up the water.

She died of malnutrition, by the way.

After being warned repeatedly that she needed to feed herself, she didn't want to spend money.

A particular thing, doctors told her she needed to be drinking whole milk, and she insisted on skim milk because back then it was cheaper.

I think the prices flipped on them now, but back then skim milk was cheaper, so she appreciated that more.

Died of malnutrition.

Her son, the most tragic part of her life, her son had injured his leg, cut his leg when they were in Connecticut, their Connecticut home, and she would not take him to a Connecticut doctor because they were too expensive.

When she went back to New York, she took him to a free health clinic where his infection was exasperated.

Years later, he had to have his leg amputated.

The richest woman ever wouldn't pay for her son's medical treatment on his leg.

When I meet Christians who say they don't want to wrestle with the truths in Ephesians 1 because they're too difficult, it reminds me of her.

You have all the riches of heaven in a book that you're holding in your lap, but you say, No.

I don't want to spend the money on this, I don't want to spend the effort on this, I don't want to dig into Ephesians 1 because I just want my water cold.

That's too much work.

You have the riches of heaven in front of you.

I hope that our time in our study in the book of Ephesians will avail those riches in your own life.

We'll have them impact your heart and cause you to grow in your love for the glory and the mercies of God.

Lord, we're thankful that you, in your divine will, have chosen us for salvation.

And your perfect will have brought it to pass in time.

And your immediate will, as we encounter it, you've brought us to faith through Jesus Christ.

And now, Lord, you call us to go and lead transformed lives.

We do pray that you would change our hearts, fill us with a love for Jesus Christ and a desire to live for his glory.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.