Introduction - Ephesians: Born for War

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So this is a spiritual warfare manual.

He's instructing the Ephesians how to battle in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Church, you guys, you can do it.

You're born for war.

You are born for battle.

You guys know that.

Many of you in this room have been through divorces.

Many of you have been through addictions.

Many of you have made huge mistakes in your life.

And God is there to transform you.

He's there to change that part of you that's hurt and full of pain and the shame that you carry.

He can set us free from that.

But you gotta want to fight.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Holt.

We are in Ephesians, you guys, and it is the greatest book of the New Testament and how to live the Christian faith.

No better book.

And I'm gonna just tell you that I've read dozens, uh, or maybe not dozens, I've probably read a dozen commentaries on Ephesians, and I'm so pumped and excited.

We're gonna barely get into it today because I just want to give you a really thorough introduction to Ephesians.

And I'm and I almost guarantee you most of it you probably haven't heard before, because I've studied a dozen uh commentaries on Ephesians, and it's not there.

But um, I'm calling this born for war.

I'm calling it born for war.

I guarantee you there's no titles like that.

This is a spiritual warfare manual.

That's what Ephesians is.

Listen to the incredible commendations about the book of Ephesians that other writers have had through the centuries.

It is the crown and the climax of Pauline theology.

It is the sublimest communication ever made to men.

I would say that's really amazing, except I don't know what sublime means, okay?

But it's the sublimest communication ever made to men.

One writer says it's the consummate and most comprehensive statement which the New Testament contains of the meaning of the Christian life.

It is certainly the final statement on Pauline theology.

Colorage, called Ephesians, one of the divinest compositions of man.

It's been called the Grand Canyon of the Bible.

And I come from a different perspective.

I believe it is a book to train and equip believers for war, that this life is a battle, this life is a fight, that we are actually born into enemy territory, that we were born into a world full of demonic powers and full of satanic powers.

And that when we become a Christian and when we become a Jesus follower, we become a kingdom of God revolutionary.

It's not about getting to heaven, it's about getting heaven to earth through you.

And so God is building you to be soldiers, He's building you to be joyful, beautiful saints.

That when you go into the schoolroom, you bring Jesus there.

When you go into your office, you bring Jesus there.

When you parent your kids, you bring Jesus there.

And it's possible through the power of the Holy Spirit to do all that.

And Ephesians is really, it's the spiritual warfare manual.

Like when you read it, you're gonna go, what?

It's got stuff in there that's not anywhere else in the Bible about how to live the Christian life.

And so if there's one book, if there's one book that you could memorize, if there's one book you could really know, I'd say that, I'd say two.

I'd say 1 Ephesians, 2 Philippians, 1st Ephesians, 2 Philippians.

But Ephesians is this challenge to us that there's a war going on.

Okay, there's two parts to it.

So jot this down.

There's two parts to the outline of Ephesians.

The first one is your position in Christ, chapters 1 and 3.

Chapters 1 and 3 is about your position in Christ.

You actually have an exalted position.

It's really, really ironic that here at Ephesus, where a riot breaks out in Acts 19, when Paul first gets there, and um, and there's this spiritual warfare that I'll explain in just a moment that happens there.

He, in the midst of that, says, I want you to understand, Ephesians, where you are seated with Christ.

So look at chapter 1.

So turning your Bibles to Ephesians 1, and you can underline, highlight with these, but it means it's amazing.

Look at chapter 1, verse 3.

He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

So there's something mystically true here.

We don't completely understand it, but this fact that there are spiritual blessings for all of us in heavenly places.

Now look at verse 19.

So he's talking about prayer, and we'll get into the prayer in the next few weeks.

But in verse 19 he says, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ Jesus when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come, and he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church.

Now go to chapter 2.

So in chapter 2, verse 1, it says, And he made you alive, you were dead in your trespasses and sins.

Now jump down to verse 6.

He raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Chapter 3, look at verse 10, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

Crazy.

This is just radical stuff.

There's no place like this in the Bible that says when Christ died at Calvary and he was raised on the third day, and after a period of time where he appeared to his disciples, it says that he went to heaven, he was seated at the right hand with the Father.

Okay?

Oh, that's Jesus.

Yeah, we believe that.

It's in all the creeds.

What the creeds miss, I mean, all the creeds miss this, the Augsburg Creed misses it, the Nicene Creed misses it, the Westminster Confession misses it.

That then it's missing the next part, and that is because Christ is raised up with the Father, so are you.

You're raised up.

When you get saved, you're taken out of the domain of darkness just like Jesus did.

Romans 5, 6, and 7 kind of elaborates on this.

But you're taken out of the darkness, you're taken out of your tomb, you're taken out of that dead place you're at, and you're elevated with Christ in the heavenly places.

You're seated with him, and you're over, listen, you're over all principalities and powers.

I mean, you're over demons.

You rule over demons.

If you get this, it will set you free.

It will give you a sense of authority and power like you've never known before.

I've cast out dozens and dozens, probably thousands of demons in my time.

And it's not that hard.

When I meet a demon, by the way, I'm like Jesus.

I've never met a demon that I like.

Okay?

And so when I've met demons of lust and demons of immorality and demons of adultery, and you name it, I've met them.

And I just cast them out.

I said, in the name of Jesus, get out of here.

And I don't want to fuss, I don't want foaming at the mouth, I don't want people dropping all over the place and shaking.

I'm not into that, and neither are you, so get out of here in the name of Jesus.

And then they do, because I know my authority.

Okay?

But if you don't know your authority, which I didn't in the beginning when I got into this stuff, I got tied up into all kinds of stuff with the things that would happen because demons lie.

Demons lie.

That's who they are.

So they'll say, Well, I don't have a I'm not a demon.

I don't I don't know what you're talking about, you know.

He's the one that keeps looking at the porn, not me.

And like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're in a third person already.

Get out of here in the name of Jesus.

So, so the reality is that you guys, wherever you are, you could be a believer that got saved last week.

You may be a believer that's walked with God for 25 years.

You're still exalted.

As soon as you get saved, you're exalted to the high places.

And Satan will do everything possible for you to miss these next few months at the road because he does not want you to get it.

Because if you get your position, then it's gonna change your life.

And you'll walk with an authority that you never knew before.

Because if you read what I just read, and I can't wait till we get to it, he's saying that look, I've taken you, an unbeliever who's been wrapped up in darkness, I've pulled you out of that, I've seated you in the heavenly places with me where I'm at, so that through the church we might in essence proclaim the kingdom to all principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

That's what we just did when we prayed.

When we prayed, God's gonna answer that prayer, by the way.

God's gonna answer that prayer with this Equality Act.

And if we'll start believing that, and there's in, you know, in some of your lives, you've got people in your life that are unsaved, they're rebellious, they're into drugs, they're into all kinds of bad stuff, and you feel helpless.

I hope and I pray that as we go through this study together, you will feel helpless no more.

Because you've got to learn to hit your knees, you've got to learn to go into that prayer room, and you've got to call down those demonic spirits and set your kids free.

You can set your kids free, you can set your spouse free.

You can be set free in your life.

So, first of all, position in Christ.

Second thing is power in Christ.

That's chapters four through six.

So, for chapters one through three is position in Christ.

Chapters four through six is power, the power you have in Christ.

That listen, you can't experience the power till you know your position.

You can't experience all the power in Christ until you know your position in Christ.

Here's what I mean by that.

So many of you, how many of you have been in the military in your background or even currently?

Okay, you you're familiar with military science, and military science teaches that you always battle from the high ground if you can't.

One of the problems that we had in Vietnam was we could never, we didn't fight from the high ground, we actually felt from uh fought from the valleys, and it was a big mistake.

But uh, Gettysburg's the best example of the high ground, where the South under Lee came into a situation where the north had already set up the high ground, and that was uh Seminary Ridge, and that was Little Round Top.

And so because of that, they couldn't, they couldn't take the high ground.

Listen, you guys, this is really important.

As a spiritual warfare manual, we battle in Ephesians from the perspective of higher ground.

And guess what?

I'm not real smart, but I figured it out that you can't get much higher than heaven.

So you're battling from heaven, you're not on the defensive.

Quit thinking you're on the defensive, church.

You're on the offensive.

And so we we we've been, I mean, the kind of teaching we've had and everything that we've had in the church kind of makes you feel like you're just this, you know, you're just, we're just this remnant.

Okay, that may be true, but I'm telling you, we can be a remnant that's the most powerful remnant that the world's ever known because it's the greatest movement the world has all ever known.

For 2,000 years, it's called the Kingdom of God movement.

And that movement is always through people who believe, who believe that they have power from the Holy Spirit, not personal power, but they have power from the Holy Spirit to change things.

Guys, we can change things.

We can.

We're not on the defensive, we're on the offensive in Christ.

And that's what Ephesians teaches us about.

It it presents to us a spiritual warfare manual of how to live this Christian life in a powerful and manifest way.

So turn your Bibles to Acts 19.

So I want to give the context, the background.

So just go to the left, you come to Acts 19, and this is when Paul enters into Ephesus.

And when I can read this chapter, you can read it later.

But basically, in essence, he comes into Ephesus, he meets a group of people, and then he says in verse 2, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

So they said to him, We've not so much as even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.

And he said to them, Into what then were you baptized?

And so they said, into John's baptism.

Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is on Christ Jesus.

When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Now, this is really important.

We're gonna do baptisms the week after Easter.

So Easter is the first week of April, okay?

So the next week we're gonna do baptisms.

Some of you were baptized into a baptism of repentance.

In other words, you you got saved with that baptism, but you didn't know Jesus.

You thought you did, but you didn't.

Some of you were baptized as infants in an infant baptism way.

And what God's doing always happens in churches that I pastor, as you start to understand more from scripture, a lot of times people want to be rebaptized.

They feel like, man, this is now an authentic, real, powerful faith.

I've never had that before.

I want to be rebaptized.

It's scriptural.

They had to be rebaptized.

They were re-baptized in Christ.

Okay?

Then he says this, and they heard this, verse 5, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.

So this is interesting.

They got baptized into Christ and by the Holy Spirit at the same time.

Okay?

So this baptism of the Holy Spirit came upon us.

Some of you have never been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Now let me explain what I mean by that.

You are baptized into the Holy Spirit, into the Holy Spirit when you get saved.

So when you give your heart to Christ, you're baptized into Christ fully, whole thing.

You got the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's not hovering around looking for you or trying to understand how zealous you are.

He's there.

He comes into you.

That's part of, what does it say?

Ephesians 1 says that that's the guarantee of things to come.

So that's a guarantor that you have.

But you guys understand there's subsequent fillings of the Holy Spirit.

So whatever you want to call it, baptism or whatever, fillings of the Holy Spirit, we have to always be looking for more.

In this church, we believe in more.

You didn't just, you got it all.

You got it all.

You don't get more of God.

He gets more of you, right?

So did you, I mean, is I am not the same as I was when I first got saved.

All I understood was, you know, quit messing around, you know, with girls a lot, okay?

And and start telling the truth every once in a while.

Okay, so I did that, you know?

And then as I started to grow, I realized, wow, it's about passion.

It's about worship, it's about prayer.

And so the filling of the Holy Spirit, by the way, is not a title, it's a function.

Okay?

So people come to me sometimes and say, is your church spirit-filled?

And I said, It's according to which day you're talking about.

Oh, we were we were spirit-filled on Monday, but you'd have seen us on Tuesday.

We were not spirit-filled.

What?

You know, and what they mean is they want they want to know if we have the title of being spirit-filled.

I say, Yeah, we did have the title on Monday, but we don't have it on Tuesday.

Because here, what is the essence of the filling of the Holy Spirit?

Control.

Who's in control?

I know people that have fallen on the floor, had these ecstatic experiences, and they're in control.

I know people who've never had those experiences, and God's in control.

So the issue is who's on the throne of your life?

That's the issue.

But we always want more, right?

So as he's talking to the Ephesians, here's what's cool about this.

Look down at verse 7.

Now the men were about 12.

That's how he starts this movement.

It's just 12 guys that he starts the movement with, and then they start meeting daily in the school of Tyrannus.

Here's why.

Guess where the largest library in the world was at that time?

Ephesus.

This is a highly intellectual city.

Highly intellectual city.

So he goes to the school of Tyrannus, which became very well known at that time, where they would, where they would go to scripture and they would debate these issues.

It's like a worldview conference every day.

So Paul would go to a worldview conference every day with the Ephesians.

He only started with 12, but then this movement starts to become the most powerful movement in Asia Minor at that time, comes out of Ephesus.

Okay?

We're not done yet.

One of the six wonders of the world, write this down, was the temple of Diana or the Temple of Artemis.

And you can go today, you can see the ruins, but up on the hill was this temple of Artemis.

People came from all over the world to worship at the temple of Artemis.

So that means there was tons of occultic activity happening in Ephesus at that time.

So he's he continues for two years, but then look at verse 11.

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hand of Paul.

Now look at what he does next.

So, okay, everybody look at me.

We have a lot of Briance in this church.

And I love that.

You know that.

It's great.

Okay?

This is what I'm about to read is super weird.

Can everybody say the Christian life is weird sometimes?

Say that.

Like, this is weird what I'm about to read.

And so before we judge some of the stuff that's happening sometimes in the body of Christ with miracles and stuff, let's read the next part.

Verse 12.

So that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, We exercise, we exercise you by the Jesus, whom Paul preaches.

Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so, and the evil spirit, I love this, it's pretty, I mean, I've never met an evil spirit that I like, but this guy's pretty cool.

Okay.

He says here, he says, Look, I know Paul and I know Jesus, but who are you?

And then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

This is weird.

Okay?

That's what happens when you come against the occult.

It gets weird.

I've been in haunted houses in different parts of the world where we go in and we see spirits leave.

We literally see smoke appear and we cast them out in the name of Jesus.

That's weird.

Everybody say that's weird, Steve.

It is weird, okay?

But it's set free.

And all of the demonic dreams, all of the hallucinations, all the stuff that was happening in those houses in this Christian family goes away.

And suddenly righteousness, peace, and joy comes over that house because we came in and we cast out the demons.

So I'm just telling you guys, if this seems spooky to you, it's spooky to me.

But the reality is this is that when we know our authority, you can walk in confidence.

You can walk in a new kind of confidence.

Well, I don't know anything about this.

Good, you come to the right place because we're gonna train and equip you.

Okay, and so part of it, listen, part of it's heart change, but another part is a head change.

We need heads on fire and hearts on fire.

That worldview conference is about getting your head on fire.

This sermon and our study of Ephesians is to get your head and heart on fire.

You need both.

In other words, you've got to be passionate for the things of the kingdom, but you also need not be an idiot.

Okay?

You guys know that's true.

There's head churches and there's heart churches.

You know, and you've got some that just overwhelming, they fall in the ditch of intellectualism all the time.

And there's others that are heart churches and they fall in the ditch of emotionalism all the time.

I want both.

I want to be emotionally, passionately smart.

How about you?

I want my kids to be emotionally.

Passionate and intellectually smart.

We should be producing out of this church in churches all across this country the smartest kids in the world who are passionate for Jesus.

That's possible.

And that's what the book of Ephesians is about.

Then look at this.

Look at verse 19.

It's crazy.

Verse 19.

Many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted up the value of them, and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver.

Today's standards,$28 to an ounce,$1.4 million.

So this is such a move of the spirit that people just, they completely repent, they take all their magic books and they just burn them in the fire.

Okay?

So where Facebook and YouTube want us to take our Christian books and burn them in the fire, Antifa or whatever, the reality is we should be making such an impact upon this earth that all those with new age books, we'd throw them in a fire.

Wouldn't that be awesome if that happened?

It's possible.

So this is a spiritual warfare manual.

He's instructing the Ephesians how to battle in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And church, you guys, you can do it.

You're born for war.

You are born for battle.

You guys know that.

Many of you in this room have been through divorces.

Many of you have been through addictions.

Many of you have made huge mistakes in your life.

And God is there to transform you.

He's there to change that part of you that's hurt and full of pain and the shame that you carry.

He can set us free from that.

But you gotta wanna fight.

You gotta wanna fight.

To me, it's like it's like getting on a raft, you know, with some of the places where I fly fish.

You know, you get on a raft and you'll be fly fishing, you'll see these people coming down, you know, and you kind of, whoa, you know, whoo, they go right under you, and you got your rod right there and everything and all that.

It's it's like that's where many people are.

They're just floating through.

As saved Christians, they are saved, they really are.

And they're just floating along with the culture.

And God would say, get out of the boat, drive your feet into the sand and start walking against the tide.

God gives it, but I don't know how.

That's right, that's why we're here because we don't know how, most of us don't know how.

Sometimes I don't know how either, you know?

And I have to go back to the script and say, God, how do we handle this?

I don't know how to handle that.

That's out of my comfort zone.

So here at the road, we're gonna get you out of your comfort zone into an uncomfortable zone that will become a comfort zone.

It will, because you'll get you'll gain in confidence, you'll grow in confidence, you will.

You'll know how to pray.

And you're gonna see changes in your family, you're gonna see changes in this culture, we're gonna see changes in elections.

Because we know how to pray and we know how to vote, and we have a worldview that's biblical and it's right, and we can and we can call out what we know not to be true.

So, another thing about this book is its position in Christ, it's power in Christ, but it's also very, very practical in Christ.

Chapter four is about the church, it's about being a new creation.

Chapter five is about marriage, and it's about how to have a godly marriage.

That's what I wrote in my book.

The book on marriage that I wrote is just verse by verse through Ephesians 5.

Okay, chapter 6 is how to put on the armor, how to put on the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit and the belt of truth, shodding our feet with the gospel of peace.

That's what Ephesians, Ephesians 6 is the climax, it's the culmination of all that he says through the book, and you'll come out with just a greater understanding of who you are in Christ.

So look at Ephesians 1, turn to Ephesians 1, and just in a little bit of time we have, I just want to open with the first two verses, and then next week we'll really, really dive in to this powerful first chapter.

You know, and I look at my Bible, what a mess.

What a mess.

I got I got arrows going and brackets and all kinds of fun stuff in this thing.

Uh but look at Ephesians 1, 1 and 2.

This is the greeting by Paul.

Paul, an apostolos, an apostolos of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

To the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus.

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

I love Paul and Apostolos.

I can't tell you how many times we get all fixated.

Are there apostles today?

So there are all kinds of opinions on that.

Let me just say this.

A, capital A, apostles, lambs 12, that's it.

There were 12 apostles.

We're not going to add to that.

But if we look at it not from a position of title, but we look at it from a position of function, a verb, here's what it means: it means sent out on a mission.

That's all that apostolos means.

You guys in this room are called out to a mission.

You're all apostles.

You're apostolos.

That's the verb, that's the meaning.

You're called to a mission.

We're not called to sit on our can and sit around and just be consumers.

We're here to be kingdom producers.

And kingdom producers have to be equipped to know how to do that.

And as we're sent out on a mission, you then you ask them, Well, I don't know what my mission is.

Good! Great question.

Because he does, he put you here for a purpose.

You have gifts and skills that nobody else in this room has.

Every one of you individually have something beautiful about you.

So Paul was named, remember what his first name was?

Saul.

Who saw, Saul's first king of Israel, Saul was an arrogant, prideful, never really understood his relationship with God guy, but that's who they named him after, and that was Saul.

This Saul, who's writing Ephesus, is like the first king of Israel.

He's arrogant, he's prideful, he's the Pharisee of Pharisees, and he's gonna kill Christians.

And he is on a mission.

He was apostolos before he was Capital A Apostolos.

He was on a mission to imprison Christians, he's after them, and then guess what happens?

On an off-ramp on the road to Damascus, he got cut down to size.

Remember that Johnny Cash song?

God's gonna cut you down.

Well, God cut him down.

Have you been cut down by God?

Oftentimes, God has to cut us down before he can build us up.

And we don't want to be cut down and we don't want to be humble until we run from God most of our life.

And when God's saying, why don't you let the loving, what does he say here?

The grace to you and the peace from God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, cut you down so he can build you up.

Man, when I got cut down when I was 18, best cutting down I ever experienced.

Set me free.

You see, when God cuts us down, it's because he loves us.

And when God cuts us down, it's because he cares about the new you emerging from the old you.

He's tired of you.

Are you tired of you?

Everybody else is tired of you.

So the quicker you get tired of you, the better you are.

And when God gets a hold of you, He's gonna build you up.

He's gonna make you an apostolis.

You're called to a purpose.

Some of you speak well.

Some of you are servant leaders that are gonna be used by God to help others carry out their mission.

Some of you are doctors and lawyers, and some of you are mechanics and foremen.

Some of you are housewives and moms, fathers.

You don't know what you're doing.

That's great.

Best place to be for God to build us up is to realize we don't know what we're doing.

And if you haven't felt like you don't know what you're doing, then you need to get out more often.

Because God wants to keep challenging us.

He really does.

And in that, there's so much more in the spirit-filled life available to us.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.