Ephesians: "To the Saints in Ephesus..."

Uh, we're launching into a new series through the book of Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

And I I don't know that I've ever been more excited to preach a series in my life.

I don't know that I've been more excited to preach through a book in my life.

I am I've been looking forward to this for honestly years, like years being able to plant a church and preach through this book with our church.

But but honestly, since we planted, like I just knew that this was going to be something that God was gonna lead us to.

And and and I'm super excited that we're that we're launching it right now.

It's gonna take us all the way through the summer and it's gonna take us into the fall.

And the reason I'm excited is because there's been many theologians and a lot of people who have agreed that this might be one of the one of the most powerful documents ever written by a human hand.

Now we know the scriptures are ultimately breathed out by God, but Peter tells us that the scriptures are pinned by human authors who are carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And so the beauty of this is that Paul, the apostle Paul is writing this to churches that he helped plant, to people that he knew, and he's writing with a passion, and he's writing from prison, and he's writing that these people, that he might ignite a passion in these people's hearts, and he might open their eyes to see and savor Jesus in a beautiful way.

And my burden for our church, my burden for myself is that for each and every single one of us, there's a there's a temptation that for those of us who have gotten a glimpse of Jesus before to lose sight, to lose vision of Jesus again.

Like, like there are some of you in this room that you do not have a passion right now for Jesus that you once had.

That you're in the room and you're craving that, you're desiring that, you're longing for that.

Maybe you've prayed for that, but it comes back to you have not seen him the way that you once saw him, and you desperately need new sight.

There's there are others of you who have never seen Jesus, who have never truly seen him, never truly had revelation of who Jesus is and what he's done for you.

And Paul's heart in writing this is that you would see.

John Stott, when writing about the letter to the Ephesians, said this that the letter to the Ephesians is a marvelously concise yet comprehensive summary of the Christian good news and its implications.

Nobody, nobody can read it without being moved to wonder and worship and challenge to consistency of life.

Ephesians is a visionary letter.

Once again, Paul is writing this in chains from prison to churches, and he's trying to, from prison, get them to get a passion for Jesus.

He's trying to say, look, I'm I'm locked up and I'm and I'm in a space where I can't get to where you are, and I can't do what you're capable of doing.

And so I need you to see what I see so that you can go after what I'm trying to go after, so that you can go do what God's calling me to do.

So this can be an extension through you.

You say, Man, I need you to, I need you to see.

Because did you know that the enemy is working against your ability to see?

2 Corinthians chapter 4 literally says that the enemy, the God of this world, the enemy, is working hard to do one thing, to blind unbelievers from seeing, to blind the minds, to blind the eyes, to blind the hearts, to keep you from seeing what God wants you to see.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

That's his agenda, to keep you from seeing.

For those of you who have once seen, it's to try to try to keep you from seeing Jesus clearly.

It's to try to get your vision foggy to keep you from seeing what God wants you to see.

The enemy blinds minds to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

He does not want you to see Jesus.

And did you know that we live in a cultural moment that does not want you to see Jesus?

They may even try to make Jesus into something that Jesus isn't.

They may put the name of Jesus on it, but their goal is to put is to put a facade over the real and true Jesus, to put a mascot in front of him so that you can't see the real and authentic Jesus.

Because the enemy doesn't want you to see Jesus.

But Paul continues writing to the church in Corinth, and he says, But the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Do you notice what he says?

He says, He says, Look, God wants you to have an encounter with his glory.

And he says, Where is that glory?

He says, It's in the face of Jesus Christ.

So he's saying, What is he trying to get you to see?

He's trying to get you to see the face of Jesus.

What's the enemy trying to do?

To keep you from seeing the face of Jesus.

And what Paul is writing in Ephesians is to get you to see.

Because I believe if you soak up this letter, it can change your life and give you sight.

John McKay, who was a former president of Princeton Seminary, once said, I, after reading the book of Ephesians and studying the letter to the Ephesians, he said, I saw a new world.

I saw a new world.

Everything was new.

I had a new outlook, new experiences, new attitudes to other people.

I loved God.

Jesus Christ became the center of everything.

I had been quickened.

I had been brought to life.

I really was alive.

John McKay, president of a seminary, reading the book of Ephesians, said that reading this, I finally saw.

I finally saw.

I saw a new world.

Everything was new.

I had a new outlook, new experiences, new attitudes.

Everything was new as a result of encountering Jesus through this letter to the Ephesians.

What's interesting about this letter is that a large majority of it is actually written as a prayer.

Like Paul is writing a prayer, interceding for the people that he's writing to.

And what's included in this is you and me.

A huge majority of Ephesians is a prayer from Paul for you.

The key passage that reveals the purpose of the entire letter in his heart for you is found further down in chapter one when he writes this.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart, did you know your heart has eyes?

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

Literally means that the sun might shine on it, might be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the mighty working of his strength.

So the kind of summary statement of why Paul is writing this entire letter, he says in the form of a prayer.

He says, Look, my prayer, my goal in writing this is that the Spirit of God would give you new sight, that the Spirit of God would give you new eyes.

He says, Revelation that you would see, that literally God would reveal to you, revelation, that he would reveal something to you.

The Spirit of God would reveal to you so that you would see wisdom so that you can understand what you see, that your heart may be enlightened, that it, that it, that the sun might shine on it, that it might come to life.

And then he includes a so that.

Can you say so that?

Anytime you see those words in the scriptures, so important, so important.

Because Paul is telling you why he's praying what he's praying.

Why does he want the Spirit of God to give you new sight?

So that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.

Why does Paul want you to see?

So that you would know the hope of your calling.

You would know the hope of your calling.

That that God has called you out of darkness to himself and that it would give you hope, a durable hope.

What does he want?

He wants you to see and know the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

Saints are those who belong to Jesus.

And did you know that that the scriptures tell us that that if you're in Christ, you're a co-heir with Christ, that you have an inheritance with Christ.

What is God, what is God giving to Christ?

All things.

And Christ is saying now, you are in me, and I'm sharing.

You have a share with me in my inheritance.

And he's saying, Do you know what belongs to you?

We're gonna study next week.

Paul literally starts out and he goes, You have every spiritual blessing.

That word every in the Greek means all of them.

Every one of them, every blessing.

You have every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.

And he says, That's your inheritance that God's not withholding from you.

He's trying to give you everything.

You have every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.

He's saying that's the wealth of your glorious inheritance, and that's yours.

Not something you're waiting on, something you have right now as someone who is in Christ.

And then he says, I want you to know the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe.

So he says, Man, there's a power that God has, but there's a power towards us who believe.

And he's saying that that did you know that God's power is at your disposal if you're in Christ?

That you actually can call on God and that his power, the resources of heaven, can be at your disposal for those who are in Christ.

He says, I want you to know this.

I want the Spirit to open up your eyes so that you can see what is yours.

I want you to see.

Ultimately, I think what he wants is he wants Jesus to be your deepest love and greatest treasure.

He wants him to, he wants you to place him at the center of your life.

Like at the end of the book of Ephesians, if we say, like, man, it accomplished what Paul wanted it to accomplish, what the Spirit of God wanted it to accomplish, I believe that top of the list is that Jesus is your deepest love and greatest treasure.

I think I think for some of us we value Jesus.

We value Jesus.

We we want we want to raise our kids with good morals.

We appreciate the community that comes as a result of Jesus in church.

We like the rhythm of church.

We like we like the encouragement that may come as a result of church.

We like the the benefits that come kind of with life adjacent to Jesus.

And Paul's going to know Jesus needs to be your deepest love and greatest treasure placed at the very center of your life.

He I think he's inviting us to live by the Spirit.

One of the things you're going to see throughout this theme is life in the Spirit and the transforming power of God through your life.

And then I think the third thing that he's trying to ignite is a passion for the church, a willingness to sacrifice self for the family of God and the mission of Jesus.

That we have that kind of priority around the things that God loves and the things that God cares about.

John Stott summarizes the letter to the Ephesians like this.

This is a long quote, but it's gold.

He says the letter to the Ephesians focuses on what God did through the historical work of Jesus Christ.

Historical.

Did you know it really happened?

And does through his spirit today, in order to build his new society.

Other people call the letter to the Ephesians the goal of building a new humanity.

God is building his new society in the midst of the old.

It tells how Jesus Christ shed his blood in a sacrificial death for sin, was then raised from death by the power of God and has been exalted above all competitors to the supreme place in both the universe and the church.

More than that, we who are in Christ, organically united to him by faith, have ourselves shared in these great events.

We have been raised from spiritual death, exalted to heaven and seated with him there.

We have also been reconciled to God and to each other.

As a result, through Christ and in Christ, we are nothing less than God's new society, the single new humanity which he is creating and which includes Jews and Gentiles on equal terms.

We are the family of God the Father, the body of Jesus Christ His Son, and the temple or dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, we are to demonstrate plainly and visibly by our new life the reality of this new things which God has done.

First, by the unity and diversity of our common life.

Second, by the purity and love of our everyday behavior, next, by the mutual submissiveness and care of our relationships at home, and lastly, by our stability and purpose of unific, by our stability in the fight against the principalities and powers of evil.

Then, in the fullness of time, God's purpose of unification will be brought to completion under the headship of Jesus Christ.

The whole letter is thus a magnificent combination of Christian doctrine and Christian duty, Christian faith and Christian life.

What God has done through Christ and what we must be and do as a result, and its central theme is God's new society, what it is, how it came into being through Christ, how it grows through proclamation, how we are to live lives worthy of it, and how it will one day be consummated when Christ presents his bride to the church to himself in splendor without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

That's what we're diving into today.

That's what we're spending these weeks diving into.

And I'm telling you, if you if you devote yourself over these weeks to knowing this letter, to reading it and allow it to read you, to study it deeply, to soak it up, to try to try to get not only into your mind the information into your mind, but get the power of it into your heart.

Jesus can open your eyes and he can do something amazing, not just in your heart and in your life, but in us, among us.

Like, man, I I like we didn't plant this church because we all just really wanted something to do on Sunday.

And we didn't plant this church because we said, you know what, we want to we want to talk and we and we want to sing every week.

We planted it because we knew that there were people who were disconnected from God, disconnected from his life, disconnected from his purpose.

And we said, we believe God's placed us in this moment in history to try to bring these things together and create a new community that embodies a way of life, embodies a love, embodies a power that no one else can experience anywhere else.

And to bring them together in Christ and to walk away of life together that no one else can experience and actually chart real change in a community that no one else is accomplishing.

That's why we did this.

And Paul, as the chief, as the greatest church planner who has ever lived, who loved to go and preach the gospel in new communities, establish new churches, and go do it again in another place, is writing this letter saying, This, this is what we're trying to produce.

This is what we're trying to bring together.

This is what God is building.

Can you see it?

And so there are three key movements throughout this letter that Jesus gives us new life by his spirit, the Holy Spirit produces a new power and way of life in us, and the church establishes a new people, a new society, a new humanity together.

But the first question we have to ask today is where did it all begin, right?

Where did it all begin?

As Paul starts out this letter saying, I'm an apostle and I'm writing to these people.

Who how did this relationship get established?

Where did it start?

Well, the first time we see Paul uh engage any at all with Ephesus is in Acts chapter 18.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

This is on Paul's second missionary journey.

So Acts records three key missionary journeys that Paul goes on throughout the book of Acts.

And the and the second one is the first time that Paul visits Ephesus, but it's a very short trip to Ephesus, kind of like a pit stop.

Uh it says in Acts chapter 18, verses 19 through 21, that they arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila.

Acts 18:19–21

He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined.

But as he left, he promised, I will come back if it's God's will.

And then he set sail from Ephesus.

So this is the first time that we hear about Ephesus in Paul's missionary journey.

It's his second trip, and he makes one little pit stop to the city of Ephesus.

But he eventually comes back, like he said he would, on his third and final missionary journey.

And what's interesting is Paul's ministry and Ephesus on his third missionary journey is actually more is actually unique in the terms of his ministry anywhere else.

So Paul spends more time in the city of Ephesus than he spent anywhere else, and he only visited it really this one time on his third missionary journey.

And the way this kind of breaks down in Acts chapter 19, I encourage you, like go read the story of Paul planting the church in Ephesus and engaging the people here in Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention Acts 19 · chapter mention

But I'm going to break it down real quick.

So the first thing Paul does in Acts chapter 19 is he goes into the city and he finds some existing, the scriptures just call them disciples, but we find out that they're disciples of John the Baptist.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

So they had heard John the Baptist preaching and proclaiming that the Messiah was going to come and that they needed to repent and prepare their hearts for the coming Messiah, who was Jesus, but they didn't know about Jesus.

They had never heard the good news of Jesus.

They just knew that they had been baptized, they had repented, and they were waiting for the Messiah to come, believing that he was coming soon.

Paul encounters these men, preaches the gospel to them, baptizes them, lays his hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit.

It says that it's about 12 men.

You can read that in Acts 19, verses 2 through 7.

Acts 19:2–7

That there's about 12 men who hear the good news of Jesus.

Oh, the Messiah has come.

The work's been finished in Jesus.

He died for your sins.

He was raised from the dead.

He's now seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning as the Messiah, as Lord.

They believe it, they respond, they receive the Holy Spirit.

So that's the first thing he does.

Find some disciples and leads them to Christ.

Twelve men.

The second thing he does is he goes back to the synagogue.

So he goes to the synagogue and he begins to preach to the Jews in the synagogue.

And he's trying to get them to understand the Messiah that you've been waiting for, that the Old Testament and the prophets are pointing to, has already come and his name is Jesus.

And he's trying to preach that to them.

And he tries to reason with them and argue with them.

The scriptures literally say he reasoned and argued in the synagogue until eventually they basically run them off.

Their hearts are hardened.

They're like, hey, we're not interested.

You need to get away from here.

And the opposition heightened, their hearts are hardened, and then Paul leaves.

You can read about that in verses 8 and 9 in Acts 19.

So then what does he do?

Paul now takes the 12 disciples and he goes to a place called the Hall of Tyrannus.

And he essentially opens up a discipleship school for the next two years.

And he starts with these 12 men and he pours his life into these 12 men.

And what happens over the course of these two years is he disciples them, and then these disciples multiply over the course of these two years.

And it says that almost all or all who live in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

Twelve men go into discipleship school for two years.

Paul pours his life into them for however long he poured his life into them.

And then he multiplies this message.

He goes, Look, you don't understand.

If you're going to follow Jesus, what Jesus does is he sends you to other people.

Like Jesus, he's not trying to just make consumers who come to Jesus to receive for themselves everything else and then do nothing through their lives.

He's saying, No, no, everything that comes to you through Christ is meant to go through you to other people.

And so he disciples this into them to the point that they all begin to multiply this work and go to all kinds of different villages and surrounding communities around Ephesus so that all of Asia hear the word of the Lord.

Doesn't say that all of Asia responds to the word of the Lord, doesn't say that all of Asia is saved, doesn't say that all of Asia repents and is baptized and receives the Holy Spirit.

It says that the word went to all of Asia.

Because this is the reality of a follower of Jesus, is you're meant to take the good news of the gospel out.

You're not responsible for whether or not people respond, right?

You can't control that.

And another part of in Acts chapter 17, when Paul is in Athens, he preaches in the Areopagus, and it says that some ridiculed and made fun of him, some were curious and asked more questions, and some followed.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

That's what you can expect as a follower of Jesus.

Is that as you live for Jesus and you proclaim the good news of Jesus, like some people are gonna reject you.

It's just gonna happen.

Just the reality of it.

Some people are gonna be curious and they're gonna ask questions.

They're gonna want more.

They're gonna want more time and it's gonna take some time.

And then some people are gonna respond and they're gonna follow.

And we don't control how many fit into which category.

And so Paul stays here for two years.

I actually think I have a picture of the hall of Tyrannis.

Yeah, so this is the Hall of Tyrannis.

So still there, you can go visit in Ephesus today.

Like Paul spends two years in this hall.

If you go actually go up these steps, there's there's kind of a lecture hall up here, and that's where Paul would disciple these men for the course of two years in the hall of Tyrannis.

And so he opens up a discipleship school there in Ephesus and pours his life into these men until through their work and through their ministry, all who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

So essentially what we see happen is revival breaks out in Ephesus.

And one of the things about Ephesus is it was a major metropolitan area, not unlike Atlanta, where we live.

So one of the things you know about Atlanta is that we claim how many people live in Atlanta, right?

Right.

So we would say 6.2 million people.

But we all know that that's including Metro Atlanta, right?

Like I think they just included Bartow County in Metro Atlanta now.

And so that's that's yeah, that's where Cartersville is.

People wear boots and own cattle out there.

But we have a lot of people who came from there, so no offense to the cattle owners.

I'm from a farm in Alabama, just so you know.

Anyway, so so they just started including Bartow County.

There's millions of people that are now included in Metro Atlanta.

And so what Paul is doing in this huge metro area is Ephesus has about 250,000 to 500,000 people.

And Paul starts a ministry in the hub of this city, and he basically says, Do you realize what we can happen?

Because Ephesus was a major port city.

So every bit of trade and every bit of commerce ran through the city of Ephesus.

And so there's this strategic hub that Paul is saying, Do you realize that we can reach the nations from this city?

And so Paul sets up this discipleship school and begins to send them through these trade routes to the different areas so that all of Asia begin to hear the word of the Lord.

Did you know that part of our vision here at Kingdom City Church is to set up a hub of ministry in the city of Atlanta that we may reach more and more parts of the city of Atlanta through the ministry of who?

Of you.

You're like, whoa, I didn't send up.

I'm just here for the first time.

I'm just letting you know this is our vision.

This is our desire.

That we would see such a compelling missional movement, disciple-making movement, that you would be used by the Spirit of God to take the good news to all the province of wherever you go.

This is the pattern of throughout the book of Acts.

And this is specifically such a beautiful pattern that we see in the city of Ephesus.

So ultimately, through this ministry, revival breaks out in this city.

And this is a problem because one of the things about Ephesus is that it was a huge city that ran on idolatry.

So one of the seven wonders of the world was the temple of Artemis or the Temple of Diana.

I think I think I have a rendering of that.

So this is one rendering.

So this is in Ephesus at the time.

It's the Temple of Artemis, the temple of Diana, the goddess of uh of fertility.

And she was worshipped in in Ephesus and worshipped all throughout the region.

And they made idols of Diana or of Artemis out of silver.

And so silversmiths were a huge part of the industry in this city.

Well, revival had broken out to the extent that people stopped buying silver idols of Diana, stopped buying silver idols of Artemis, stopped worshiping her in their homes and began to throw them in piles, reject her, to follow Jesus, so much so that it began to destroy the business of the silversmiths in the community.

So all the silversmiths begin to get together against the way of Jesus because they're angry because now their money is suffering as a result of the revival that's breaking out in the city.

Can you imagine a revival of such faithfulness to Jesus that breaks out that everyone who sells things that are against the way of Jesus ends up suffering as a result of it?

Like there are some things that need to go out of business.

Did you know that?

And so they begin to go out of business.

They're suffering as a result of this.

And they begin to riot.

I think there's a yeah, there's a second one right there.

One of the seven wonders of the world.

And I'll just go ahead and show you, this is what's left of it.

Yeah, there you go.

Seven wonders.

Things that are constructed against the against the king of heaven and earth don't tend to last very long.

It doesn't matter how wondrous they may be.

They have their moment.

They have their moment in history.

They all end up in ruins.

The kingdom of heaven is the only kingdom that will really that will endure.

Only one.

And people through their entire lives, people were priests in the temple of Artemis, in the temple of Diana.

And those priests of Diana had to stand before the king of heaven and earth at the end of their lives, not realizing that in all their effort they had wasted every second of it.

And this business is suffering as a result of the revival that breaks out.

So much so that what we read is that they actually fill up the amphitheater in Ephesus, which was also a wonder in and of itself.

It had been reconstructed by Rome to the point that it had grew, it had grown to this.

I think I have a current rendering of it or a current picture of it.

Do I will?

Yeah.

So this is it today.

See at about 25,000 people.

And at the end of Acts 19, verses 23 through 41, we actually find out that all of the silversmiths and all the community who are supporting the worship of Artemis actually are able to get together and fill up this amphitheater, proclaiming and warring and rioting against the way of Jesus.

Acts 19:23–41

And you know what Paul does?

Paul wants to go in.

Imagine this.

This is why I love the Apostle Paul.

I'm like, inject this energy into my veins, please, Jesus.

Is he he looks at it and he goes, There's a violent crowd of 25,000 people who are warring against the way of Jesus because they're worshiping an idol.

And he goes, There's 25,000 unbelievers that are gathered in one place?

Are you kidding me?

What an opportunity.

He's like, let me go.

And his friends won't let him go in because they knew that they would kill him.

And I'm going, man, can you get that into us, Jesus?

My goodness, can you get that into us, Jesus?

Man, let's start with our with our one neighbor who lives right here.

Let's start with the three people that we can get around a dinner table.

But one day, Jesus, would you get us to where we're like, I'll go stand with a water pistol against the gates of hell?

Because I have that much faith and I'm willing to risk that much for the sake of Jesus.

So in in 1 Corinthians 16, we actually just read through this in our in our in our reading.

Paul kind of mentions this ministry in a letter to another church.

This is one of the reasons I love reading the New Testament, because Paul will actually mention his ministry to different letters in different churches.

So at the end of 1 Corinthians, or in 1 Corinthians 16, at the end of his letter to the Corinthians, his first one, he says, after I go through Macedonia, I will come to you talking about the church in Corinth, for I'll be going through Macedonia.

Perhaps I will stay with you for a while or even spend the winter so that you can help me on my journey wherever I go.

For I do not want to see you now and only and make only a passing visit.

I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits.

So he's saying, Man, I love you guys.

I want to spend some extended time with you.

But then he says this next line, but I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost because a great door for effective ministry is opened for me, and there are many who oppose me.

This is what Paul is describing as he's writing to the church in Corinth.

Is he saying a wide open door for effective ministry is opened.

He's talking about I'm in a room right now with 12 dudes who are hungry to get after it right now.

And he's like, I'm discipling them in the hall of Tyrannus, and there is a wide open door that if these guys can take this fire outside into the streets and lead people to Jesus, there's no telling what the potential of this could be.

So he's saying, there's a wide open door for effective ministry that's open, that's open for me.

But he says, but but hey, there's a lot of people who oppose me.

I don't know, I don't know if he knew at this point there was like an Ephesian amphitheater amount of people who opposed him, but he knew that there was opposition.

And yet, what does Paul do?

He says, Yeah, there's opposition.

I still know that the hand of God is on this.

How many of us, how many of us actually don't believe that the hand of God is on something because it hurts us a little bit?

Right?

That we actually look at the favor of God or we look at the hand of God and we go, if it actually looks like suffering or it looks like inconvenience or it looks like pain, that can't be the hand of God, because the hand of God only looks like blessing and ease and comfort.

And Paul goes, no, no, no, no.

There's a wide door for effective ministry, and it hurts and it's hard, and there's a lot of opposition, but it's a wide open door for effective ministry.

I know it's from the Lord.

Because what is Paul saying?

Paul's saying, I got people who are hungry, and we got people who are lost, and that's a wide open door for effective ministry.

1 Corinthians 16, it's a beautiful passage where Paul's writing to another church about what he's doing.

And so this is this is this church.

This is the people.

And so what people actually believe about this letter is that what you'll notice is in Paul's other letters, he writes with a ton of intimacy in his language.

So when he writes to the Philippians, he writes as if he's writing to specific people.

A lot of times he'll actually name specific people.

He does this in his letter to the Romans, he does this in his letter to the church in Corinth.

He actually speaks to very specific situations at the church in Corinth.

He doesn't do this in the letter to the Ephesians, even though it seems like he spent a lot of time there and knew people very intimately.

So that would lead you to go, okay, why is Paul maybe writing differently in this letter than he does to the other ones?

Where the belief is that this letter is actually a circular letter that Paul, that Paul writes and sends on the journey through the ministry that was multiplying from the churches that were around the city.

And so it's not just going to the Ephesian church, it's going to all the churches that were planted out of the Ephesian church.

And so he doesn't know all the people all the people that he's writing to, but he's trying to get them the same theme of going, if this can be who you are, if you can live this kind of life, if you can lead this kind of church, there's no limitations for what God can do.

And he's trying to send this around to all the different churches.

So Paul was highly strategic when it came to cities like this, as you can tell.

And this is the background of Paul's letter.

And you need to feel that as he's writing.

Like my goal is that as you read it, you remember this passion that Paul is writing this letter from prison to because he's passionate about the message of this letter and to the people that he's writing it to.

He's not writing it to you and me.

It's for our benefit, but you're not the audience.

The audience is people that Paul had loved, planted, given his life for, had come to faith as a result of the fruit of his ministry.

And he's trying to say, I need you to see Jesus and live this kind of life.

And so feel that emotion as you read it.

This is a historical man walking through a historical situation, writing to a historical group of people.

Twelve disciples that helped spark a disciple making and multiplying movement became the audience of this letter.

So we'll go back to Ephesians chapter 1, verses 1 through 2, and this is where we'll spend kind of the remainder of our last few minutes, is breaking down Paul's opening to the letter.

Ephesians 1:1–2

Now you may look at that and you go, Wow, man, a lot of meat to chew on there.

But there is.

Let me show it to you.

So first and foremost, one of the one of the beautiful things that Paul does is, and I hope you know this when it comes to the kingdom of God, when it comes to the way Jesus moves, is that every name and every story matters a lot, right?

Every name and every story matters a lot.

So when Paul writes specific names, including himself, we need to pay attention to what he's writing and what it means.

We need to pay attention to the story that's represented there, because there's always a hidden message that's communicated as Paul writes this.

And so he writes and he says, he says, Hey, I'm Paul.

Start there.

Hey guys, I'm Paul.

If you don't know who Paul is, this is really important for you to know the story of Paul.

So Paul was originally a Pharisee who hated, hated the church and hated the way of Jesus and literally leveraged his life to try to destroy the church, to persecute the early church.

The first time we meet Paul, he goes by the name of Saul, the first time we meet him is in Acts when there's a martyrdom of a man named Stephen.

So Stephen was a Greek believer who had come to faith in Christ, preached a message, and he gets stoned by Jews while he's preaching this message.

And who is standing there at the stoning of Stephen?

But Saul, supporting it, cheering it on, helping organize it.

And the very next thing, kind of a moment that we that we encounter with Saul is he's on his way to somewhere else.

I believe it's Damascus, on the road to Damascus.

And Paul has an encounter with Jesus.

And Jesus begins to have some conflict with him about the way that he's treating his people.

He says, He says, Paul, why are you persecuting me?

Because did you know that persecuting Jesus' church means persecuting Jesus?

Persecuting those who are in Christ means persecuting Jesus.

Did you know anything that you endure through because of your faithfulness to Jesus, Jesus feels just as intimately as you do?

That'll bring you some peace whenever you suffer for the name of Jesus.

That Jesus goes, That hurt me just like I hurt you.

Persecuting you means persecuting me.

That's how that's how intimate he is with his people.

So he says, Paul, why are you persecuting me?

And Paul goes, Who are you, Lord?

He's like, I don't know who you are, but I know whoever this is is the Lord.

Jesus reveals himself to Paul.

Paul becomes a Christian and then takes the same vigor that he had against the church and begins to use it for the ministry of Jesus.

And so when Paul says this, he goes, he goes, he goes, Hey, I'm Paul.

You guys know my story.

I used to be, I used to be an enemy of Jesus, an enemy of the way.

I've taken life from people who follow Jesus, but now I'm an apostle.

Now I'm an apostle.

So Paul says, Paul, an apostle.

The word apostle literally means to be sent by the Lord.

And so Paul says, Yeah, the one who was once, who was once attacking the church, I've now been saved and sent by the Lord.

And the beauty of this is that you're sitting here and you have a story.

And you have you have details in your story that no one else knows because it brings you a ton of shame and it brings you a ton of condemnation.

I love the fact that Paul writes to the church in Rome and in Romans chapter 8, and he says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

And it's pinned by the guy who just who used to persecute the church and then became an apostle.

And so some of you are here and you don't, you haven't yet stepped into your senteness by the Lord because you have a story that brings you shame.

And Paul wants you to know that Paul, yeah, that Paul is an apostle by the will of God.

That you have been saved so that you can be sent and you need to get rid of shame and condemnation that's keeping you from being used by God in the lives of other people.

He says, I'm an apostle of Christ Jesus, the one that I used to be against.

I'm now I've now been sent by and sent for.

And he says, You know, you know why this happened?

He said, It's happened by the will of God.

Will literally means the desire of God.

He said, You know why I'm an apostle?

Because desired to save, God desired to save me and make me one.

If you've encountered the Lord Jesus and you've been saved and transformed, you know why you've been saved and transformed?

Because God wanted to save you.

Do you know the scriptures are clear?

That He desires you.

He desires that all would come to a knowledge of the truth and respond to Jesus.

He desires.

He desires.

God has desire, and this is his desire.

He said that God made me an apostle because it was his desire to make me an apostle.

It was his desire knowing my story to save me and send me.

God saved you knowing full well who you were and what you had done.

Jesus wants you and desires you and is coming after you knowing full well who you are and what you've done.

He is coming after you, desiring to save you and redeem you, knowing full well the people that you've hurt, the ones that you've taken advantage of.

He's coming after you knowing full well every word you've ever said, every thought you've ever thought, every action you've ever acted.

He knows you.

That's what makes grace so good, is because God isn't ignorant.

It's because he knows you that makes grace revelatory because he still chooses to give himself to you and save you.

Knowing you.

Knowing Paul.

And he does this because it's his will, it's his desire to do it.

And then who is Paul writing to?

He says, to the saints.

To the saints.

We don't really use this word a whole lot.

When we think about it, we usually think in the like in the Catholic tradition, we think about important people who have existed.

And we say, like, oh, saints, that's like, those are people who are like here.

Like they've done something, and then at the end of their life, they get rewarded or recognized as a saint because of all the great things that they did.

And Paul goes, No, no, no, no.

When Paul, when Paul uses this word, he uses this word for everybody.

He writes to the church in Corinth and he calls them saints.

And I don't know if you've ever read 1st and 2nd Corinthians, not a there's some there's some unsaintly activity happening in those churches.

He's like to the saints, and then tell that dude that he needs to break up with his stepmom.

And you're like, what?

What?

What is going on, Corinth?

Okay, wild.

And and then so Paul writes this.

You just we just broke down Acts 19, all the people that all the people that Paul engaged with, right?

So so we heard that that Paul made some disciples who were John the Baptist.

He goes, Oh, those guys are pretty great.

Then you then you read that there's that there's Jews who are opposing the way of Jesus.

Then you then you read that there's Greeks who are worshiping an idol, then silversmiths who want to destroy the ministry that that is going through Paul.

And don't you imagine that the rev the revival of Jesus probably led to some transformation in these people's lives?

And so Paul is writing to these people just after addressing his own story, saying, Hey, and saints, I know you got stories too.

The word saints literally means holy ones.

Can you for those of you, for those of you who maybe have some stories, like for me, I got some ratchet in my background.

And and so you now you follow Jesus, right?

And the temptation for a lot of us is that we go, okay, I used to be this way, now I'm this way, so now I've got to act this way, and I've kind of got to gotta push away from my from my past and ignore that it's there and cut myself off from it so that I now can act this way, and hopefully people don't ever know that this is a reality.

And what that does is it destroys the power of the gospel.

Because what Jesus wants us to be able to do is for him to be able to say, I paid for that so much so that I redeemed it, so that you can now look at it and now use that as a weapon against the enemy who once caused that.

Because that's what redemption does.

And so he's saying, Hey, saints, the holy ones who have been purchased and set apart by Jesus and for Jesus.

And you imagine there's people probably reading this going, like, I don't feel like a saint right now.

He's going, doesn't matter what you feel like, it's what Christ has made you.

Christ has made you something in him.

I don't know if you believe it or not right now.

You might not feel it right now, but if you are in Christ, it's the reality of what he has done.

Whether you feel it or not.

And some of us need to preach our hearts towards feeling.

Stop waiting for feeling in order to believe, but preach belief until we feel.

And he says, You're holy.

You are the set apart people of Jesus.

He has saved you to set you apart, not set you aside, right?

And he's saying, I set you apart.

I'm not setting you aside, I've set you apart for the sake of myself.

And he says, You're the saints.

And then he calls them faithful.

He says, You're the saints, and you're the holy one set apart by Jesus, and you're faithful in Christ Jesus.

I remember one time I in college, I was maybe 19 at the time.

And I was in a season of my life where I was I was straddling the fence with Jesus because I knew that Jesus had a calling on my life, and I knew that it was gonna require great cost and sacrifice.

And I wasn't sure I wanted to pay that cost or sacrifice.

And so I was in this moment where I was going, okay, I'm and I'm I'm just the type of person, I'm 100 miles per hour in the sense of like, I don't, I don't really like to halfway do anything.

And so I was always one of those where I'm like, I'm either gonna be like all the way in on Jesus, like willing to go wherever and do whatever, or I'm gonna be like all the way in on the world and I'm gonna try to get whatever I can out of this.

And I was in this season of straddling the fence on this.

Maybe some of you are here right now, and you're going, how can I get some of this and how can I get a lot of this at the same time?

And I had just, I had just made a series of awful decisions.

And and I'm meeting with a guy who is who is discipling me and pouring into my life at that time.

And we're going to lunch and we're sitting in the car after lunch, and I'm getting ready to just confess to him what the past few weeks have looked like in my life.

And what I I've already written a narrative in my head of how this is gonna go.

I'm gonna say this to him.

He's gonna, he's gonna reject me and kind of push me away and tell me basically that God's done with me.

And I'm gonna go over here and I'm just gonna go all out in the world.

That's the that's what I thought was gonna happen.

And so I begin to look at him, I say, I say, hey man, Nick, I need to tell you kind of what the past few weeks of my life has looked like.

And I begin to tell him just thing after thing after thing of everything that I've done until I'm in tears and I'm just like, so yeah, I think I think God's kind of done with me, and I'm gonna go do something else, right?

That calling's kind of done.

This man looks at me, I still remember it, places his hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eyes, and he goes, He goes, God's gonna look, God's gonna use you to lead hundreds of people to Jesus.

I was like now Nick was hyperbolic, but you know, we'll believe it in the name of Jesus.

Lord, let it be.

But man, I go, I go, man, did you just hear me?

And he goes, Hey, Blake, God's gonna use you to lead hundreds of people to Jesus.

I said, But man, I go, I go through it again.

But here's what I did, here's this, this and this.

Did you not hear me?

He goes, Hey man, God's gonna use you to lead hundreds of people to Jesus.

And you know what happened?

He started saying it enough that I began to believe it.

That's what Paul's doing right here.

He's saying, hey, holy one set apart, faithful in Christ Jesus.

And they're going, man, Paul, I don't know.

You haven't seen it.

He's going, no, no, holy one set apart, faithful in Christ Jesus.

Paul, I don't know.

You don't know what I did last night, you don't know what I've been doing.

Hey, holy one set apart, faithful in Christ Jesus.

And they begin to go, oh my gosh, my holy one, set apart, faithful in Christ Jesus.

He begins to say it and say it and say it.

And they begin to go, oh my gosh, I think Jesus has done so.

I think he set up, I think he set me apart, I think he saved me.

I think, I think I do have faith in Jesus.

I think this is who I am, and this is what I'm called to.

And you can begin to feel that faith build up in them as he says, I'm Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, sent by the will of God and your saints, faithful in Christ Jesus.

That's who we are.

And the last thing he says, he says, This is what I want you to know before we get into all this stuff.

Grace to you.

And peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

This word, this idea of grace, what Paul is saying, is he going, he's going, he's going, man, I want you to know God's grace to you.

He's saying, He's saying, Hey, man, God's kind to you.

You know what God's heart is for you?

It's kind.

The kindness of God is extended to you.

This is what Paul's trying to say.

He's like, grace.

He's like, this is what Jesus, this is what God is doing for you out of his kindness.

He's saying, this is God's heart towards you.

Because so many of us know that the reason we do stupid things built out of a distrust and a doubt is what?

Is why?

Because we doubt the heart of God for us.

If you go back to the garden, what is what is Eve's rebellion rooted in?

He's not going to take care of me.

The enemy says he's holding out on you, he's not going to take care of you.

And that distrust in God's heart is what leads her to rebellion.

And what Paul wants us to know is he's going, look, look, look, God's kind.

He's kind to you.

This is God's heart for you, is its kindness.

His kindness is extended to you.

This is the work of grace through God's initiative, motivated by his love.

This is his posture towards you.

Why did Christ come?

In order to make God love you?

No, Christ came because God already loved you.

For God so loved the world that he gave.

It wasn't that God couldn't stand you, hated you, was against you, but he sent Christ to die for you, and now because Christ died for you, he's got to love you.

That's not the story of the good news.

The story of the good news is I so desire these people, but their sinfulness is blocking our intimacy.

And so, and so, Jesus, I need you to go to redeem them, to save them, to bring them back into intimacy with me, so that I can pour my spirit into them and make them who they were meant to be.

Because that's God's heart for you.

And Paul writing to the Romans later on, he says, He says, if he who did not withhold his only son, how much more will he not give us all thanks?

He's like, Man, if he's not gonna withhold his son from you, why do you think he wants to take good things from you?

Why do you think his heart isn't to give to you?

Don't you see what he's already done?

Why does he do it?

Peace.

That's what he's saying.

Grace and peace.

Grace is God's kindness, peace is God's work.

What does he mean by peace?

Peace means wholeness, healing, restoration, and it's rooted in a reconciliation with God and a reconciliation with each other.

This is the book of Ephesians.

He's saying is God's kindness to you that produces a wholeness rooted in a reconciliation with God, a reconciliation with yourself, and a reconciliation with the world around you, with the people around you, starting first here, among your brothers and sisters in Christ.

And he's saying, out of that reconciliation with God flows impact to every other area of your heart and life, bringing you back to wholeness and reconciliation, redemption, restoration.

This is God's agenda and purpose and initiative.

It's the work that He's doing, and He's doing it in and through Christ.

He's saying, This is what I'm doing through Christ.

And then here's the beauty of it the purpose of Ephesians is this is what God is doing through Christ, and this is what Christ longs to do through you.

So here's what he wants you to see that God is making.

Things whole, bringing peace, making things whole through his kindness.

And he's doing this through Jesus Christ.

That's what he wants.

What does Paul write to the Romans write to the Romans?

It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

What is repentance?

Turning away from ourselves, turning away from our sin, turning away from other things that have enslaved our hearts, other idols in order to turn to Christ, to surrender to him and make him the center of all things.

But that response is rooted in what?

An encounter with kindness.

An encounter with mercy.

Who's going to surrender to a God that they don't believe is going to be good to them?

He said, No, no, no.

He has not withheld his son.

He's not going to withhold from you.

You need an encounter with mercy, an encounter with kindness that's going to lead you to repentance, that's going to produce a newness of life in you.

That's going to produce transformation through you.

This is the work of God.

In Ephesians chapter 2, he says that God made us alive with Christ and raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenly places with Christ.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Did you know that if you're in Christ, you're already seated in heavenly places?

And he says he did this in order, or so that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

God made us alive with Christ and raised us up with Christ and seated us in the heavenly places.

God gave us mercy.

God gave us grace in order that in the coming ages he might show more grace.

Expressed how?

Through his kindness.

This is the heart of God for you.

And so as we prepare to respond, that the calling is really simple today.

Is that there are some of you today that you are not yet in Christ for whatever reason.

You haven't responded to him, you haven't surrendered to him.

Maybe not unlike maybe what some of the Ephesians were struggling with, or maybe what Paul had struggled with at some point himself, is that there's a disqualification that you've kind of proclaimed over you and embraced as an identity for you that is keeping you from responding to Jesus.

And you need to stop trusting your word over the word of God.

You need to stop trusting the word of the enemy over your life more than the word of God over your life.

And you need to respond to the good news of Jesus because he wants to make you a saint.

He wants to set you apart, call you faithful.

Wants to give you a new name, a new identity, a new life, new spirit, new calling, new purpose, new mission.

But it starts with you responding to him, surrendering to him, making him the center, being united to him through faith.

So that everything that's true of him can become true of you and you can get a share in his inheritance.

I think some of you're in Christ.

But you you need Jesus to speak a better word over you today.

You need the Holy Spirit to be what Nick Brandt was to me in a moment.

To say, remember who you are.

Stop running away and remember who you are.

Stop straddling the fence and remember who you are.

Remember what Christ has done, remember what he's made you, remember what's now true about you.

And then I think there's others of you, you need repentance.

Like you need to turn your life in a new direction.

But the only way you're gonna do that is through an encounter with the kindness of God.

And so you need the gospel to remind you how good God is and what's available to you so that you can then surrender to him and turn from whatever you've been enslaved to or enslaved by.

So as we respond, our prayer team is gonna be available.

We're gonna have a couple up here.

I'll kind of be back in the room.

Maybe somebody can be at another corner of the room.

And they're just gonna be available to you.

And what are they here for?

They're here to be an extension of the Lord for you.

We minister to one another.

And so if you need that better word spoken or prayed over you, have someone filled with the Spirit speak that better word and pray over you.

However, you need to respond to the Lord in this moment.

If you need to surrender to Him, surrender to Him.

Like some of you have been delaying this for so long, and it's just time to surrender.

And I'm talking about surrender.

Not value, not shift your priorities.

Surrender the Lordship of your life, the totality of your heart and life to Jesus and make him the center of everything.

That you may see and know.

Holy Spirit, we ask you to come in this place right now.

We ask you to move in our midst.

We ask you to move in every single heart in this room.

Every single person in this room needs something from you, Holy Spirit, and you know exactly what they need.

They need a word from you, we ask you to speak it.

They need a gift from you, we ask you to give it.

They need something from you, Holy Spirit.

Would you give it, not withhold?

Jesus, we need to see you that we may know you.

We need that, each and every single one of us, in a community in our community, so that we can see the vision of Jesus become a reality in our lives and in our city.

And Jesus