Sunday Sermon: Introduction to Ephesians (Ephesians 1:1-2)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:14

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

00:25

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

00:31

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

00:38

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians. Here's Pastor Gabe.

00:45

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

00:59

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the

01:07

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

01:29

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

01:48

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

02:20

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

02:40

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

02:50

Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

03:00

Let us pray. Our God, we come before you once again as we open up these scriptures and hear your word spoken to us.

03:10

And I pray that your Holy Spirit has opened our hearts to receive what it is that we have just read, and furthermore has driven in us a desire to want to know more, that we would not just hear the word of God proclaimed, but have it explained to us as well, so that we would know all the more deeply how great is the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.

03:35

Be with us as we embark upon this study, and may we find ourselves stronger, more mature

03:41

Christians on the other side of it, as we desire to be any time we open your word.

03:47

May we even continue as brothers and sisters in the Lord to encourage one another and build each other up in the faith.

03:55

And we pray these things in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, amen. You may be seated. Can you remember what it was like when you first believed the gospel?

04:13

Maybe it was the moment you first heard the gospel. Maybe as you sat there and you listened to the preacher, or the evangelist, or your friend, you realized that you were a wretched sinner, and you were doomed for destruction.

04:31

But God was merciful towards you, in that while you were a clueless, perishing sinner,

04:39

He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for you. That's the way it was for my dad.

04:50

When he first heard the gospel, he believed it as he heard it. He had been set up on a blind date

04:56

New Year's Eve, and this woman that he was set up with suggested that they go to a

05:01

Christian crusade at the stadium. As he sat there and listened to the evangelist, though he had grown up in a

05:07

Lutheran household, his ears opened up to really hear the gospel for the very first time.

05:13

He became aware of his sin and his need for a Savior, and he gave his life to Christ that night and hasn't looked back ever since, not even for a moment.

05:26

For me, my journey to Christ, with Christ, has been much different.

05:32

I gave my life to Him at a very young age, and though I understood the concept of sin, and that all had sinned,

05:40

I don't know that I was really truly aware of my own. I spent a great deal of my life speaking the

05:46

Christian language and even working in the ministry, but I squandered a lot of time on myself that I could have been spending growing in my faith and getting to know the

05:55

Lord. I took grace for granted. I sinned when

06:01

I knew it was wrong, believing God would just forgive me for whatever it was that I had done.

06:08

But it wasn't grace that allowed me to sin. It was grace that kept me from perishing in those moments that I most deserved it.

06:20

The gospel that I'd heard when I was young finally came alive to me when I looked in the mirror of God's Word and I saw a dead man.

06:31

Ephesians 2 .4 says, But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which

06:37

He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

06:45

By grace, you have been saved. The book of Ephesians is all about the wonder of the gospel.

06:55

Now of course, every single book of the Bible points to the gospel, even in the Old Testament. But I believe that there's a certain astonishment more greatly expressed in Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus than in any of his other letters.

07:12

A beholding of the love of Christ, if you will, as he says in chapter 3 verse 18, so broad and vast and high and deep that it surpasses knowledge.

07:27

And this is language to describe the love of Christ he uses only in Ephesians and doesn't use anywhere else.

07:37

The 4th century theologian Jerome, you might know him as Saint Jerome, called

07:43

Ephesians like the heart in the midst of the body. Late New Testament scholar

07:49

C .H. Dodd called Ephesians the crown of Paul's writings.

07:55

And Paul was not merely writing a diary or musing to himself. He's teaching here.

08:02

And it's not just any church that he's teaching. Of what we have detailed for us in Scripture, the church in Ephesus appears to be the church that the apostle

08:11

Paul most closely endeared himself to. He wanted to make the gospel big for his friends.

08:21

In this letter, he speaks of creation, election, adoption, redemption, salvation, revelation, predestination, justification, reconciliation, maturation, foundation, regeneration, imitation, administration, supplication, ordination, sanctification, glorification, all of the ations, they are right here in Ephesians.

08:55

From now until December, we will study Paul's letter to the Ephesians. As for today, we're going to consider some of the basics of this letter, like the date, the author, the recipients.

09:08

We will consider the church of Ephesus itself and the reason for writing to them.

09:14

And lastly, we will go over a basic outline, what we can expect as we go through this letter over the next few months.

09:21

Most of all, I hope that you get, out of our 22 -week study, a reignited wonder for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

09:34

The author of the letter is identified right from the first word. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.

09:44

This is one letter where there is very little controversy regarding authorship.

09:50

Even though Paul identifies himself as the author in all of his letters, some pernicious skeptics want to contest just about everything.

09:57

But regarding Ephesians, scholarship is nearly unanimous in agreeing that this was written by the apostle

10:04

Paul. Obviously, he is writing to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

10:12

We've gone through 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians, which were very rebuking letters, but Ephesians is going to be a very praising letter because he is writing to those who are faithful in Christ Jesus.

10:26

Ephesians is the first of a series of letters that are referred to as the prison letters or the prison epistles, which

10:34

Paul wrote while he was in his first imprisonment in Rome. We know this because he says in Ephesians 3, 1,

10:41

I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles. And in Ephesians 4, 1,

10:48

I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord. Toward the end of the letter, he says,

10:53

I am an ambassador in chains. So that would put the writing of this letter at approximately 62

11:01

AD. There are four prison letters. Ephesians is the first in canon.

11:07

Then there's Philippians, Colossians, and the odd man out, Philemon. In fact,

11:14

Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon were all written and delivered at almost the exact same time with two men in Paul's service who hand carried these letters to the churches that they were written to,

11:27

Tychicus and Onesimus. Tychicus was an interim preacher Paul often sent to fill the pulpit in a church for a short period of time.

11:36

Onesimus was a slave of Philemon who likely hosted the church of Colossae in his own home.

11:42

Philemon hosted the church. Onesimus had stolen from his master and run away from him, fearing the death penalty.

11:50

In the Roman Empire, it was permissible for a master to put his slave to death if he was guilty of theft.

11:59

It just so happened by the providence of God that Onesimus encountered the apostle Paul in Rome who led

12:07

Onesimus to the Lord. Paul had also shared the gospel with Philemon and led him to Christ.

12:13

So when Paul wrote the letters to the churches in Ephesus and Colossae, he sent Onesimus back to Philemon to give

12:22

Philemon an opportunity to forgive Onesimus and to receive him back not as a slave, but as a brother in the

12:32

Lord. When Tychicus and Onesimus left Paul in Rome, they would have crossed the

12:38

Mediterranean Sea to the Greek capital of Athens and then from there crossed the

12:44

Aegean Sea to Asia Minor, which is modern -day Turkey, landing at the port city of Ephesus.

12:53

So Paul had them stop off and deliver a letter to his beloved Ephesians before they then made the hundred -mile trip inland to Colossae.

13:02

So we've considered the author and the date of this letter. Who were the Ephesians? Well, we know more from the

13:10

Bible about the church in Ephesus than we know about even

13:16

Rome or Athens. Turn with me, if you will, to Acts chapter 18.

13:22

I'm going to start reading in verse 19 here. Acts chapter 18, and I'll start in verse 19.

13:31

We're going to read through into chapter 19. Acts chapter 18, starting in verse 19.

13:38

And they came to Ephesus, and he left them there. But he himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the

13:45

Jews. When they asked him to stay for a longer period, he declined. But taking leave of them, he said,

13:52

I will return to you if God wills. And he set sail from Ephesus. When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.

14:02

After spending some time there, he departed and went from one place to the next through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

14:12

So that's what Paul did. What was going on in Ephesus while Paul was doing that?

14:19

The missionary work that he started there was still being done. Look at verse 24. Now a

14:25

Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.

14:32

He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the

14:41

Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.

14:53

He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Achilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

15:03

And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

15:10

When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed.

15:17

Notice again that in verse 27, through grace they had believed.

15:23

If you have a pen, that would be an important portion to underline there. And it's not only an important theological point in the book of Acts, it's relevant to our study in Ephesians also.

15:35

One of the most beloved passages in Ephesians, you've heard me quote many times, it's the signature on Dave's emails whenever he emails you back.

15:45

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, by grace through faith.

15:59

We come to faith and we come to believe because of the grace of God.

16:06

You do not manifest your faith. Nowhere in the Bible does it give any indication that you have caused yourself to believe.

16:19

God gives you belief. You come to believe because you heard the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to you.

16:28

And the Holy Spirit of God conditioned your heart to believe what it was that you heard.

16:36

It's the difference between you and the person next to you who did not believe. Your heart was softened by the regenerating power of the

16:44

Holy Spirit while theirs remained hardened against God. That theological principle is even mentioned here in a very mitigated form.

16:55

Here in Acts chapter 19, But the Spirit of God had grace upon Apollos, a very gifted and learned preacher, but he didn't know the whole truth.

17:06

God sent to him Priscilla and Achilla to explain things more clearly to him.

17:15

And then he went and was a blessing to others who by grace believed in the

17:23

Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 28, For he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the

17:31

Christ, the Messiah, was Jesus. Now let's look at chapter 19.

17:38

We stay in Ephesus. Apollos has left and we catch up with Paul who enters back into the story.

17:47

And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

17:54

There he found some disciples. And he said to them, Did you receive the

18:00

Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, No, we've not even heard that there is a

18:06

Holy Spirit. And he said, Into what then were you baptized? They said,

18:13

Into John's baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, and that is

18:28

Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the

18:34

Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

18:44

There were about 12 men in all. Now, I don't want to spend too much time explaining this particular section so that we may finish up what

18:54

I do want to focus on in this sermon. But this gives us a little more detail into what it was

18:59

Apollos believed and Priscilla and Aquila had to explain to him. Some scholars have argued that Apollos was saved.

19:07

He just didn't have a robust understanding of the gospel. But what the husband and wife duo of Priscilla and Aquila did was they expanded his doctrine so that he might become a more affluent teacher.

19:22

That's what some scholars will argue had happened in this particular instance. But it says in Acts 18 .25

19:30

that though he was competent in the scriptures, he knew only of the baptism of John.

19:37

That's exactly the case of these men that Paul encountered here in chapter 19. They said, we didn't even know there was a

19:44

Holy Spirit, and we only knew of John's baptism. Acts 18 .28

19:49

leads us to believe that Apollos had not been teaching that Jesus was the

19:55

Christ until Priscilla and Aquila essentially shared the gospel with him. So these men also did not know that Jesus was the

20:04

Christ. They had not yet heard the gospel. So were they Christians?

20:11

No. No, they weren't. Even Apollos was not a believer until Priscilla and Aquila explained to him what it was

20:23

John was talking about, and it was in reference to Jesus being the

20:29

Christ, being the Messiah. In Matthew 28 .19,

20:35

Jesus told his disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

20:43

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that Christ had commanded them.

20:54

That had not yet been done for Apollos, and it had not yet been done for these men whom Paul encountered in chapter 19.

21:01

So upon hearing the gospel for the first time that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, who had died, was buried, and risen again, through grace they believed and were baptized.

21:14

Now, what we read about next is that they began speaking in tongues, right? They heard

21:22

Paul preach the gospel. They were baptized. They spoke in tongues. Now, their speaking in tongues is not proof that they were saved.

21:32

There are some Pentecostal churches, even here in our own community, one in particular probably comes to your mind.

21:40

They teach heresy. That you must speak in tongues in order to prove that you have received the

21:48

Holy Spirit. Well, if what they have to say is true, my brothers and sisters, your pastor is not a

21:54

Christian because I have never spoken in tongues. And by the way, neither are you.

22:00

You have never spoken in tongues either. One of the proof texts that they will use to try to make their case is this one here in Acts chapter 19.

22:12

But notice that it says Paul preached the gospel to them, and in verse 5, they were baptized in the name of the

22:19

Lord Jesus. These men were saved when they heard the gospel and they believed it.

22:26

They received the Holy Spirit then. And then after that, they were baptized to demonstrate the inward change that had taken place.

22:35

But they had already received the Holy Spirit. This is the same thing for you and for me.

22:41

We heard the gospel of God preached, we believed it, and it was then you had the

22:49

Holy Spirit of God. Not after when you were baptized, and certainly not when you wagged your tongue all over the place and pretended you were speaking in tongues.

23:00

It was when you came to faith and believed. So if they had already received the

23:08

Holy Spirit then, when they heard the gospel and believed it, why does it then say the

23:15

Holy Spirit came upon them? Because as it says in Hebrews 2, 4, in addition to the preaching of the gospel,

23:25

God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the

23:32

Holy Spirit distributed according to His will. After Paul preached to them and baptized them, and only after that, he laid hands on them and the

23:47

Holy Spirit came upon them in such a way that they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.

23:53

It's not as though the Holy Spirit came to them for the first time. He came to them when they heard the gospel and believed it.

24:00

But now, having heard it and been baptized, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, lays hands upon them and they receive the

24:11

Holy Spirit in another way, to speak tongues and prophesy. Why is that relevant?

24:16

Because Paul had just recruited them into the mission field where they were going to be going about Ephesus and the surrounding region, preaching the gospel in every language that was represented there.

24:29

Ephesus was a port city, so there were all kinds of nationalities that were represented in Ephesus, speaking all different kinds of languages.

24:39

And these men would speak every represented language that was there so that people in various languages could hear the gospel and believe it.

24:48

Speaking in tongues is not and never has been proof that a person is saved.

24:55

It is not and never has been some gift that we can conjure up willy -nilly and use when we are in our prayer closet.

25:04

Costi Hinn is someone that I've mentioned to you before. He's the nephew of prosperity preacher Benny Hinn. Just a few years ago,

25:12

Costi came to believe the true gospel for the first time, though he had grown up hearing the prosperity gospel, which is really no gospel at all.

25:21

It was because he heard the gospel and believed it that he was rescued out of the prosperity theology movement, became a

25:29

Christian, and just this year became a pastor at a church in Arizona. This Tuesday, he releases a brand new book called

25:37

God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel. In this book, Costi says the following about speaking in tongues, and if there's anybody who knows the tricks of the

25:47

Pentecostal movement, it's Costi Hinn. Costi said this, while the

25:52

Bible describes the gift of tongues as the supernatural ability to speak in a real foreign language, we were taught, speaking of himself, that it was the ability to speak ecstatic utterances that made no sense on earth but were somehow understood in heaven.

26:14

The supernatural gift that these Ephesian men received was not what Pentecostal churches are practicing across the country today on Sunday morning.

26:25

They received the ability to speak in earthly foreign languages. The fact that there were 12 of these men, as detailed here in Acts 19, just like there were 12 men at Pentecost speaking in tongues is no coincidence.

26:40

They were going to go with the apostle Paul preaching the gospel in languages that people understood.

26:45

Paul laid his hands on them that they may receive this gifting. They had no more

26:51

Holy Spirit than you or I have right now by faith. It was for a particular purpose that they spoke in tongues.

27:02

Let's continue on here in Acts 19 to verse 8. And he entered the synagogue, and for three months he spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

27:15

But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, we've seen this with the apostle

27:20

Paul before, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

27:31

This was a very public place where the philosophers were known to go and teach. And so there were people there who had ears to hear.

27:38

They wanted to hear what it was that anybody stood up and talked about. So Paul went there preaching the gospel.

27:45

This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both

27:50

Jews and Greeks. Verse 11. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.

28:07

That's only because he was an apostle. Don't fall for any televangelist who said that they just wiped their sweat on this cloth and now they'll drop it into an envelope for you if you would just send a donation of this amount.

28:17

Don't believe it. What you will get is a dirty rag. That's it. So continuing on.

28:26

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the

28:32

Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the name of Jesus whom

28:41

Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.

28:47

But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

28:58

And then the evil spirit did some demon jujitsu on them. I'm translating that from the

29:04

Greek here. Demon jujitsu. Mastered all of them and overpowered them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

29:14

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all.

29:22

And the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled, was highly praised, was feared and regarded and revered.

29:35

Going on. Also, many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices.

29:44

And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

29:50

And they counted the value of them and found that it came to 50 ,000 pieces of silver.

29:58

Some of you may have a translation that says 50 ,000 drachmas. That's 50 ,000 days wages.

30:09

What became known to the Ephesians that day is that syncretism doesn't work.

30:20

Now, what do I mean by syncretism? It's the idea that you can cover your bases by having many faiths.

30:28

Surely one of them is bound to be right, right? But as Becky shared with our kids just a couple of weeks ago, as she's going through the

30:38

Ten Commandments with them right now, our God has said, you shall have no other gods before me.

30:44

We are to worship Christ and none other. Consider that even as we come to this table this morning, this table is about Christ.

30:54

And we bring no other faith in any other God or philosophy or manner in this world to this table.

31:02

It's Christ alone. He is not about to share his glory with anyone or anything.

31:10

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

31:21

Continuing on in Acts 19 verse 20. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

31:29

Skip down to verse 23. About that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

31:36

It's just another word used in the book of Acts for Christianity. That word, Christianity, appears in the book of Acts only one time.

31:44

But the way was commonly what the faith was referred to. For a man named

31:50

Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsman.

31:57

The most famous landmark of Ephesus was the Temple of Artemis, also known as the

32:04

Temple of Diana. One of the what, Annie? Seven wonders of the ancient world.

32:11

She'd been learning about this in school. Artemis was the great mother goddess, considered to be the greatest of all goddesses.

32:21

I'm sure you know this without me having to tell you, but she was a goddess of fertility, as they usually are.

32:27

And we know how fallen man just loves his sex idols. The Ephesians believed that Artemis was born in Ephesus, and she decided to make her home in the temple that the

32:40

Ephesians made for her. This silversmith, mentioned in verse 24, made shrines.

32:46

A shrine is a place that is regarded as holy because a deity dwells there.

32:53

So the silversmith was making a living by crafting replicas of the

32:59

Temple of Artemis. They weren't statues of Artemis herself, as is often thought.

33:05

Rather, they were small silver models of the Ephesians' most prided landmark.

33:13

The pagans believed that if they had one of these little shrines in their home, then a piece of Artemis dwelled there with them.

33:21

In verse 25, the silversmith gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.

33:34

And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this

33:39

Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

33:51

What do we do? And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the

34:00

Temple of the great goddess Artemis, oh, may be counted as nothing. And that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all

34:11

Asia and the world worship. Now, unlike man -made gods, the one true god will never be removed of his magnificence by anyone.

34:24

In our Sunday evening service, we've been going through the Psalms, and some 80 times in the

34:29

Psalms do we find prayers asking for deliverance. Psalm 6 -4, turn, oh

34:36

Lord, deliver my life, save me for the sake of your steadfast love.

34:44

If God could be deposed of his magnificence, he would not be able to deliver us from anything.

34:51

We would constantly be having to deliver him. And that's what these tradesmen thought that they were doing for their goddess.

34:59

They thought that they were saving their god. Our god doesn't need saving. Our god saves.

35:07

To make a longer story even shorter, this opposition to Christianity stirred up a riot in the theater there in Ephesus.

35:17

It was a great theater capable of seating over 20 ,000 people. You could see into the theater from the harbor and down the

35:26

Arcadian Way where the merchants used to line up and sell and trade. It was an incredible landmark.

35:34

And you can still walk the Arcadian Way into the stadium even today, there in the historic portion of Ephesus.

35:43

The theater filled to almost overflowing with an angry mob attempting to overpower the message of the

35:50

Christians by shouting over and over. And the louder they got, the more they thought they could silence these

35:57

Christians. What were they shouting? They were shouting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Great is

36:03

Artemis of the Ephesians. Our world today is not like that though, is it?

36:12

I spoke a moment ago about syncretism, which is a hodgepodge of religious beliefs wrapped up in a single lost heart.

36:23

It is not uncommon for you to find, even right here in Junction City, people who claim to believe in Jesus, sure.

36:30

But they also believe they're horoscope. They also believe a kind of Zen Buddhism.

36:38

And they even believe a liberal humanism that they keep separate from their religious beliefs that they only grab a hold of whenever it's convenient.

36:50

Like the shrines of Artemis. There are any number of gadgets or baubles that people believe they must possess in order to feel whole.

37:02

In order to feel blessed, I have to have this thing. But we don't find our worth in things.

37:11

We find our worth in Christ. As mentioned,

37:16

Ephesus had their sex idols, America has theirs. Ephesus had a mob mentality, so does our culture.

37:24

Ephesus needed the gospel, and so do we. We need it here in Junction City.

37:32

We need it in America and abroad. As we have read this morning in Ephesians 1 .13,

37:39

when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised

37:51

Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

38:06

Summarizing what we read next in Acts chapter 20, when Paul left the

38:12

Ephesians, he called the elders to him, reminding them with tears that he testified, of repentance toward God and of faith in our

38:23

Lord Jesus Christ. I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself, if only

38:31

I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

38:40

I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all of the flock.

38:50

He warned them that fierce wolves and false teachers would arise from among them, seeking to devour the flock of God.

38:56

He said in Acts 20, verse 32, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

39:10

A few years later, he would write this letter to the faithful who are in Christ Jesus at the church of Ephesus, reminding them again of the wonder of the gospel.

39:29

We must also recapture that wonder. We must recapture it so that we might be protected from false teaching, that we might preach with boldness to those who are perishing, that we might grow in unity and maturity with our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and perhaps most of all, that we would mature in our worship.

40:02

So we might aspire to raise unto God the praise that is due his name, and we grow in these things through the preaching of the gospel of Christ, which

40:17

Paul gives such wonderful, deep wording in this particular book that we have come in to study.

40:30

We've considered today this two -verse greeting, grace to you and peace from God our

40:35

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Next week, we will look at the extended portion of his introduction, which we have read this morning, as Paul expounds upon the blessings that we receive in Christ and all to the praise of his glory.

40:48

That's one of the things that we get just from Paul's greeting to the church in Ephesus. We not only see that God has been planning for the fullness of time something that he predestined from before the foundation of the world, we also see the reason why he has done it.

41:05

And it's said over and over again in just these first 14 verses, it is to the praise of his glory.

41:15

After his greeting, Paul offers a prayer of thanks for the Ephesians, which he does twice in this letter.

41:22

At the start of the second chapter, we read about our salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

41:29

Next, still in chapter two, Paul explains the unity and peace that we have with Christ, peace with God, and what that peace looks like even among believers.

41:39

At the start of chapter three, Paul explains the revelation of God's mystery, who is

41:45

Christ, and concludes this with his second prayer for the Ephesians. That they might know, you have this printed on the front of your bulletin, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ.

42:03

In the second half of the letter, we start delving more into the implications of the gospel.

42:08

What will the life of a professing Christian look like? Paul explains unity in the body, gifts of the

42:17

Spirit, and using those gifts to build up the church. In chapter five, the

42:22

Spirit gives an exhortation to sacrificial love and pursuing holiness.

42:28

He calls upon the church to submit to one another and focuses on the various economies, the different dynamics and relationships that we have in our everyday lives where we might submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

42:44

Finally, in chapter six, very famous chapter in Ephesians, where we are encouraged to put on the whole armor of God, to be strengthened in the

42:56

Lord by the power of His might, and to stand firm against the devil's schemes.

43:04

And be constant in prayer. Swayed by death, the

45:29

God of life, But no grace could ever restrain

45:36

Him. Praise the Lord, He is holy.

45:49

Wavering our hopes, How unwavering our hope.

46:12

Christ in power resurrected, As we will be when

46:21

He comes. Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

46:30

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

46:35

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, growing together in Christ when we understand the text.