137. Beginner Bible Course: Paul's letter to the Ephesians

EPISODE 137:  Simple Bible overview:  PAUL’S LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

Paul is now in Rome, under house arrest, the waiting trial he's allowed to receive visitors daily and he makes the most of his time between visitors. He writes four letters, three to church's and one to an individual. We're going to look at that first letter, his letter to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians. It's a pretty amazing letter. I heard of one pastor who, other than Christmas and Easter and a few special other Sundays preached all the way through Ephesians verse by verse, it took them eight years. Seriously. How could somebody spend 400 Sundays giving sermons from these 165 verses?

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00:00:46

Well, you may have a partial answer to that. When I get done with this brief overview, when I was a kid, my Sunday school teacher folded her hands and said, this here's the church. Here's the steeple. Open the door and see all the people as she wiggled her fingers. I think they must teach first grade, Sunday school teachers that in teacher training, because most of my students smile knowingly. When I do this, apparently they had my Sunday school teacher to the theme of Ephesians is the church God's Wigley people. Paul writes this extraordinary letter to the church. He pastored for three years, that church in emphasis that church planting machine church in emphasis, Paul simply gets swept away, carried along by the Holy spirit.

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00:01:35

I imagined Paul dictating this in 15 minutes, hardly pausing to take a breath chapter one verses three through 14 is a single sentence. No kidding. If you ever take a course in Greek and your professor gives you an assignment to diagram Ephesians one, three through 14, I strongly suggest you drop the class or hide any sharp objects in your home. I mean, Paul is so excited. He can't even pause long enough to start a new sentence. He starts out listing what God's wiggly people. His saints in the church have as blessings from God.

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Listen to this list in God's eyes. His wiggly people are saints saints. Who've been given every spiritual blessing from God and our trajectory has been set that we might be Holy and blameless before him. We've been adopted as his sons, not out of necessity, but out of the motive of God's intense love for us. We've been bought back by the blood of Jesus, his twice. You might say, and that blood has brought us near to God as near as Jesus, that blood has forgiven all of our trespasses further. God has revealed his secrets to us.

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Wiggly people. Paul times uses the word mystery in Ephesians mystery. Isn't the who done it? It's the revelation of something we could never know if God didn't tell us. One of those things, God reveals through Paul in Ephesians is the Jews and Gentiles are. God's wiggly people together. If you've seen that, do that wiggly people thing with your hands right now, look at your fingers. That's Jews and Gentiles. All people indistinguishable mixed up in the body of Christ. The church, Paul further goes on to say, we have been given an incredible inheritance. God's very treasures. And speaking of treasures were his treasures trophies of the grace of God.

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Further. Paul tells us we've been sealed with the Holy spirit. The Holy spirit is an engagement ring given to us wiggly people. A promise that one day we will be fully with God in that intimate relationship. God intended. When he created us, we now have peace with God direct access to ABA, the father, and not only access. Paul tells us we've been seated with God in the heavenly places. Do you understand now why that preacher could take this phrase by phrase? Just the blessings we have when we go all in on Jesus as Messiah and Lord in our redeemed bought back by his blood it's.

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As if Paul is looking at this gym, this many faceted diamond, holding it up in the light, he's just swept away. If you've been to a jeweler lately, looking at diamonds, she or he probably put that diamond in front of a black background, the black background helps to set off the beauty of the diamond in a similar way. Paul reminds the Ephesians what was true before they went all in on Jesus as both Messiah and Lord P tells them we were dead in our trespasses and sins, spiritually dead. We were also carried along by the current of this world under the influence of Satan carried.

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Along by that current, our minds were captive to the world's less. And our flesh was soon swept away toward those very things. Because of this, we had set ourselves up as children to receive the wrath of God wrath, not against the children, but the sin in us separated from Christ. We were utterly without hope and without God, that's the black background dead in sin carried along by the world's currents, separated from God and headed for judgment. Paul tells the Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your hearts may be opened so that you might understand the hope of your calling is his wiggly people.

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And that you might see the riches of the wiggly saints around you and that all you wiggly people together might know the surpassing greatness of the power available to you as Christ church. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated him in the heavenly places beside the father. I imagine Paul dropping to his knees as Paul dictates. When I consider all these things, I bow my knee before the father that you might know the length and breadth and height of the love of God in Christ, Jesus, for who, for you, wiggly people, the church. Then Paul gives his benediction as if to close the letter.

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00:06:35

You've maybe heard it in one of those church services you've attended now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask, or even think according to his power, that his work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and ever. Amen. If you think the letters closing you're wrong, he's only halfway through after three chapters telling us all the riches we have in Christ and what we've been rescued from, he gives his, so what, how should us wiggly people live in light of what we've been rescued from and what we've been given let's live lives as God's trophies of grace worthy lives.

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00:07:19

And how do we do that? He starts by saying, play nice in the sandbox, be humble, patient United, even deferring to each other, build each other up. Paul returns to the spiritual gifts. He tells us to use those gifts that God, the artist has given to us to apply to our paint by number canvas, our local group of God's wiggly people. Paul also mentions that God gives gifted people to us, wiggly people, to help equip us and build us up. Paul, that urges us to start filling our minds with new thoughts. Our minds are like gyroscopes. Paul repeats the Ephesians.

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00:08:00

What he urged to the Romans, put off the old man and put on the new, put on Jesus. Paul then gets to the heart of the matter. We need help doing these things. Walking in a worthy manner requires supernatural power. Paula just prayed that they might know the surpassing greatness of Christ's power. That comes by a fullness of God's. Holy spirit. Paul commands them. Don't grieve the spirit, but be filled with the spirit. This is critical for God's wiggly people in my class. I pull my keys out of my pocket. I remind them of Jesus words. If you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father give the Holy spirit to those who ask?

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00:08:47

I tell the students, we need to ask God to fill us with his Holy spirit daily. Sometimes the day, then to give them a word picture of what being full of the Holy spirit might look like. I ask them to imagine that ring of keys represents all of the various compartments of their lives. I show them my car keys and my house key and a key for my fireproof safe box in my home. I tell them these represent my stuff, my finances, et cetera. Then I asked them to imagine a lock on some of the other compartments of my life, my future, my desires, my rights. I tell the students being filled with the spirit might be saying to God in the morning, here's all the keys to the compartments of my life.

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00:09:35

I want you to have full access to those and to control those today. As I walked through my day, of course, during the day I asked for some of those keys back, I want the retaliation key back. I want to really let somebody have it with my words or possibly send an email it's here. Paul would say, be continually being filled with the spirit. Let God keep that key to my mouth or to my fingers on the keyboard. Paul goes on to list a few other ways. We can walk in a worthy manner with the Holy spirit, holding the keys to the various compartments of our lives. He asks us to guard our words carefully.

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00:10:16

Paul urges us to make the most of each day not working like slaves are being driven by God hard. God wants us to play as well, but to have a plan and not just fritter away, the precious gift of our days on this planet, Paul moves on to a critical function of God's wiggly people in the church learning to submit to one another. Where else on our planet are you going to learn to set aside your comforts and preferences for the greater good of others? If not in this group of wiggly people, I think being able to submit to one another in love is one of the most God honoring characteristics of God's wiggly people.

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00:10:58

And one of the greatest proofs of the presence of the Holy spirit in our lives no longer being the center of the universe takes divine invasion. Paul explains how this looks. He talks about how this submitting to one another in love looks in a marriage, a man who puts his wife's needs before his own body who treats her as his highest human priority and greatest human joy who lays down his life for her as Christ laid his life down for the church and a wife who respects her husband, who doesn't have to control every situation or be in charge of everything.

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00:11:39

Paul then reveals marriage is another one of God's mysteries. It's the greatest snapshot of Jesus' relationship with the wiggly people, the church. Did you catch that marriage between two spirit filled believers loving one, another respecting one another in a submitted relationship is the greatest illustration of Jesus and the church. Wow. Married, wiggly people let's take care of that snapshot and live it out. Well. Paul moves on to the relationship of children and parents, children honoring their parents and parents not exasperating their children, living vicariously through them, setting the bar too high.

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00:12:24

Paul then speaks to employers and employee is a spirit filled workplace. As it were employees working hard as if the boss was Jesus and employers leading well as if Jesus was their employee. Paul ends with an illustration of what it means to walk in a worthy manner, filled with the spirit. He may have been looking at one of the Praetorian guards who was guarding him in house arrest. Paul talks about the armor of God. What's on our feet, the breast plate. We have the helmet, the sword and the shield. You can dissect what Paul says about each piece. It's pretty cool.

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00:13:04

And practical. The letter to the Ephesians, it's worth 400 sermons. It's worth memorizing, large portions of it. Here's one short section. You should definitely memorize. It's a Fijian two eight through ten four. It is by grace. We have been saved through faith and that not of ourselves. It is a gift of God. Not as a result of works, lest we should boast about it for we wiggly people are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

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00:13:44

The church is not a building or even the steeple that it sits under. It's the wiggly people inside the wiggly people. God dearly loves. Paul is going to write another letter to wiggly people, his most joyful letter. And we'll look at that letter to the Philippians in our next wordpicture.