Ephesians Bible Study Spring 2009
Welcome/Prayer
Short Bio
I'd like to thank God for the honor of sharing heart to heart with you some exciting things from His Word. His Word alone is the fountain of all good things I would have to offer you. Without it, I would come empty-handed. Actually, I wouldn't come at all! Sola Scriptura!
Introduction to Book of
Ephesians
The book of Ephesians is a warehouse of faith, hope and love. It's a treasury of God's great glory and plan for those in Christ His Beloved, and our grateful obedience offered to Him in humble response. It holds within its verses such soul-satisfying revelation of the majesty of God, the Trinity, that our human hearts cannot contain it. But we're encouraged to try, and to pray for a heart from God that can. I have loved portions of this book throughout the years, but now I value it so much more in it's entirety.
What do the leaders of our church say on it's behalf? Pastor Andy's favorite portion(he said it was hard to narrow it down) is found in Ephesians 2: 8-10. He says this leads us to a proper understanding of salvation by grace, for good works. It's Pastor Doug's favorite book of the Bible. He's been saving notes on the book for many years and loves teaching it, and loves the 'therefore' application Chapters 4-6, and I think it cuts way down on his counseling load. What Craig Bauer likes about it is that it serves as a practical guide to Christian living. Pastor Brent's testimony stole the show, with him attributing to it an overnight heart change regarding the greatness of God and His Holy Word and how he was to approach instructing God's people in it from that night forward! It literally sent him to seminary! Wow! I think we'er in for a real treat!
If it's a practical book, what might it cover? More than I can list here. Are you in the middle of an identity crisis? Are you feeling more like a chameleon rather than a Christian? Have you lost sight of the battlefield of souls? Are your relationships suffering? Is life on earth looking better than Heaven? Do you seem tempted beyond your ability to withstand it? We'll address these issues and so many more. I pray this workhorse of doctrinal truth and its practical application may empower you to follow Jesus with fresh vision and resolve, passionately pursuing living in a manner worthy of His calling. Let's take a leap of faith into this heavenly life in Christ on earth, which I think is such a paradox. Tozer thought so, too. He remarks,
"A real Christian is an odd number. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen; talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see; expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another; empties himself in order to be filled; admits he is wrong so he can be declared right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is weakest; richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels the worst. He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to have; gives away so he can keep; sees the invisible; hears the inaudible; and knows that which passes knowledge." -- A. W. Tozer
To possess heavenly citizenship; not one foot in heaven and one on earth. We are citizens of God's kingdom in Christ carrying out our mission of mercy here. We've been left behind! Pastor Andy says we're paratroopers of truth, dropped out of the sky into enemy territory. How is our mission accomplished? As we have been taught so well it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
First let's visit Ancient Ephesus.
Ephesus was a great city. Around the time of Paul's writing this letter, about 60 AD, it was a celebrated jewel in the crown of Asia Minor. As a prized port of the Mediterranean, it grew to be a bustling metropolis out-ranking all but three peer cities in population (300k). It's impressive features included a 24,000-seat stadium, the world's third largest library of its time, an impressive theater and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artemis(Diana). It was a hotbed for commerce, religious tolerance and extremes, sensual freedom and new thought,(sounds like many of our 'progressive' cities today!). Acts Chapter 19:13-41, gives us a great feel for this city in it's total chaos. Paul was part of turning it upside-down as "the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified, and many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds"(verse 18). Later, the city's marble arena bore the indelibly gruesome bloodstain of many Christian martyrs as they faced the lions of Ephesus, while spectators roared on with evil delight. Ancient reality shows at their Satanic best! Overall, we can safely draw the conclusion that the church faced horrible persecution and countless temptations in this city of mythological giants.
CHAPTER ONE
Who wrote the letter?-Author
Paul was the most unlikely convert of Christ, to the praise and glory of His grace. A fiercely devout Pharisee of Pharisees, he wreaked havoc for the early Christians, finding them and bringing them to trial and even death by consent. A blast of Divine light upon his dark path changed all of this while on his way to Damascus. With a new heart and a new name, he followed Christ doggedly to his death. As a seeing man who once was blind has glory to speak of, so did Paul and he did it beautifully! Notice that it's really all about God with Paul. All but one verse, and that one points to others about Christ, include mention of the glorious God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We see very little of this giant man of the faith in his speech or his letters. He appears on the scene ('", Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God", etc.) and then his visage fades as he bows before God in reverent introduction. Rarely did he linger on the subject of himself. He gets right to magnifying God in Christ, and God takes up the full frame. Then it's just God there, in glory and honor. "He must increase, but I must decrease", were John the Baptist's words regarding Jesus. Paul lived this way, as well.
To Whom is the letter written?
and possibly the entire body of Christ living in Asia Minor.
Paul first blesses them with
Grace~charis, would be a perfect greeting for the Gentile believers who were in the area.These were the 'once far off' group of Christians, who knew God's grace quite differently from their Jewish brothers and sisters. Peace~shalom, would be familiar and comforting to the Jewish saints. Together they form a complete, eternal blessing, for the ongoing, saving grace of God and His prevailing peace infusing every aspect of their lives, picturesque of the one whole man(Ephesians 2-4)the Father makes of the of Jew and Gentile believers in Christ Jesus.
Verses 3-14: These verses comprise the longest sentence in the Bible! It might earn you an 'F' in any modern English class, and I don't mean for fancy. But it gets an 'A' for Amen from the Almighty! This type of writing is difficult for me to understand, so I have divided it into more manageable sections.
Look for these foundations of faith within the chapter
-God the Trinity- all verses but 21
-Predestined in love for adoption through Christ-verse 5
-The Sovereign will of God-verses 1, 5, 9, 11,
-God's desire for His children is holiness and blamelessness- verse 4
-Personal belief in Christ according to the Gospel results in salvation- verse 13
-The supreme power of the Risen Christ-verses 19, 20, 21, 22,23
Let's break down this behemoth of blessing!
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
Most of us have attended funerals. What types of things are spoken of the deceased? Typically glowing, kind words colored with grace and respect. We speak well of or eulogize people at funerals. We place their remembrance high above what even seems humanly possible at times. But we are drawn to do so. Paul was constantly drawn to eulogize the living God's remembrance, character, grace, love, wisdom, power, you get the idea. He could not help himself.Time and time again, he would just mention His name, and off he would ascend to the highest heights of thanks and praise. Then he would refocus on the matters at hand. "Stop sinning-keep the faith-love one another'. This is blessing the Lord. Always ready to speak well of Him, in spontaneous praise, full of grateful remembrance, testimony and adoration. We, too, can bless the Lord in this way.
Who has
With what?
I think of blessings mainly in the context of the here and now, don't you? They may be defined as tangible benchmarks of the gracious hand of God, i.e. good health, financial provision, loving acquaintances and a general ease of life. Yet Paul here directs my eyes to arch up and away, further than I can comprehend, to the Heavenlies. Blessings treasured here are kept by God himself in Christ for eternity, unlike His tender mercies granted to me ’under the sun’. The temporality of life led day in, day out, tends to cause my eyes to settle here, leading me to a short-sighted faith, with my feet on the earth. Heaven? Oh, yeaaaaaah, heaven! As times grow difficult or too easy, for that matter, this myopic view of life proves an insufficient support for me. "This world is not my home, no I'm just apassin’ through" is the true refrain of the saints. The Lord, speaking through Paul, reminds us of the eternal weight of His glory which is forever reserved for us in the heavenlies and as such, far surpasses any condition we might currenty find ourselves in, whether pleasant or not.
Who also
When?
Why? (To what end?)
How?
According to What?
To What end?
According to What?
What?
10 As What?
Why?
What things?
How?
Who does what?
Why?
We Who?
13 In him you also,
You Who?
With Whom?
Who is He?
Of What?
Until When?
To What end?
This super sentence bears the within it power to adjust any attitudes of misplaced faith and redirect our hearts properly to the Heavenlies, to the right hand of the Father, to Christ Jesus our Lord. This is our identity. In Christ. Spiritual blessings, security, purpose, grace, love, power; it's all found and kept at His righteous right hand, with ten thousand beside! Only found in Him.
Paul then lets the church know he's always thanking God for the reports he had heard of their continuing faith in Jesus and their love for all saints. These are spiritual earmarks of the true body of Christ. Without them, there is no witness for Christ at all. Just faithless, loveless and fruitless religion, the kind the ancient city of Ephesus was reeling from. Empty shells of religious vanity. Empty clouds without life-giving rain. Much to Paul's joy, these people weren't of that kind and he was so grateful to God that his two-plus years of labor were not in vain*. Paul was always thanking God for something or someone, wasn't he? He knew how to take things to God, again and again, no matter the matter. Whether from within his hide-out or his prison cell, this sturdy pillar of prayer was destined to become a founding support for the building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. He then recounts for them his request of God to grant them amazing things.
*It is sobering to note that the Church of Ephesus received a warning from Jesus to repent and return to their first love and works or He would remove their lampstand (Rev 2). They didn't repent and He did just that. Ephesus has been a wasteland physically and spiritually for centuries. Matthew Henry once said,"God warns before He wounds." We must fan the fire of our love for Christ daily with prayerful repentence, humble service and Spirit-filled worship.
Paul prayed
Paul longed for believers to know the great God of their salvation in a bigger, better way! He wanted them to fully understand the magnitude of heavenly benefits that were theirs in Christ. He had just said that he thanked God all the time for their faith in Christ, but wait! There was still so much more! Paul knew God had blessings in store for them that they were not aware of. He knew the ability to see these spiritual things came from God alone. He knew and loved God in this intimate way, as is illustrated for us in the biblical record of his enduring, triumphant life and testimony in Christ. But remember Paul's humble beginnings with Jesus on his way to Damascus in Acts 9? Boom! Blindness(vs 8)! And then in verses 17,18, in God's mercy, He sent Ananias to him who laid hands on him, that he may receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Things like scales dropped from his eyes. Paul had spent his entire life in what seemed to him and everyone around him to be a sincere, enlightened pursuit of God. Until God showed up. The Light of the world lit up the heart of his understanding in a huge way!
God's desire for our intimate knowledge of Himself begins and ends in Christ Jesus our Lord, the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus's prayer in John 17:3 says that this itself is eternal life! His Holy Spirit of revelation illuminates our understanding regarding spiritual truths. Paul says it all starts with the Lord and His giving us eyes of the heart to see. Three-D spiritual eyes from Him, if you will!
Let's look at our side of this heavenly heart-knowledge.
Generally speaking, if we want to know a certain person, we first might ask someone else who knows them already to fill us in.The Prophets, Apostles, the martyrs, and other holy servants of Christ play an all-important role in the body of Christ in pointing us to the Savior. Pastor Andy and other faithful shepherds of today do the same.Together they aim us toward the Lord of glory and his dear Son through the diligent teaching of the Word of God and faithful living.We become acquainted with Him and His ways. But, if we are deeply curious or interested in knowing someone, we go to them personally.We make time for that person and sit and converse and think and listen some more. We usually do this often and in different settings and so forth until we come to know them as a friend and possibly more. So it is with God. Though He already knows us, a great mystery persists in His direction. He's so immensely holy and big and gracious and powerful and smart and wise and kind and loving....see, we better get started! He divulges Himself to us to us supernaturally (hence Paul's request, for the natural man cannot receive spiritual things)through the fellowship of His Spirit in us. We read God's Word, mix it with faith, and we believe and praise Him. According to His desire, we desire Him more. We begin to know the highest hope against all hope. He draws us in closely and we follow Him more closely. Sins, like scales, fall off in powerless surrender to His presence. He speaks to us, He speaks and listens to us, and we hear and listen and respond to Him, perhaps in thanksgiving and praise, or in fearless faith, broken repentance or other acts of humility and obedience. He is magnified(heaped up, enlarged) and He presses every living thing to the wall and to the floor! And yet, we are invited by His grace through Christ Jesus, that we might not be consumed, to dwell in love within this squashed space of big Him, tiny us, ultimately being carried in Christ into eternity. But we should love this supremacy of Christ, His filling all in all.
This revealing of Himself, this really getting to know Him for Who He is, and who we are in Him, is Paul's essential desire and prayer. If we know God in this deep, big way, life's trials shrink in comparison. Big God, small problems. Small God, big problems. It's a great prayer for us today, though we will still only see in part, as dimly through a glass( lst Cor. 13:12) We will some day, beloved, know FULLY as we are also fully known! Praise Him for all of His promises.
The Lord has done these great things on our behalf in verses 3-14 according to the counsel and purpose of His will and to the praise of His glorious grace. It's because He has decided to do things this way and not another. He makes decisions and He's happy with them. And so should we be. In our lives today, He has already decided to do wonderful things in His way, not ours. 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways'. Isaiah 55:8. Another verse says His ways are above our finding out! Have Your own way, Lord. The Potter is the molder of our clay hearts and lives. Left on our own in the yard, we just make mud pies.
One of my favorite Christmas stories is A Christmas Carol. No matter what version I have read, seen or heard, the Ghost of Christmas Present's invitation to Scrooge delights me every time."Come in, and know me better, man!", bellows the giant ghost, dwarfing his room stuffed with blessed abundance. Scrooge's soft eyes would not lift to meet the ghost's. The ghost insists, "Look at me!". Scrooge does so humbly and grabs hold of the spirit's robe. Together, they travel throughout the city night beholding various scenes of common life. The ghost's presence sheds poignant, sight-giving illumination within the soul of Scrooge. He begins to see within the ordinary the extraordinary. He sees beyond his rankly-full life into the dry bed of needy men that, an hour before, we no men at all. Enlightened, his heart is forever enlarged. So marvelous, yet so sadly hidden in plain sight! Likewise, a Spirit-enlightened Christian heart will have the fresh, bright eyes of faith, hope, love and power for living life in a manner worthy of God's calling, and to offer his everything, everyday as a living sacrifice for His glory and service. As we turn our eyes up to Jesus, and everything God in Christ has done for us, it's a very reasonable request.
Have you found Him faithful? He's infinitely more! Have you found Him loving? Multiply that until your brain hurts! Has He proven to be your ever-present help in time of need? He's so much more indeed! He loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your eternity!
Let's pray.