Print This Post
It begins (and ends) with God
Ephesians – no 1
Reading: Eph 1:1-14
Today we’re starting a new series of Sunday morning teaching about The healthy church
We’re going to do this by expounding the book of Ephesians.
Paul is writing to a church with the aim of helping them to be healthy in Christ
Our spiritual health matters
[tell person next to you]
A healthy church is always made up of healthy Christians
Billy Graham – preached to millions – probably led more people to Christ than anyone else in human history. Writing in a book about the Holy Spirit. quote:
‘Everywhere I go [and he’d been to a lot of places] I find that God’s people lack something.
(interesting statement because his whole ministry was predicated on preaching the gospel to people who were outside the church and trying to make those who are not Gods people, God’s people!)
‘They’re hungry for something – their Christian life is not all they expected and they often have recurring defeat in their lives
(I’m not going to ask for show of hands but I’ve been in the ministry long enough to know that God’s people often have recurring defeat in their lives)
“Christians today are hungry for spiritual fulfilment. The most pressing need of the nation today is that people who profess Jesus are filled with the Holy Spirit.”
What the church needs, says Billy Graham, is that the church gets all it can get from God, and she becomes all that she’s meant to be in God, so she can do all she’s meant to do for God
What does that look like?
Our spiritual health matters
A healthy church can only be made up of healthy Christians
Paul is going to help us to be healthy
- He’ll reveal some Spiritual whole food to take up as well as some spiritual toxins to avoid
A healthy organism (like a human body) is healthy precisely because its cells, its arteries and its systems are each healthy
You body is only a healthy in so far as the parts of it grow and function well together – so it is in Christ.
How can we nudge Christians into being more spiritually healthy
- I’m contemplating the idea of a spiritual health check for anyone who wants one – what do you think?
Turn to Ephesians 1
One of the things that marks the writings and the ministry of Apostle Paul was that he wanted the church to live in the reality of all God had for them in Christ.
- He didn’t want them living in anything less than their birth-right
- he wanted the to appropriate everything that Christ has bought for them at calvary
- Jesus paid the ultimate price so we could live with the ultimate prize!
- And that prize is not pie in the sky when you die, it’s a living, vital, joy-filled, grace-motivated, life in Christ today
If that’s not where you are this morning, then my friend, you are one of the people God will delight to renew, to restore, to recover that love for him you once had.
Ephesians 1:1
Paul introduces himself “Paul”
- this was his new name.
- The name ‘Saul’ conjured up all kinds of negative connotations in the minds of Christians. Saul was a persecutor and murderer of believers
- Paul was totally different –
- Some of you have have family members / children who are off the rails and you ask “Can God ever reach them?” this word ‘Paul’ says ‘yes!’ He can!
- Here’s a man who went around killing Christians but now he will soon be killed for being one!
- Changed from adversary to apostle – from persecutor of Christ to persuader for Christ.
- This is incredible! Isn’t there hope in that?!
1:1 “to the saints” (hagioi – holy / set-apart ones) “You are saints!” he’s saying
Actually he’s soon going to be telling them about how they’re not saints – there’s sin in the camp – but Paul knows they’ve got to live up to what they already are in Christ!
- His message to them (and mine to us) is ‘become what you are!’ Be what Christ made you to be!
Have you ever tried to describe something and run out of words to use?
Or have you ever tried to write a letter (a love letter perhaps) in which you just keep writing words upon words upon words and just fall over yourself with excitement about what you’re describing.
That is what’s happening to Paul here.
Here’s how I think it should sound:
These verses 3-14 in the original text are one massive sentence.
So what has happened to you in Christ?
He has done something in your past – you were chosen
Eph 1:4
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
That’s the life you were destined to live – holy and blameless!
In eternity before creation, God did something – he had a purpose for the cosmos he was about to create
and, astonishing as it might seem, he conceived of you and me as integral parts of it.
At some point we all find this doctrine of election a puzzling one.
You might say to me “but it was me who chose God! I took the decision – I was there when it happened!
Yes, you did, you freely chose to come to Christ and subsequently to go His way in your life.
It was God who worked in your life to bring you to a place where you freely chose him – in the same way that a man courts a woman (or vice verse) to bring her to a place where she’ll say “yes!” – freely, of course, but only because she’s aware she’s been loved! And he heart thrills with the prospect of spending the rest of her life with him – and so she makes a choice – to say “yes!”
Love that is forced is not true love
There is a mystery as to the mechanism of God’s election of us,
and we should be wary of anyone who comes up with a simplistic answer to explain it all.
He has done something in your present – You’ve been adopted
Into God’s family
Eph 1:5 In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, [this was his] pleasure and will–
T this point Paul is still talking about what God did ‘before the creation of the world’
This is before mankind ever came into being – before mankind went his won way and rejected God by dropping into a sinful lifestyle
before God’s rescue plan of salvation came about
at that point God had it in mind to adopt beings like you and me into his family!
We sometimes hear people say – or at least imply – that God created the world, put mankind on it – mankind went wrong, so He had to some up with some sort of second-best plan B to make good the error – and adoption was part of that plan B
No way!
This scripture assures us that the closeness of adoption, the admission into the family of God as a fully accepted, fully loved, one-day-t-receive-the-inheritance son (or daughter!) was God’s plan all along
And why did he conceive it this way?
Because at the very core of His being is a profound and unchallengeable love for you! – he did it “In love!”. That was, and still is, his motive (v5)
So God’s plan for your life was not hatched when you were born,
- it wasn’t conceived when you were conceived,
- it was formed way back in eternity
- and comes out of a heart that deeply loves you and cares about what happens to you.
Now when Paul talks about us being adopted into God’s family he has some very specific concepts in mind.
In Roman times (when Paul was writing this)
Conjure this scene up in your mind
(See Stibbe ‘Orphans to heirs’ p29 for a parallel story)
You are a well off Roman business man and you’ve married the girl of your dreams. She’s got a great character, stunning looks, and you can sense she’ll be a great mother.
But after a few years of marriage it becomes obvious that you’re not going to have children. At least one of you is infertile and this means that the family name, which was very highly prized in Roman society, is going to peter out.
How can that precious family name be preserved?
After wrestling with the whole thing for weeks you come to the conclusion that your could adopt.
The first place you would look is within your family circle.
Suppose you have a slave who has a wife and four children, three of them boys.
You go to him and ask if one of his own children could be adopted into your family.
After a long and careful thought, he says ‘yes’.
Now you might ask, why would any parent agree to this? The answer is simple – their son would become a free man! No longer burdened with the restrictions of slavery
Furthermore, their son will inherit that prized family name (or ‘pater familias’)
and any debts he had in relation to the family will be written off.
and here is more! He will stand to inherit the entire family estate!
At this point the whole process of adoption commences. You go, with your servant, to the magistrates court.
Three times the natural father sells the boy to you and money changes hands.
At the end of this the magistrate watches as the little boy is handed over.
The Latin term is ‘patria potestas’ – means ‘fatherly authority’ and the boy is transferred from the ‘patria potestas’ of your slave to your own fatherly authority and he is then yours – for you to care, nurture, educate, love, train and father.
That boy now has a new name, a new family and a new future.
That is what God has done for us in Christ!
Your adoption is not based on your fitness for the role, your financial worth, or your distinctives of looks or skills.
It is based solely on the invitation of the father.
You could never earn it or deserve it.
It is embedded in God’s eternal purpose and generosity.
And so you have the deepest security in it.
God will not adopt and then find out that you are not worthy and unadopt.
He knows we are unworthy. And he chose us and predestined us for adoption. This is firm and sure and unshakable.
He will do something in the future – you’ll receive an inheritance
Eph 1:13-14
13 … Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
14 [He] is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glory.
(NIV)
We have all been given God’s holy Spirit, when we came to faith
a seal => a unique mark of origin
However, not all of us are filled with the Holy Spirit.
This amazing gospel
transforms people
Ordinary people (like us)
And Paul’s own life had been transformed by Christ
Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God to transform, save people!”
It wasn’t Paul’s cleverness or leadership or personal prowess that carried transforming power, it was the gospel itself!
IS that you? This is the first and most basic step to say ‘yes’ to Christ being the guide of your life, opening yourself, as best you can to him to become adopted into his family.
Come to me later …
This gospel Stabilises society
People like us who carry the gospel into the office on a Monday morning are God’s agents. That’s what he’s equipped you for and the reason he’s placed you where you are.
Jesus said ‘you are the salt of the earth’
- he didn’t say ‘you must be the salt of the earth’ (in order to make us feel guilty about not being salt.
- He didn’t say ‘ you will be the salt of the earth’ at some time in the future, if you’re goos enough at it.
- He didn’t say ‘you can be the salt of the earth’ if you do this or that
- He said ‘you are the salt of the earth’
- The gospel we carry and live by, as best we can, is like salt. It prevents society from putrefying
By virtue of the ethics you live by, the choices you make, however faltering you may feel your trust in Jesus is, He is at work on your front line through you when you have him as your guide.
The gospel protects and grows the church
Problem in Paul’s day, and in ours,
People who were electrifying to listen to, often very popular, who could excite a congregation, but who had not developed a deep grasp of the gospel.
They can wind up an audience, but can’t feed people with the scriptures.
So if you aspire to being a preacher, or having a prophetic or teaching ministry – Study hard! Get into the word! It will feed your soul and from the feast you will be able to provide a nourishing diet for hungry Christians
The gospel, faithfully expounded week after week will grow God’s people – that’s what we all need!
Conclusion
Let me tell you about an encounter
I was about 17 and studying maths for A-level.
Our youth group was leading a meeting at the Mission of Hope in Croydon. And IW had been asked to speak. I was terrified.
There were only about a dozen people in the room. I explained the gospel (or at least the first steps) as best I could. Finished the meeting and stayed around chatting.
We were in the car on the way home when one of the other people in our team said to me
“Did you hear about what’s just happened?’ (I hadn’t)
“the lady on your right has just given her life over to Christ. We prayed with her”
I could hardly believe my ears. I was over the moon that God had seen fit to use my faltering telling of the gospel’s story to transform someone’s life!
God is this you speaking to me?
Got home – habit of reading Daily light
I know it was April 19th because this is what I read >>>
I’ve come to realise that a coincidence like that has got God’s fingerprints al over it
That evening led to a chain of events that have ended up with me preaching to you today.
Do you need to take a first step? >>>
Do you need to be renewed, or revived in your Christian life? Need a fresh filling of God’s Holy Spirit
Come to the front
In Ephesians Paul spends the first three chapters explaining what has happened to us when we became Christians (adopted, made alive in Christ, free in him, etc)
then in the second half he works it our in practice – how this can transform my family life, my business life, my work life, my sex life, my financial life
But we can’t split the two completely because theology always strays into practice and all our practice tells us about our theology
Theology is no good if it’s not wearing its boots!
The first half is theology with practical implications
The second half is practical with theological implications.
There are some issues surrounding authorship, date and purpose which I want to defer to another occasion because Paul starts the letter in a very particular way.
