The First Of Two Series

Ephesians 1:1-14 The first message

Let’s begin with an easy question? Who wrote most of the New Testament? Yes, the answer is Luke. Paul wrote the most books but Luke actually wrote more words when he wrote the books of Luke and Acts.

Now, this book of Ephesians begins like the rest of Paul’s letters with his name but his name but as you know his name wasn’t always Paul but before he was Saul. He had been a rabbi and was very well trained in a school that was run by Gamaliel and he was also a member of the Sanhedrin.

One day, when he was on his way to arrest some Christians the Lord stopped him in his tracks, saved him and called him to be a preacher of the gospel. His conversion had so tranformed him that he changed his name from Saul which means “aggressive or ambitious” to ”Paul” which means “little or small.”

The gospel brought three great changes in his life. First, there was a was deep awareness of sin because he realized he had been an enemy of God who had persecuted the church. Second, he experienced a dramatic change when turned from persecuting believers to being one of their greatest teachers. And then third, he experienced a total redirection in his life when he was called to head up the greatest missionary endeavour this world has ever known.

My goal here is to get through the first fourteen verses of the first chapter of Ephesians this week and next but there’s one thing I want you to know before we start; verses 3-14 are actually one very long sentence in the Greek. Now, if you have periods between some of the sentences in your particular version; these were added by the translators. So, it’s almost like Paul started to say something about God and he couldn’t stop talking.

I remember when I was studying at London Baptist Bible College I had to write a page or two on a subject for English class and when I got my paper back the teacher had taken a few points off for what she referred to as a run-on sentence. I figured since this was a Bible College I’d use the scripture to defend myself and referred to Paul’s writing in this chapter but her response was, “You’re not the apostle Paul.” Anyway, let’s read all fourteen verses even though I’m just going to concentrate on the first six or seven today.

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”

I had a dream one night and I know most of us have dreams but I never seem to remember them except for little snippets that I might have thought were either funny or scary; and yet, one morning when I woke up everything in my dream seemed so real that I was actually wondering if it had really happened because I felt as though I had actually experienced what had happened in my dream.