Happy New Year to you! Thank God 2020 is behind us. If you were given just one word to describe the year 2020, what would you choose? A recent survey asked just this and found the #1 word chosen to describe this previous year was “awful, terrible, or horrible.” I wonder what word you would use. I wonder what word our God would use. Let’s all tell 2020 goodbye! 2020 is the year our church family scattered but my hope is that 2021 is the year we gather.
Think about this: the average student today takes in 34 gigabytes of data every 24 hours. If you printed that out, that’d be equivalent to 4.5 million pages a day. We are in overload, complete overload. We are swimming in information but we desperately lack real hard and firm truth to guide us. When you drive your car on a bridge, you want to know the engineers who built it are interested in the truth. When you enter the top floors of a tall building in downtown Dallas/Fort Worth, you want an architect who is interested in knowing the truth.
Let’s find real hard truth for our lives for the upcoming year together. If you have a copy of God’s word would you find the book of Ephesians with me (page 1159 in the pew Bible).
When you read Ephesians in your Bible you should think of clarity and precision. Ephesians is clear because it is timeless truth. Ephesians is precise because it is timeless truth. In a day when oftentimes feelings trump truth, we need to embrace truth.
Why should you bother reading Ephesians or studying this short letter? Every time you turn on your GPS, you want the truth. You are asking for a truthful route to your destination. When you go to a doctor, you want the truth. You want a truthful analysis of your medical situation, not just how he feels about it.
When you study this book, you’ll learn the truth about …
• Spiritual warfare;
• Racial reconciliation;
• Marriage roles;
• How to pray;
• And, how to live out your faith in a hostile world.
In a day when oftentimes feelings trump truth, we need to embrace truth.
Around a century ago, a man named John said, “this letter is pure music … What we read here is truth that sings…” Ruth Paxson called Ephesians “the Grand Canyon of Scripture,” because the letter was both beautiful and inexhaustible at the same time.
I want to look at the introduction to this letter this morning. Now many people who simply skip right over this because we think it isn’t important. Yet, even the introduction to a letter in the New Testament can be life-changing. Why? Because it will help you process who you are and who you’re supposed to be.
1. Letters
Put your eyes on the truth of verse 1 with me. When you read this part of your Bible, you’re reading a letter. The letter tells us who is writing the letter: “Paul.” And we see who is writing the letter to: “To the saints who are in Ephesus.” So the first verse is essentially saying, “Hi, I am Paul and I am writing to all of you who are believers in Ephesus.” Every verse of your Bible matters.
Do you understand how valuable this book you have in your hands? Today in North Korea, if are found having a Bible in your possession, you’ll be shipped off to a prison labor camp perhaps for the rest of your life. Government workers will approach small children in a time of severe famine there and say something to the effect, “we’ll give you another chicken if you tell us if mom or dad have a Bible.” The kids, not knowing they'll never see their parents again, so the child will say, “Yeah, mom has a Bible stashed.”
Every sentence of truth matters. Don’t ignore even a scrap of truth this year.
2. Paul
This letter was written by a real person to real Christians: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
Paul was born to a middle-class family and in a city that was between the mountains and the sea a little after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. His life would end at the hand of Roman emperor Nero who blamed the Great Fire of Rome on Christians in an attempt to strengthen his hand as emperor. Always a controversial figure throughout his life, Paul was beheaded by the sword on the order of Nero.
A little over twenty years ago, a survey was taken of college professors where the professor was asked who were the most important people in the history of Western civilization. The apostle Paul was tied for fifth place as the most influential person in Western civilization in the minds of college professors. I have my own opinions on this but here’s one idea that isn’t debated: after Jesus Himself, Paul is the most significant people in the history of Christianity.
Now, Paul wrote the letter called Ephesians about thirty years after Jesus died and rose again, around 60-62 AD. You need to know that Paul probably writes this letter while in a prison in Rome (Ephesians 3:1; 6:1). Paul was a zealous, ardent believer in the second half of his life. Paul arrived in Ephesus in the fall of 52/53 and he left in the spring of 55/56.
Now, ministry was difficult in Ephesus. Paul would later refer to fighting with beasts while there (1 Corinthians 15:32). He didn’t literally fight beasts but it might have been easier than what he faced. But this hostility was only because the ministry was so successful. In fact, Paul tells us this: “But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:8-9). Paul received significant pushback only because so many people were converting to Christ.
3. Ephesus
Again, it’s a letter and if Paul is writing the letter, we need to ask who’s he writing to?
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
Let me give you a quick feel of the city of Ephesus. Ephesians is the name of the people who belonged to the ancient city of Ephesus. This is a real city and you can visit the archeological site of this city even to this day. Ephesus is located in modern-day Turkey.
Again, your Bible is real history in real places with no place for myths or fables. The population of the city of Ephesus is estimated around 250,000 people, behind only Rome itself and Athens in its day. You can tell some of the significance of the city when you realize that Roman milestone markers showed “how far” to Ephesus all throughout the area.
3.1 The Economic Impact of Ephesus
It was an important city for the “movers and shakers” of the first century. Ephesus was the political capital of its area in the Roman Empire and it was the commercial capital as well. Merchants flocked to the city. It was a leading city with rich resources that mainly included a harbor. You went to Ephesus to “make it” big in Paul’s day.
3.2 The Religious Life of Ephesus
Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (or Diana), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. One of the first things that caught your attention when you entered the city was a complex containing 127 marbled pillars rising sixty feet to support a gorgeous ceiling, inlaid with gold and rare gems. The temple’s huge canopy, covering an area approximately 400 feet in length & 200 feet in width, housed the image of Artemis, which is roughly a little larger than a football field. Artemis was called, Savior, Lord, and Queen of the Cosmos and she was thought to have fallen from the stars.
4. An Apostle of Christ Jesus
Look at how Paul describes himself in verse 1: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
Paul originally hated the superstitious idea that Jesus Christ was alive and he did everything possible to stop Christianity from making any progress. Yet, when he met the risen Jesus everything changed for him. If you were to meet Paul in some ancient city of the Roman Empire and you stuck out your hand to introduce yourself, Paul would tell you his name and then he would tell you he’s an “apostle”. “Apostle” is his job and it’s his calling. The word apostle literally means “sent one” and few words describe Paul as one who is sent.
Paul traveled by conservative estimates more than 15,000 miles over a 30-year period, maybe even more than this. He traveled nearly 9,000 miles probably by foot. Each one of these steps was to see people embrace Jesus Christ as their Savior.
An apostle was a person of authority in the church chosen by Jesus Christ for the purpose of spreading the gospel.
5. The Will of God
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
The letter of Ephesians loves to talk about the will of God. There are more references to God’s will in Ephesians than any other place in your New Testament as we’’ discover in the coming weeks. You and I need to desperately be in the will of God.
Francis Crick, the discovery of DNA has said humans are nothing but a pack of neurons. You are much more than this. Friend, our lives are not left up to blind fate, chance, or even luck. Our lives having meaning. We see so many theories today where a leading influencer of our day says, “There’s no evidence for God.”
Years ago, C. S. Lewis complained about God as the Great Interferer. Lewis wanted to be left alone as an atheist. Often we didn’t want anyone to be telling us what was right or what to do. It’s that instinct that lies beneath the surface of a lot of atheist writings.
We want to be in charge. We don’t want there to be a God and so let’s figure out some reasons for saying, “Hey, there isn’t a God anyway…” But we desperately need the interference of God in our world and in our personal lives. Paul submitted to the will of God and this is the quickest way to make your life both happy and meaningful. Your story is determined by the will of a personal God is who acts in history.
6. Saints
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
What is a “saint”? The word refers to someone who is holy or someone is pure. A saint is someone who is recognized as having been with God. A saint is someone who is pure and holy. You could even substitute the word holy for the word saint.
6.2 Achieved or Received
Now, there are two ways people think saints are made. Some believe sainthood is achieved while others see sainthood as received. Now I know a few of you come from a Catholic background and you’re used to talk about saints. This is the idea that you achieve sainthood. Some feel that a “saint” is someone who does miracles or is some super-duper Christians.
Here is an interesting fact: more than 10,000 people have been made saints by the Roman Catholic church and now only the head of this
church has the power to determine who can be identified as a saint. It is a very complicated process and the fastest anyone has ever been made a saint is seventeen years. if you go through all ten steps it takes to become a saint, it can easily cost over a million dollars.
Yet, the Bible teaches that it’s received and not achieved.
Let’s get this all straight. If you know Jesus Christ you’re a saint. In your Bibles, a “saint” is an ordinary believer. Paul even calls the believers in Corinth saints: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours…” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
The Corinthian Christians sue one another, have real problems in their marriage, and the rich Christians run over the poor. How can you call someone like this holy and pure or a saint? Even though they were the most messed up church Paul had dealt with in the entire New Testament, he still called them saints. Again, a “saint” isn’t someone who isn’t spiritual elite. You don’t have to have your face on a stained glass somewhere. The Bible says a “saint” is simply a believer in Christ. Call me Saint Scott and I will call you Saint “whatever you name.” Every genuine child of God is a saint.
6.2 How God Divides the World
When God looks over all 7.8 billion-plus people, He can see the various colors, …He sees the varying stages of economic success and educational backgrounds, … and He sees all that makes you, uniquely you. But make no mistake about it: When God sees all 7.8 billion people on the face of the earth, He sees you either as for Him or against Him (Matthew 12:30). You are either have peace with God or you are at war with God (Romans 5:1). Jesus says you are either one of His sheep or someone else’s goat (Matthew 25:32). You are either on the wide path that is easy in this life and leads to destruction in the next life or you walking the narrow path that is hard in this life but will lead you to life everlasting in your next life (Matthew 7:12-14). You either have God as your Father or you are a child of Satan (John 8:42-44).
6.3 In Christ Jesus
In fact, look ahead for a moment to the end of verse 1: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
This is one of seven times this phrase appears in the letter to Ephesians. The Bible considers you either “in Christ Jesus” or outside of Christ. There are just two categories, my friend. You are either a saint or you “ain’t” – it’s that simple.
6.4 Becoming a Saint
How do you become a child of God? You must convert to faith in Jesus Christ.
There are all kinds of stories and all kinds of people who experienced their own conversions. I’ll share two or three with you.
6.4.1 Vincent Van Gogh
Again, there are kinds of conversions of all shapes and sizes. Many of you are introduced to faith by your family.
This is exactly what happened for Vincent Van Gogh. All around the world, Vincent Van Gogh’s artwork is high prized with one of his paintings selling for nearly $54 million in 1987 at Sotheby’s. Van Gogh was the son of a Lutheran pastor and he himself pastored in a coal mining community for a period of time. He would attend Spurgeon’s church when he was a younger man in London. Van Gogh confessed, “The Bible is my solace, my support in life. It is the most beautiful book I know.” Vincent went as far to “read it daily [until] I know it by heart.” In the last months of his life, when Van Gogh was staying in a mental hospital and while there he painted a scene where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in The Raising of Lazarus. Only Van Gogh places his own face on the face of Lazarus. In his 900 plus letters written over his life, it’s evident he strongly believes in the resurrection.
6.4.2 Jim
Warning: Not every conversion will look the same in very detail. Some conversions are very sudden. Some people’s conversions are dramatic while others are quiet. You don’t have to have someone in your family know Jesus, even an angry atheist can convert to Christ.
Jim was a detective in California and he wasn’t raised around any Christians. He didn’t even really think about Jesus Christ until he was around 35 years of age. Looking back Jim said of this part of his life, “I was more than happy with the idea that I would live my life, and when I closed my eyes for the last time, I would be in the dirt. I came from nothing; I’ll go back to nothing. The idea of a life after this one was meaningless to me.”
His wife said to him one day, “You know, our kids are now almost ready to go school, they're like late preschool, and should we start going to church?” They had been married around eighteen years at the time. He went to church that first Sunday as an angry atheist but the pastor’s sermon struck a chord with him. He listened and thought to himself, “Is that true?” So he bought a cheap $6 Bible and would read it while staking out would-be criminal as an undercover cop. Jim applied the same skill-set to investigating the four gospels as he learned as a homicide detective. As he slowly read through the eyewitness accounts to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, he became convinced they were true. Yet, this truth didn’t change his life just yet. Jim said he sat reading the New Testament book of Romans and realized the Bible wasn’t just “true” about Jesus but it was also “true” about him. Jim said, “The light bulb went on, and I realized that I had a real need that was met in the person of Jesus. … until you know you need a savior, there's just a savior sitting over there. And at some point, I realized that he was it for me.”
There’s just a Savior sitting over there until you realize Jesus is for you.
6.5.3 Paul’s Conversion
Let me offer you just one more conversion story. Again, conversion isn’t just for bad people or religious people; it’s for all people. It makes no difference if you are religious already, you still need to convert. The man who wrote a letter to Ephesians from prison was already more religious than you or I will ever be when he converted to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul possessed a distinct hatred for Christians. He sought to lock them up, put them to death, and made them blaspheme (Acts 26:9–11). In his words, he said he raged with fury against them even hunting them down in foreign cities. In was in one of these trips where he sought to exterminate Christians, the apostle Paul met Jesus Christ. Like a police detective taking his suspect into an interrogation room, Paul heard the words from out of nowhere, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me” (Acts 9:4b)? As soon as this heavenly light confronts Paul, he asks, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:5).
The one thing Saul never considered was Jesus was still alive. Up until this moment, Saul thought Jesus was dead. Like with Vincent Van Gogh, the resurrection was the game-changer for Paul. The minute Paul understood he was raised from the dead, he lost control of his life.
Had you taken a survey of people in and around Jerusalem of the ONE person who was the least likely to convert to Christianity, near the top of the list would have been Saul. Yet, every conversion story has one thing in common. They discover Jesus is a real need they personally have. Paul discovered the grace Jesus offers: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace changed Paul from a killer of Christians into a lover of Jesus Christ and His people. The grace of God makes you a saint of God.
Some of you have yet to discover the grace of Jesus. What a marvelous way to begin the new year.
7. Faithful
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2).
Let me ask you a searching question: are you faithful? If I called the people of Netflix, Hulu, or Disney Plus, would they say you are a faithful customer? If I called the members of your family, would they describe you as a faithful believer? If I showed up in your favorite hangout, would you be embarrassed by being described as a saint? If I showed up in your third-period class, would the first description that other students say of you as being a faithful Christian. If you want a life that is both meaningful and happy, then you need to know the truth about yourself. In a day when oftentimes feelings trump truth, we need to embrace truth. God is calling you to faithfulness to Christ in 2021.
8. Grace and Peace
Look at how Paul finishes his greeting: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:1-2). This is what so many of us are hoping for as the calendar turns the page to a new year: grace and peace. What if we changed our greetings to this kind of thing? I passed you in hallways and you said to me, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father …”. God is calling our church to be an “alien community” in the mid-cities and north Fort Worth that brings “Grace to you and peace from God our Father …”.
To have grace and peace, you need the truth of God in your life. You need to submit to God’s will for your life.
Again, we live in an age where we are swimming in information but we desperately lack real hard and firm truth to guide us.
When you drive your car on a bridge, you want to know the engineers who built it are interested in the truth. When you enter the top floors of a tall building in downtown Dallas/Fort Worth, you want an architect who is interested in knowing the truth. If you want grace and peace, you are going to need the truth of Jesus in your life. Whether you are named Jim, Paul, Vincent, Jose, or Susan, you can experience a new life in Jesus Christ today.
Join me in prayer.
