Ephesians: Finding our Identity in Christ
Ephesians 1:1-2
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
1-10-2026
Best Student
In the 1980s, the most sought after guitar teacher in New York was Joe Satriani. He was known for taking guitar “heroes” and teaching them how to play with technical precision.
Stevie Via walked into his first lesson already known as a prodigy. Joe asked him if he knew the notes on the entire fretboard. He said he didn’t know the notes.
What he wanted to say was that he wasn’t very good at memorizing and he didn’t think he could do it.
Joe told him not to come back for another lesson until he had the entire fretboard memorized.
As Stevie was walking up the stairs, Joe’s mother was coming down the stairs and asked, “How was the lesson?” From the basement, Joe yelled, “My best student doesn’t know his fretboard!”
Stevie said he stopped dead in his tracks. He knew he was good but he had assumed that Joe had other guitar players like him. He said it redefined the way he thought about himself.
The next week, he returned with the fretboard memorized and the rest is history. He has played with Alice Cooper, Whitesnake, David Lee Roth, as well as a thriving solo career. He has been nominated for 15 Grammys and won three. He was the devil’s guitar player in the movie CrossRoads. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Berklee. And, in a full circle moment, I will see Stevie and Joe together May 3rd in Chicago.
Stevie didn’t understand who he was. Once he did, he was able to do things he didn’t think possible.
In a conversation with my dear friend Dr. Genie Burnett, who is a Christian psychologist, last week, we agreed that most of our issues as Christians is that we don’t know who we are in Christ. We don’t know our true identity and what that means.
That is the reason that we start the book of Ephesians this morning. The book of Ephesians will help us understand our identity in Christ, it will strengthen our faith, encourage us to fight the darkness, and walk the walk of holiness.
One commentator writes, “The letter to the Ephesians is one of the most influential documents in the history of the Christian church.”
Calvin calls Paul’s letter to the Ephesians the queen of all his letters, with only Romans topping it as the king.
Theologian John Mackey had a lifelong love for the book of Ephesians, calling it the “greatest, maturest and most relevant of all Paul’s works…this letter is pure music, what we read here is truth that sings….”
R. Kent Hughes adds, “Ephesians – carefully, reverently, prayerfully considered – will change our lives. It is not so much a question of what we will do with the epistle, but what it will do with us.”
Whether you have read the book of Ephesians 50 times, as some of us have, or can’t find it in your Bible, I believe that God is going to do something amazing this spring as we study His Word.
This morning, we will explore the book’s author, recipients, and greetings.
Prayer.
The Author - Paul
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The author of this letter is Paul. That is the name that God gave him. Before that, he was known as Saul.
He was born into a Jewish family from the tribe of Benjamin. He grew up in Tarsus and was educated under the famous rabbi Gamaliel. He was also a Roman citizen.
He was a strict Pharisee who persecuted the church. In fact, we first meet him in the Bible as he is holding the coats of the men who were stoning Steven, one of the first “deacons “ of the church.
He hated Christians and even went from town to town rounding up men, women, and children. It was on one of these missions, that he had an experience that changed his life and direction forever.
One the road to the city of Damascus, he had an encounter with the risen Jesus:
“…suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:3-5)
He was blinded by the light and wandered into Damascus with the help of his companions. A Christian named Ananias, who was initially afraid of Paul, was directed by God to go and pray for him and when he did:
“Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:18-19)
Immediately, the persecutor became the preacher! He would be the one to take the Gospel to the Gentiles on multiple successful missionary journeys, would do miracles, would be beaten, stoned, and nearly killed multiple times, would go on to write 2/3 of the New Testament, and would have his head cut off as a martyr in Rome in A.D. 63.
In AD 52, on his second missionary journey, Paul visited the amazing city of Ephesus and, with the help of Priscilla and Aquila, planted a church.
He stayed there two or three years, teaching and sharing the Gospel, in the school of Tyrannus.
Upon returning to Rome, Paul was arrested and placed under house arrest, chained to a Roman guard 24 hours a day. He couldn’t leave but he could have visitors.
It was during this time that he wrote what we know as the letters to the Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians.
We know that the Apostle John ministered in Ephesus before he was exiled to the Island of Patmos.
Point to Ponder: Do you have a Damascus Road experience to look back on? In other words, is there a “before and after” in your spiritual journey?” Story of Debo.
An Apostle of Christ Jesus
When Paul begins a letter, most of the time he describes himself as a slave to Christ but in Ephesians he writes that he is an “apostle,” which simply means one sent with a message.
Paul is an authorized representative and an empowered witness of the Gospel of Jesus.
Here’s an important thing to remember. The apostles, including Paul, were unique. They had walked with Jesus while He was here on earth. They had been taught and commissioned by Him. They met the Risen Christ. Several of them were inspired to write books of Scripture. But this was a limited group. There was no apostolical succession.
There are no more Apostles today. I’ve met people who call themselves “apostles” but they are not Apostles in the Biblical sense because they never walked with Jesus while He was on the earth.
Point to Ponder: As an apostle of the Gospel, when’s the last time you shared your faith story with someone?
By the Will of God
Paul was supernaturally called by Jesus Himself on the Damascus Road.
Ananias was afraid of Paul when God called him to go help him regain his sight. God defined Paul’s calling:
“Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” (Acts 9:15-16)
To the Galatians, Paul would write that, “…God set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace…” (Galatians 1:15)
It’s been said that God’s will for your life can be found at the intersection of the world’s great needs and your great desires.
He will accomplish His plans and He will always work behind the scenes.
In Europe, there are tapestries that are huge and cover entire walls. If you are looking at the back of one these, it just looks like chaos. That’s what we see most of the time. But God knows the front. He knows the full picture.
John Piper has said that God is doing ten thousand things in your life and it even given time you may be aware of three.
When I was born again, I was discipled by a guy named Seth. He, and others along the way, asked me to write out a mission statement for my life:
“To help hurting people find healing through the power of the Gospel.”
I’ve done that in children’s homes, while working at a psychiatric hospital, running a counseling clinic, working at a boys ranch, serving in churches, schools, and even jails.
When you are serving in your giftedness and meeting needs around you it brings a great sense of purpose and joy.
Philip Ryken lists five prayers to know God’s will for you life:
1. Submit to God’s Will for your salvation. Luther wrote that when we pray this part of the Lord’s Prayer, (Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven), it becomes apparent quickly that we don’t do His will and are many times disobedient.
We fall short and it becomes apparent that we are not naturally inclined to do things God’s way.
Your will must hand in its resignation letter!
If you do not surrender to Christ, you will surrender to chaos.
We are asking God to bring about a genuine humility and fear of God and His judgment, and give us the joy of knowing that we will escape God’s judgment and will be saved by His mercy and grace.
Three types of people. Saved, no idea, and think you’re saved.
2. Accept the way God made you. You were born in this time, in this place, with your specific characteristics, for such a time as this.
If I had been 6-7, then I would have played in the NBA and not been in ministry!
Anywhere other than ministry, I have fit like a square peg in a round hole.
3. Ask God to help you live according to His Word. I want to encourage all of us to stop worrying about what everyone else in the culture is doing. Cows don’t lay eggs. We have the Holy Spirit to help us.
4. Be willing to go wherever He sends you and do whatever He wants.
I got saved in my senior year of college and started to pray for what God wanted me to do. After prayer and wise counsel, I packed up everything I owned and moved 400 miles to the mountains of North Carolina.
As I drove away, I had Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, “For the Sake of the Call” blasting. I love the bridge to that song:
Not for the sake of a creed or a cause?Not for a dream or a promise?Simply because it is Jesus who called?And if we believe we'll obey
Looking back on that decision, Proverbs 16:9 becomes so real:
“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” (Prov 16:9)
Darrel Gruder writes,
“Prayer is not about getting what we want – the fulfillment of our will; it is about learning what God wants – the bending of our will to God’s will.”
5. Accept whatever suffering God brings into our lives.
Betty Stamm and her husband were missionaries in China. They were arrested and beheaded.
Before they left, she wrote this,
“Lord I give up all my plans and purposes, all my dreams and hopes, and accept Your will for my life. I give myself utterly to it. Fill me. Seal me with Your Holy Spirit. Use me as You will. Send me. Work out Your whole will in my life, no matter the cost.”
Point to Ponder: Are you living out God’s will for your life?
To God’s saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus
He calls them “holy ones,” set apart for God. Some of your translations may have the word “saints,” but that word has a different connotation in our day.
The word “saint” is confusing to many in our culture. Biblically, a saint is not a super-elite special Christian like Mother Teresa or Augustine.
Who are the saints in the Bible? They are simply the ones that believe and have put their full faith and trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Paul addresses his letter to the saints in Ephesus, in Colosse, and even the crazy church at Corinth.
They are holy people who are unholy people who have been singled out, claimed, and requisitioned by God for His use.
We have died in Christ, been buried in Christ, and have been resurrected in Christ.
Since we are in Christ, we are His hands and feet in this dark and dying world.
This can only happen because of Jesus. Paul uses the term in Jesus, Christ Jesus, or Jesus Christ 36 times in Ephesians and 164 times in his letters.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones wrote:
“Paul has no gospel apart from Jesus Christ. The gospel is not some vague general offer, nor is it a mere exhortation to people to live a good life; it tells of the things that happened in Christ because, without Christ, there is no salvation.
And if Christ is not essential to your position, then according to Paul you are not a Christian. You may be good, and you may even be religious, but you can not be a Christian. If Christ is not absolutely the core and center, it is not Christianity, whatever else it might be.”
This is our identity.
Let me ask you a very important question. If you are “in Christ,” is there anything you can do to make God love you any more than He does right now? Is there anything that you can do to make God love you less?
No to both! Sit down, rest in the fact that you are extravagantly and unconditionally loved by the God that flung the stars into space.
I have two boys. I don’t love them for what they can do. When I first met them, they could do nothing for themselves. I love them because they’re my children.
Listen. Some of you have an identity crisis. You don’t know who you are.
In Christ, “you are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17).
Becoming a Christian isn’t like join a club. It’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
In Christ, we are children of God:
“For, in Christ, you are all sons and daughters of God through faith.” (Galatians 3:26)
If you are a child of God and God is the King, and you are a female, what does that make you? A princess! And a prince! We are heirs of God:
“And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:17)
God chose you:
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…” (Colossians 3:12)
He made you on purpose, for a purpose, with a purpose and has given you gifts that are meant to be used to build up the body of Christ. ?
Some of you are a little uncomfortable right now. Because even though you are a Christian, you still operate out of another identity - maybe it’s screw up or accident or black sheep or failure or addict or stupid. This is straight from the pit of hell.
I have a friend who has been sober now for 25 years. He thinks that AA is a good thing except for how they introduce themselves. He is adamant that he is not an alcoholic. That’s not his identity. His identity is as a child of God who struggled with alcohol. There’s a big difference.
In 2026, let’s lean into our identities as blood bought-heirs of the most high king!
Ephesus
The city of Ephesus was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual meeting pot on the crossroads of four great trade routes. It was a port city, although now, the ruins of Ephesus sit six miles inland.
It was a free city. There were no Roman troops posted there.
It had over forty temples, including one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Temple of Artermis/Diana.
They also worshiped the Roman emperor and considered him a god.
Over 200,000 people lived there. It had the largest library in the world. It had an amphitheater that could hold 25,000 spectators.
In the midst of polytheism and pagan worship, this little church was growing and Paul wanted to make sure that he encouraged them to continue to learn what their identity in Christ was.
Point to Ponder: Do you realize that you have duel citizenship?
As Christians, we live in two places - in Christ and in Chenoa. My friend Brian Bill writes:
“If you’re a believer, you are always in two places at the same time. You are in the Lord, and you are in your location. You are in Christ, and you are at home. You are in Christ and you’re here. When you go to work, you are in Christ, and you are in the workplace. When you go to school, you are in Christ, and you are on your campus or in homeschool. Write this down: Your purpose is tied to your place.”
* Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul often begins his letters with "grace and peace” but here they carry extra weight. “Grace” is the normal way a Gentile would begin a letter and “peace” is the way a Jew would begin a letter.
Grace always comes first. Without an understanding of grace, there is no possibility of peace with God, the peace of God, and peace with others.
Richard Coekin writes, “If grace is the origin of God’s plan to gather us into the blessings of His church in Christ, the peace is the result of which it demonstrates in the spiritual realms the triumphant wisdom of the gospel of Christ crucified.”
Finishing Well
This past week, Christian author Philip Yancey, whose books have greatly encouraged me, announced that he was retiring from writing and ministry and admitted to an eight year extramartial affair on his wife of 55 years.
Over the past 20 years, I have watched multiple of my spiritual mentors fall down at the end of the race. This is one of my main goals in life. To finish well. Philip didn’t finish well.
And neither did the church at Ephesus. In Revelation 2, Jesus writes a letter to this church and it is heartbreaking what He says:
Jesus begins by commending them:
“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” (Rev 2:2-3)
Then we read one of thee saddest sentences in all the Bible:
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”
They had lost their first love - Jesus.
Applications
* Are you a saint or an ain’t?
J. Vernon McGee stated there are only two types of people in the world -“the saints and the ain’ts.” The first identity question is - which one are you?
In the Bible a saint is simply one who recognizes their sin, repents and reaches out to the Savior in submission and surrender.
Have you lost your first love? Has your spiritual pilot light gone out?
Look what Jesus said to the church at Ephesus - repent and return to the basics. Read your Bible. Pray. Listen to worship music.
Ending Song: He will Hold me Fast
