Ephesians - Surveying the Book of Ephesians

God is reconciling sinners to himself. That's why he calls them saints. Paul was writing to living people in Ephesus who had been set apart by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And now let's bow to pray. Gracious Father, we always need the work of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, or else the Word of God does not come alive to us as it should. And so help us today. Fill with your Spirit. Beyond the sacred page we seek thee, Lord; our spirits pant for thee, thou living Word. Nurture us and challenge us, and convict us and cleanse us, as we open your Word, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

What is God doing in our world? And what does he want us to do? Now, those are two very important questions. What is God doing in this world, and what does God want us to do? And these two questions are answered in one of the most beautiful, one of the most nourishing, one of the most profound books in the Bible: Paul's letter to the Ephesians. I want us to look at Ephesians today, the entire book, I want to sort of survey it and answer these two questions: what is God doing, and what does God want us to do?

Bible study, after all, must lead to Bible living. D.L. Moody used to say that every Bible should be bound in shoe leather. He meant by that we have to walk what we believe. It's so easy to study a letter like Ephesians and stay up in the heavenlies and revel in all of this marvelous doctrine about Christ and the church, and we forget that the Bible was written that we might practice God's truth, that we might walk in the truth. 

What is God doing? Well, the letter opens up: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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." Let's stop right there. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul had not always been an apostle of Jesus Christ; he had been a devoted follower of Moses. And then God met him on the Damascus Road, and Paul the persecutor became Paul the preacher, and Paul is now Paul the prisoner. He is in Rome, and he is writing to his friends in Ephesus. 

Now, that's the way Paul begins a long statement of praise to the Lord in Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1:3 down through Ephesians 1:14 is one sentence in the Greek New Testament with 102 words in it. And the key thought is God has blessed us. Now, in Ephesians 1:10, he tells us what God is doing in this world. What he says in Ephesians 1:10 may shock you. You may think God's doing something else. What is God doing in this world? Ephesians 1:10: "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." Did you notice that? God is in the business of gathering things together. 

Now, there are two forces at work in this world. There is the force from heaven that is reconciling, that's building unity, pulling things together in Jesus Christ. The only center of true unity in the world today is Jesus Christ. The thing that can hold things together is the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Savior. Now, God is busy bringing things together. There's another force at work in the world today, that's the force from hell. Sin is tearing things apart, tearing people's bodies apart, tearing their minds apart, tearing apart nations, homes, churches, tearing apart society. Jesus said one day, you are either gathering with me or you are scattering. Take your choice; you can't be doing both. And by the way, today you and I are either working with God to bring things together in this world—in our lives, in homes and churches—or we're working with the devil to tear things apart. Are you a troublemaker or a peacemaker? Is your home a happy place because you are there? Is your office a good place because you are there? Is your church unified and holy because you are there? I hope so. I hope so. I pray that God will help me to bring about reconciliation. I do not want to go around building walls; I want to build bridges. Now, there are some walls that we have to build. God makes a distinction between truth and error. God makes a distinction between faith and unbelief. But as a Christian serving the Lord, I want to be doing what God is doing. What's he doing? He's gathering things together. And one day in the future, everything will be gathered together in Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean the whole world's going to be saved. Oh, no. Unfortunately, there will be those who will reject the Savior, and alas, they shall be lost forever. 

But Paul is telling us here, you can be sure that in the fullness of the times, God is going to have everything put together in Jesus Christ. That means if you're not in Jesus Christ, you will not be a part of that gathering; you'll be left out. Eleven times in this opening hymn of praise, you'll find the phrase "in him," "in Christ," "in Christ Jesus," because that's where you have to be if you're a part of the gathering. If you're outside of Jesus Christ because you've rejected him, then you aren't gathering, you're scattering. 

Now, as you read Paul's letter to the Ephesians, you see how he applies this. What is God doing in this world? He is putting things together. This phrase in Ephesians 1:10, "gather together in one," has the idea of adding up a column of figures and getting a total. Things don't seem to add up today, but they will one of these days, and God's going to get the total that he has planned. He is going to succeed. 

Now, let's just page through Ephesians and see how this theme is developed. In Ephesians 1:1 through Ephesians 2:10, he tells us how God is bringing together sinners and the Savior. He talks about all that God has done for us. In Ephesians 1:3-14, this great hymn of praise: the blessings of God the Father, Ephesians 1:3-6; the blessings of God the Son, Ephesians 1:7-12; then the blessings of God the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:13-14. The Holy Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit who is the seal, the guarantee, the earnest of our inheritance. 

Then in Ephesians 2, he's telling us what God has done for us in saving us through Jesus Christ. "And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others." He has raised us from the dead, and now we are in Jesus Christ. 

So God is reconciling sinners to himself. That's why he calls them saints, to the saints who are in Ephesus. These people had two addresses: they had a geographical address in Ephesus, they had a spiritual address in Christ Jesus. And the fact that they were in Christ Jesus makes them saints. The word saint simply means set apart. A saint is not someone who has performed miracles and whose life has been blameless and so forth, and therefore some organization says you are a saint. No. Throughout the New Testament, you find that the living people, not dead people, were called saints. Paul was writing to living people in Ephesus who had been set apart by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is reconciling sinners to himself and making them saints. 

Ephesians 2:11 through Ephesians 3:21, he's reconciling Jews and Gentiles. In these verses, Paul talks about how God has taken the believing Jews and the believing Gentiles and made them one body in Jesus Christ. In fact, Paul was in prison because in the temple there in Jerusalem, he used the word "Gentiles." He was giving his testimony, and he said, "And God said to me, 'I will send you far hence unto the Gentiles.'" And when the Jewish people in the temple in Jerusalem heard that word, they became furious, and they tore their clothes and they threw dust in the air and they said, "Away with such a man! He is not fit to live!" And so Paul was in prison. I wonder if you and I would be willing to go to prison for the sake of reaching other people with the gospel? All Paul had to do was say, "No, I'll just talk to my Jewish friends, I won't reach the Gentiles." But Paul was a missionary. Paul had a burden to reach a lost world with the gospel, and he was in prison because of it. Most of us won't go to church to promote missions; if there's a missionary conference, we decide to stay home. Paul was willing to go to prison to promote missions. God is reconciling sinners to himself and making them saints. God is reconciling all races in the church; Jews and Gentiles, one in the church. That solves our racial problem.

Now, in Ephesians 4:1 through Ephesians 5:17, would you believe at the heart of this letter, Paul talks about reconciling believers to one another? "I beseech you to walk worthy of your calling... endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Why is it that Christians in this world that's falling apart cannot walk together, work together, witness together? Why is there accusation, suspicion, division? Why are there church splits? Why is there not unity among God's people? Not uniformity, not one great big world church, no, no, unity, that spiritual oneness in Jesus Christ. What is God doing today? Trying to get the believers to get along with one another. "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind one to another." Imagine having to write to God's people to tell them to get along. And yet how often we as parents and grandparents have had to say to our children and grandchildren, "Why can't you get along with each other?" 

God is reconciling sinners to himself, Ephesians 1:1 to Ephesians 2:10. He's reconciling Jews and Gentiles in the church, Ephesians 2:11 through Ephesians 3:21. He's reconciling believers in the church, Ephesians 4:1 through Ephesians 5:17. Then Ephesians 5:18-33, he's reconciling husbands and wives. He has to write to Christian husbands and wives to tell them how to stay in love with each other. Can you imagine that? It used to be that we wept over the divorces among unbelievers; now we have the same thing happening among believers. Oh, I know there's sometimes when a Christian wife or a Christian husband, it just doesn't seem possible, but it happens. And here's Paul telling husbands and wives, you don't have to get divorces, you don't have to argue, you don't have to fight. 

Then in Ephesians 6:1-4, he talks to parents and children. There doesn't have to be a generation gap. We are in Jesus Christ, therefore he says let's have a oneness in our home. God is reconciling parents and children. Ephesians 6:5-9, he's reconciling employers and employees. He talks to the servants and the masters. Why do we have the problems we have? Labor, capital, management? In Jesus Christ, there is a oneness, and Christian bosses and Christian workers ought to be able to get along with each other. 

There's only one place in Ephesians where you will not find oneness. There's only one place in Ephesians where you will not find him encouraging us to get along, that's in Ephesians 6:10, where we're fighting against the principalities and powers. We become soldiers, and we are fighting against the devil. The devil is the one who's tearing things apart, and he is doing it in the church. You see, these verses, "put on the whole armor of God, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, take up the whole armor of God," these verses were written to Christians, to Christians in the church, because the saints in Ephesus were allowing the devil to work in and through their lives. And Paul had to warn them: when you do that, you start tearing things apart. 

What is God doing? Ephesians 1:10, he's gathering together everything in Jesus Christ. Are you in Jesus Christ? Are you a part of the gathering or the scattering? 

Now, question number two: what does God want us to do? By us, I mean the saints, those who are in Christ Jesus, the believers, those who have received grace and peace from God. Well, he wants us first of all to realize our spiritual wealth in Christ. "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." We were born complete, Colossians 2:9-10: "you are complete in him." Peter tells us that God has given to us all things—not some things, not a few things—all things that pertain to life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3. Now, the blessings God has given us are spiritual blessings; they're not material blessings. He's not promising us that we would be wealthy. We are wealthy spiritually. The battle in the world today that's tearing things apart is a spiritual battle in the minds and hearts and wills of people. And the only way you can fight a spiritual battle is with spiritual weapons, and you have to draw upon spiritual resources. 

Now, when God blessed Israel, he blessed them with material resources. He said, "You'll be blessed in the field, you'll be blessed in the stable, your animals are going to reproduce, there's not going to be one sick one among your flocks and your herds, you'll have big families." He said, "I will give you material blessing if you obey me." He never said that to the church. He says we have spiritual blessings, the blessings of the Holy Spirit of God. We have all that we need. This gift is permanent, not temporary. Israel lost her blessings. The enemy invaded Canaan land and took away their blessings, and then they were taken out of their land off to Babylon. Then they were scattered throughout the world. Israel lost her blessings. The blessings we have in Jesus Christ are permanent and complete, and they are not partial or temporary. 

What kind of riches? Well, Ephesians 1:7, the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1:18, the riches of his glory. Ephesians 2:4, God who is rich in mercy. Oh, how rich we are! Grace, glory, mercy. Ephesians 2:7, the exceeding riches of his grace. Ephesians 3:8, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ephesians 3:16, the riches of his glory. Oh, how rich we are in our position in Jesus Christ! 

Now, what is our position in Jesus Christ? Well, it's interesting to notice that in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 2, he reminds us that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Ephesians 2:6: "He's raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." In Ephesians, posture is very important. If you want to draw upon your riches, you have to practice your posture. Number one, you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Then in Ephesians 4 and Ephesians 5, the posture is not sitting, it's walking. Did you notice that? In Ephesians 4:1: "walk worthy of the calling that God has given to you." Ephesians 4:17: "walk not like the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind." Ephesians 5:2: "we should walk in love as Christ loved us." Ephesians 5:8: "walk as children of light." Ephesians 5:15: "walk carefully." We are seated with Christ in the heavenlies, but we are walking in Christ on the earth. Then Ephesians 6:10, you start standing. Take your stand against the devil and all of his host. Now, how do you practice our position in Jesus Christ? How can we translate sitting into walking and standing? The secret is Ephesians 3:14: bowing. When you and I bow down before him in prayer and worship, then we can practice our position in Jesus Christ. Oh, I trust as we study Ephesians together, that all of us will become a part of the answer, not a part of the problem.