Paul wants the saints in Ephesus to know that they are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ. They were rich in the glory of God’s grace. He explains that to be “in Christ” is to be enriched. The Ephesian letter was written to explain the various manifestations of the glory of God displayed in the church. The letter is very clearly written to the rich – those blessed with every spiritual blessing. Do you have this sense of your own life – that you are rich? Do you identify yourself as someone who has been lavished with gifts from heaven?

Okay, Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, let's pray. Lord, we praise you for how you have disclosed to us so many of the things you've done for us. Lord, I pray you would help us to be strengthened, fortified by the things that you have done, that we wouldn't forget them in the way that we go through our our lives, but that we would understand just how rich you've made your children and how we ought to walk in your ways. Amen. Okay, Ephesians, an introduction to the book of Ephesians.

I'm going to say that this letter is all about the wealth of the believer. That's really, I believe the purpose of Paul's letter is to explain the treasures that are bestowed upon people who turn to Jesus Christ. In this sense, the Ephesians were rich. This is a letter written to the rich. They were blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

They had more than they needed spiritually, so says the apostle, and it was the riches in the glory of God's grace. Things coming from God. This is the love of God. He pours out so many things toward those he has fellowship with. And Ephesians makes that very clear.

You can see it in the very beginning of the book. In verse three in chapter one, the apostle says, 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, 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, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ, to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted in the Beloved." So the apostle is talking about a whole way of looking at your life, and the question is, do you have this sense of your life? Do you have a sense of your riches, the treasures that have been laid upon you through Jesus Christ? Do you identify as someone who's been lavished with gifts from heaven. Is that how you see yourself?

You know, it's so easy to walk around in this world and to think of what we don't have. But God has given us all things that we need. And A letter like this helps us to see the immeasurable power that is at work in the life of a Christian, which in the midst of our weaknesses and our vulnerabilities to different thoughts, we often forget just what God has done for us through his Son. And what we learned from Ephesians is that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead resides in his children. It's an astonishing thought that's easy to forget because of the troubles of this world.

Here's what Paul is saying. You have the same power. He wanted them to be reminded of the blessings of the wealth that God has bequeathed upon his children. And the entire letter explains this wealth. The first three chapters give the details of the wealth and the final three chapters describe what you do when you're so wealthy.

How do you walk? Wealthy people walk in a different way. Spiritually wealthy people do at least, and probably physically wealthy people might as well. But what we learned from the Apostle Paul is that when you have treasures in heaven and the treasures of heaven, the blessing of every spiritual blessing, you walk different. You just walk different.

And It's a beautiful walk that he explains. One of the things that I want to ask all of us is, do you feel the wealth? Do you rejoice in the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? Do you really believe that you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing? When you're going into a trial, do you have a sense of this?

When you wake up in the morning, do you have a sense that you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, that you have treasures that are beyond any earthly aptitude at all? Because they come from heaven, and You have been given those things. He's really speaking about the victory that we can have as we go through our lives. It's such a helpful book. Let's talk about the literary genre of Ephesians.

It's one of the prison epistles. Ephesians was written by Paul when he was in prison, most likely around 60 to 62 A.D. And this was written during his first Roman imprisonment. The other prison epistles are Ephesians, of course, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. You know that great work by John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, was written when he was in prison.

And here is a letter that was written from prison. Some of the most powerful things that have ever been written have been written in prison, which just goes to show you that the wealth of the kingdom of heaven can be experienced no matter where you are. And in many ways it doesn't really matter what happens to you as long as you have that wealth. So Ephesians as a prison epistle, It has six chapters, it has 155 verses, it takes about 15 or 18 minutes to recite, but it gives an overview of the whole plan of salvation and the glory of it. Now, let's talk about the city of Ephesus.

If you have your outline in front of you, there's a category here to help us discuss this. Paul visited Ephesus at the end of his second missionary journey. When he came in to Ephesus, One of the seven wonders of the world was there. The temple of Diana or the temple of Artemis. It was absolutely gigantic in scale.

You've perhaps seen pictures of the Parthenon or maybe visited it. It's far, far larger than the Parthenon. Huge marble, black marble pillars, double pillars around the perimeter. It was just a remarkable structure. And Some of the pillars, as a result of the destruction of the temple of Artemis, as in God's providence, he desired it to be destroyed.

Some of the pillars were taken to Istanbul to build a Christian church there, the Hagia Sophia. The remnants of these pillars are in the British Museum. There's not much left of the Temple of Diana. We visited there a couple of years ago, and there's this one pillar in a swamp left. That's what's left of the Temple of Diana.

It was one of the seven wonders of the world, and Acts, the book of Acts says that the whole world was worshiping Diana of the Ephesians. God will destroy the idols. He'll destroy one set of idols. People will make up a new set. He'll destroy those.

They'll make up a new set. He'll destroy those. He'll make sure that your idol ends up in a swamp, and in God's providence. That's what happened to the temple of Diana. Paul stayed there for three years during his third missionary journey.

It's recorded in Acts 19, verses 20 to 30. Timothy was a pastor in this city when Paul said, remain on at Ephesus. There was trouble in Ephesus. Paul said he fought with beasts in Ephesus. It was a tough place to be a pastor.

Timothy was there, but then the apostle John was also a pastor in Ephesus until he was banished to the island of Patmos where he died. The apostle Paul would meet the elders of the church in Ephesus on the beach in Miletus in Acts chapter 20 where he gives them sort of a farewell address, one of the most remarkable and beautiful and intimate testimonies of the Apostle Paul and local church elders. Let's talk about the birth of the Ephesian Church. It's really an exciting. What a hopper of a birth of a church.

If you look at Acts 19, I'm just going to read it to you. It's a page-turner. The conflict, the difficulty, and the glory of God in the planting of the Ephesian church is really remarkable. So in Acts 19 verse 1, here's the story. And it happened, while Apollos was in Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus.

And finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. So they were untaught. And so Paul said to them, Into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism.

Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him. That is, on Jesus Christ. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about twelve in all." So the beginning of the church in Ephesus was with twelve men that the Holy Spirit fell upon.

And they went into the synagogue, verse 8, and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and did not believe but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, He departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. So He leaves the synagogue where there's so much tumult and moves into an old school named after a guy by the name of Tyrannus. It probably was reflective of the kind of teacher he was, Tyrannus. And so Paul teaches there in the school of Tyrannus.

He rented a building basically. And this continued for two years, verse 10, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, We exercise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so.

And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted up the value of them and it totaled 50, 000 pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Out of these 12 men who were converted, you had multitudes who were turning to the Lord. They were confessing their sins and they were burning their magic books. They were turning away from their idolatry. And in verse 21, after this testimony of the spreading of the word of God, when these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome.

And so he went into Macedonia, two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a time. And about that time there arose a great commotion about the Way. So we're still back in Ephesus, and the people of the Way, code for Christians, were in big trouble because all of this repentance was hurting the economy. People were turning away from their wicked practices and it was messing up the economic structure of the city. For a certain man, verse 24, named Demetrius a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana brought no small profit to the craftsmen.

So he called them together with the workers of similar occupation and said, men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship." Well, he was speaking a truth. Diana was being worshipped all over the ancient world. It was a big business everywhere.

And so in verse 28 we see the response. Now when they heard this they were full of wrath and cried out saying, great is Diana of the Ephesians. So the whole city was filled with confusion and rushed into the theater with one accord, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul travel companions, and when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples would not allow him. Then some of the officials of Asia, who were his friends, sent to him, pleading that he would not venture into the theater. Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, and most of them did not know why they had come together and they drew Alexander out of the multitude the Jews putting him forward and Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the people But when they found out he was a Jew, all with one voice, cried out for two hours, great is Diana of the Ephesians.

So there's this mad, crazy crowd, this mob inside the amphitheater there. And I've been in that amphitheater. It's remarkable to stand there and think of what was happening, of these people kind of in a crazy frenzy crying out, great is Diana the Ephesians. They do this for two hours. And when the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is a temple guardian of the great goddess Diana and of the image which fell down from Zeus?

Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess. Therefore if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone. The courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another.

But if you have any other inquiry to make, It shall be determined in the lawful assembly. For we are in danger of being called into question for today's uproar. There being no reason which we may give account for this disorderly gathering." And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. So finally some rationality came into the amphitheater and of course he didn't want to get in trouble with the Romans because the Romans didn't like this kind of upheaval going on. So the birth of the Ephesian church, you know, 12 men and a riot and a church is born.

It's incredible. There are a number of words that you'll see scattered throughout Ephesians. Look for the word riches. It appears five times. Look for the word grace.

The word grace appears 12 times. The word glory eight times. The word filled or filled up or fills occurs six times. The riches of the glory of his grace filling the heart of a sinner is really the central matter of the letter to the Ephesians. So let's talk about the message for a bit.

The message of Ephesians, as James Montgomery Boyce has stated, is, quote, a mini-course in theology centered on the church. So what you find in this letter is, first of all, a description of the treasuries of grace that reside in the church and the various practices, the various relationships, the various activities that are designed for the Church of Jesus Christ. So it's a marvelous testimony of the whole matter of what is the church and what should church life look like. It's a classic testament of ecclesiology And it's helpful for the modern church in view of the current modern ignorance of ecclesiology in the church today. The modern church needs a heavy dose of Ephesians.

Pragmatism, worldliness have become the guiding hands behind much of the modern church's philosophy and structure. And everybody's running around asking, how should we do church? How can we do church in a cooler way? Well, the real question that we should be asking is how should we do church in a biblical way, and Ephesians clears up a lot of the confusion about what the church should be and who belongs to the church and how the church should be structured and organized and how people are ministered to in the church. And so there are two major sections.

There's the doctrinal section, chapters 1 through 3, and the second half is more practical in nature. I'll have to say whenever I read the letter to the Ephesians, it's like I'm transported back in time. I'm transported back into the little church that I spent my youth in in California. The pastor of that church, John Tabei, he loved the book of Ephesians. He quoted from it all the time and he preached from it.

It was such a blessing. My father broke family tradition. He took our family out of a liberal Methodist church, and he took us to this Bible preaching church where this pastor was preaching a correct ecclesiology, which really was a reflection of what you read in the book of Ephesians. And this was during the 1960s when the sexual revolution and the drug culture and the Vietnam War And the whole rising counterculture of that day were raging. But there was this other movement going on around us, and it was happening in our little church.

And it was a movement to establish a true counterculture, the culture of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and change lots of people's lives. And the core messages that I heard as a young man are found in this book. It's easy for me to to be transported back when I read the words of Ephesians. There's so many issues that are dealt with here. You'll see a testimony of the destructiveness of evil and the beauty and the power of purity in chapter 5 verses 1 through 7 in verses 8 through 11 in chapter 5 in chapter 2 1 & 2 in chapter 4 verse 27 you'll see these great contrasts between Light and darkness the beneficial nature of light and the destructiveness and the confusion of darkness.

You'll also see the importance of the family as a picture of the gospel. Quite a bit of Ephesians is dedicated to this in chapters 5 through 6 where you read about what a husband is and what he ought to and who a wife is and what she ought to do and what who children are and what they ought to do and then finally in chapter 6 what workers or or servants or slaves are and what they ought to do. But there's this picture of a family which is a picture of the gospel. The husband's love for his wife is a picture of Christ's love for the church. A wife's submission and respect of her husband is a picture of a respectful and obedient church.

A children who honor their father and mother is a picture of the people of God who honor God above all else and they obey him. So you have all these family relationships that are cast in the context of the gospel. They really are a living picture of the mystery that's spoken of here in the book. You know, there's much about family life here, and again, you know, my mind is taken back to my pastor, John Tve, back in those early years, who was a person who understood the doctrine of the family pretty well, and I really, really appreciated that. I remember him just speaking about how important it is to establish a holy and biblical family life, and he used to say, if you succeed in business but fail with your family, you've failed.

I heard him say that so many times. And he was really hearkening to power of the gospel at work in a family, and how a family actually demonstrates various elements of the gospel. And so it's very critical that we have families that are reflective of the kingdom of God. And you have tremendous testimony of the power and the supremacy of Scripture in chapter 6, where we learn that the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. It's one of the chief tools of warfare.

I'd like to next talk about the imagery in Ephesians. There are many really powerful images that the Apostle Paul uses to explain the church and her people. For example, the church is a body, and you can read about that in chapter 4, verses 15 and 16. That God pours out His Spirit upon the church and they become one body. Another image is the image of the household.

The church is a household. In Ephesians 2 19 through 22, there's this remarkable imagery of the household. And What we learn in Ephesians is that a household is representative of something greater. We all live in houses, but our houses are representative of something greater. They always point to something.

Everything in this world points to something greater, and the house you live in points to something greater, and it points to heaven. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. Earthly homes are figures of heavenly homes, and so an earthly home should be a reflection of heaven but the church is a household and God has you know laced all of creation with reminders you can't look anywhere without being pointed to heaven in this world Whether you see a door or a window or a house or a rock or a cloud or a star, you can't look at anything without having it point to heaven. And it's the same thing with a household. These images are very powerful.

There's another image and that's the image of the building. In chapter 2 verse 19 we read, Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. So the church is a building where living stones or people are fit together. You know, we are not only in a household, we are rocks. We're rocks being fitted together into a building.

And Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone, and the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of the church. So, in the imagery that you read about in the Ephesians, you'll get a really good understanding of what it means to be part of a church, Because those images are designed to instruct us, to help us to understand what life in a church should be like. So look for the various images. Now let's dive into the letter itself. As you can see, I've divided this book into three sections, chapters 1 through 3, the wealth of the believer, chapters 4 through 5, the walk of the believer, and thirdly, chapter 6, the warfare of the believer.

Ephesians is organized in a very simple way in this sense. First, there's this disclosure of the wealth of the believer, these treasures that God has laid upon his children to remind them what they've been given so that they think rightly about themselves. That they consider their lives in an accurate way Rather than seeing themselves as hopeless and worthless and poverty-stricken, that they would see themselves for who they really are. They're blessed with every spiritual blessing. They are wealthy, beyond measure.

They have more than they ever could need because of their salvation. And so the wealth of the believer is outlined and then the walk of the believer is also explained and in Here you find the functionality of various relationships and the threats to love, what causes relationships to be destroyed. This is all detailed in the second section. And in the third section, the warfare of the believer, here we learn about the whole armor of God and how a believer engages in the conflicts and the difficulties that he or she will encounter. Now if you see these three words that correspond with these three sections, sit, walk, stand, that's a good way to remember the letter to the Ephesians.

You sit and you saturate your heart and your mind in the treasures, in the blessings from heaven. That's the first thing you must do. You must sit and you must soak it in. You must, you know, get your heart connected to what has happened to you and who you are. You're not bankrupt.

You're not weak. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. And It really matters how you see yourself in this world. God desires you to see yourself as a wealthy person. And so you sit and you bask in the wealth.

And then the second, walk. Well, you're not put on this earth just to sit. You're also put on this earth to walk, to demonstrate the glory of God in the world in these various relationships. So you also walk, but you don't just walk. There are times when you must stand.

You must stand against the fiery darts of the devil and defend yourself. And so sit, walk, stand. This is really the essence of the Christian life. And it really describes every day of your life. Because you you really ought not to go out into a day without sitting and considering the wealth that you have and drawing upon it and reminding yourself of it so that you have a proper image of yourself and of the world so that you're not walking around this world with a long face.

You know, this is a problem that we often struggle with. We look like someone died and actually nobody died. We died. We haven't really filled our souls with a sense of the blessings that God has bequeathed upon us. And so we sit and we find ourselves reminded of the glory of God and the power that he's given to us.

And then we walk. We get up, we go about our day, and we do the things that he's called us to do. And while we walk, we might have to stand because of the assaults of the devil, which come in various forms really every day. So it's a picture of everyday life in a person's ongoing activities. So that's the outline.

Well let's start walking through the letter. In chapter 1, in the first two verses, there's a greeting, and chapter 1 sets up the entire testimony here, but one of the things about chapter 1 that you need to understand is that it explains the ground of all Reformation, all spiritual refreshment, all rationality, all goodness is really explained right here in this first chapter. And of course it all begins with God. And so the Apostle addresses those who are in Ephesus in this way, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. Now this should be an astonishing statement.

Remember, this is Ephesus. This is one of the great, wicked commercial centers in the ancient world where, you know, one of the greatest temples to a pagan goddess existed, where you had so many people, they were crazy. They were crazy enough to go into an amphitheater and scream and yell, great as Artemis of the Ephesians, and most of them didn't even know what was going on. They didn't even know why they were there. This was the city.

But there are saints there. Saints in a pagan corrupt city who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Then he says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He cannot get more than a few words out than to speak of this fountain of grace that comes from heaven. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul cannot stop talking about this fountain of blessing that comes from the throne of God by the grace of God. And then he begins to speak about exactly how Christ has blessed his church in chapter 1 verse 3 all the way to chapter 3 verse 13. And he begins by speaking about redemption in Jesus Christ. Where in verse 3 he says, 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. So that's the first thing.

He has blessed us. Second, just as he chose us before the foundation of the world. He chose his children before the foundation of the world. And that means that God worked in the hearts of sinners who are trapped in this crazy world in Ephesus and he chose them. He plucked them out.

They didn't have much to do with their salvation because he chose them before the foundation of the world. Why? That we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." So if any person has ever been converted, they should ask, how did this happen? And here's how it happened. God out of the good pleasure of his will chose sinners to be redeemed.

He predestined them from before the foundation of the world. In other words, their salvation was fixed in eternity past. And that is why it is impossible for anyone to have their salvation taken away from them. It was fixed in eternity past, and it is preserved in eternity future because of predestination. But it happened, why?

Out of the good pleasure of his will. And there's a purpose to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved. Why does God save sinners? Not because sinners are so helpful and beneficial to him, But because sinners are trophies of his grace, to forgive a sinner is to bring glory to God. God glorifies himself in the salvation of wicked sinners in order to demonstrate his mercy.

God wants to demonstrate how merciful he is, and so he chooses sinners to demonstrate his mercy so that every time someone who has been pulled out of the pit of their worldliness and all the trouble they brought upon themselves. It's a way that God has designed to bring glory to himself. God desires to bring glory to himself and he does it through giving grace to sinners and accepting them into the beloved. And then Paul uses all kinds of different words that help us to understand this salvation. Verse 7, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself, 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." So God redeems.

He buys sinners off the slave block and he blesses them with every spiritual blessing and he declares that he is he's gathering them together in order to sum up everything in Jesus Christ. It's an unstoppable movement of God. He is going to use everything that ever happened to you to be summed up in Jesus Christ. And so you never have to worry about what's happening in your life in the sense that you must know that God is going to glorify himself. He chose you before the foundation of the world, and he is going to carry you through into all eternity.

Then he speaks of the inheritance in Christ in chapter 1, verses 11 through 14, And here is one of the great statements of the sovereignty of God, that God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Here God is just declaring his absolute mastery over the salvation of sinners, and he does what he desires in the world. And notice also about this inheritance. In verse 11, you'll see that the whole activity of the Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In verse 11, you see that the Father purposed salvation.

In verse 12, you see that the Son provided salvation. In verse 13 you'll see how the Holy Spirit prospered salvation and made it sweet. So you have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all performing different functions in the salvation of sinners. And all of this has to do with the riches of the glory of salvation. And God does everything to praise the glory of His grace.

And that's why you find all these words here in this first chapter. Now, what a tragic thing it is if you do not experience that treasure. And secondly, if you are converted, what a sad thing it is to not be aware of it in the day, to not understand the wealth that you have, and to walk through the day as if you were a pauper. Imagine someone who had unlimited resources and they didn't know it, and they walked around as paupers, and they had no idea. That happens to people from time to time.

Then at the end of chapter 1 there's a prayer for spiritual wisdom. This is one of the one of the two great prayers in Ephesians. This is the first one in chapter 1 verse 15 through 23, and then there's another one at the near the end of chapter 3, but this is a marvelous prayer to pray for your friends, for yourself, for your family. And as we exit chapter 1, it becomes very clear that Paul is acting like a lawyer, and he's just piling up evidence upon evidence of the riches that we have in Jesus Christ, and that we have more spiritual resources than we need. They are far more than adequate.

We are not poor. We are rich. That's chapter 1. Chapter 2 is an explanation of the new life that's in Jesus Christ, and in chapter 2 he speaks of our condition before we were born again. And here's the language that he uses of our condition, very dramatic language.

You were dead. You were dead. You had nothing. A dead body does not respond. A dead body has to be raised up.

And so a dead body can't get itself going. Something has to happen to that body. And the apostle Paul says that we were 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 and the sons of disobedience. And he talks about this life of fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and really drawing the wrath of God. But even while you were so dead, God made you alive.

And it just shows the hopelessness of our changing ourselves. No one can save himself. If a person desires to be saved, they are hopeless without divine action upon their soul. But verse 4 makes it very clear what God does. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. There's more treasure here. Here's what you learn is that what happened to Jesus Christ has also happened to you. He was raised from the dead and so is a sinner saved by grace raised from the dead. What happens to him happens to his brothers and his sisters.

For by grace you have been saved." And then he speaks of how we are brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ. And then he speaks in chapter 3 of the mystery that is revealed. And the mystery is that God is going to save the Gentiles. And this is revealed here in chapter 3. For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which was given to me for you." So now the gospel is beginning to spread throughout the whole world and of course Ephesus is one of those places filled with Gentiles.

And there are various purposes of this spreading of the gospel to the Gentiles, and one of those purposes is revealed in chapter 3 verse 10 that God saves sinners so that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. So God has designed to use the church to demonstrate to the powers and principalities that they are toast, that their end is near, that God is mighty, and he is saving sinners. And so the church is the place where we make known the wisdom of God to the powers and the principalities. You know, when we gather for worship, I believe that's one thing that we're doing as we're singing and teaching one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, we're also simultaneously putting the powers and principalities on notice, and there's nothing they can do about it. And then again This prayer appears in chapter 3 verses 14 to 21.

This is such a marvelous prayer. It's a prayer that you should pray for people. Chapter 4, we turn the corner and We turn from the wealth of the believer to the walk of the believer. And the first thing that he mentions is the way that the church walks in unity and in love and how he calls us to live with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." It's the responsibility of everybody in the church to preserve love in the church through this lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering and bearing with one another. Love is the oil of the church that keeps the friction from becoming too hard, and it's also the glue that keeps people together at the same time.

And then he speaks of spiritual gifts, how this walk in the Spirit is a walk in the carrying out of your gifts, and he says in verse 7, But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. And so there's this discussion about the gifts of the Spirit and how God has measured out various gifts to different people in the church. And then he explains in chapter 4 verses 17 to 32 how the church walks in newness of life. And in verse 22 he says that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may put on the new man which was created according to God." So this walk has two aspects to it. You put off certain things and you put on other things, and that's how a church walks in newness of life, and that's a constant process.

You're constantly understanding what you need to put off, and there's more and more and more that you discover as the years go on. And the same thing with putting on. You continue to discover more of what to put on. One of the critical matters here is the grieving of the Holy Spirit that he speaks of in verses 25 through 32. The grieving of the Spirit is connected to the way that we speak to one another in verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification.

And it also has to do with putting away things like bitterness and wrath and evil speaking and malice, but on the other hand, to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And then we turn to chapter 5 where he further explains how to walk in love, and he gives what is probably the central matter of the demonstration of love, and that is, it is imitating God. He says, therefore be imitators of God, dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us. So he's saying that the way that we love our brethren is the way that we've been loved. So if you want to know how to love your brethren, look at how God has loved you and go and do the same.

And what's the chief mark of God's love? His grace. His abounding merciful grace. Then he speaks of walking in the light and then walking in wisdom in chapter 5 verses 15 through 18. And then he gives applications of walking and wisdom.

And there are several applications. The first is in marriage, that husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, and wives honor and submit to their husbands as the church does, and then children obey their parents in the Lord. And that's in chapter 6 verses 1 through 4, and then he addresses employers and employees in chapter 6 verses 5 through 9 using the language of bondservants. He says bondservants be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in sincerity of heart as to Christ not with eye service as men pleasers but as bondservants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart." So he's talking about the kind of worker that every employer dreams about. An honest and dutiful worker.

And in this case, not a man-pleaser, but a God-pleaser. And then finally in chapter 6, verses 10 through 17, he turns to how we go through the difficult times of conflict and spiritual warfare. And so he says, Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand." And so then there's this final appeal and prayer at the very, very end.

And then he finally says to them, peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. So that's a, you know, a really brief quick flyover of Ephesians. And so there's so many elements that we can draw together.

First of all, there's this matter of wealth. Do you see yourself as wealthy? Do you see yourself as poverty-stricken and beaten down, or do you see yourself as raised up with Jesus Christ with all the power and strength that you need and you're drawing upon it daily. It really matters who you perceive yourself to be. Secondly, consider the importance of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The church is so important and she must receive devotion. The expression of all of her gifts and sacrifices. Here's why the church is important. She's the only institution that God established. You know, Jesus Christ didn't start a business or a ministry niche.

He didn't start a magazine. He started a church and he bought that church with his own blood. Jesus Christ is the owner of the church. You'll learn that in Ephesians 1, 22, and 23. He owns it.

He calls the church his temple in 1 Corinthians 3, 16, and that Jesus is the builder of the church. That's in Matthew 28, verse 18. That Jesus is the foundation of the church. That's 1 Corinthians 3 11. Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

That's in chapter 4 verses 14 or 15 in Ephesians. So these two matters. The wealth of the believer, that that believer walks in a way that's consistent with his wealth, that that believer understands the pivotal role that the church plays in the world, and finally, that you know that you have protection by putting on the full armor of God. So Ephesians is really it's a very encouraging book because it really explains how a Christian is successful in this world, and how a sinner can have victory all his life long with one thing, the wealth, the treasures of heaven that God gives to his children. So that's the letter to the Ephesians.