I Am Unshakeable

Greeting

We start a brand new teaching series today at Lighthouse, and I am excited. I am probably more excited about this series that we are diving in to than any other series we’ve tackled over the last few months. That isn’t to say that I was not excited for those, but I believe that this is the type of series that can change the trajectory of our church, by changing the trajectory of your lives.

I don’t know if some of you are really ready for that.

You might give me an amen right now, but change is hard. And if we are being honest with ourselves today, we don’t like to change.

We want a good message to change our neighbor… and for many of you your neighbor is your spouse… “Tell him Pastor! Say it louder for my spouse!” In some cases we want to hear a message that is going to change our kids. Matter of fact you might have dragged them here with the hopes that they’d change.

But I wonder…

How many people are here today and would be willing to lay their hearts before the Lord and say to Him, “Here I am. Reorder my life. Change my priorities. Clean my heart. Purify my thoughts.”

If you would be willing to change your posture for the next 30 minutes, I believe you are going to receive something powerful from the Lord today. I believe you are going to meet God today, and it is going to change everything.

So today, before we read our text, we are going to pray and we are going to ask God to do a deep work on our hearts.

Reading

Ephesians 1:1–3 (NIV)

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. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

I Am Unshakeable

Introduction

It’s graduation season, and at the risk of once more embarrassing my son, I am going to reference him in my introduction. Every year his school has an end of year expo. The students work on a project that is a reflection of their year of study.

This year my son Jaden did a project that was all about family. It was actually my favorite expo project so far because my son had to trace his family roots. He had to do research. He had to engage with his grandparents and even do an interview with one of his grandmothers that was repackaged as a podcast. I felt like this project was very beneficial to him understanding where he comes from.

One part of his presentation was to describe some of his favorite family moments, and to my absolute joy he referenced a couple of vacations that our family went on.

Now these vacations were very different, and what stood out for each of them was their location.

Can you all say location?

You see location matters. When we took our family on a trip to New York, the location mattered. Our vacation was busy. We were in the Big City. We were coming and we were going. It was the hustle and the bustle and the history and lights. Our trip felt like the city.

Then there was the road trip vacation where we saw the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Zion National Park. This vacation was filled with rest, nature, the wonder of God’s creation. Though we traveled far more distance, the pace was slower. It felt like the outdoors.

They were very different trips, and each trip took on the identity of where we traveled to.

Transition

Now I say that because in our series we are going to take a mental trip to the ancient city of Ephesus. We are going to read and we are going to study Paul’s letter to the church that existed in Ephesus, but we cannot isolate the church of Ephesus from the city of Ephesus. We cannot deal with the spiritual truths in Paul’s writing without holding them up to the cultural moment that the reader was living in.

The Caveat

Now, typically I would spend the first part of my sermon giving you the context of the author, the audience, the cultural moment that they were living in, and other details of information that are important to consider when reading the text. But today I am going to break from my normal delivery and I’m going to first tackle the text, and then we will circle back to the context.

So instead of giving you the appetizer first, we’re going right to the main course, and we’ll have the appetizer for dessert. It’ll all make sense in just a moment, just stay with me.

The Ephesian Letter

Dr. Tony Evans says this of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It is “How to live a heavenly life in a hellish world.”

That might actually be why I am most excited about this series. How many of you have heard this over and over again the last few years, “We are living in unprecedented times.”

We’ve heard that a lot haven’t we? And while it may be personally true for us, I don’t believe it is historically true for humanity. You see, history repeats itself. And if we would look further than Tik Tok and into an actual history book we’ll discover that we can learn a great deal about what we are going through today by looking at the past.

I think Ephesus causes us to do that.

If we’ve ever thought, man this world is crazy! It’s getting harder and harder to be a Christian in a time like this! It’s unprecedented!

No, let’s just read Ephesians together and we’re going to find lots of similarities for the church today.

[PAUSE]

Growing up in the church I heard this saying a lot, “You are so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good…”

I understood this to mean that we needed to be practical with our faith. We couldn’t lose sight of how we are to be present to our world. We are to embody our world. We are to make a difference in our world.

But, I believe that Paul would summarize the first chapter of Ephesians by saying, “Unless you are heavenly minded, you are no earthly good.”

We are no good to our community until we get the mind of heaven to guide our thoughts. Unless we renew our mind with the mind of Christ, then we cannot be of service to our world.

And I believe that this is Paul’s big idea in chapter one of Ephesus. He has to remind them of who they are, and he does this by giving them a heavenly vision of who they are…

And he does this by telling them three things.

He Chose Us

Ephesians 1:4 (NIV)

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

The first thing he tells the churches in Ephesus is He Chose Us.

There is this misconception that I want to clear up this morning when it comes to who chose who. Many of us believe we chose Him. In the plethora of options available to us of people or things to put our faith in, we chose Jesus. We made the decision that we would chose Him above all other things.

There is a problem with this line of thinking. The inherit problem with believing that we chose him and not the other way around is that it puts us in the drivers seat of our eternal decisions.

We chose him, and we can un-chose him.

But the story of scriptures tells us a far more compelling story than that.

You see another way to read the scriptures is to read it as a love story from God our Father to you, His son or His Daughter.

The story of scripture tells us that we are part of a fallen humanity. We belong to a fallen people group that prioritizes our self over others. We are controlled by our selfish thoughts and our selfish desires. When God’s moral law is stripped from our conscience we will make decisions that will ultimately end up killing ourselves.

Scripture calls this being “dead in our trespasses”. We make our decisions led by our own selfishness and the wage for that decision is death.

Who would love a person like that? Who would chose a person like that? Who would want a person like that?

I’ll tell you who - God would love a person like that. God would chose a person like that. God would want a person like that.

John 3:16 (NIV)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

We didn’t chose God, God chose us!

He rescued us from a life separated from him.

He was ordering your steps and leading you into a relationship with him.

He was the one who put that person on your path, or that story on your screen or that ad on your Facebook account.

He saw you and He chose you!

And here is what I love most about this… he didn’t chose you when you were at your best…

Some of you know what I’m talking about.

When you walked into this church you didn’t come in buttoned up. You didn’t have your life in order. You weren’t the you that you are today.

No, you came in here with addiction.

You came in here with doubt.

You came in here with a court date.

You came in here with a negative doctors report.

You came in here with divorce papers.

And when all of these things made other people push you away, you realized that there was a God who was pulling you in.

Why?

Because he chose you.

He Redeemed Us

Ephesians 1:7 (NIV)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins…

The second thing that Paul says to the church is that He Redeemed Us.

The word redeemed here has a powerful meaning. It is from the Greek word apolytrōsis (ap-ol-oo'-tro-sis) and it means liberation procured by the payment of a ransom.

When is a ransom necessary?

Whenever someone is being held against their own will. And Paul is writing to the church and reminding them that their sins, their destructive habits, their proclivities were holding them hostage.

They wanted to change, but they couldn’t.

They wanted to get out of their situation, but they couldn’t.

They wanted better for themselves, but they couldn’t.

And this is where Jesus comes in!

Not only were we chosen, but when Jesus came to our lives, our adversary Satan demanded that a payment be made in order to release us from the bondage of sin.

Jesus laid down his own life, as a ransom, so that we could be redeemed.

You see, you are not your own, but you were bought with a price. Jesus bled so that we could live.

And now that we are living, why would we want to go back to a life of bondage? Why would we want to go back when our debt has been paid? Why would we want entangle ourselves from the things that Jesus rescued us from?

And it is so important that you understand what this means for us… when he paid our ransom he then lavished his grace on us…

Ephesians 1:7–8 (NIV)

…in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.

God’s grace… Him giving us something we don’t deserve… God is not stingy with his grace, he lavishes it on us. Meaning, it is a costly grace.

Many people will correctly say that grace is available and it is free. That’s a partial truth. It is free, and it is free for us. But it was a costly grace for Him. God gave His son so that we could become His sons.

And this leads us to the third thing that Paul tells us…

We Have an Inheritance

Ephesians 1:11 (ESV)

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

Paul tells us that We Have an Inheritance.

This is where everything gets really, really good. God chose us, then he redeemed us, and then he gives us an inheritance. And do you know what that inheritance is?

We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Our inheritance is that we will not taste death… not like the world tastes death. But our inheritance is that to be separated from our loved ones here on earth is to be united with our Lord in heaven until the new heaven and the new earth are come.

You see, God has chosen us to bring His kingdom to this earth. We do it in part right now. We manifest spiritual principles here in the natural. But there is coming a day and there is coming a time when that which is done in part is going to pass away, and all these things will be new again.

And when that day comes, we will all be together and we will all be like Him. This is our inheritance!

And until that day day comes, I want you to read what Paul says here in the text…

Ephesians 1:13–14 (NIV)

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

We have a deposit of our inheritance right now, and that is the Holy Spirit.

When you want to buy a car or when you want to buy a house. If you have to finance that purchase a deposit is required. Although you don’t own it outright, the deposit gives you partial rights and all the benefits.

We own some of the car, and we own some of the house, but we get to enjoy those benefits of it right now.

And Paul is saying that’s what the Holy Spirit that is living inside of you is like.

Heaven isn’t here yet, but we get to enjoy the authority of heaven right now because of the Holy Spirit power that is living on the inside of you.

The Holy Spirit living on the inside of you gives you authority to call those things that are not, as though they are.

The Holy Spirit living on the inside of you gives you authority to pray for the sick, and they will be healed.

The Holy Spirit living on the inside of you gives you authority to cast out demons in Jesus name.

The Holy Spirit living on the inside of you gives you authority to break chains and loose strongholds.

Eternity isn’t here now, but the Holy Spirit living in you is showing you glimpses of what’s to come.

[Pause]

And now, let me end this message the way I usually start a message.

Paul in Ephesus (Conclusion)

Paul is writing to the churches that he established in Ephesus. This book comes much later than the period of time when Paul was in Ephesus and he gave his life to make an eternal difference.

At the time of Paul Ephesus was an urban metropolis. It was second only to Rome as the cosmopolitan center of culture and commerce. Ephesus was a port city and that made it attractive for trade to all corners of the Roman empire.

Living in Ephesus would be like living in modern day New York or Los Angeles. It was a city that was alive.

But it was also a city with a shadow side. Not only was it a city that traded goods, but it also trafficked people. It was the kind of city that you could get your hands on things that you weren’t supposed to get your hands on. It was what we would call a city that pushed the limits of the law. It was the kind of city that a liberal would call too loose. I suppose it was the “sin city” before the “sin city” was built.

And all of this was done under the demonic shadow of the goddess Artemis.

Ephesus was the city that built a massive temple to the goddess Artemis who was the goddess of hunt, chastity, childbirth, wild animals and the wilderness. Her shadow over the city made merchants rich as they sold goods and pushed trinkets in the name of worship to the goddess.

This was a hard to city to preach in. To be a Christian in Ephesus was difficult.

Acts 19 records that as the church grew, and as people turned away from the worship of Artemis, it made the merchants and craftsmen mad. It got so bad that it caused a riot in city and put Paul right in the center of it all. Later, Timothy, Paul’s apprentice, would be martyred in Ephesus for speaking out against the procession for the goddess Diana, another demonic goddess that was at the center of Ephesus.

And although many would prefer to walk away from Ephesus because of the cultural challenges that it presented, Paul went running into Ephesus.

Why would Paul do that? Because when you’ve been called, and when you’ve been redeemed, and when you have an inheritance in Christ, you don’t run from city you’ve been called to reach, but you run towards the city you’ve been called to reach.

AW Tozer said, “A scared world needs a fearless church.”

When you get this understanding of the authority that you possess, you know that you are unshakeable. And can I just tell you more about what happened in Ephesus?

It became a strategic hub for Paul’s ministry and he remained in Ephesus for three years. During that time the church was marked by the miraculous. Here’s what was said of Luke about the church in Ephesus;

Acts 19:11–12 (NIV)

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

Acts 19:18–20 (NIV)

Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

The church in Ephesus was unshakeable.

And I believe, with every part of being, that we are stepping into an Unshakeable season here at Lighthouse. An unshakeable church is built on unshakeable believers.

We are not building a church because it’s easy, we are building a church because we’ve been called to build a church.

We were chosen to this work. We were saved for this work.

And as it goes for the church, so it goes for you and your family… If you feel like it’s not easy being saved in your family remember that He called you for this. He chose you for this. He selected you for this.

Remember who you are and remind yourself that “I am unshakeable.”

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