Ephesians 3 LA YA Group

STORY OF BEING SPIRITUALLY WEARY- TIME AT SEMINARY STRUGGLING WITH SIN, LONELINESS, GOD FELT FAR, in an environment where all the opposite are supposed to be true. I was on fumes.

Q: what’s hard about being a Christian lately for you? What’s hard about being a Christian in LA?

1- The letter to the Ephesians is to a group of people really similar to you facing spiritual weariness and need of encouragement. ephesus is a large metropolis, one of the 3 largest cities in that region, size of 200,000 ppl, no skyscrapers

christians were tiny minority, most worshiped aretimus (fertility god) and Emporer. it is in this context Paul is writing to his church

do you resonate?

living in a modern day Ephesus, it’s not easy to be a Christian. you see everyone else giving into self indulgence and the way of Jesus is self denial. It can wear you down.

Q: what do you need from god tonight?

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I don’t know how familiar you all are with Paul. Some love his writing style, some hate it. I love and hate it. He bounces all over the place. But it’s always connected if you look long enough.

2- Jew and gentile tension

in this time period there’s a large debate about who can be considered “in the family of god”. Those who were called Jews would have said, only those who can trace their lineage back to the patriarch Abraham in the book of Genesis Can be, or those who adopt all of the Old Testament laws and live as Jews do. Jewish means to be a descendant of Abraham Of who god promised to bless and make a nation and be that nations god.

the other group were called gentiles. These were non Jewish people. They Could not trace their line back to Abraham and did not follow the Old Testament laws.

when Jesus came and died, he spoke to the Jew and and the gentile and said the way to god is through me, trust and have faith in my life and death for you as a way to cleanse and save you and place you in gods family. But the jews did not like this, it’s why they killed him. And even after years beyond Jesus resurrection and going back to heaven, Jews still did not think gentiles were in the family of god. This is the debate going on that Paul is writing about.

and Paul says his primary ministry from Jesus is to the gentiles. Verse 6

this would have been so provocative to the readers - there are 3 ways we respond to the word of god when it challenges us. 1- we think the problem is the with the Bible so we just abandon it as archaic

2- we think the problem is with interpretation so we abandon the context of the passage

3- we think the problem is with us and that it’s actually good when god challenges us and pushes against our preconceived notions. Keller quote

it also highlights an important doctrine of our faith that we are always tempted to get away from but must be foundational.

***we are loved and adopted into gods family by grace, not anything else. There are no qualifiers or exceptions to who can receive gods grace

What is Paul’s point in sharing this ? Look at v11-13

What gives us confidence to approach god, what gives us access to approach god is simply his grace and love.

when I think back to a season in my life where I reslly wrestled with sexual sin, I often thought how well I was doing in my fight determined if I could go to god or not. But the point of this whole section is there’s nothing to look towards for confidence in going to god other than his grace. Paul himself says he’s the least in v8, only by grace.

Q; what are things that falsely give or take away your confidence to approach god? How does a reminder of gods grace through Christ encourage the spiritually weary?

story of prostitute at Erlanger

3- v14-19 gods love overpowering us and our boxes (testimony)

do you really think god loves you? has that ever fully landed on you? This is saying in some way god can give you eyes to see it more and more. What if we just took this at face value and prayed this? Help us see your love for us god?

q: what are practical ways we can reminds ourselves of the love Of god when we feel sinful and dirty?

Q: how can a deeper sense of gods love for us help when we are full of doubt?

What’s the ground of gods acceptance of us, our elimination of all doubt?

the foundation of our acceptance before god is his choosing to love us. Despite us, so our feelings of being loved are not always accurate to the reality that we are loved.

question: do you think as Christian’s we over emphasize or under emphasize feeling loved by god in our faith? Why?

4- spiritual power rooted and built upon gods unchanging love. V20-21

if gods love and grace is on one side of a spectrum and challenge to grow is on the other end of the spectrum, there is a temptation for us as Christian’s to slide to one side of that spectrum s but the scripture is that a deep grounding in gods love leads to and sustains a desire and power to grow and be sanctified.

q: which side do you think you lean towards more naturally?

q: how do we as christian friends challenge one another to grow as Christian’s without being legalistic or rude? is that a lost skill?