Ephesians | 1:1-7

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Intro
Hey y’all!
How is everyone?
Good good, I do want to do some house keeping, DNow is coming up,
if you don’t know what DNow is, it’s like a mini retreat weekend, but we stay in Gray and we partner with some of the other churches in town.
Its a great weekend, if that sounds fun, please sign up. Talk to your parents about signing up.
So sound good?
Cool, lets jump in to it
Have you ever need a reminder of something?
It could be as simple as remind you to do something, i think all of us have needed that?
But have you ever needed a reminder of some sort of truth?
Like where you need someone to remind you or point you to truth
Those are the reminders that matter, one of the things that I love about Lauralee is that if i’m feeling a certain way, or whatever she is quick to remind me who Jesus is.
One of the many things she does really well is point me back to the truth of the Gospel.
And that should be a function of our community.
She’s the most prominent one in my life who does that, but not the only one.
I have several people who are able to speak truth in to my life
that a part of following Jesus together
You need people like that in your life.
That is what your community, your circle what ever you want to call it should be, a community that points to truth
So this is where we are going to live tonight and for the next few weeks,
we are going to start a new study on the book of Ephesians.
Going through what it means to be chosen by God.
What does it mean for our lives and how we live it.
So if you have a bible flip over to Ephesians,
we are going to be in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1-7 tonight
If you need a bible look around you and grab one, if you see a hand up, get a bible to them
If you need a bible at home take this one with you.
So Eph. 1:1-7, get there and hang on for a second, let me give you context to what we are about to read.
Context - apologetic against the culture of the day
So what is the book of Ephesians?
Ephesians is a letter written by Paul to the church at Ephesus,
Its a letter sent to remind and instruct the church.
This was the main purpose of an epistle, it just a letter that instructs or reminds a church of the truth of the Gospel.
Basically a letter that is written to give the church some direction.
So, Paul wrote this to the Ephesians at the church in Ephesus, which is in modern day Turkey.
So what is interesting, this was one of the first churches in Asia Minor,
And at this time the predominate culture is the Greek and Roman culture.
So the Ephesians are mainly Gentiles.
Which means they’re not Hebrews, not coming form a Jewish back ground.
And that is important to see.
It’s important to understanding this whole book.
Cause most of the other letters Paul writes there is some sort of problem going on at the church, internally.
Here Paul is writing to encourage them and remind them why the Gospel is good news.
So think about it, if they don’t have a hebrew background, what background do they have?
The have greek and roman background.
Which means they have a different view of god or the gods than a person who grew up jewish.
So that matters.
Think about it, do y’all know what the sport cricket is? some of you might, if you watch ESPN the Ocho at weird hours, but it’s not popular here, because we have the superior sport, Baseball.
But if I were just describing cricket in general terms, you’d think it’s baseball.
Cause it has a pitcher, a batter, inning, a one ball, the batter wears a helmet, they hit the ball with a bat, the score is kept in runs, there are home runs.
If i was like, yeah this dude in the 3rd inning hit a home run, you’re thinking baseball. cause that is your background
but if you were from say England or India, where it’s super popular, and I said that, you would be thinking about cricket.
Similar sports but very different sports.
So what Paul is doing in this letter is contextualizing the gospel to the Ephesians.
Last year we talked about contextualization, but thats big word for making the gospel understandable in other cultures.
SO this is what i mean,
We for the most part grew up with a Christian background.
At least a general understanding, monotheistic, meaning one God, background.
and when we read this opening from Paul, it sound normal, we would be like yup, that checks out.
But if we put ourselves in the shoes of an ephesian, this opening is wild,
this opening radically countercultural.
And that is what Paul is trying to do,
Ephesians is written as both instruction for the church on why the Gospel is good news,
and it is written as an apologetic against the culture at Ephesus.
Which means it is making an argument against the Ephesian culture of the day.
So here’s the main point of Ephesians and its right here in the beginning, so don’t miss this, because it is true for us today still.
But heres the main point, main thing Paul wants us to see about the Gospel and who God is
The Father Chose us
I’ve only got one point tonight, we are gonna break up this first section of scripture, but I have one point and it’s this,
If you are a follower of Christ it is because God has and is doing those three things.
I know that was a long intro.
And tonight we are going to look at the first of these, what does it mean for God to choose us?
So let’s read this chunk together and then let’s talk about it.
but before we do that let’s pray for our time in the word.
pray
Okay, read this with me
Ephesians 1:1–14 (ESV)
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
Okay, so there is a lot going on in this passage,
So let’s start at the beginning,
Paul is writing this to people who are already follower of Jesus,
So Paul, right of the bat is writing to a church, a body of believers, not trying to convert them, they’re already converted
but instead saying, you need to know this, you need to be reminded of this.
And for us, it’s the same, we need to remind ourselves of this, we need to remember this too
P1 - The Father Chose us
SO first thing what does it man that the Father Chose us?
Look at verse 3 and 4
Ephesians 1:3–4 ESV
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
What does that mean?
There are a ton of places we can go with this verse, and we could get really in the weed of what it means for God to choose us, or as the text says in a couple verse, predestined.
But let’s start by this, what does it mean to choose?
It means to pick something. bare bones, it means to pick something.
So, have you ever done this? I know that I have,
have you ever decided what you were going to eat for lunch the day before?
like you’re thinking about your day, and you go tomorrow, I’m gonna eat dairy queen.
anyone done that? If you haven’t you will, I obviously have. Chosen to eat DQ a lot
But in that scenario, who has agency? Who is the one doing the choosing?
You, you chose DQ, the day before,
before the day even began you were thinking about DQ, they had not even made the ice cream you were gonna eat the next day yet.
Tracking? Okay, stay with me, this is about to get technical for a second, so lock in.
SO blow that up, when you see God chose you, that means just that, God chose you.
God picked you, God selected you
God chose you, and when you read a verse like this it means — that,
It means God chose you,
and when did God do the choosing?
Before the foundation of the earth?
So what does that mean?
it means that if you are a follower of Christ, God chose you to be a follower of Christ before the foundations of the earth,
So when is that?
You don’t have to flip there, but if you go to Gen 1, it reads, “in the beginning God created the heavens and he earth.” Which means that before the foundation of the earth, God chose you.
Before God created anything, God was thinking about you,
God had already chosen you, before he made you, or anything, He loved you.
This is significant
we might be tempted to read this and brush on by this,
but this is where the Gospel starts,
God Chose you.
And so for the Ephesians reading this, this would have rocked their understanding of how the world works,
In the greek and Roman culture, gods didn’t choose people, people chose their god,
If you were greek or roman, you basically existed in a world where the gods were just there they didn’t create you, nor did the choose you
You got to say, hey i’m gonna worship this god, or i’m gonna be a devote of this god
like every city in the ancient world had their own patron god
in Ephesus its the God Artimus,
the people in Ephesus would have worshiped Artimus, they chose that one.
But what Paul is saying is, that’s not how it works,
God chose you,
and that means something, for God to chose you means god loves you,
That means God created you with worth and dignity and purpose,
Look at verse 5 Eph 1:5
Ephesians 1:5 ESV
5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
Predestined is a word that means chose before hand.
Its a loaded term theologically, but what you need to know is that for God to predestine you for adoption means something way more.
What Paul is saying is totally the opposite of what is the normal culture of Ephesus would have been.
God’s don’t choose and the definitely don’t adopt.
People would choose a god, and then they would work for the god, and the god would do stuff for them. If you did these things for a god, the god would make it rain more or what ever
Do y’all have to still read greek mythology in English class? Or who like Greek mythology? If you read through them, they’re all stories about how a god is trying to trick or a human is trying to get a God to do something for them.
Think of it like this, how hard is it for you to break in to a friend group if that group doesn’t choose you to be in that group?
That’s not how God Almighty works.
God does the choosing and isn’t looking for slaves but for sons.
That word adoption is family language,
Adoption in the Roman world was super serious, if you were adopted, you could never be outcast from the family.
It was against Roman law to go back on an adoption. and the adopted person would receive full benefits as a natural born son or daughter of the family.
So let’s put this in to context,
The fact that God chose to love you before the foundation of the world means that you were created with purpose, with worth, with dignity, and that your life is not just random chance. It didn’t just happen.
And look at our own culture,
We are not that much different from the Ephesian culture, if you think about it.
To them they were there pretty much by chance, for us, popular science will tell you that you are a random chance, that it was just chaos and randomness that created you.
The gospel says you were created for something, you were created with a purpose, and first that purpose was to be loved by an all loving almighty God.
It wasn’t chance, it wasn’t chaos, it wasn’t randomness that created you. It was God. He created you, He loves you and He chose you.
What does this mean? what are our gods?
SO what does it mean for us?
It means we can have rest.
All of the other gods in the culture in the greek and roman world
they were looking for people to work for them, to do for them, to make for them
Paul is telling the church at Ephesus, you can rest, God isn’t wanting your work, God isn’t looking for you to do for him.
You can’t do for God, God is making a way for you.
And look at our culture today
We may not live in a polytheist culture, but our culture has other gods.
The god of efficiency, the god of production. The god of money
even the god of self.
Flip open tiktok while you still can and see how long it takes for someone to be telling you how to hustle, or here are three life hacks to make your life, what ever?
Did you know there is actually a billion dollar industry that has been built on the hustle culture, by people selling keys to efficiency or how to be the alpha or what ever.
I know for guys if you scroll long enough, you’ll come across some motivational account telling you you have to be a weapon and what ever else.
Or where are my juniors and seniors at how competitive is getting in to college?
How early in high school did you start applying?
There are whole classes people take to help you get in to the school you want to get in to, college has become an industry, a super competitive industry.
and I’m not knocking high education, I’m 34 and am still a student. I’m currently in a class right now that i have 4 papers due in the next two months, and its a grind
So I get the school work load
but
Just stop for a second, is this all we were created for?
Were we created to be machines, created to do and do , to grind, to hustle, what ever adjective you want to put in there?
Or is there more to life?
God chose you before the foundations of the world.
God chose you for his purposes, not the world’s purpose, not the culture’s purpose.
You were created to be a creature, to follow Jesus.
That is the life jesus offers.
Paul is telling the Ephesians to take on the yoke of Jesus,
his burden is easy.
Timeless Truth: Slaves to sons
So here is the truth for us, God chose us, out of slavery and to sons.
What were we a slave to?
Sin, we were bound by sin, we were bound by death.
God chose us out of that, through his son Jesus, and we will unpack this more next week, but Christ died for us, died for youy
You were chosen not to be a slave but to be a son,
So think about, this is how one of my pastor friends put this,
but I don’t live with my parents anymore I have my own family, but I’m still my parents son
and when I go to my parent house, when we walk in, my parent are happy to see me.
Its not when we walk in, they’re trying to hand me a broom and saying okay, get to work,
no their saying come in, sit down, need some coffee?
Come sit and talk. Where’s Price?
But thats the same thing with God,
God didn’t choose you so that you would work for him, God chose you so that be his child. For his glory.
So that you being his son you can’t help but do like he does.
I don’t work for my dad, but I still act like him, I do things like he is, I don’t have the same profession but I do have the same substance.
I reflect what he is like.
It doesn’t mean we were chosen to sit around,
we were chosen to bring other people into the kingdom,
God is the one who does the choosing and the kingdom building,
we get to go bring people to the king.
That’s how we live our life.
P2Christ - Christ chose died and keeps us.
So here is the invitation, rest in the fact that God has chosen you.
If you are a follower of Christ, rest in the fact that God has chosen you.
That God has, through Jesus, chosen and adopted you for his glory and for your good.
So if you are not a follower of Jesus, God is calling you.
God has made away on the cross, and that if you aren’t following Him, you will never rest.
You will fall prey to the gods of this world, to the gods of right now, and they may work for a little bit
but not forever,
eventually you wont be able to to work and you wont be able to rest.
So if you aren’t sure what it means to follow Jesus, come talk to me, talk to a friend talk to an adult, talk to someone
become a sone or daughter instead of a slave
Come see christ as lord, come see christ as king.
Y’all pray with me
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