GOD'S PLAN OUR REDEMPTION

Let me describe a little bit about the city for you. It’s a relatively large city with estimates being anywhere from about 140,000 to around 225,000. It is located in Asia Minor, which is in modern day Turkey. It is an important city because of its trade routes and its port, it is on the Mediterranean. Because of the trade, it is busy with people constantly coming through buy, selling and trading their goods.

There are large buildings, bath houses, public restrooms, an aqueduct system that brings fresh water into the city that feeds fountains in a courtyard in the middle of city as well as people’s homes. Clay pipes feed freshwater from the aqueducts into people’s residences.

There is a lot of wealth in the city and many large townhouses where people live are in the city. The streets are paved, they’re wide and lined with columns. There are statues of prominent residence of Ephesus, past and present, lining the streets. There are shops on the side of the streets as people are selling their goods. On one side of the street that backed up to the courtyard, it is estimated that there would have been around fifty shops on that side of the street.

There are a couple of amphitheaters, one in particular has three levels of seating and seats 25,000 people. Plays, musical performances and political meetings are held these. And after the time of Paul, gladiators.

In fact, Acts 19 describes a riot that takes place there during the time that the Apostle Paul lived there. There was a silversmith who was making coins in the likeness of the Greek goddess Diana and he started a riot against the Christians because he felt they were hurting his business.

Most people worshipped the Greek Goddess Diana, also known as Artemis, who is the Greek goddess of love and fertility.

The year is about 62 AD, about 30 years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. You would know names like Aquilla and Priscilla, Apollos and Timothy. In fact, you may have first heard about Jesus of Nazareth from Apollos. You may have even been baptized by Apollos.

But you came to a deeper understanding about Jesus through a man by the name of Paul. In fact, you may have even been one of the people that Paul re-baptized because of your lack of understanding until Paul came to Ephesus. Paul may have even led you to Christ personally. You probably even heard the testimony from his own mouth of how he was a persecutor of the followers of Jesus and approved of their murder and how he was hunting them down but was converted on the road to Damascus and now he became the chief follower, teacher and church planter

Since there aren’t any church buildings yet, you meet in one of these large townhouses in the city for teaching, for fellowship, for breaking bread together and probably celebrating a form of holy communion. Paul wrote instructions about the Lord’s Supper to the Church at Corinth, addressing some of their problems, but he wrote those letters while he was living in Ephesus.

Paul himself lived in Ephesus for around three years. But now, he’s been gone for several years. A young apprentice of Paul, Timothy, is your pastor.

You’ve heard that Paul is in prison in Rome, but he’s written a letter, and on a particular day, at dusk, the letter is going to be read to your church which means in one of the large townhouses in the city. You can’t miss this church meeting, because after the letter is read, a man by the name of Tychicus, who brought the letter, will be leaving and taking the letter to another church in another city to be read.

When the letter is read, it will be read in full in one sitting.

If you were a member of the church in Ephesus, this is how you would have first heard this letter.

There was a collection of Paul’s letters that was being circulated among the churches, and this is one of them. Ephesians is different than the others because the others generally are addressing issues and problems in the church. Ephesus doesn’t seem to be addressing a particular problem but seems to be a teaching of both old new revelation.

I’m not going to read the whole letter to you in one sitting, but I am going to read the first 14 verses, so if you have your Bibles with you let’s stand as we read God’s Word through the Apostle Paul.

In these first fourteen verses there are three affirmations that Paul wanted the church in Ephesus to know. And God wants all followers of Jesus to know: 1. That we are chosen by God. 2. That we are redeemed by Christ. 3. We are sealed with the Spirit.

So let’s talk about the first one.

We are chosen by God

I remember how it was when I was a kid on the playground at school or in the neighborhood, when we were going to play a game, kickball, stickball, wiffleball, dodgeball or whatever the case may, two people were captains and then the captains chose up sides.

It always felt good when you were chosen first.

Paul says, we are chosen by God.

If you have ever been rejected by anyone, being chosen feels really good. It make you feel special. If the world has rejected you, if you were rejected as a kid on a sports team, if you have been rejected by a spouse, rejected at school, rejected at work, rejected by friends and family, you need to know that God has never rejected you but He has chosen you before the foundation of the world.

Paul knew something about being chosen by God. Paul definitely didn’t choose to be a follower of Jesus, in fact, it was just the opposite. Paul’s choice was hunting down and persecuting the followers of Jesus. He felt that was his calling, but all that changed on the road to Damascus. Jesus chose him to be an Apostle to the Gentiles, and fulfilled that call to the best of his ability.

Our chosen-ness is something that comes from Jesus himself. His disciples didn’t choose to be followers of him, He chose them. In fact, he says in John 15:16, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.”

And He has chosen you for a purpose. That you should be holy and without blame before Him in love. (verse 4)

· We live in a world that gets more and more permissive and promiscuous ever day.

· We live in a world where less and less people are attending church on a regular basis.

· We live in a world where Bible believing Christians are becoming the minority.

· We live in a world that celebrates certain sins.

· We live in a world that is NOT holy.

In Ephesus at the time of Paul’s letter, the goddess of love and fertility was being worshipped. There was a temple to her, statues of her. The worship of Diana/Artemis permeated the culture of the city.

People were profiting on the worship of Diana. So much so that the Bible even records a riot in Acts 19 that came about because someone felt their livelihood was being threatened by this growing number of Christians in the city.

There would come a time when Christianity would be the dominant religion in Ephesus. After John left the island of Patmos, it is believed that he moved to Ephesus along with Mary, the mother of Jesus and he took care of her.

We hope and pray that there would be a revival and another great awakening in the church and in our country that would turn things around, but until then, we must remember that God has chosen us, and He has chosen us for holiness.

What does that mean? It means God has chosen us to be set apart. We are to be different than the world. Different than the culture.

Our whole lives are to be an offering to God. Romans 12:1 says, “I urge you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

God has chosen us for holiness and we have to live into that holiness. But we must not forget the last part, in love. He has chosen us to be holy and blameless before him IN LOVE.

This is the word Agape here. Meaning unconditional love. We must love God unconditionally and others unconditionally. That means to love someone without expecting anything in return. That’s agape. Somewhere along the way, many segments in the church have forgotten what that means.

Instead of loving our God and our neighbor, we claim to love God because we go to church from time to time, and we gossip, grumble and complain, and are judgmental toward our neighbor and excuse it by saying, “You know, we really need to pray for so and so…”

That’s sin folks. God did not choose us for that, he chose us to win our neighbor by loving them unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.

This is what we are chosen to do. We are called to build God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. This is what God has chosen us to do and Paul uses the word predestined.

We get caught up on that word predestined and many have developed an iron clad theology of the sovereignty of God as it relates to God choosing some for heaven and some for hell.

That is not the Pauline theology of predestination. God has predestined or foreordained us to be his sons and daughters. Our destiny is in the hands of the one who loved us so much that He gave Himself for us in Christ.

There is the fearful doom of the unrepentant, but that does not mean we are destined to remain unrepentant. God has chosen us, but we must respond to our chosen-ness. We must respond to God’s grace.

And when we do, it is to the praise and glory of God’s grace.

Paul wanted to make sure that these Ephesian Christian understood their chosen-ness. That they were indeed chosen by God to be His sons and daughters and help build His kingdom on earth in love in a world that built kingdoms by military might and dominance.

God wants Christians today to understand that same thing. That in a world that builds kingdoms on fear, military dominance and political maneuvering, we are chosen to be his sons and daughters and to build a kingdom that is set apart and different from the world and that is built on love.

That’s the first affirmation that Paul wants the church to know, that we are chosen by God.

The second affirmation Paul wants the church to know is that we are redeemed.

Paul says “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His grace...”

Nothing was more important for Paul than Calvary.

The Damascus Road was always viewed by Paul with Calvary on the horizon.

It was at Calvary that sin was taken care of once and for all.

One cannot look at Calvary and say “sin does not matter to God.”

Sin is what separates God from His people, it destroys our relationship with Him and with others. Paul saw the cross as the supreme revelation of God’s love.

Paul wrote the church in Corinth while he was in Ephesus these words, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Love and sacrifice go together. And so Paul says such things as:

Colossians 1:20 (NASB95)

20through Him He reconciles all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross;

Romans 5:9 (NASB95)

9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Ephesians 2:13 (NASB95)

13But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Paul makes it clear that redemption is through the blood of Christ.

Paul, who was a Pharisee and teacher of the law, knew a thing or two about the redemption in the Old Testament. Redemption had the idea of releasing a slave by payment of a ransom.

It also meant Israel’s release from Egyptian bondage and Babylonian Exile. So in both cases, there was a deliverance.

Our redemption is the deliverance from our sin through the blood of the cross. That was the price that was paid for our release from bondage.

This is the mystery that is now revealed to us that was hidden in the Old Testament.

But our redemption is not just to secure our place in heaven and get a ticket out of hell, but to unite all things, in both heaven and earth in Christ. The goal of history, is that the whole world, past, present and future would be brought together as one family in Christ.

Our redemption delivers us from sin, death, hell and the grave but it also delivers us to something, our greatest deepest want and need; to be a part of the family of God in Christ.

Think about this: All conflicts, all factions, all wars, all the personal conflicts and estrangement from family and friends are to be done away with and we are to be united together in Christ.

If that is too difficult to comprehend, think about our small part of the body of Christ. What would it look like if all of our disunities and factions and warring against each other were done away with and we were united in Christ? We would be the kingdom of God on earth, right?

What does Jesus tell us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom of God is here, now united together in Christ. We are saved from sin and for the kingdom of God and it begins, not when we get to heaven in the sweet by and by, but right here right now.

Paul wanted to make sure the Ephesian church and us today, understand that we are redeemed from sin and to be united as a part of God’s kingdom which begins now.

There is a third affirmation that Paul wanted the church at Ephesus to know and that is we are sealed with the Spirit

They heard the Gospel, the good news of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, that that can be redeemed through h blood Christ, forgiven for their sins and be united in the kingdom of God which doesn’t begin in heaven when you die, but here now on earth…this good news that they heard and received is sealed with the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, circumcision was the seal that confirmed the Abrahamic Covenant. In the New Testament, Paul understands that baptism is the seal of the New Covenant that we have in Christ. But it is more than just an outward sign, it is an inward experience.

Paul, when he came to Ephesus had some teaching to do in this regard. Turn with me if you will, to Acts 19….

After they were re-baptized, they received the Holy Spirit and had a Pentecost, Acts 2 kind of experience. They were baptized in water, and then they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Water baptism puts you in the water, Holy Spirit baptism puts the water in you, or the Holy Spirit in you.

The Holy Spirit seals you, empowers you to do the work of God on earth.

These affirmations are essential to what it means to be a Christian, God chooses us, redeems us and seals us.

Do you know that you are chosen, have you been redeemed? Have you been sealed by the Holy Spirit?

One of the reasons I think it is important to sing the old hymns is because our theology is in our hymns.

In the Methodist movement, John Wesley was the theologian and preacher, Charles Wesley was the Psalmist.

Listen to the words of this hymn by Charles Wesley:

Send us the Spirit of Thy Son, To make the depths of Godhead known, To make us share the life divine; Send Him the sprinkled blood to apply, Send Him our souls to sanctify, And show and seal us ever Thine.