EPH #1

Northside Church

Eph #1

5/15/22

Jamey Mills

Northside… what’s going on… It’s so good to be with you guys…

My name Jamey Mills, I am the lead pastor here at Northside…

I’ve been out the last couple of Sundays… my daughter had a VB tourney in Reno… She did such a great job… Lexi B is on her team too… Lex did great.

After that, we spent a few days at disney… FYI… if you’re looking for rest… DON'T GO THERE. I bet we walked over 50 miles… and at one point Ky and I waited over 2 hrs for hyperspace mountain… (pic)... which on one hand is nuts, but on the other is something I won’t ever forget.

I also wanted to thank Steve, Matt and Kurt for stepping up the last two weeks… to lead during the services so I could get away with family. We are truly blessed by you guys and thankful for all who stepped up the last couple weeks.

I was going to announce something to you guys before I left, but it didn't feel right to do that and then leave for 10 days…

Not sure if you all got Northside’s update email a couple weeks back… that talked about NS financials and other sorts of vitals for a church… IF YOU DIDN’T please turn in a C card with your correct email address… so we can send out our weekly email…

Basically what it said was… Northside continues to be blessed in substantial ways and continues to grow… which is amazing. It's growing so much so… that the MT had decided it's time to hire a full time associate pastor… that will focus primarily on outreach and discipleship here at Northside.

As a growing and financially healthy church plant, Northside is a desirable opportunity… I’m in the process of putting together a search team that will prayerfully consider candidates and handle the majority of the interviewing process. Be praying for them as we do our best to discern… who it is that God might be bringing to Northside.

Our optimistic goal would be to have this person here by the fall,but more than anything we want to trust in the Lord's timing and provision in leading us to the right person… and so be praying about this.

All week I have been so anxious to be back with you guys… Feels great to be back.

Spending time in 3 different states over the last couple of weeks… was just a hard reminder of the brokenness in the world we live in… and be sure… my life and my family aren’t exempt… we don’t have it all together… we are part of that brokenness… but I have just been sort of grieving for the lostness of our culture.

And sometimes… I think the American church almost wears that like a badge of honor… we are a church in the most secular culture the world has ever known… that this is “ours” or some sort of new thing but I was reminded this week that it's not.

The truth is… sin, rebellion against God, man's temptation to create his own way and own religion… and the brokenness that it leads to has been around basically from the start…

Today we are starting a brand new sermon series called… “CHOSEN”

Where we will be looking at the NT book of Ephesians… that reminds us that what we face in our culture… might be new in terms of some of its methodologies… is really nothing new at all.

It starts like this…

Ephesians 1:1 NLT

This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.

(NLT)

This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.

We learn a few pretty important things here…

This letter written by the apostle Paul…

To the believers in Ephesus… probably mostly gentile

The believers in Ephesus were faithful followers of Jesus.

** This was written while Paul was in a Roman prison… in the early 60’s AD….

Those things matter… for several reasons…

It was written just a handful of years after the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This is not some far off detached thing.

Knowing it was written by Paul matters a ton… it gives it incredible clout. Paul is one of the most known figures in Biblical history.

Paul was a real guy… that had real issues.

Who was Paul?

When was Ephesians written?

Who was Ephesians written to?

What was Ephesian culture like?

Acts 22 talks about he was probably the best young and coming Jewish leader of his day…

He was brought up and trained in Jewish law and customs by the best… Gamiliel.

In Phil 3, Paul himself says that he had more reasons to be confident than anyone… He was from the right lineage, he was taught the right things, he took the right steps, he passionately obeyed the law faultlessly… Paul is saying… NO ONE did it better than me. NO ONE…

He was passionate… and wanted to honor God in everything he did and part of that… he thought… was to make life miserable for the early Christians… even the point of doing away with them.

And he did… Paul was hard core… he was brought up to believe that this is what honoring God meant… silencing those who preach Jesus… who posed a legitimate threat to the leadership, authority, and lifestyle that these religious leaders had enjoyed and manipulated for years…

This wasn’t just something he was willing to die for… it was something he was willing to actively live for… it was his life’s mission…

In Acts 7 we see that Paul played a leading role in the stoning of a young christian named Stephen.

Paul actively persecuted the early Christians…

But something happened that changed his entire life… in ways that impacted literally everything… And I do believe it's the same sort of conversion that God desires for you and I.

Coming to this place changes everything about our life… our priorities, our values, our morals, and even what we choose to fill our minds with and the way that we choose to communicate… that STEMS from… knowing the truth about Jesus and engaging in a relationship that I believe Paul says… we were designed for from the start.

In Acts 9 it talks about how Paul was uttering threats with every breath… he had the documents to go out and bring “Christians” back in chains… but on the way to Damascus… It says that in the middle of Paul’s radical rebellion, he was confronted by God… blinded by Him… and confronted by truth… in a way that would light Paul’s life on fire… He’d never be the same… literally traveling the world… starting churches… encouraging believers… standing for truth… facing beatings… imprisonments… shipwrecks… starvation… The rest of Paul's life was dedicated to the very one he sought to snuff out… until the very end.

And one of those churches Paul started was in Ephesus…

You can read about it in Acts 18… Paul had a special relationship with this Church… in fact, this church is written about more in the NT than any other Church… (maybe not Jerusalem). Paul spent more time here… with them… than he did with any other church plant.

The word Ephesus itself… means desirable, and not doubt it was.

To this day, it’s a location rich with history… (scroll through a few pictures of ancient EPH here)... absolutely amazing.

Ephesus was known for a few things…

It was the capital city of a Roman province… a place of authority.

It was the second largest city in the known world…

Long fertile valley… in modern turkey. It was a huge port city of the Aegean sea.

It had all kinds of libraries, public markets, stadiums and gymnasiums… but there were two of great significance…

The largest amphitheater in the known world… PIC

One of the 7 wonders of the ancient world… the temple of Artimus or Diana (pic). Took over 100 years to build… one ancient historian said this…

“I have seen the walls and Hanging Gardens of ancient Babylon, the statue of Olympian Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the mighty work of the high Pyramids and the tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the temple at Ephesus rising to the clouds, all these other wonders were put in the shade.

Ephesus was a major cultural melting pot in the ancient world, and they were proud of their pluralistic religious heritage… and all that came with that. And so when paul started teaching about Jesus… and people stopped buying the local idols… well… that was problematic.

The Church in Ephesus had to fight some of the same battles Christians today fight too.

What does it mean… to live out authentic faith in Jesus in the face of a rich, powerful, and incredibly secular culture that holds tightly to everything but Him. No doubt they faced all sorts of temptation and doubt…

And that's probably why… in Acts 20 when Paul met with the leaders of that Church… and he told them to watch out… to be on guard… to feed and lead the church knowing that false teaching and a secular culture… the sinful nature of humanity left untouched by the grace of God… would always be at war with… will always stand against and be at angst with the redemptive work and life giving truth of God… Paul says like a wolf coming after sheep… and that's one of the major dangers of apathetic… or lazy faith too.

And it did… In fact, the EPH church constantly struggled with it… In Rev 2… Jesus said all kinds of great things to say about the church… They work hard, they endure, they confront evil, they are discerning… but there was ONE thing… ONE thing that Jesus held against them and it was huge. That they’d forgotten their first love… They’d become lazy toward the one they were to love first… which means… it was becoming more about doing that about relationship … they were losing their way.

Matt said it like this…

“A culture that has excellent morality apart from God is still a culture apart from God.”

and that's true of people too… if we make it just about being good or being moral… if it's just about behavior modification… or looking good… that's exactly where we end up. A good person, apart from God… is still a person apart from God. And it's why Jesus spent so much time dealing with issues of the heart.

And that's what Paul is doing in Ephesians… encouraging a group of largely gentile believers… to understand the gospel… reminding them of who they are… and of the importance of living that out in the face of one of the most secular cultures of that day.

And with that we realize the message of Ephesians… is one for us… it's one for our day… it speaks to the reality of where we are…

Ephesians 1:3–14 NLT

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

(NLT)

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. 12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

4 quick things we need to hear from this passage…

God through Paul says…

That we are

Chosen

Blessed

Forgiven

People of confident promise…

And all of those things are true because we are in Christ. I will dig into them super fast… and we’ll talk more about them as we go…

Chosen in Christ

The actual word is predestined… which is a huge buzzword in a lot of churches… and it really is pretty hard to understand. Some people take that to mean… things are “fixed”... meaning… some were created for heaven and others for hell… and I don't believe that. The actual word is really close to the word ordained… this idea of being called and set apart by God.

You have to disregard so much of what the bible teaches to embrace that… Several passages… talk about God’s desire… sacrifice… passion to see all of us… embrace Christ and experience the fullness and freedom that He brings. Not to mention that that sort of theology doesn’t appear to need a savior. If it's pre-determined… the sacrifice of Christ… seems… different to me at least.

Two things…

Those passages that talk about God’s desire for all to come to Him are clear and clearly understood.

For me, and many others way smarter than me… the idea of predestination is not. So, I cling to what I know and pray for greater understanding.

BUT… here are two things to consider…

So many times we tend to approach God with human limitations… we limit our understanding of God to our own experiences… It's hard for us to imagine a thinking greater than ours… a knowing that's deeper… or a being that is beyond time and space… which God is.

I personally think that predestination… speaks into a knowing of God that is really hard for us to fathom. Most scholars believe that the idea of predestination stems from the same idea of another biblical idea of Foreknowing… meaning… God is omniscient… he is all knowing. He isn't surprised by anything…

Where I currently stand in my study is here… I cannot help but think that what Paul is saying… is that God’s plan was always for you to be in Christ… and those that are in Christ… are the ones who are predestined to experience the things we talked about… redemption, forgiveness, blessing, fullness and freedom. I think the rest of Ephesians supports this view of predestination.

In a way… Paul saying… THIS was always God’s plan. To choose you, before the creation of the world… His intention was always to adopt you into his family… It is in your DNA… you are designed for it… its what you are created for… and it is THE most radical truth you will ever believe about yourself. It's what God wanted to do.

2. Blessed in Christ

Paul is saying that a life that centered on… Jesus… is a blessed life… and the word for spiritual blessing, is the same word that is used for the Holy Spirit… He’s saying that the blessed life… the fullness and freedom… come from the actual presence of God in your life made possible in christ.

And it's not… a superficial blessing… it's eternal… it’s a blessing in areas that really matter… but which are often sort of downgraded in our culture… but yet… really are the things that lead to a meaningful life.

Forgiven in Christ: we will talk about this more… but here it is… sin… separates us from God, but thats why Jesus came… and faced the cross… so that we might be saved… so that we could be completely forgiven… and redeemed and restored… back into what God has longed for from the very beginning.

Gen 12… blessing all people through Abraham… Jesus… we are seeing Paul preach the fulfillment of that…

People of confident promise… because of Christ

Paul emphasizes the confidence that we have… in the promises of God by calling it an inheritance… it's ours in Christ… and adopted sons of daughters of God in Christ.

Being united with… in relationship with… in fellowship with Christ… is always what God has in mind for you… and it brings deep blessing, forgiveness… and confident hope or promise…

Paul devoted his life to the fact he knew which was this… the same Christ that rocked his life and radically changed it… and gave it purpose and meaning… and direction… and blessing and hope… LONGS to do that same work in you.

Paul knew… that holding on to our faith in the face of an incredibly secular culture would be tough… that the potential for weeds to grow in our heart… sin… temptation to take root… clinging to the wrong things… developing misled values…

It would be hard… to keep their true identity as children of the king in view…

I hope and pray that you know this… you were chosen by God… before the foundation of the world… it was always His idea… to Know Him… to live out live in relationship to Him through christ… Not ½ way… and not in apathy… but in full view of God’s undying love over you.