Immanuel Sermon Audio
Ephesians (49:66)
All right, find Ephesians in your Bible. Last week we looked at Galatians this week, Ephesians next week, something special for you. We're going to look at Philippians. You're going to love it, so don't miss next week. Tonight is Ephesians, and it's a simple book to outline, and it's as deep theologically as any other book in the entire Bible, it'll stretch your brain as much as any other book in the Bible. But before we jump in and talk about it, let's talk just a little bit about Ephesus, and then a little bit about the church there, and I think that will help us understand a few things that you see in the book and you read in the Bible. So first of all, Ephesus. This is a picture of the Roman Empire, and all these different colored little territories are Roman provinces, so that's how they divided up their territory in the time that we're looking at. Over in that red circle you see a little purple territory in the middle. That's the tip of what we know as Turkey, but that little purple tip is called Asia, so I know that's not what we think of as Asia, but that was the Roman province of Asia. In Ephesus, sort of an interesting city, in Paul's day it sat on the coast. There was a river that flowed out from that territory out into the sea, and Ephesus sat right there on the coast. It was a seaport, and over time that river silt it in, and the coastline moved further out. So if you go look at the ruins of Ephesus today, you think this isn't a coastal city, the coast is way over there, but that's just the river flew out there and silt it in that bay, and so it's changed geographically a little bit. In Paul's day it was an important city. There was about 50,000 people that lived there, which meant it was one of the biggest cities in the area. It was one of the larger cities in the Roman Empire, and last week we looked at Galatians. The province of Galatia is right next to the province of Asia there in the blue, so they were close to each other. The city was built by Greeks, but then taken over by Romans, and you can go see the ruins, and so I'll show you a few pictures of what it looks like today, and it gives you an idea of what it may be looked like back then. That's just the main street, and I've never been there, but I'm from reading and looking about the city. I'm pretty sure they call this Harbor Street, and originally it went out to the harbor, and again, you can look at that and see what it doesn't look like it goes to the harbor. It looks like it goes to a field, and it's because that harbor got silted in over time. The next picture shows their theater, the largest theater in the Roman Empire. That's really big, and the things that I read said you could get 25,000 people in there. That's a lot of people, and so you could get a lot of folks in there, and that street you see over on the back right, that's that same road that we just looked at, Harbor Street right there. That's their theater. Next picture, anybody know who that is? Nike, the goddess of victory. She was not one of the major goddesses in Ephesus, but that carving is in Ephesus, and so the goddess of victory, I just thought that was worth putting up there. Next picture is kind of cool. What is still standing of the library in Ephesus? Sometimes we think about ancient cities, and 2,000 years ago when you may wonder how sophisticated people were, well, they had a pretty impressive library, and just to see the scale of that, you can notice in those three openings at the front, there's a lady standing in that right doorway, and I don't know how tall she is, but she's not even half the height of that doorway. That's an impressive building of what used to be there in the library, so there's that. Next picture is this is called the Terrace Homes of Ephesus, and they sort of archaeologists have dug these up, and this is where the wealthiest people in town lived, and it just gives you a little bit of an idea of what maybe the inside of those homes looked like, and all that stuff you see on the walls and on the floor is tile work, you know, mosaic work that they had built in, so kind of a nice place there. This next house I'm going to show you, I'm going to come back and we'll talk about this again later. All I'm going to tell you right now is that's a home in Ephesus, and tradition says that's the home of Mary mother of Jesus, and I'll explain that to you in a little while, but that is the traditional site of Mary's home, so just another idea of what a house looked like there in Ephesus. Next picture is, okay, this is not actually in Ephesus today. This is a reconstruction, it's a model of the Temple of Artemis, or the Temple of Diana, if you want to call her by a Roman name. This was the main goddess in Ephesus, and when you get into the book of Acts and you read about Paul going to Ephesus for the first time, there was a major, major conflict between Paul and the leading people who worshipped Artemis. This temple, this reconstruction gives you some idea of what it looked like, it was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and so it had all of these columns. There was a hundred marble pillars, each of them was 56 feet tall, which is pretty impressive. The temple itself measured, you can go see the foundation of it today, 418 feet by 239 feet, took 120 years to build, and this was an impressive place, and this was the heart of Ephesus economically, spiritually, socially, this temple would have been sort of the heart of the city, everything would have revolved around this, it was a big time deal. In about the year, let's see, 401, a guy named John Chrysostom, Chrysostom means the golden mouth, he was a preacher, led a mob of people, and they tore it down, a mob of Christians, tore it down, and so if you go to Ephesus today, all that standing of what used to look like that is that column. I don't know why they left one column, but they left one, and it's what's left standing of the whole thing, and so did it look exactly like that previous picture, we don't know, but that's from descriptions and the dimensions you can see in the foundation there. Here's a picture of the goddess Artemis, or Diana, she was known as the goddess of birth or fertility, the moon and hunting, and so I've kind of looked over some of her pictures and I couldn't really find a whole lot connecting her with the moon, but you can see on her torso she does not only have two female parts, she has many female parts, and that is just a symbol, a picture that she is the goddess of birth and fertility and things like that, and so you would pray to her if you wanted to have children or you had concerns about that, you would come to her, and then all the way down her legs and then up around her head, and you can't see them, I know because that picture is kind of small, but on her arms, she has animals carved into her, just representing that she's the goddess of hunting, so if you want to go on a hunt and you want to have success in that, you would pray to her, give an offering to her, etc., etc., so when you get to the book of Acts, let's just hold your spot in Ephesians and go to Acts 19. We see Paul in a conflict with a guy named Demetrius, and Demetrius is mad because Paul came to town and all these people became Christians, and they quit buying these things, Demetrius made little statues like this, he made his out of silver, and that's the kind of stuff he sold, and he sold them to these people who would come worship at the temple, and he made a lot of money off that, and when a lot of folks in Ephesus became believers, Demetrius wasn't making so much money anymore, and he got really upset with Paul, so just look at Acts 19 real quick, so you know the story of Paul in Ephesus. Verse 1 says that he found some disciples when he came to the inland country and he came to Ephesus, these were guys who somehow, somewhere along the way, had heard the message of John the Baptist, been baptized, John's baptism, repentance, getting ready for the Messiah, but then they never heard the rest of the story. And so Paul shows up and says, "Wait a minute, you know the whole rest of the story, right?" And they say, "Well, we heard John, but that's kind of all we know." And so Paul fills them in, and these are the first guys who get saved in Ephesus and become part of the church, and Luke says down in verse 7 that there was about 12 of them, and then we read in verse 8, Paul entered the synagogue, and for three months the synagogue in Ephesus he spoke boldly. What does that mean? Well, he's reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. Some were stubborn, they continued in unbelief, they were speaking evil of the way of Christians, so Paul withdrew from them, he took the disciples with him, and he reasoned daily in the hall of tyrannis. Basically, he just, they rented out a room, or somebody gave them access to a room, a building there in Ephesus, and they left the synagogue and he starts preaching in this hall. And this is kind of interesting. Verse 10, "This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. His ministry there, in Ephesus, was so impactful over this two year period that all of the people of this province of Asia," right? You understand that's not the continent of Asia as we think of it today, but this Roman province of Asia, the gospel spread to all of these people as Paul's preaching. If you look down at verse 19, it says that a number of those who practice magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of everyone, they kind of devalued them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. There was a lot of silver, and this was just sort of a public repentance thing, all of these people who practice magic, and these books that they had or these amulets they had would have been things like, "Here's how you pray to Artemis to have children. Here's how you manipulate the goddess Artemis so that you can have a successful hunt," right? This is the sort of magical stuff that they're doing, and when they become a believer, they become believers, they just sort of come together and say, "Well, that's kind of ridiculous. We shouldn't do that anymore. We don't need this stuff. Let's burn it." They get rid of it, and then you go down to verse 25, Demetrius the silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, says, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth, and you see in here that not only in Ephesus but almost all of Asia, Paul is persuaded and turned away a great many people saying that God's made with hands are not God's, there's a danger not only that this trait of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship." And so he basically says, "Look, our goddess is getting run out of town, and we're not going to have any money, so we've got to do something about this." And they start a riot, and in chapter 20 verse 1, "After the uproar ceased, the riot ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, he encouraged them, and he said farewell to them and departed from Macedonia, so he leaves after this big fight." You can read in Acts 20. He travels around a few places and then starting in about verse 17, he stops back to say goodbye to these people in Ephesus, and here's the one thing I would tell you. He stayed, I told you the last couple of weeks that he stayed a long time in Corinth, 18 months in Corinth, one of his longest stops. He spent about three years in Ephesus, his absolute longest stop that he ever made in any town. These were people he was really, really, really close with. And when you read in Acts 20 about this final goodbye, Paul knows he's not going to see him again, there's weeping, there's crying, it's just a big old like the end of a sad movie, and everybody's upset and emotional, and it just gives you a glimpse that Paul really, really, really loved this church and cared about these people. So the first thing you take away from that, the church in Ephesus is that Paul started that church. You can read about that in Acts 19 and Acts 20. Here's the second thing we know about the church in Ephesus is that Timothy was their pastor at one point in time. So Paul started the church, and then we know from 1 Timothy 1, 3 that somewhere along the line, Paul sent Timothy or left Timothy there, but Timothy was their pastor. And then I'm not going to put this up on the screen, but I'll just tell you, tradition says that the apostle John was the pastor after Timothy. So that's a pretty good run, if that's true, right? You started with Paul, and then you went to Timothy, and then you had the apostle John. Whoever was the fourth guy had big shoes to follow in Ephesus, but do you remember the story in the Gospels where Jesus is dying on the cross, and he says different things as he's dying on the cross. There's about seven different things he says, and one of the things he says, he looks down at his mom, and he says, basically, my paraphrase, you hang with John, John, I need you to take care of my mom. And tradition tells us all the ancient sources agree that John did that, right? John was Jesus' best friend while he was on earth, and he agreed, yes, I'm going to take care of your mother. And you read that, and you say, well, what about Jesus' siblings? Why wouldn't they have taken care of her? Well, at the time, they thought Jesus was a loom, right, and because Mary is believing Jesus at this point, they probably think she's a loom, and so he says, John, you're going to take care of my mom, and John did that. Where people disagree, ancient sources disagree, is what did that look like when John took care of Mary? Catholic tradition says that John took care of her until Mary was ascended to heaven, the assumption of Mary. They don't believe that she was buried and died here on earth. Catholic tradition says she went back up to heaven, so that's the Catholic view. Other ancient sources, Julie, will you put that picture of that house back up? Other ancient sources say that the next one. Other ancient sources say that John and Mary stayed in Jerusalem for a long time, but then they moved to Ephesus, and he took Mary with him, and that this is the house they lived in. So you can go there today, you can visit this house, and they will tell you this is where Mary lived when her and John moved here, and he took care of her, and then she died, at the end. Other people say no, he hung out in Jerusalem with her until she died, and then he moved to Ephesus. You pick your theory, but the point is, tradition says that their third pastor was John. So they went from Paul to Timothy to John. That makes some sense, if you think about John, because when you get to the book of Revelation, written by John, the first church that he addressed in Asia was who? Ephesus. So kind of a cool church that they have two letters written to them by two different people in the Bible, one letter from Paul, and then one letter from John. Here's the outline of the book. It's really, really simple to break the book down. There's a short introduction, then there's a couple of chapters of theology, and then there's a couple of chapters of application, and then there's a conclusion at the end. Very simple. So what we're going to do, you can read the introduction and the conclusion yourself. We're going to talk about the section of theology, and then the section of application. I'm just going to give you some main truths from both of those two sections. So first of all, theology and Ephesians. The first thing you need to know, I want you to look in your Bible, when you look at Ephesians, you start in verse 3, and you can just circle that 3, and you can draw a line all the way down to the end of verse 14. In some Bible translations, that's three paragraphs, and some it's two paragraphs, and some it's one paragraph, but here's to the point. Verse 3 to 14 in the original language is one sentence, it's 202 words in that sentence, and it's one sentence, and it's one big, giant idea. And so there's a lot that Paul says in there, but he wants us to understand all of that fits together, verse 3 all the way down to verse 14. And so I'm going to give you a couple of thoughts from that one long sentence, 202 words. The first thing you need to get is that the Trinity works together in salvation. We see this sort of working together in the book of Genesis, where in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, how did he do that? Well, he spoke, and the word we know from John is the second person of the Trinity. The word of God is what actually creates, and then we know from the book of Genesis that the spirit of God is hovering over the creation, right? Everybody has a role in that, and the same thing's true in salvation. And Paul describes it here, and he says, look, God planned salvation from beginning to end. That was his job in it. The Father planned salvation from the very beginning all the way through the end. He planned it. And Jesus, the second member of the Trinity, the Son of God accomplished it. That's what he came to do, to fulfill the plan. And then the spirit of God comes in, the third role comes and applies it to our life and seals us and keeps us in God's grace. So the Trinity works together, and then this idea goes right along with it, is that salvation is designed in all of its parts to bring glory to God. That's the point. Salvation is designed to bring glory to God. And when you look at that one long sentence, you go to verse 6, and in verse 6 there's a phrase, "To the praise of his glorious grace," so you circle that phrase, "to the praise of his glorious grace." He describes what the Father did, and then he says, "to the praise of his glorious grace." And then you go down to verse 12, and at the end of verse 12 it says, "To the praise of his glory," and you circle that phrase, and you draw a line back up to verse 6. So in those middle verses he describes what the Son does, and he says, "All of that was for the praise of his glory." And then at the very end of verse 14 it says, "To the praise of his glory," and you circle that and you draw another line to it, and you say, "He just talked about what the Spirit did," and again the point of that is that it brings glory to God. So just quickly we're going to read through those verses, and then we'll move on to the next truth. "Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us for adoption his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved." So all that talking about the Father, now we switch to the Son, verse 7. In him the Son, the beloved, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 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, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be, here comes to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquired possession of it, and then again for the third time to the praise of his glory. So the Trinity is working together, and it's all designed to bring glory to God. Now you go to chapter two and you have something that is not so flattering, but it's really important to understand, and it's this idea that apart from God's grace we are all much worse than we think we are. And maybe, I hate to say more clearly, but how about let's say as clearly as any other verse in the Bible, Ephesians 2, 1, 2, and 3 describes who we are apart from God's grace and is not very flattering, okay? I feel like you can disagree with me, but I think I'm right. I feel like most people in the United States will be willing to admit that they are not perfect. I don't think there's many people in our society who would be so brash as to try to tell you they're perfect. Most people, oh, of course I'm not perfect. I'm a mistake, everybody's perfect. But I also think most people in the United States, if you really press them, feel like, well, I'm better than most people. I'm at least, you know, average to above average, and we can always find somebody else in the news or the paper or whatever that looks worse than us. But here's how Paul describes us, or really how God describes us. Ephesians 2, 1, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. That's just not very flattering. Paul says, look, left to yourself, it's not just that you're not perfect. It's not just that you're spiritually, not everything you should be. It's not just that you're spiritually sick, it's that you are spiritually dead. A dead person can do nothing. You're spiritually dead, there's nothing you can do to change this situation. And here's the situation. You walked in trespasses and sins. You followed the course of this world, just like everybody else, wicked humanity united together against God, the tower of Babel, the people in the days of Noah. That's you. That's me, apart from God's grace. Then it gets worse. You follow the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience, he's talking about the devil. He's saying, before God's grace, you followed the devil. The Ephesians would have said, no, we didn't, before God's grace, we followed Artemis. Paul says, well, whatever, semantics. If you're not following Christ, you're a follower of Satan, there's two kingdoms. Artemis doesn't have a kingdom, Artemis is part of Satan's kingdom. He doesn't have its own kingdom. Money is part of Satan's kingdom. Sex does not have its own kingdom. That's part of Satan's kingdom. If you worship those other things, you follow those other things with the rest of the world. Paul says, you're a follower of Satan. Again, that's not very flattering. He says, we lived in the passions of our flesh. You were ruled by your desires. Your heart was the problem. And you were by nature children of wrath. God's wrath was upon you. So apart from grace, we are all worse than we think we are. I'll tell you this on that point right there, that third one. If you look today, I joked about saying something heretical earlier. If you look at any heresy from church history, you just pick it. I don't care what it is. You just pick one out and you trace it back to its very beginning. They didn't get this. They went off on the doctrine of sin. That's where they went wrong somewhere. Trace it all the way back. That's where almost every single one of them goes off the tracks. You miss the doctrine of sin and what the Bible says about that and you eventually end up in right field and you don't want to be out there. So you've got to nail that down. It's really, really basic and really foundational. Here's good news following that up. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Those are some of the great solos of the Protestant Reformation, right? Grace alone, faith alone in Christ alone. And then the truth that goes along with that, I'll give you one more and then we'll read a little bit, is that salvation always results in a changed life. And looking at that, the word that I should have had you fill in the blank instead of changed is the word always because that's where the emphasis needs to lie. Salvation always results in a changed life. I'm not talking a perfect life, not talking a sinless life, but we are talking a changed life. It always works that way. And so here's what he says. He describes us and then he says in verse 4, "But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He, that's God, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. When you get up to verse 9 and you say, "Okay, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, God it." Then comes verse 10. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, created for good works. And then he explains those good works. God prepared those good works beforehand that you should walk in them. So here's where Christians in the Bible go off track. We do a pretty good job in the Bible belt of explaining to people that you can't work your way into heaven. We do a pretty good job of being clear to that about that. You cannot work your way in, you can't earn your way in. Where we miss it is instead of saying it's by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, we say, "All you have to do is pray a prayer and invite Jesus into your heart." Just pray a prayer, pray a prayer and then you're saved, easy. What could be easier than that? Pray a prayer, you go to heaven one day. Do you want to go to hell? No, you don't want to go to hell. So pray this prayer, you go to heaven one day. And then we just leave it at that. That's just not what Paul's talking about here. It's totally different. Paul's saying, "Look, you can't earn your way in. Is only by God's grace, only through faith in Jesus, and it's Jesus alone. Nobody else. Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone." But then he says in verse 10, it goes right with verse 9, "You can't separate Him. You are God's workmanship. He created you for good works, didn't save you by good works, but He made you new in Jesus for good works and He prepared them beforehand that you should walk in them." So if you work that backward into our society, you have a whole lot of people who would say, "I'm a Christian. I've prayed a prayer. I've invited Christ into my life." Say, "Really, explain to me or describe to me the good works that you're walking in. Well, I'm not. Well, then you're not a Christian." That upsets people. That makes people uncomfortable. It's hard when you start thinking about your own family members or your kids or your parents or your grandparents or your grandkids or whoever. But I mean, if we're going to be honest, that's what Paul's talking about. Say, "By grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone," period, great. But you're also saved for good works. And if your life didn't change after you prayed some prayer, you missed it. It's not real. So there you go. Pretty clear in Ephesians 2. A couple more theological truths that Paul gives us. We'll move through these quicker. Christ has united Jew and Gentile in the church. Here's why I think this is important. You can read the verses. This was a real tension in the early church. You had all these Jewish people used to Jewish culture. You have all these Gentiles coming in, not used to Jewish culture, and it was just hard for them to be together at times. And never, never, never, never did Paul say, "You know what would be best is if you just had a Jewish church in Ephesus and then a Gentile church in Ephesus and just go do your own thing?" You know, we'll be in the same association or network or denomination, but just go have your own church. That will resolve the conflict. You just go do your thing and you go do your thing. Over and over and over again, he says to both of them, "Get along. Work it out." Christ has made you one, start acting like it. Get together and get on the same page so he's united Jew and Gentile in the church. Last truth is this, God makes his wisdom known to his enemies through the church. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It's one I studied a lot for my dissertation and I'm not going to bore you with all the things I'd love for you to know about it, but I'll just say look at Ephesians 3, 10. He says, "Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places." Just to save us some time, I'll tell you this. Brothers and authorities in the heavenly places in Paul's writing refers to evil, wicked, demonic spiritual beings. That's what he's talking about. You'll see it in Ephesians 6 and what he's saying is, "God's plan," you can read the whole passage, "God's plan from the very beginning of time was that through the church, he would show his wisdom and his power to his enemies." When I read that verse, it makes me think differently about being part of a church family. Like most people in our culture think about, "I'm going to be part of the church for what I can get out of it. I'm here to get fed. I'm here to be entertained. I'm here for you to make me laugh or feel good about myself or I'm here because I like it. I'm here because my friends are here, whatever." Paul says, "Can I tell you the biggest reason you should be part of the church, a church?" That was God's plan from before the beginning of time of how he decided in his wisdom that he would make his wisdom and his power known to his enemies. You and I know people today who say, "Well, I'm a Christian, but I don't need to go to church." Why would you not want to go? If that's what the church is, it's God's eternal plan to show how wise he is to his spiritual enemies, and you say, "You don't want to be a part of that. You don't need to be a part of that." That's an arrogant, arrogant thought. He makes his wisdom known to his enemies through the church. You don't have to think that that's the best way to do it, but that's how God chose to do it. I'm going to make my enemies recognize how wise I am, and my plan to do that is to make a church of people. That's his plan. You get to be part of that. Here's the application. Number one, prayer flows out of theology, always, always, always. And I don't care what you tell me that you believe about God, what you say, how you answer the right questions, you pass a theology exam, none of that matters. Give me five minutes to listen to your prayers, and I'll tell you what you believe, easy. And you can turn around and say, "Oh, no, I'm not a health and wealth prosperity person," or, "Oh, no, I don't think this or that." You listen to somebody pray, and you know exactly what they believe, okay? Your prayers will always flow out of your theology. And Paul prays for these people, right? These are people he loves. He spent three years with them. When he had to leave them, they and Paul were moved to tears because they were so upset by it. So he prays for them, he's concerned about them, and the things that he prays for just to put it in a nutshell is that they would know the truth about Jesus. That's the one thing he prays for. I want you to know the truth about who Jesus is, and what God has done for you through Christ. I want you to know it. I want you to really, really get it. So we're just going to read them real quick because they're great prayers, and they're not the kind of prayers that we naturally pray. Ephesians 1, 15, "For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and are not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers," here's the prayer. Verse 17, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you." That's a crazy prayer, right? Because he already said back in verse 15, "I've heard about your faith. You have faith in Jesus." And he's saying, "What I'm praying is that you would know, like really, really know. Get it deep down in your bones, that you would know the hope to which he's called you, and the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints." Verse 19, "I want you to know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. He goes on to describe more things he wants them to know. Look at chapter 3, verse 14, it's the same thing, "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, why am I bowing my knees in prayer?" Verse 16, "That according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." You go back to chapter 1, verse 15, and you say, "He already said they had faith, but that's what he's praying for. I'm praying that you would have real, genuine, lasting faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend. I want you to know, with all the saints, what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. I want you to know something that you will never able to be fully know. That's my prayer for you." He's different than we do. Prayer flows out of your theology. Second, application. Spiritual gifts are given for building up the body of Christ. You have a spiritual gift. Paul gives a short list of some of those gifts in Ephesians 4, and then he goes on to explain that the point of all of those things, starting in verse 12, is for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of faith in the knowledge of the Son of God, mature manhood, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we're not a bunch of children tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, craftiness, human cunning, deceitful schemes. So speaking the truth, we grow up in every way to him who is the head into Christ. So spiritual gifts given to us for building up the body of Christ. That's a good test when you think about your own spiritual life. You say, "God has given me a spiritual gift, am I using it in a way that strengthens the body of Christ?" Yes or no, that's the reason he gave it to you. Number three, sanctification. Paul talks a lot about sanctification. It's more walking with Jesus than will power. So sanctification is the process of becoming more holy. And sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, sanctification means I need to quit doing all the bad things I do. I need to quit saying this, I need to quit doing that, I need to quit thinking this, I need to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, okay, that's one side of it. But when Paul describes it in Ephesians 4 and 5, what he's describing is not so much just have enough willpower to stop doing all these bad things, he's just saying you just need to walk with Jesus in every area of your life. And you read these verses, we're not going to look at them all for the sake of time. But sort of the idea that Paul gives is, yes there's certain things you need to put off, but you also need to put other things on, stop stealing. But being sanctified doesn't mean you're just not a thief, it also means you're going to work hard so that you have something to give to those who are in need. Put this off and put this on. He talks about corrupting talk, you need to put it off. But it doesn't mean you just stop saying crude things. He also says you need to let come out of your mouth what's good for building up. So you put this off and you put this on. He talks about drunkenness and he says don't be drunk, put that off. But in place of it, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're led by the Holy Spirit. So there's put this thing off and put this thing on. You have to have both of those things if you're going to grow in sanctification. Before application, your faith has to impact your relationships. So he talks to husbands and wives and he talks to children and parents and he talks to slaves and masters. And basically he's saying if your faith in Jesus doesn't change the way you relate to other people, you don't really have faith in Jesus. Genuine faith in Jesus Christ changes the way you interact with other people. Period in the story, it's as easy as that. Last lesson is this, life is war. Just to leave you on a positive note. If you don't get that, you're going to be really frustrated in your life. You're going to wonder what you're doing wrong or what God is doing or not doing in your life and you're going to question things and you just got to settle it in your mind that this life is war. I saw somebody from our church posted a picture on Facebook this evening and the gist of it was basically Jesus never promised to save you from bad things now. He promised to give you eternal life but he'd never promised that your house wasn't going to burn down or you would have the greatest marriage or you would have the best this or you would have the easy whatever or you'd always be healthy or no one in your family would die. That's not part of it. And you just got to settle in your mind as Paul's telling the Ephesians, life is war. And so look what he says in Ephesians 6, 10, I know our ladies have been studying the armor of God so if you have questions about this, you can go to some of those ladies and they'll straighten you out. We're going to read 10 to 20. And this is just what I want you to notice, okay, from 10 to 20 as we read through it. Up in the first half of that, four times he tells them to stand, stand, stand, stand, stand. And then he talks about the armor of God and then down below starting in verse 18, four times he talks about prayer, prayer, supplication, prayer, supplication. You got to stand, talks about the armor of God, and then he talks about the role of prayer. So let me just read these verses and then we'll end with prayer. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm, stand there for him, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and his shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. And all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication, to that end keep alert with perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. So let's pray. Father, we're grateful for this book of Ephraim.