[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So tonight we start with Ephesians.
So a couple of changes.
I felt like I had been getting very wordy with PowerPoint and I was using PowerPoint as a crutch and not learning the material, but basically reading off my notes off the slide.
So we're not going to have near as going to try to keep slides to a minimum. So that makes me kind of focus more on material. Also, we're going to have three slides at the end, two we'll do in class, and one will be the homework challenge that I'm going to give you for the week.
One will be applications for you, and the other one we're going to talk about applications for parenting based upon the text that we're that we're going to cover. So I did want to share with you. This is kind of where we're going.
So tonight we're going to be chapter one, verses one through 14.
So this will be for the remainder of August and then I'll put up what we're going to cover in September.
But that's kind of where we're going. And tonight we're really going to focus on this whole idea of our identity. And when we look at Ephesians chapter 1, especially the first 14 verses, Paul spends a lot of time talking about who we are and what that identity is. So let's go to Ephesians chapter one, and we'll begin with verse one, and we'll go through to verse 14, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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, 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 to Himself as the 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. In him 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 to the praise of his glory in Him. You also, when you've heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
So I think it's pretty neat in these first 14 verses where we see we get all these blessings, but it's really broken out. It's broken out that we get blessings from the entire Godhead. If we look at the first few verses, talks about we have blessings in God the Father. Then it goes in the Beloved, which He switches to Jesus and say, we have blessings in Jesus. And then when we get to the end in verses 13 and 14, it talks about we get blessings in the Holy Spirit. And so we see all three of those of the Godhead, the Trinity, working the blessings in our lives. And I think it's pretty exciting because oftentimes we'll focus on blessings from God, and then some other times we'll focus on blessings of Jesus. I don't remember us talking too much about blessings of the Holy Spirit. So we're going to bring that in and talk about that a little bit tonight. But let's go through the first couple of verses and talk about the blessings it says that we have from the Father to begin with. So in verse four, it talks about he has chosen us.
Now, I think we've got to be careful with this word chosen, because Also in verse 5, it uses this word called predestined, right? And oftentimes that brings up this idea of predestination, which some believe that God has predestined certain individuals to go to Heaven. Which means that some individuals are not predestined to go to heaven. But who is or what is the predestination that Paul talks about in verse 5? Is it directed at us, an individual, or at something else?
[00:05:39] Speaker C: Do you think the church as a whole?
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Exactly.
The point that Paul makes, right, is not that certain individuals are predestined, but rather God has had an intentional, a sovereign plan from the very beginning for our salvation. Because it talks about his motivation was love.
Because of his love for us, he had this predestined plan going all the way back to the dawn of time that would bring us back from the gulf that separated us through sin, right? But the main thing is it says we have this blessing because he's chosen us. And verse five, it says we have this blessing because he's adopted to us.
I don't know how much you know about adoption in the Roman Empire, but Romans, the Romans took adoption very seriously and very legally.
Adults could actually be adopted. And if you were adopted, any debt that you had was automatically forgiven. If you owed money or if you owed anything like that, that was all completely cancelled. And those who were adopted were given, even if they were not a Roman citizen per se, they were given equal status and equal rights to anyone else that was a natural child within that family.
So the Romans looked at this whole idea of adoption as being once you were adopted, you were an equal person within that family.
And the things that you may have done in the past with the family that you came from, those are all erased or forgotten away.
And so we see this blessing that God has chosen us, but that he also has adopted us. But then in verse 6, it says that he has accepted us. Why do you think that's so important?
Can we make ourselves acceptable to God on our own? We can't be acceptable, right?
But God has accepted us through the grace that comes in Jesus Christ. If you look at the new American Standard, verse six says, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed upon us in the beloved, right, in the beloved to be in Christ Jesus. So we see in these first six verses the blessings that directly come from God the Father. And then we move in to verses 7 through 12 and it talks about those blessings that come from the Son or from Jesus.
The first is he has redeemed us.
Now, I know you guys are probably tired of hearing people my age use this example, right?
But my mom collected green stamps and so she would buy things at the store. She were given stamps, us kids, my sister and I We would lick the stamps and stick them in a book. And then once she got so many books, we drove to Jackson, Tennessee, right? From Paris, we drove to Jackson because there was a redemption store. And we would go in there and we would walk down the aisles and mom would trade her books of green stamps for whatever it was that you saw. So this whole idea of redemption is this idea that something gets purchased by paying some price.
And so in this case, who was purchased?
We were.
And what was the price?
It was Jesus, son, and through the blood, right? And so he redeemed us.
If we go to go to Galatians, chapter five. Because there's a couple other things that go with this whole idea of redemption.
So if we go to Galatians, chapter five, and look at verse one, it says, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.
So we get this idea that this freedom that he bought us or that we've been redeemed is that it means we are free from the slavery of sin, we're free from the law, we're free from the power of Satan. The other thing you'll see in verse, the first part of verse seven is this whole idea that he has forgiven us. And you know, we kind of think that is probably. We look at that and we kind of think that that's a given.
But I want to take a minute and look at that word forgiveness.
So if we were to look at that whole idea of forgiveness, it really means this to be carried away, right? So when you forgive someone or you provide someone, forgiveness, whatever they've done against you is carried far away from you. And the idea goes back to what we read in the book of Leviticus, right?
So under the old law, the priest would take a goat, right? On the day of atonement, they would take a goat. They would put the sin upon that goat, and then they would release it out into the wilderness, and it would carry the sins of the people away, right?
And so that's the whole idea, is that Christ, death on the cross carried our sins away so that they're never going to be seen again.
Once that goat that had the sins, the people sprinkled on them or released to the wilderness, you would never see those goats again. So the whole idea is that he's forgiven us and he's redeemed us.
But remember, it's in the context of that, that is a blessing, one of the blessings that we receive.
And if we look in verses 8 through 10, it talks about that he has revealed God's will for us.
He uses that term, mystery, right? What is that, you guys? You know, we've talked about before.
What was the mystery that had been revealed to the Gentiles all along?
Right? What did the Jews think?
They were the chosen people, they were the only ones. Okay.
The mystery was that God's plan that he predestined all the way back to the beginning, that that plan of salvation was going to be for everyone.
Jews, Gentiles, it didn't matter.
And that was the mystery that was kept until Christ's death, when now it's revealed that there is salvation for all.
And then verses 11 and 12, it says, he has made us an inheritance.
So if you look at the King James, it says, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.
But some translations say, in whom also we were made an inheritance. So when you look, you'll have some translation that says we have received, right? We have received inheritance or obtained an inheritance. Some translation says that we were made an inheritance.
Which one do you think is right?
Did we obtain an inheritance or we were made an inheritance, or what was the multiple choice? You always threw me off when it's like both A and B, when you had that option where it was like all of the above. Both of them are right.
Now let's talk first about how we are inheritance, right?
An inheritance is often something that's very valuable.
How valuable are we to God?
So valuable that he sent his son to die for us. Right?
And so in that sense that he purchased us, we are valuable. So valuable that he sent his son. We, we are his inheritance.
And then because of that love for us and that gulf of sin has been closed, we've obtained inheritance. So whether your translation says we were made inheritance or it says we've obtained inheritance, both are valid when we look at the way it was written in the Greek.
All right, so let's spend some time talking about the blessings of the Holy Spirit, because this is where I kind of wanted to spend some time, because we don't talk a lot about the Holy Spirit.
So let's go back to verse 13.
So it says, 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 is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. So we start off with those blessings that we get through God the Father. Then we just talked about the blessings that we get from Jesus the Son. Here we see two blessings that we get from the Holy Spirit.
The first 1 in verse 13 is this whole idea of being sealed or sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Anybody do any woodworking?
We put varnish, we put some finish on the wood. To what, to seal it, Right. To protect it. So we have this whole idea of sealing it often refers to a finished transaction, right. When we think about legal documents, right. Something's not legal until it receives the stamp from the court.
You know, when my father passed away and we go to probate court, we get a letter from probate that I would be the executor of the will. But it's not official. It's not official until the judge signs it and it gets stamped. So it's this whole idea of this official seal to make the completion of that transaction.
The other thing that this seal goes with is this whole idea of ownership. I think a lot of you all know this. One of the things that my son and I do is we go to comic book conventions, comic book conventions, voice actors for video games. And, you know, we've been blessed to go to San Diego and Houston, different places.
But when you get an autograph from someone, whether they be a comic book illustrator or writer or a voice actor, there's always a booth that you can take that autograph to, and they'll give you a piece of paper that is a seal of authenticity, right?
Some of you may have. For example, I have. We have two paintings of my mom's and another painting that I picked up along the way that when you flip them over, it's a little piece of paper that is from the artist that says, this is truly one of his works.
And so one of the things, when we think about this seal of the Holy Spirit, I think it also implies ownership. God has put his seal upon us through the Holy Spirit. That. That is one way.
God has said, you are my adopted sons and daughters. And he's given us this whole idea of the Holy Spirit. And he doesn't use it, doesn't lose us.
Let's go to Romans 8, 9.
You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, does not belong to him.
So a seal is this whole idea of this mark of authenticity, right? That we actually belong to Him. And. And then also if we look at verse 14, it says, he's given us a pledge.
I'm not a big fan of the English Standard Version, so let's go to the King James, the King James says in verse 14, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
They use this word, earnest.
How many of us bought a house and put down earnest money? Right?
And so what Paul's telling us is that the Holy Spirit is that earnest money, if you will. The Holy Spirit is that guarantee of what God has done for us.
And it's given to us, right. Until we can take possession of that final promise.
So it's almost like the Holy Spirit is God's first installment payment, if you will. But he's provided the Holy Spirit that kind of guarantees us that he's going to finish the work and that he's going to provide what he's promised. Okay?
And I think that's important for us.
So we got those blessings. We go back, we've got, we're chosen, we're adopted, we got all the blessings we talked about.
Is there any one of those that is maybe more that you'd like to share that's maybe more meaningful than any others? Is this one of those that just really excites you of those promises?
[00:20:52] Speaker C: I mean, in verse four, where it says, even as he chose us to him before the foundation of the world. So just that, that affirmation that we were a part of his plan from the very beginning.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So often, Right. You'll have people.
Well, you know, it's that where is an afterthought that, you know, Adam and Eve sinning was not part of the plan.
I think the whole idea is that God is in control and that he's done this for us. And what's his motivation?
God's motivation was love. What's the best as a parent? Right.
If we boil down our motivation of what we do with our children, what's it boil down to?
Boils down to love. Right. I mean, we can want them to be. Grow up and be, you know, good citizens, you know, good employees, whatever. But at the end of the day, what motivates us is our love for our children.
And so God in His love, right. Chose us.
I think it's very important, along with that idea, knowing that God has chose us and knowing that he has adopted us, how does that affect the way we face when we fail or perhaps we get rejected?
How does that change or affect the way we do that?
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Seeing my children fail, seeing them hurt, you know, break a rule or do do something that goes against what we have told them to do, it really hurts as a parent.
But you still continue to parent and you still continue to want to be closer to them and want to draw them in because you love them.
So my, my view of God and how he loves us and cares for us has really changed 11 years ago.
So as a, as a human, as an adult, when I fail, I feel that I know in the back of my mind that I am his and that my failure doesn't, doesn't define me. It's not my identity.
And so it's really comforting, you know, so, like, this is a twofold thing there for me.
But it also, it stings really bad because I know as a parent what that looks like and feels like. And he loves us all even more than I could even imagine and so how much that must hurt him. But also he still loves me, you know?
[00:23:35] Speaker B: You know, sometimes. And I know most of y' all know my story, some of you may not. But, you know, I met a girl in college, we got married, she had an affair and left, right?
The hardest thing was when I went back to Paris to Eastwood, the church that I grew up in, right? Feeling like a failure, feeling rejected. You know, when we mess up and we all mess up, something will happen and we'll just think that this is what's going to drive God away from me, right? We have this idea of, because I've done this, it's going to impact how he feels.
But I think this whole idea, right, all these passages tell us God loves us unconditionally and there's nothing we can do.
We were separated from God.
God has removed that separation through Christ and there's nothing we can do that's going to take that separation back. He's always going to be back there for, for us, right?
And so you know what happens? We're going to fail.
We're going to mess up.
But we realize we have forgiveness. We realize we have grace. We realize that we can go to him.
Why do you think Paul begins his letter to the Ephesians talking about spending 14 verses talking about our identity?
Why do you think he starts off with our identity rather than jumping right into the. To the do's and don'ts and the commands?
[00:25:27] Speaker D: He's always kind of done that, like even in the law, law of Moses, like when you read that through, you know, he talks, you know, all these rules about circumcision and this and this along with all the rules, because it, if you don't know who you are, then you're not gonna, you know, you're not gonna want to obey and follow.
And that's just One of the, one of the core things is, is knowing who we, who we are.
In John 13, right before Jesus washes the apostles feet and it says that he, knowing who he was, knowing he was about to go back to his father, then he took off his robe, put the towel on and washed, washed feet. It was the knowing who we are.
And that's one of the, going back to your earlier question, you know, knowing who we are, we never really fail. Yes, I can get fired, yes, people can say this, yes, this and this and this, but I'm not really, I'm not really rejected. I'm, I'm really not because you know, the omnipotent, Yahweh, Adonai, all of that, I'm accepted by him. So all the rest of stuff is just stuff.
Because I think knowing who you are
[00:26:52] Speaker B: is the key to doing.
[00:26:56] Speaker C: I heard something related to parenting one time that said if you define your kids identity, if you tell them who they are, the less you have to tell them what to do because you've defined who they are as a person and so that gets their behavior.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Should I really like that?
Let's boil Christianity down to its core.
What's its core?
Is its core our identity or is it the things we do?
It is our identity. Paul starts with identity because that's what Christianity is, right? Christianity is not defined by you keeping that checklist of here's what I've done.
It's not defined by looking at that checklist and saying, oh yeah, I've done this day, I haven't done this day. It's defined by our identity.
And if we realize our identity, if we value our identity, then the other things will come, right?
Though for me growing up, the worst thing for me was to do anything that I felt like brought shame upon the name of Baker. Right? I mean my dad had one of the, you know, one of the largest employees in town, was well known and to do anything that might shine negatively on him, that drove a lot of my actions.
[00:28:36] Speaker D: Right?
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Our identity, the, the realization that we are adopted sons and daughters with full access to the father, that is what drives our actions or should drive our actions. Right, let's go to the last one real quick because we've talked about this a little bit.
What are competing, when we talk about identities, what are competing identities that we face in today's world?
Our careers, our jobs, those type of things oftentime interfere with our identity. And we have to be real careful what we're going to spend most of our time before the next bell is with our children.
Because how do our children, how do we help our children define those identity? So let's get a couple of these and I'm just going to kind of open this, open this up and we're going to jump to a couple of them, right?
So let's talk about these two or these three about identity, right? How do we as parents, how do we affirm our children's value apart from their achievements, right? Because all of us will watch our kids, we're proud of our kids when they achieve and oftentimes will say, that's my ball player, that's my, you know, that's my musician. Oftentimes we take what they do and we assign them kind of an identity, right? So how do we, or how can we as parents celebrate our children's gifts without making those gifts their identity?
[00:30:30] Speaker D: Whenever I'm bragging on my kids, I never, I never connect. And I love your statement with me bragging on their grades or their sports performance or their whatever.
And I say I love you a lot. But I do my best never to connect with it because I don't want them in their brain, even subconsciously to connect. Oh, I did great. Daddy loves me because I got an A on the test or I did good in that race and that, you know, because. And I try and keep those ideas separate because I, yes, I do want to brag on them, but I don't want them to connect.
Oh, I love you because you did this. Oh, I love you because you made this group at school or I love you because you did that. I don't, I don't ever want those two to connect.
[00:31:20] Speaker E: I think that's why we do things like memory work or even lads, right? We find things. That's kind of a cop out answer to some degree because you're talking about achievements, but we try to reward or to, to celebrate the fact that, hey, they can get up and lead a song or do a speech or say a Bible verse or something like that, right? Even in class here, it's a big, we try to make it a big deal, I think to, I don't want to say compete with that, but at least to, to have an alternative, right?
[00:31:49] Speaker B: I think one thing that we have to be very careful of as parents, right, is get good grades, praise good grades, praise those achievements.
But we have to realize we've got to value character over skill. In other words, praise kindness, praise patience, praise honesty, praise that character as much as you would those achievements, right? And we got ditch labels and I was bad about this because, you know, I have a daughter, and I'll say, okay, she was my athlete, and Cole, who played drums, Cole was my musician.
But we got. We got to get rid of. We got to kind of ditch those labels, if you will. Right.
[00:32:39] Speaker E: I think with identities, I think you can.
I think they can compete, but they can also not compete, depending on sort of how you go about it. Because I think that when you kind of, like, compartmentalize parts of your life, you sort of schism yourself into different identities.
But I think one way that we can help our children with not having their different identities be in conflict is to help them to realize that they continually are all parts of themselves, all at the same time. So, like, you're never, like, if they're. If they're good at music, they're going to find a way to be a musician.
But we have to help them to understand that they're still our child. The Christian musician, not a musician on this day and a Christian on this day.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Two things before I go to the final slide. One is encourage variety. Let your kids try things that you know they're not going to be good at. Okay? Let them try those things that you know they're not going to be good at just for fun. Because what happens is that removes the pressure on them to be excellent or successful at something.
The other thing is, you know, when they try hard things and they fail, you gotta praise them and welcome those mistakes.
Right? You can't let that. Oh, you. You can't. That can't be. Oh, well, you know, when they try those hard things. Okay, so I. We're going to do challenges, and I've broken the challenges out into two things, Personal challenges and parenting challenges.
So here's your personal challenge. Your personal challenges for the week is.
Is there an area where you found your identity other than Christ?
You know, are you like. You know, you get praised at work? Well, suddenly, is that maybe sometimes taking over your identity?
Would your life change if you truly lived as someone who was chosen, redeemed, and sealed?
Would that change your daily life? And then I want you to figure out one way to remind yourself this week how your identity is in Christ.
And then for a parenting. Right, I want you to pick one of these. Chosen, loved, adopted, forgiven, redeemed, secure in Christ.
And every day, reinforce that with your child.
Take one of those.
One of those ideas, reinforce it, whether it's you talk to them directly or you mention it in prayer, you pray over them, you have a conversation with them, you write them a note.
But get them to start thinking that their identity is not based upon what they're good at here on earth, but rather, their identity is based upon Christ.
And so that's your challenges for the week. I'll send those out in the groupme in case you can get. Oh. Oh, perfect. Oh, man, you're so good. All right.
And then read together as a family. Work on verses one through five.
