There is an ancient tradition of churches preaching through entire books of the Bible. At G+P, the Bible is central. As we work through books of the Bible, we’ll have pages like this that give you some direction in digging deeper into the beauty of God’s word. You can always listen to sermons here.

THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS

The New Testament book of Ephesians is a letter. It’s a letter from a founding pastor (the Apostle Paul) back to his former flock, they have a new pastor now. They are a stable and growing congregation. But, like all churches, they have problem. They don’t have the fire of love for God that once motivated them. They are struggling to include people coming from different cultural backgrounds. They are having trouble with marriages, families, and working relationships. They need to grow up into God’s vision for their lives. Ephesians is a letter about growing up.

How will they grow up? Not by trying harder. Not by using better techniques to build successful lives. For Paul, growing up is about entering the mystery. The mystery that God is present in the world. God is active here, now. God is at work in his people and his church. As we live into the mystery, we find a firmer foundation.

For the Ephesians, God being at work in their world was easy to forget, it didn’t seem mysterious. They were prosperous and secure. It was easy to go through the religious motions. But, Paul sought more for them. 

How were they to grasp the mystery? By focusing on belief in the marvelous grace of God and by living that belief out in their everyday relationships. Belief and behavior always go together. When a husband believes the glorious value of his wife, and behaves toward her with love and care, we see the glorious mystery of marriage revealed. In the same way, Paul is a master at showing how believe and behavior cannot be separated.

At Grace+Peace Church, we want to live into the mystery Paul is describing in Ephesians. So, there’s an invitation for you as we read through it together. An invitation to enter God’s mystery. Here’s how:

• Read the book of Ephesians multiple times. There’s only 6 chapters. You can take a chapter a day and finish in a week. Plan to spend 5-6 weeks this fall reading through Ephesians. You’ll be glad for the repetition. Consider reading from a different translation on occasion. Try out Eugene Peterson’s The Message interpretation for one of your read-throughs this fall.

• Pray that as we look at a different aspect of this mystery of God each week, that God will reveal that aspect of the mystery of his presence and work to you.

• Explore more voices as they wrestle with these concepts in their own life. Here are a few book recommendations for you to tackle this fall:

  • The Gospel, Ray Ortland – This is the shortest of the books here and isn’t about Ephesians specifically. But, Ortland opens up the mystery of the gospel at work in us, through us, and in the church. It is a book that will make you long for a beautiful church.

  • Ephesians, Tony Merida or Let’s Study Ephesians, Sinclair Ferguson – These are both commentaries. If you have never read a commentary, they stick close to the text of the book explaining things in detail. These particular commentaries are both accessible and designed for folks who want to dig into the structure and argument of Paul’s masterpiece.

  • Practicing Resurrection, Eugene Peterson – This is spiritual writing at its best. Peterson takes insights from the text and opens up the heart of how God is at work. It is a beautiful and rich read.

Here’s a great overview video of Ephesians from the folks over at TheBibleProject.com.

Ephesians 1:3-14

This passage stands out in all of biblical literature. It’s robust and complex and beautiful. In fact, this entire section we just read is one sentence in the original Greek, 202 words. Eugene Peterson calls it like a waterfall, “a tumbling cataract of poetry”. The words and images just keep coming. And, there is a real sense of the vast cosmic, universal horizons that are in Paul’s mind. He is take up by the beauty and majesty of God.

Another important detail stands out. Paul captures this text around the idea of ‘blessing’. God is to be blessed because he has blessed us with blessings! Whoa. his idea of blessing is a huge Biblical idea that would be good to look up sometime. But, one of the key places you’ll notice is that is the language God uses with Abraham. Abraham will be a blessing to all the earth. Here in Ephesians, Paul sees the ways God has fulfilled that promise in Jesus.

Here’s how Eugene Peterson described this passage in his book, Practicing Resurrection:

Paul begins his letter with a Blessing. He blesses God for blessing us. He particularizes the blessing in seven God activated verbs that provide a widescreen panorama of the comprehensive ways that God works in this magnificent cosmos in which so many find themselves lost. God is on our side; he is not against us. God is actively at work among us for our good and our salvation; he is not passive. God is present and personal; he is not remote. God is totally involved in the cosmos. He is not indifferent.

We submit ourselves to the blessing. This does not come easy for us. It takes time. It takes a great deal of getting used to. As we submit, our imaginations are baptized. We are immersed in the icy, swift-flowing river of resurrection and come up with all our senses tingling, our imaginations cleansed. We see what we have never seen before. We thought we were looking for God. No, God is looking for us. We thought we were seeking God. No, God is seeking us.

This is the first thing; the blessing. We start with God. If we start with ourselves, we wander farther into the dark woods. Snow-blind, we circle our own tracks on polar ice. We trek across Sahara sands setting our hopes on one mirage after another. Pick your metaphor.

Ephesians 1:15-23

‘Saints’. When Paul describes the people in Ephesus as saints, it sounds odd to our ears. Most moderns hear something very different in the word. We think of the spiritual all-stars. We imagine statues and stained glass. We don’t typically think of harried moms with wild children, divorced dads with a list of regrets, the depressed, the ashamed, the weak, and the poor. But, that’s the kind of people that Paul called ‘saints’. And he doesn’t just do its once, as if it was a poorly chosen word, he calls them ‘saints’ nine times in Ephesians.

In this passage Paul is praying for the saints in Ephesus. His prayer is for the them ‘to know’ God. Knowing is the Bible is rich word. God is said to know his people, husbands know their wives and children are conceived as a result, Jesus makes himself known to his disciples. To be a saint is simply to know God. To have an intimate knowledge of him. Specifically, the saint knows 3 things related to God: 1. the hope God gives, 2. the rich inheritance that will come from him, 3. and the world-changing power that is at work in them. This is grace, God’s kindness given to normal people through the work of Jesus. The saint is simply the one who knows they are a recipient of that grace.

When you join a church, you join in with other saints. They are recipients as well as you. They are waking up to the realities of grace just like you are. They are infinitely privileged to be God’s child, just like you. Think about the words of the great Irish hymn For All The Saints (all 6 verses, they don’t write them like this anymore!)

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Allelu...

Thou was their rock, their fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Allelu...

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia, Allelu...

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Allelu...

But lo! There breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on his way,
Alleluia, Allelu...

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Ephesians 2:1-10

But God. Those are the two best words in the entire Bible. They represent the truth that the tragic story of this world has not, and will not, flow along like a raging, uncontrollable river. God has entered the story. And, God didn’t only enter the story - that would be good news enough. But, Paul makes clear that he enters with grace, ‘for by grace you have been saved!’ God enters, with grace. But God. If you can’t understand the depth of brokenness in your own heart and in this world, remember those two words. But God. Within those words is a universe of hope and possibility.

Listen to how Eugene Peterson talks about this passage, ‘for by grace you have been saved, through faith’:

Faith in Christ is an act of abandoning the shores of self, where we think we know where we stand and where if we try just hard enough we can be in control. Faith in Christ is a plunge into grace. Grace: “not of your own doing; it is a gift of God.”

But, that terra firma, feet-on-the-ground self is hard to give up. We have grown up on this ground, learned the way the world works on this ground, become pretty good at finding our way around on this ground. We have maps and guidebooks, we know all the best restaurants, know where to shop for bargains. All our habits have been formed on this ground.

In fifty years of being a pastor, my most difficult assignment continues to be the task of developing a sense among the people I serve of the soul-transforming implications of grace - a comprehensive, foundational reorientation from living anxiously by my wits and muscle to living effortlessly in the world of God’s active presence. The prevailing North American culture (not much different from the Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Roman cultures in which our biblical ancestors lived) is, to all intents and purposes, a context of persistent denial of grace.

Ephesians 2:10

My pastor friend Matt Kessler loves Mr. Holland’s Opus. In particular, he loves the clarinet scene. For him, the job of helping a person discover their true belovedness is a work of joy. Most people have trouble discovering that. They don’t live feeling much like God’s workmanship. But, Paul says thats exactly what they are - ‘for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.’ The clip below gives you a sense of the glory of that discovery. May we all have a Mr. Holland in our lives. May we all be that for someone else. Can you imagine a family, or neighborhood, or a city full of people who believe they are uniquely created (re-created!) by God for glorious and good works?

Ephesians 2:11-22

I mentioned the Avett Brothers and their song Ill With Want. Here’s a link for the song. And if you aren’t familiar with the Avetts, take some time and get to know them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWoNCxq7bGA

Ephesians 3:1-13

Here’s the story about grace I told that ended with the line, “It wasn’t because I was good, it was because I was yours.” This story comes from the book Proof by Daniel Montgomery and Timothy Paul Jones. Here’s the full story. It’s stunningly and achingly beautiful.

I never dreamed that taking a child to Disney World could be so difficult — or that such a trip could teach me so much about God’s outrageous grace.

Our middle daughter had been previously adopted by another family. I [Timothy] am sure this couple had the best of intentions, but they never quite integrated the adopted child into their family of biological children. After a couple of rough years, they dissolved the adoption, and we ended up welcoming an eight-year-old girl into our home.

For one reason or another, whenever our daughter’s previous family vacationed at Disney World, they took their biological children with them, but they left their adopted daughter with a family friend. Usually — at least in the child’s mind — this happened because she did something wrong that precluded her presence on the trip.

And so, by the time we adopted our daughter, she had seen many pictures of Disney World and she had heard about the rides and the characters and the parades. But when it came to passing through the gates of the Magic Kingdom, she had always been the one left on the outside. Once I found out about this history, I made plans to take her to Disney World the next time a speaking engagement took our family to the southeastern United States.

I thought I had mastered the Disney World drill. I knew from previous experiences that the prospect of seeing cast members in freakishly oversized mouse and duck costumes somehow turns children into squirming bundles of emotional instability. What I didn’t expect was that the prospect of visiting this dreamworld would produce a stream of downright devilish behavior in our newest daughter. In the month leading up to our trip to the Magic Kingdom, she stole food when a simple request would have gained her a snack. She lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth. She whispered insults that were carefully crafted to hurt her older sister as deeply as possible — and, as the days on the calendar moved closer to the trip, her mutinies multiplied.

A couple of days before our family headed to Florida, I pulled our daughter into my lap to talk through her latest escapade. “I know what you’re going to do,” she stated flatly. “You’re not going to take me to Disney World, are you?” The thought hadn’t actually crossed my mind, but her downward spiral suddenly started to make some sense. She knew she couldn’t earn her way into the Magic Kingdom — she had tried and failed that test several times before — so she was living in a way that placed her as far as possible from the most magical place on earth.

In retrospect, I’m embarrassed to admit that, in that moment, I was tempted to turn her fear to my own advantage. The easiest response would have been, “If you don’t start behaving better, you’re right, we won’t take you” — but, by God’s grace, I didn’t. Instead, I asked her, “Is this trip something we’re doing as a family?”

She nodded, brown eyes wide and tear-rimmed.

“Are you part of this family?”

She nodded again.

“Then you’re going with us. Sure, there may be some consequences to help you remember what’s right and what’s wrong — but you’re part of our family, and we’re not leaving you behind.”

I’d like to say that her behaviors grew better after that moment. They didn’t. Her choices pretty much spiraled out of control at every hotel and rest stop all the way to Lake Buena Vista. Still, we headed to Disney World on the day we had promised, and it was a typical Disney day. Overpriced tickets, overpriced meals, and lots of lines, mingled with just enough manufactured magic to consider maybe going again someday.

In our hotel room that evening, a very different child emerged. She was exhausted, pensive, and a little weepy at times, but her month-long facade of rebellion had faded. When bedtime rolled around, I prayed with her, held her, and asked, “So how was your first day at Disney World?”

She closed her eyes and snuggled down into her stuffed unicorn. After a few moments, she opened her eyes ever so slightly. “Daddy,” she said, “I finally got to go to Disney World. But it wasn’t because I was good; it’s because I’m yours.”

It wasn’t because I was good; it’s because I’m yours.

That’s the message of outrageous grace.

Outrageous grace isn’t a favor you can achieve by being good; it’s the gift you receive by being God’s. Outrageous grace is God’s goodness that comes looking for you when you have nothing but a middle finger flipped in the face of God to offer in return. It’s a farmer paying a full day’s wages to a crew of deadbeat day laborers with only a single hour punched on their time cards (Matthew 20:1 – 16). It’s a man marrying an abandoned woman and then refusing to forsake his covenant with her when she turns out to be a whore (Ezekiel 16:8 – 63; Hosea 1:1 — 3:5). It’s the insanity of a shepherd who puts ninety-nine sheep at risk to rescue the single lamb that’s too stupid to stay with the flock (Luke 15:1 – 7). It’s the love of a father who hands over his finest rings and robes to a young man who has squandered his inheritance on drunken binges with his fair-weather friends (Luke 15:11 – 32)…It’s one-way love that calls you into the kingdom not because you’ve been good but because God has chosen you and made you his own. And now he is chasing you to the ends of the earth to keep you as his child, and nothing in heaven or hell can ever stop him…

But here’s what’s amazing about God’s outrageous grace: This isn’t merely what God the Father would do; it’s what he did do. God could have chosen to save anyone, everyone, or no one from Adam’s fallen race. But what God did was to choose a multi-hued multitude of “someones,” and — if you are a believer in Jesus Christ — one of those “someones” was you. God in Christ has declared over you, “I could have chosen anyone in the whole world as my child, and I chose you. No matter what you say or do, neither my love nor my choice will ever change.” That’s grace that’s truly amazing. (Pgs. 81-84)

Ephesians 3:14-21

This passage marks the conclusion of the first half of Paul’s letter and the turn toward the second half. It’s transitional, it’s lofty, it’s even less direct than most of Paul’s other sections of the letter. That doesn’t diminish the beauty, however. One particular example is Paul’s description of the vastness of God’s love in Christ, “…that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…”.

Theologians have wondered at all Paul might have been thinking of when he wrote this. Perhaps the vastness of the entire world. Perhaps the dimension of the cross. Perhaps even the dimension of the temple or a grand church building. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones takes this last idea as probably and then expounds upon it in a sermon. Lloyd-Jones was a preacher in London during the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. He was a wonderful pastor, preacher, and public theologian. He was able to speak to the times in a unique way. His sermon on this passage is characteristic of style and power. It would be worth and read, and even a listen. You can access it here: https://www.monergism.com/dimensions-god%E2%80%99s-love-ephesians-318-19.

Ephesians 4:1

I used a few quotes that I wanted to record here:

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.” Os Guinness from The Call.

Walking is itself the intentional act closest to the unwilled rhythms of the body, to breathing and beating of the heart.  Its strikes a delicate balance between working and idling, being and doing…Perhaps walking should be called movement, not travel, for one can walk in circles or travel around the world immobilized in a seat, and a certain kind of wanderlust can only be assuaged by acts of the body itself in motion, not the motion of the car, boat, or plane.  It is the movement as well as the sights going by that seems to make things happen in the mind, and this is what makes walking ambiguous and endlessly fertile: it is both means and end, travel and destination…I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour.  If this is so, then modern life is moving faster that the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness…In this context, walking is a subversive detour, the scenic route through half-abandoned landscapes of ideas and experiences. Rebecca Solnit from Wanderlust.

The reconciliation of all things in the future is foreshadowed in the reconciliation of believers in the present, a demonstration to the cosmos of God’s purposes in Christ. Mark Roberts from his commentary on Ephesians.

During the Pastor’s Forum, we discussed in more detail the ways we are building communities are forming our interior lives. A book that I highly recommend for people who want to dig into these ideas from a perceptive Christian author is The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment by Eric Jacobsen.

Ephesians 4:1-16

After a break for Advent and the Christmas holidays, it is fun to jump back into Ephesians. But, in diving back into Paul’s head can be jarring. I’d encourage you to spend a few minutes reading the entire letter to the Ephesians. It will take about 20 minutes and be well worth your time.

Toward the end of my sermon, I referred to Jesus and his cleansing of the Temple (you can read that account in Matthew 21:12). I spoke about Jesus’ passion for his body, the church, to be the place he designed it to be. Along those lines, you might enjoy a recent podcast episode from the guys over at Bible Project discussing how the word “gospel” touches on just this thing. That the good news of Jesus’ coming is proclaimed and embodied by us as Jesus’ church. And when we don’t live up to that message, Jesus is out to cleanse and refine us to more perfectly reflect his gospel. Take a listen - The Bible Project.

Ephesians 4:17-32

I referenced an old episode of The Twilight Zone called “The After Hours”. I’d encourage you to go back and watch it (especially if you’re not of that special age to have watched it when it came out in 1960!). It asks a remarkable question for each of us: are you really alive…really living the life that God has given you?

Ephesians is a letter in which the Apostle Paul is temping each of us to live into this new gospel life. It’s a life of fullness, flourishing, and grace. We sometimes use this around G+P: I’m a complete mess. But, because of Jesus, my future is incredibly bright. Anybody can get in on this.

It is amazing news that anyone can participate in the life of Jesus that finds expression in the local church. You are invited to really live here!

This is how John Stott writes about it:

We are God’s new society, a people who have put off the old life and put on the new; that is what he has made us. So we need to recall this by the daily renewal of our minds, remembering how we ‘learned Christ … as the truth is in Jesus’, and thinking Christianly about ourselves and our new status. Then we must actively cultivate a Christian life. For holiness is not a condition into which we drift. We are not passive spectators of a sanctification God works in us. On the contrary, we have purposefully to ‘put away’ from us all conduct that is incompatible with our new life in Christ, and to ‘put on’ a lifestyle compatible with it.

Ephesians 5:1-21

Maybe you’ve heard of the south Indian monkey trap? People would hollow out a coconut and chain it to a tree. They’d put a banana or rice in the bottom as bait and a small hole at the top. The hole was just big enough for a monkey to get its hand inside, but when making a fist around the bait, it would be unable to remove his fist without letting go of the bait. The monkey was trapped. As one author says, “not by anything physical. It’s trapped by an idea…unable to see that the principle that has served him well, “when you find a banana, hold on!” has now become lethal”. It is possible for you to be so committed to an idea that you get trapped by it. And the only way out is to give up the idea.

Some of us are so committed to our ideas about our life that we are trapped by them. They become false identities…desires that we make central to who we are as people. But, God offers you a way to true freedom, where your identity can be bestowed on you by him and your life can begin to change to reflect that truer and deeper identity. Brennan Manning was fond of saying that, “prayer is death to every identity that does not come from God.” God is offering you the chance to have your life determined by him and his grace instead of your own internal compass. Doesn’t it sound amazing to have your life prepared for you by someone who loves you, who cares deeply for your future, and who has the power to make you flourish?

Ephesians 5:21-33

This is a pretty famous and challenging passage of scripture for many people. I’d encourage you to take a few minutes to listen to this sermon. I was attempting to place the ideas that Paul is getting at into their larger context within the entire story of the Bible. Hopefully, you will find it helpful.

I referenced Alain de Botton and his article Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person. It is worth a read.

I also referenced Timothy Keller and his book on this passage called, The Meaning of Marriage. For my money, it’s the best book on marriage out there at the moment.