Saint City
- Jake Chambers
- Jan 24, 2010
- Series: Ephesians
Saint City
Ephesians 1
“Paul an Christ apostle of 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.”
Today we will begin our study of the book of Ephesians. Last week we delved into Acts 19 to see the context of the church in Ephesus and the many similarities we see between Ephesus and the College Area.
The verses we will look at today are monumental in introducing Paul and the letter to the Ephesians. There are gigantic statements of faith made in the first two verses, that if deeply believed, will radically shape the way the church lives, acts and worships. I do not believe I can overstate the importance of these introductory letters, but I may try.
Who is Paul? He is an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God! We must first understand that what Paul is saying is so insanely different than what he might once have said. We have to understand Paul’s history in order to understand this statement. We have to know the details of Paul’s story to unravel exactly how mind blowing this statement really is, and why this statement and Paul’s story is so crucial to understanding the form and shape of this entire letter. So let’s take a look at Paul’s life in a couple of places to help us better understand exactly what Paul is proclaiming here.
Acts 7:54-8:3
Saul is ravaging the church. He is a murder of Christians, pastors, deacons and of God’s church. This is Saul. Saul is a terrorist. He is consumed with his self-righteousness and with terrorizing Christians. This is the guy that wrote half the New Testament.
Philippians 3:4b-6
Paul used to place his confidence in his own works, in his own deeds. He was a prideful Pharisee that believed he could save himself, and could get his justification from himself. He murdered Christians because they said he was a sinner in need of a Savior and he hated that idea. No way would he prescribe to the thought that he could not save himself.
This is who Paul was. He was a self-righteous & proud terrorist, whose confidence was in himself, and who was consumed with ravaging the church. His whole life he would say he was Saul by the will of Saul. Righteous and justified by the will of Saul. Better than Christians and better than Jesus and better than you, by the will of Saul.
Now Paul is saying that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus, the one he hated, and not by his own will, but by the will of God. This is amazing! This is the work of God on Paul’s life. He can’t be a servant and an apostle on his own. It is all God working on his life. I encourage everyone here to read Acts 9 this week. Take a look at Paul’s letter to this church. This is a miracle by the will of God. Paul, who once hated and persecuted Jesus, now loves Jesus, works for Jesus, belongs to Jesus and all by the will of Jesus.
The book of Ephesians is a doctrinal book. Paul will spend the first three chapters praising the glory of Jesus Christ and his grace in our lives before he does any instruction to the church. Don’t you see that we have to know how our belief precedes our behavior? Before we can get to the practical of how to live, how to be unified, love our wives, raise children, and fight the enemy, we have to know who Christ is and all that he has done for us. We have to be motivated by a deep belief in him and in the gospel. Paul has tried it the other way. He has lived a life justified by rules, deeds and right living without trust and relationship with a saving God … and he knows how pointless it was. This is why he is so persistent with sound doctrine, that is Christ centered and Christ focused.
There are many today who are afraid of the word 'doctrine.' In the name of remaining free from division, they avoid meditating, studying or speaking about the glorious truths that Christ has set forth. They have only one rule: that there are no absolute truths or doctrines that we can rest in. The irony is that this is a doctrine. It is a “no-doctrine” doctrine. The tragedy is that doctrine can be good and the doctrine set forth by the gospel is life changing, beautiful and loving. Paul has first hand experienced a new identity formed by the gospel, and faith, and relationship in a loving Jesus Christ, and now he is eager to share those truths with the church in Ephesus.
Ephesians is a book of identity formation. An identity formed by the grace of Jesus Christ, by the will of Jesus Christ. Paul once worked for himself, got his identity from what he did and by his own will. This life was a life of war against God and his church. We do the same things on our own. Who are we by our own will?
Do we see our identity as being firmly tied to the will of God? Do we realize that we are servants of God, belonging to him only by his grace and by his will? Or are we like Saul, and in our pride believe we have justified ourselves and have earned God’s favor by being better than others? Are we still working to earn an identity or are we rejoicing in the one that Christ has given us?
I am a saint. We are saints. Paul not only confirms his new identity in Christ Jesus by the will of God but he also calls the church by their identities. I know many of us have a perception of saints as super Christians or super somethings. We certainly do not think of ourselves as Saints. Saints are people like Mother Theresa or Drew Brees. Saints are someone that you pray to or sacrifice to. But Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus and he addresses this church as 'saints.' Does this shock you?
We need to understand how crazy a statement like this is. Paul hated pagan gentiles. He was a self-righteous Jew, and in that culture pharisees absolutely hated pagan gentiles. They were despicable, God-hating dogs in the eyes of Jews. Now Paul is calling them Saints. This term saint means “holy ones.” It was reserved only for the chosen Israelites. A Pharisee, of all people, knew how reserved this term was for the people of Israel (for the devout Jew) and here he is calling the pagan gentiles saints. What we must see here is the same thing Paul realized about himself. We are saints and this not of our own will. None of us has lived a life where we would feel comfortable calling ourselves saints. Well, guess what church, that is exactly what we are. We are saints, and not because we have been saintly, but because Christ has given us the identity of being his saints. He has made us his holy ones belonging to the holy one! Because he has made us his holy ones we are now free to live out of this new identity to be saints. Because Christ already sees us as saints, we can now try to be saintly. If we try to be saintly our of own will we will fail, but because Christ did not fail in being saintly & in being the holy one, we are now free to identify with him and follow him in being saints. Because Christ has made us his saints we now can strive to be faithful in Christ Jesus. This is the behavior, following the belief. Because our hearts have embraced the identity of saints given to us by God, we are now free to be faithful in Christ Jesus. Saints … isn’t this incredible? Embrace your new identity and be who you are!
I want you to see that Paul’s transformed identity not only transformed how he saw himself but how he saw others. He now sees pagan gentiles as Saints. Do we see each other as saints? Do we gospel each other out of a deep love for fellow saints or because we are annoyed or fed up? Do you see your community as saints? Don’t you see how much easier it will be to love, serve, pray for, and gospel one another if we see each other for who we are in Christ? If we see each other as saints. This transforms our motivation for being the church does, it not?
Ephesians 1:2
How do we view non-Christians? Saul viewed those who did not agree with him as evil enemies deserving of death sanctioned by him. But once Christ changed Paul’s heart he saw non-believers in completely different way. He is the apostle who brings the gospel to the gentiles and to the un-churched. Paul no longer sees pagan gentiles, he instead sees potential saints. Paul no longer looks down on others thinking he is better because of following the law, but knows he is who he is by grace. He knows the church members are now saints by the grace of God, and that he is who he is by the grace of God … so why can’t the unbelieving world be saved and transformed by the grace of God? He no longer sees unbelievers as enemies but as potential saints. Because we can not earn the right to be called saints, and we ourselves were at one time enemies of God, anyone could be a saint. All image-bearers of God are potential saints.
Do we see the students of SDSU as a group of potential saints or as rowdy unbelievers? Do we see our neighbors, bosses or coworkers as potential saints? Do we see our family members or classmates as potential saints? Can you imagine how much different we would treat an unbelieving world if we saw them as potential saints, deserving of the love and care of a potential saint?
We have to see that this letter is God’s grace and peace offering to his people. We, like Paul, were at war with God … but he offers us peace from his son Jesus Christ and he offers us this from the truth of his word, and this truth is a gift of grace. Part of God’s grace is his loving instruction and proclamation from his word. I want us to look briefly at Acts 20:17-38. This is Paul saying goodbye to the leaders of the church in Ephesus. He knows this is the last time he will see them. There are many tears shed here. I wanted us to look at this so we would better understand the motivation from Paul as he writes this letter to the Ephesians. The motivation is clearly a deep love for this church. This is a love letter from Paul. He writes this to a church he has a deeply intimate relationship with. But the love Paul feels for this church is only a mere glimpse of the real power in this letter. God is the author of scripture, and that is why this letter is grace to the Ephesians and grace to us. This is a love letter from Jesus to us. Jesus Christ weeps over his church, over his bride, and he loves his church with a deep and intimate passion. And so he pens this love letter through Paul to express to us the deep love of which he loved us. He writes to the church that he deeply and intimately knows, so they may deeply and intimately respond to his love. He reminds us of the great truths that show his love and he lovingly points to how we should live.
This is a love letter from Jesus. We must read it like this. If we are to have any glimpse of the power and any chance of understanding this letter as a church we must realize that ink is wet and it has been freshly written through tears, blood, laughter and praise by our Lord Jesus Christ. And it was written to us out of love. This is why we encourage each other to read God’s word. And to study, memorize, read and soak yourself in scripture. You are not just perusing a simple book, but are being given a glimpse of the story of God. We are given the greatest romance ever told and not only do we get to read the story, but the story is written to us. It is a love letter written with the most intimate and deepest of passions to lead us to love the one who wrote it. We are pouring over Ephesians as a church so we can better know this God who loves us and so we can better understand what he has done to prove his love and how we can then respond. Amen.
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