Ephesians 1-3-14 Who What When (audio file for download)

Well, Last week, we began to study the book of Ephesians.

This book is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus. He is corresponding with them from prison in Rome.

We looked at the greeting last week, and how paul spends a lot of time addressing our identities as people. We looked at the importance of finding our identity in Christ and nothing else. If you recall, I mentioned that you are in Adam, or you are in Christ, and all the different things we can find our identity in are under the heading of Adam.

Today we are going to look at the same text we spent 7 weeks looking at in our essentials series. I know what you are thinking… are you kidding me? Well, when we looked at these verses before, we were looking at them topically. Today we are looking at them exposisionally.

So, here is the question I want to ask before we read. What is it that you are looking to receive as you come to church on Sundays? What do expect from our time together?

Lets read the text

The first half of this book is Paul reminding the Ephesians, and us of all that we have as a result of being “in Christ” and an explanation of all that has been done for us.

You will notice that Paul’s structure as he writes this book is he spends the majority of his time reminding us of who we are, and then later he gets to how that works itself out in the lives of believers. I think this is a good pattern for us to follow as well. How often do you reflect on who you are in Christ?

Who? Who is the active party in this text? Who does the “work”?

In a word: God.

What? What does He do for us? : All that He does in this text falls under the big umbrella of Spiritual Blessings. He has:

blessed us..

chosen us…

predestined us…

blessed us…

adopted us…

lavished grace on us…

made known to us the mystery of His will…

He set forth his purpose in Christ…

He unites all things…

He gives us an inheritance…

sealed us with the Holy Spirit…

When? Before the foundation of the world.