so if you would open with me and your Bible to Ephesians chapter 1 i'm so
excited you you're here on a great sunday this is the first sunday in a new
series where we're going through the book of the Bible called Ephesians
turned your neighborhood safe evens turned your other neighbors have no
idea what that means Ephesians the Word of God is powerful got two people
over here got some whispers over here the Word of God is powerful
there we go just got it you just got to say everything twice and then it
comes back the way it should we're going to be in the book of Ephesians for
the next 15 weeks for the entire fall season here at destiny and the reason
why is because we believe god's word is powerful we believe that the Bible
has the power to transform our lives to change that
God uses his word in a creative way and in a powerful way to change our
hearts how many of you need a little heart surgery from now on for you know
here in there you need got to work on your heart we all do and the book of
Ephesians you are going to encounter i believe two things the risen Christ
in the transforming power of God and so I'm I'm believing god that's my
hope is my prayer is my desire that as we spend
some sometime in this great book of the Bible together that you let the
Holy Spirit work in your life to transform you to be the person God has
called you to be why don't we pray father we thank you for your word but we
come to you humbly this morning full of gratitude of gratefulness full
hearts because of what you have done for us in Christ Lord
where would we be if you had not intervened in our life got where would we
be if you had not called us if he had not chosen us if you had not saved us
if you had not redeemed us God where would we be but here today we're with
you a part of your family here today we are with you Lord called out of
darkness Lord you've given us hope you've given us new life you've given us
Redemption God solar today we come to meet with you as we
study your word holy spirit speak to our hearts today changes shape us mold
us into your very image the image of Christ today maybe glorify Jesus in
our lives every day in his name that we pray amen this phrase in Christ is
mentioned over 30 times in this book over 30 times in this book the Apostle
Paul is going to tell you about the blessings that you have in Christ is
going to tell you about what God has done for you in
christ is going to tell you about who you are in Christ and how we live or
not to live our lives in christ i want to ask you this question as we get
started this morning have you ever faced an identity crisis in your life
yeah I think all of us from at one point or another we wake up one day and
we look at the the person in the mirror we say who who is that who stood
who is
that person this is not who I thought I was or who I thought I would be or
who have I become what have I become this crisis of identity I think we all
experience that at some point or another in my life we get to a forward so
you know this is not how I thought life would be going for me at this point
in time I remember a personal story when i went to my first
semester at utsa I i had a little bit i would call it up a mini identity
crisis and for you understand why this was a difficult season for me you
need to know how I grew up you need to know my history my background I was
born I wasn't born in the church but I was really close it was it was
pretty close and my parents got
me here as soon as they could I think they took one look at me and said man
this kid needs jesus and so they got me here I i spent my whole life every
Sunday I you know I could probably click count on one hand the Sundays that
I was not in church growing up at least on two hands I was in church all
the time and it was the church that was started by my great-grandfather and
that my grandfather now pastured I grew up in
this church destiny church after my grandfather passed away my dad was my
pastor here at the church and not only did I go to church here every Sunday
every Sunday night every wednesday my parents put me in the christian
school here at this church the christian school that was started by my
grandmother Ruth bell and I went to all 12 grades here at destiny christian
school and i graduated from destiny christian school
well after i graduated high school guess where I went I went to Bible
School the bible school that was started by my great-grandfather and what I
didn't realize overtly but kind of knew inside internally was that
everywhere that I went everywhere that I went people knew who I was because
my whole life was the church the school bible school missions conferences
going to other churches my whole life and so everywhere I went virtually
everywhere I went
everyone I knew it came with this expectation of who I should be not
because of Who I was in christ but because of who my parents were and who
my grandparents were and who my great-grandparents who I'd never met who
other people knew they thought i should be a certain way and for the most
part i did a pretty good job of white knuckling and living up to those
expectations whether I like it or not and there were
certainly plenty of referees on the sidelines with a whistle the blow and
call foul and I didn't get me headed right in back in the right track and
let me know that I had not lived up to the standard of who I should be and
after bible school I went to utsa and I for literally for the first time in
my life I walked into a room and nobody knew who I was
nobody knew who my parents were nobody knew who my grandparents were nobody
knew my great-grandparents were my last name didn't mean pumpkin to anybody
it didn't ring a bell for anybody when I have that was stupid it didn't
mean it it didn't mean anything and so there was absolutely zero
expectation laid upon me at utsa secular college for how I should live 0
how I should act who I should be and I
remember up at this moment I was very conflicted because i began to make
friends and I began to have peers who were in these classes with me and
they began to invite me to partake in their world which was a lot different
than the world I grew up in $YEAR they began to invite me to to join them
in their lifestyle of ungodliness and I was struggling I've never been
invited to partake in debauchery before
all of a sudden I had no forward momentum for pushing me and pressuring me
into living a certain way and that whole semester of of college my first
semester in secular college I was conflicted Who am I Who am I I know that
this is who I have been but is that who I really am or was that just who I
was because that was the environment that I was in the
environment i was raised in a much more important than all of that is Who
am I going to be and over the course of the semester when I came to find
out what I came to realize was no matter how much I tried to fit in with my
peers no matter how much i tried to to hide my light at the end of the day
I realized that where I was couldn't change who I was I came to realize
that who I was around it couldn't change who I belong to and for the first
time in my life I i saw just
how different i was from the rest of the world not because my last name was
Bell but because I'm a child of God because Jesus Christ is alive inside of
me and I am in him that's when I began to realize that in christ i had the
power to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly world at the core of
my being I was different than everyone else because i was in christ i was
not part of the world now i wish i could tell you that I was perfect and
those
$OPERAND years i wish i could tell you I was this great evangelist and
everyone came to know Jesus Christ because of my great testimony and if I
did I if I told you that I would be absolutely lying to you this morning
those were difficult that was a difficult season for my life in my life
there's many times where I fell and really absolutely came to know and
trust in the grace of god and the majority of the time in those years I
ended up
playing defense instead of office for the kingdom of God yeah I felt like
every day you know you go into the secular environment and those of you who
work in the secular world and who are in secular school you understand this
is very obvious to you but I didn't experiences to i was twenty that many
times you're you're playing defense more than you're playing office because
you feel like your faith is under attack and so many days I felt
like it was all I could do to just hold onto my face to make it through
that day looking back now I see it so clearly that it wasn't me who was
holding onto my faith but it was God who is holding onto me a map and so
the reason I bring this up for you this morning the reason i ask you about
your identity is because that's what the book of Ephesians is all about
it's all about who you are in Christ it's all about
who's you are in Christ it's all about the blessings you have in Christ
that are yours simply because God is your father it's all about how we live
every day in Christ and the question we have to ask ourselves is what have
I whenever I place my hope and my trust in what is my identity is it in the
things that I do it is it is it in my occupation is it in my spouse it is
it is it in my children or is it in the fact that I belong to
Jesus Christ the god is my father Ephesians 1 first one it says this paul
an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are in
Ephesus and our faithful in Christ Jesus grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ this is as far as we're going to go
today two versus three lines 38 words some of your counting
right now wanted I know you but within these 38 words is an infinite amount
of truth the temptation we have and I have a lot of times two is when i
start a new book of the bible reading as i do I kind of skin past the intro
and I want to get to the meat you know what's the meat of of this book but
when we do that we miss so much i wanted i want to tell you this morning
that in these two verses there are depths of truth that must be grasped and
these truths will change your whole
life number one number one Paul knew who he was Paul knew he was you can
you can have a debate with him about it you couldn't have an argument with
him about it he was Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of god now
the fact that Paul is an apostle of Jesus it should blow our minds this is
the man who was torturing Christians this is the man who was
persecuting people for their faith in Christ this is the man who was
ravaging the church even unto death this is the man who went door-to-door
city to city looking for Christians with the authority to drag them back to
Jerusalem and put them on trial for their faith that they would be
persecuted and ultimately give their life for the sake of their faith in
uses this is that same man who separated husband and wife who separated
mother mothers from their children can you imagine the scene going
door-to-door hauling a a mother away from her children to put her on trial
because of her faith in Jesus Christ this his bat man now he's an apostle
now he's preaching the message that he was trying to stop this is a miracle
and it's a testimony to the fact that Jesus has the power to change our
lives
Jesus has the power to take the worst of sinners and turn them into the
holiest of saints on that day when Paul met Jesus I want to tell you what
it wasn't Paul who got ahold of God it was God who got a hold of paul Jesus
appeared to Paul on that road to Damascus and you know what Jesus did he
bowed the knee and in that moment Jesus at that moment Paul said called
Jesus Lord Jesus is Lord and from that moment where God got a hold of Saul
of Tarsus he was forever
changed forever changed forever marked he was a marked man and when we come
to Jesus or when Jesus draws us to him when God gets ahold of our lives
when we when we finally quit as as Paul would say kicking against the
pricks when we finally quit fighting with God and simply surrender our
lives to him we are forever changed and God took Saul of Tarsus changed him
into the Apostle Paul the most radical the most prolific missionary the
world has ever known
the word saw that he saw he was named after the first king of Israel the
the king of Israel Saul who stood head and shoulders above everybody else
from the same tribe the same tribe of Benjamin Saul of Tarsus was from that
tribe from that lying named after the first king of Israel the word Paul
simply means small the word Paul simply means small Paul was changed Paul
surrendered his life to the Lord and
said god I'll do whatever you want me to do I'll go wherever you want me to
go I'll preach to whoever you want me to preach to just point me in the
right direction and let me go Paul knew who he was you know I used to think
this phrase by the will of god Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will
of god I used to think that that was Paul kind of boasting in himself kind
of saying that he's kind of a big
deal you know if you you can you could read it that way you know if I
showed up to you and I said hi I'm a possible Matt by the will of God say
who is this guy take a chill pill bro i used to think that this was Paul
boasting in himself the truth is it is Paul boasting but he's boasting in
God what Paul is saying is that if it weren't for God intervening in my
life i still would be solved arses if it weren't for the fact that i had
collided with God's will for
my life I'd still be persecuting the church I'd still be putting Christians
in jail I'd still be enemy number one in every Church but today by the will
of god i am an apostle i have been changed God took me and he gave me a new
identity Paul was changed by Jesus Paul was given a new identity in christ
see Paul knew that who he was was a result of who's he was that who he was
his identity could
no longer rest in himself it had to rest in who he belonged to and he's
riding he writes here to the saints who are in Ephesus who are these Saints
who are the Saints you know today in the news mother Teresa is being made a
saint did you know that i want to tell you something this morning she was
already a saint if you are in Christ today you are a saint
you don't have to go through this 10-step process of sainthood it's a
one-step process God here is my messed-up broken destroyed life that I've
screwed up because of sin here take it God takes that he makes you a saint
that's it that's all you need so I'm here to declare / you today that in
Christ you are Saints so you can walk
into work tomorrow and say hi I'm st. Matthew turn to your neighbor and say
you're a saint turn your other neighbors say i don't know about you but he
says you are so when you give your life to Christ it changes your identity
you're not who you were when God sees you that's what really should matter
to us FYI not what we think of each other
what is God see when he sees me when God sees you if you are in Christ he
does not see a sinner he sees a saint he sees someone who is holy someone
who is righteous someone who is the righteousness of god in christ jesus if
you are in Christ today you are not a sinner you are a saint you don't
belong to the world anymore you belong to Jesus you've been adopted you've
been redeemed that changes who you are think about it thinking earthly
terms when someone is adopted into a new family it changes who they are
you've been adopted into the family of God it changes you changes
everything you're not a visitor in God's house you can go to the fridge and
get whatever you want you have to ask permission everything and we're gonna
see this as we get into Ephesians everything that is
Christ is yours changes everything you have a new identity you have a new
father your earthly father might have been a lousy guy you might have been
a great guy i don't know but you've got a heavenly father now you've got a
new family the church you've got a new family tree you've got a new Legacy
you've got a new heritage I don't know what your family history was in the
past it might be good it
might be bad but you've been grafted in to gods family tree have a new
Legacy you have a new name your Christian you have a new spirit you have
god's spirit alive inside of you when God sees me he doesn't see a sinner
he sees this st. when God sees you if you are in Christ Jesus ain't this is
your identity wrestle with that grapple with that this is a miracle is an
absolute miracle that God can take sinners and turn them into Saints he's
riding to the saints who are
in Ephesus who are faithful in Christ want to tell you a little bit about
emphasis this morning you know a lot of times when we think about the Bible
we think about you know fishermen and farmers and people who are out taking
care of sheep the city of Ephesus was not a rural place it wasn't out in
the country somewhere the city of Ephesus was a booming metropolitan area
if I could tell you one city that's like the city of Ephesus to get you to
think
about it this morning it would be New York City ok New York City it was the
fourth largest city in the day in which paul wrote in the population
estimates are from the lowest i could find where that there was 50,000
people in this city the highest estimate that i could find was that there
was upwards of a quarter of a million people who lived in the city of
Ephesus they had an amphitheater there that could sit 25,000 people if you
google Ephesus and hit
pictures or images you're gonna do you find a big picture of this
amphitheater that's still there standing to this day FYI the AT&T Center
can only fit 18,500 people Ephesians that is be on their theater we have
the alamodome but anyway 25,000 people these were a poor peasant farmers
these were educated people who were very much involved in industry emphasis
was a port town and it also not pork
I know some of you are thinking about lunch port town that had several
rivers that converged there and then several highways that led all the way
out into Asia Minor all the way to Rome it was a strategic city Greece and
Rome fought over emphasis for years because of its strategic importance in
the building of an empire and the Apostle Paul goes there in Acts chapter
19 and 20 and i encourage you to read that account and apostle paul he goes
there and he plants
this church he starts preaching and teaching and miracles start happening
and he stays there for three years and at the end of three years in
emphasis acts tells Luke record for us and acts that the whole region had
heard the gospel because of the work that had been done in that city that
the gospel went out and it was spreading rapidly because of what was
happening in this church and in this city but when Paul got there it was
incredibly
dark at the heart of the city was one of the seven wonders of the ancient
world it was a temple to the pagan god artemis at the heart of the city
this massive temple which was one of the seven wonders of the world it was
425 feet long by 200 feet wide that's about fifty percent roughly $PERCENT
larger than a football field think about that that the area of this temple
was about fifty percent larger
than a football field and what held up the the roof was 127 white marble
columns each 62 feet high this thing was massive and it was the heart of
their city in Ephesus was the spiritual heart of the whole region asia
minor and the worship of this pagan god and people practicing false
religion with false spiritual powers with demonic powers demonic influence
i'm not going to show you a picture of what the
goddess Artemis looks like but it was the fertility goddess and i'm not
showing it to you this morning because there's children present here ok but
there was this goddess that had I don't know 15 20 bosoms you think our
culture's bosom obsessed these people worshipped this goddess with all
these breasts and they made these little idols and they all have these
idols in their houses and they worship these idols before Paul went there
with the gospel
light of Jesus and what ends up happening in that city is this great
revival happens so much so that the people who make the idols are going out
of business the people who are practicing witchcraft are burning there
there boy bucks they're turning from their wicked ways and they're turning
to Christ and and what the Ephesian example for us is is if the gospel can
take root in a
place like emphasis it can certainly take root in a place like San Antonio
Texas if the gospel can take root and have effect in a dark place such as
Ephesus it can certainly take root and have effect in our city and our
community and in our world today they also show us Paul calls these states
faithful the faithful Saints who are in Ephesus the shows us that those who
are in christ have the power to live for God when everything around them is
pushing
them down when every spiritual force is against them that God's power is
greater and you've got it you've got it you've got the power to live for
God in this dark world you have the power in Christ here's one more thing I
want you to see this morning the Apostle Paul Paul doesn't write to them
and give them a list of things to do he doesn't start by telling them all
the things that they need to do to be good
Christians it doesn't start with a you know it six ways to live a godly
life where does he start starts with who they are he starts with them being
saints and I need you to get this this is so so so important Christianity
is not a moral code Christianity is not a moral code do this do don't do
that and got to be happy
with you Christianity is an identity replacement what God takes who you are
and he takes it and he puts in that place Christ it's not it's it's what
God called sinners Saints by the power of his blood and he transforms them
to live that way here's what I want you to see who you are who you are
changes how you live who
you are changes how you live it's not the other way around it's not who I
it's not how I live that changes who I am then at the core of our being we
are born again by the Spirit of God God puts his spirit alive inside of us
replaces who we are with him you see some of you have been trying to live
the Christian life for years without actually being a Christian it's a
disaster you can't do it there's no power for you to live a victorious life
until you bow the knee and make Jesus Christ your Lord you can't live for
God until you've surrendered your life to god it's not faithful living that
causes you to be a saint it's being a sane that causes you to live
faithfully they need you to get that I need you to understand the
difference because what the world thinks
that Christianity teaches is faithful living causes you to be a saint it's
a line of Satan it's a perversion of the gospel it's bad news but the good
news of Jesus Christ the opposite of that message is that God takes centers
and by his power transforms them into Saints so that they can live the life
is called them to live he concludes this introduction by saying grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ we can never lose sight of the fact that God is our Father and the
jesus is our Lord the moment we forget the goddess a loving father who has
done all of this for us out of love the moment we go there we nullify the
power of God we nullify the grace of God in our lives so many times we come
to God and we try to hold on to our old identity we try to hold on to the
hurts of the past or the trauma that we've experienced we actually
sometimes end up
placing our identity in those things and it's a trap of Satan and Jesus
wants to set you free of that today but instead of saying I'm a saint in
Christ my identity is in him but many time Christians professor is things
like i'm a victim of abuse victim of sexual abuse verbal abuse physical
abuse abuse that's who I am saying so instead of saying I'm in Christ God
has caused me to be victorious we say well my spouse cheated on me with
another woman
my spouse left me for another man i'm a victim of what their sin has
produced in my life I'm divorced and my life is over and i'm just trying to
pick up the pieces you know my been abandoned by my father I've been
abandoned by my mother didn't love me and I'm an alcoholic or I abuse
substance that's who I am well i'm addicted to internet pornography I guess
that's just who I am I got a less problem you know my thorn in the flesh
but God's helping me
through you know I've got a hothead I've got a short temper it's just who I
am I i say things I don't mean them everybody knows that I don't mean a
mistress who i am it's just my Irish temper you're not even Irish I'm
saying that listen you cannot let those things define you your identity is
not in sin it is in Christ you cannot let Satan define you
buy those things you are a saint today when God sees you he sees
righteousness holiness when he sees you he sees a saint you've got to let
go of who you were so you can be who God has called you to be this is
absolutely upside down from everything our culture teaches because at the
height of what our culture teach teaches today is self-actualization
now if i can really get in touch with my inner self then I i can find peace
and wholeness and happiness and so when our culture teaches us to pursue
the things of our flesh the Bible comes along and the gospel comes along as
is actually yourself it's pretty bad and and no amount of scrubbing or
bleach can take care of it you need a new self you need to be a new
creation created not from corruptible
seed but from incorruptible born again by the Spirit of God you've gotta
let go of who you were so you can be who God is called you and created you
to be Parker it concludes this introduction this greeting with grace and
peace and this is for all of us who are in Christ and we know that we're in
Christ but sometime x we look more like unfaithful sinners than we do
faithful Saints we need to
remember that there's grace and peace that God is still our Father that he
welcomes us back just like he welcomed back the prodigal son had no matter
what kind of mess we've made he welcomes us back with open arms because we
are his children in conclusion today Paul knew who he was and he knew that
that was a result of who he belonged to and it's the same for all of us who
do you belong to today to whom have you given your life today
have you given it to Christ have you bound me called Jesus Lord are you
giving your life to your career are you giving your life to material
possessions and the pursuit of stuff are you giving your life to your
spouse are you giving your life to your kids who has you today the truth is
if we figure it out when the thing that we thought we needed is
removed from us and all of a sudden we don't know who we are anymore listen
you are in Christ today you are a saint today if you're here today and you
are not in Christ and you know it you are not a new creation and you know
it you're not a saint today and you know it I've got good news for you
Jesus came and died for people just like you Jesus came and died for you he
gave his perfect life so that you could live in
him he shed his blood so that you could be saved forgiven set free of sin
if that's you here today i want to encourage you take a step of faith give
your life to god and see what he will do with it see how he transforms you
from a sinner to a saint see how he transforms you like the way he
transformed Saul of Tarsus into the Apostle Paul you will be amazed
