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Behind all of the events of human history, and all of the events of your life - both insignificant and life-altering, is God. Paul’s primary objective in his letter to these Ephesians is to demonstrate that the world is not operating by blind fate (1:9-10). There is a God who is in absolute control over the events of history - and your life. This God is a Father.
These twelve verses in our English Bibles are actually three stanzas in the original language, each stanza focused on the work of one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity in devising, executing, and making effectual God's great purpose to redeem sinners.
DUE TO A TECHNICAL ISSUE THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF THIS SERMON WAS NOT RECORDED.
Our being IN Christ does not diminish the responsibilities we have AT Ephesus. But the reality of our lives AT Ephesus must be shaped by who we are IN Christ, and not by the prevailing culture. How then are we to live IN Christ AT Ephesus? The answer, Paul says, is as "saints" and "faithful." What does a saint look like? What does it mean to be faithful?
Our being "in Christ" does not negate the necessity and responsibilities of our being "at Ephesus," which is to say, citizens of the particular communities in which we live. But our being "in Christ" necessarily creates a tension with the prevailing culture within which we must live as "saints" and "faithful in Christ Jesus." How do we navigate this tension?
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