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February 22, 2009
Ephesians 2: 1-10
Exordium: Life is a path we tread. Sometimes we struggle against life, unable to solve its problems and grasp its opportunities. No matter what we do, it doesn’t seem to work for us. We try all the ways we know to solve its problems, but they do not go away.
The result may be a deep frustration, even anxiety in our heart. To ease that pain we may break out of our box in some way and do what is strange and new to us.
But that doesn’t work either. It is like the prophet Ezekiel when he is taken to the valley of dead bones. They were very dry and there was no life in them. He had no way to bring them back to life. When asked, “Can these bones live again?” He could only answer, “Lord God you know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)
And so we feel helpless as Ezekiel did in the presence of death, powerless to change anything.
Explication: That is a picture of Ephesians 2:1-10 where the spiritual condition of the human family is described. “You were dead in trespasses and sins”, but at the same time you were walking.
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LETS CALL THIS A PICTURE OF THE LIVING DEAD
They are walking but they are dead. What is meant here? The walking is a physical act. They may be bright and seemingly full of life on the outside, but there is something about them that is not alive. It is their spirit. The body is alive but the spirit within is not alive. Paul writes, “You were dead.”
To be dead is to be cut off from the source of life, as a leaf may be at the end of winter, hanging on the tree but without any sap or greenness in it. God is the source of all life. But our sin both in Adam and in ourselves has severed our connection with God our Creator, our life. His life no longer flows into us.
We can say the spirit is dead because the signs of life are not there. A living being gives and receives impressions. But the spirit of the unbelieving man sends no message to God, doesn’t seek His influence upon it. Nor does it receive any instruction from Him. There is no connection. The spirit is dead within.
The body is not dead, the mind is not dead, the emotions are not dead, but the spirit has no vital life-giving connection with God. Why? Because of sins and trespasses- these are the things that characterize the person, not holiness, not joy, not peace, but sins of pride, independence, and lovelessness toward others have stifled the soul and it is suffocated. Little sins, trifling things repeated over and over have made the heart thoroughly corrupt.
Transgressions abound, that is the crossing of boundaries which God has put in place for our happiness and safety. We do not want to be controlled by boundaries; we despise authority and want to run our own lives. We rebel against God and against those who represent Him to us. Read the rest of this entry »
February 15, 2009
Ephesians 1:15-23
Exordium: This letter puts the Church right at the center of all things in the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet the word “church” is not mentioned until now, at the end of chapter one. Why? Because the church is a collection of individual Christians – a fellowship of people which Paul calls “saints”.
So he starts the letter by reminding them who they are since the Gospel came to them.
1. They have been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
2. They have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before God.
3. They were predestined to be adopted into His household of faith.
4. They have been accepted into Christ, who is their beloved Saviour. So now they are incorporated into Christ.
5. They have been redeemed through His blood.
6. Their sins, past, present, and future have been forgiven.
7. The grace of God has been made abundant in them.
8. They have been initiated into the mystery of His will.
9. They have obtained an inheritance I Heaven.
10. They have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and therefore their final salvation is guaranteed.
This not only describes the readers of this letter, but it describes you too if you are in Christ – You have all this – “and heaven too!”
Explication: Now Paul gets personal with these saints. He commends them for their faith in the Lord Jesus and for their love for all the saints. What a great thing that is. He may never have seen them, but the good report of them has reached him. What a winning combination they have – faith and love. Do you have the love that goes with faith regardless whether you have a natural affinity or not – a love for all the saints, without any exceptions? Read the rest of this entry »
February 8, 2009
Ephesians 1:9-14
Exordium: What is it about prison life that makes some men saints? One can point to the Apostle John, to John Bunyan, to Chuck Colson, or Richard Wurmbrand. This letter to the Ephesians is a prison letter, too, written with a guard chained to Paul’s wrist. It is what we call a “prison epistle”.
While there Paul could concentrate on what is really important, and shut out the false world around him. He could ponder the spiritual world, the world of God. His mind could dwell deeply on these great themes and out of that inner meditation and God’s revelation came this most magnificent of all letters.
He saw the roots of his life and faith and was led on to the see the final revelation of all things in terms of the future. Like the Lord Jesus, he knew from whence he came and where he was going. He would live in the present. The Christian must always do so, but he lived with the whole picture of God before Him and that enabled him to know the geography of his life. He had an inheritance from the past and he had a great hope for the future, which allowed him to have a dynamic and fruitful present.
Explication: In these things he was a model for us because often our horizons are too narrow. We don’t live in a prison but on a busy street, on the highway, in the busy life of school or work or home management. Our pre-occupations can be petty things and we miss where we are in the grand sweep of God’s plan.
Our way of living and thinking makes God seem remote, distant, and not quite real to us. Yet He is more real than any of us, more real than the chair where we sit. When we think of Christ “in us”, we think of him as only an inch tall, a tiny speck in the soul.
We seldom think of ourselves “in Christ”. That is where we live and move and have our being. Christ’s future is our future. We are with Him all the way. Nothing can change that, but we don’t really live there in our minds and hearts. This is the salvation of the man in prison. When he realizes that he is “in Christ”, the walls fade away. He is captured by Christ, held by His mighty arms and not by prison gates and guards. He is guarded by angels not by sentries. He is “in Christ” not in captivity, but freer than many of those on the outside.
Let’s look together at Ephesians 1: 9-14 as a picture of the Christian life from the perspective of the prison.
