Introduction to Ephesians

During the depression.

I read one time where banks were only allowing people in some cases to withdraw 10% of what they had in the bank at one time with God's bank doesn't work like that you can draw out all you want all the time and never diminish your account.

What you don't know that unless you understand the principles in the book of Ephesians.

So you want to get the book of Ephesians down hasn't left your garage or attic.

What you someone told you one of those items. Million would you leave it in storage. Let it keep gathering dust. Of course not. Well, if you're Christian it's possible you're essentially doing the same thing.

Neglecting the greatest treasure you have, what exactly is that treasure, why is it so valuable and more important, how do you use it, get answers today on grace to you as John MacArthur begins a study from Ephesians chapter 1 he's titled it richer than you think was on that title may be catching some listeners off guard but really shouldn't be a surprise that a study from the book of Ephesians would have that word rich in the title know because the apostle Paul says you know we have the riches of his grace. I love the how you gonna starts when he talks about that in Ephesians we have all blessings all heavenly blessings in Christ. That's kinda worried starts that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ that all spiritual blessings.

Wow, that's comprehensive and that is the very intention of the Lord. So we are richer than we think. And I thought this through my whole life. You know this because we talked about it but people don't begin to understand the spiritual resources they have you. You hear people saying you know God, give me more of this and give me more of that and I need more of this and the other thing you need more of anything. It's all available it's all resident in the in the spirit. It's all resident in the truth of Scripture, and as you walk in the spirit and as you read the word of God and there is this continual outpouring of grace upon grace upon grace, which is the dispensing of heaven's riches into the life of the believer.

So you you have everything that you need EE the infinite blessings of heaven are available to you.

Jesus even said ask anything in my name and I'll I'll give it to you what a blank check that is an ongoing way. But it's gonna be better for you. When I go away. He said that night in the upper room because when I go way the Holy Spirit is going to come in when the Holy Spirit comes going to teach you all things and lead you into all things, and bring you all blessings and so I don't think Christians understand that it isn't that they need something they don't have. It's that they need to know how to access what is already there is in Christ and we want to help with that by taking you through the study of richer than you think. Right.

And if you are a Christian you have access to a treasure far more valuable than anything this world offers learn how to take hold of it. As John begins his study titled richer than you think. If you have your Bible turn to Ephesians chapter 1 and here again is John MacArthur we come for our Bible study to a book that is indeed a treasure of mine and of every believer. The book of Ephesians, not just as an introduction look at the first two verses of the first chapter that were going to talk a little around that thought Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ and thus does Paul I the inspiration of the Holy Spirit introduced to us this marvelous book, the Los Angeles Times reported the story of a man and wife who died in their 50s, they found them dead in their apartment and the autopsy revealed they both died of malnutrition. What was interesting was that when the police found their bodies which it already begun to decay. By the time they were discovered they searched the apartment and found in the closet. A whole pile of little paper bags and they opened the little paper bags and found a total of $40,000. It's a little ridiculous to dive malnutrition and have $40,000 in paper bags in your closet. There was a lady in American history known as heavy green.

Teddy Greene was called America's greatest miser when she died in 1916 is a long time ago when she died in 1916, she left an estate valued at $100 million is a lot of money in 1916, but heady green was so miserly that she said she ate cold oatmeal because it was too expensive to heat the water the warmer her son had a severe leg injury and it was so severe that she was delaying trying to find a free clinic where it could be treated and she delayed so long had to be agitated at the strange lady folks die with $100 million in your estate. Your son loses leg that's really not understanding how to use your resources. Now the book of Ephesians is written to Christians like that. Is that what you mean looking to Christians like that the kind of Christian doesn't understand the riches that he has in Christ, the kind of Christian who wander through life with a case of spiritual malnutrition who doesn't know where the feast is the kind of Christian who does not attack his resources.

Maybe because he doesn't know what they are and so he never really finds out how rich he if you get a handle on the book of Ephesians you something of called the bank of the believer. This is your spiritual checkbook and every time you write a check out of this bank. Your funds are not diminished. In other words, you can write checks on all the riches of God as often as you want for as much as you want and never diminish the account that nice. That's the book of Ephesians. It's a book about riches.

It's a book about poultices.

It's a book about being filled with things. It's a book about inherent inheritance. It's a book that just tells us what we own in Christ some of called at the treasure house of the Bible. During the depression. I read one time where banks were only allowing people in some cases to withdraw 10% of what they had in the bank at one time, God's bank doesn't work like that you can draw out all you want all the time and never diminish your account, but you don't know that unless you understand the principles in the book of Ephesians.

So you want to get the book of Ephesians and get down good. It will absolutely revolutionize your life because of its incredible riches. It will teach you who you are, how rich you are and how you are to use those rich God's glory.

Now I want you to see that the book is based on this kind of thing. This idea of riches and fullness in inheritance by just a couple of illustrations for example chapter 1 verse seven talks about the riches of his grace. At the end of the verse chapter 3 verse eight talks about the unsearchable riches of Christ. Chapter 3 verse 16 the riches of his glory. So you have the riches of his grace, the riches of his glory and the riches of his son. In other words, God is unloading all of his riches in the book of Ephesians. The word grace is used 12 times in the word grace means God's unmerited undeserved kindness in favor grace is behind all this lavishness that God pours out so the word grace is used 12 times the word glory is use daytime.

The word inheritance is used four times the word riches is used five times the words fullness and filled are you seven times in the key you. Everything is because we are in Christ that all the fullness of the riches of the inheritance of the glory of his grace is our deceit because we are one with Christ in his church because we are redeemed this incredible fullness is that maybe the sum of it all is in chapter 3 is that you might be filled with all the fullness of God's incredible thought that literally the believer can be filled with all the fullness of God himself that we would know the unsearchable riches of Christ, that we would be able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think, according to the power that works in us to seek it's all such magnanimous grandiose concept, fullness, riches, inheritance, well resources all in the book of Ephesians. Now it's all in Christ. It's all because were in Christ, if you're not in Christ, your poor, your your destitute you're a popper you're a beggar. If you're in Christ your rich beyond all wild imagination. It's all based on him is not anything we did not anything we earned. It's all his. For example, in Ephesians, all of our riches are based on these things is will chapter 1 verse five his grace. Chapter 1 verse six and seven gives glory. Chapter 1 verse 12 and 14 guest tower 119 his love to for his good pleasure.

19 his purpose. 111 is calling 118 his inheritance again 118 and his workmanship to 10. It's all because of him. It's all that we are in Christ and thus these things become ours.

So this is your bankbook.

This is the treasure house. This is where you check out your resources and the first to know. Watch it in the first three chapters he tells you what they are in the last three he tells you how to use.

You gotta get it all.

You can't spend of you know what they are and if you know what they are you going to spend the first three chapters, the theology of the rich believer the practice in chapters 4 to 6, and there are other things that are involved, but that's just the main now let me go a step further and turn the corner little bit and you think you just gotta file that category of riches related to Ephesians and I want to talk about another dimension.

It not only talks about our riches, but it talks about the whole idea that all this is ours because were in the church. Okay, it's all lies. Because were in the church.

By that I don't mean that were Baptist Presbyterians, Methodist, or we been catechized or send fries or anything else. What I mean is simply that we are in the body of Christ, that we are saved. People we are in Christ that is the key phrase in fact you sought as we started to read the book in the very first verse it ends in Christ Jesus, but because we are in Christ and in his church all these things accrue to us. That's a key now.

The book then discusses the church.

It discusses what the church is how the church functions how we function in the church, and it discusses the riches of the church. But the key truth that I want you to get in the book of Ephesians is that the church is presented as a body. Ephesians 368 body. What a metaphor. What's a metaphor. A metaphor is a way of saying something that gives you a better understanding of the metaphors of the body, the church is like a body that it is interlinking organism. The church is not an organization is not some you just join. It's not a building. It is an organism we are all one in Christ and through ask pulses the blood as it were of the life of God where one inextricably united and if one believer in the body doesn't do what he supposed to do.

The body malfunctions at that place and when it malfunctions and somebody else has to pick up the slack in the body lives and that's why the world thinks Christ is a cripple. The body must be whole and complete and that's why in Ephesians 4 it says we all time of the fullness of the stature of Christ.

Christ should stand up in full functioning form in his body, the church just as he did in his human body. In his incarnation. I like to call the church body to body one was incarnate Jesus body to his Christ incarnate in his church, and we should be just as whole and justice. Your as he was when he came in one body, the church is a body let's go back to look at the introduction first two verses of giving you kind of a general thrust of the overview of the book and I just want to come back and pick up the first two verses because they'll illustrate what I said I told you that this is a book about riches.

This is a book about inheritances.

This is a book about fullness is in being filled and having abundance and all in the church and all in Christ and that's exactly what you find in the first two verses because everything Paul says in these two verses. He says in a double-barreled way. First of all a double source of authority verse one Paul and apostle and I watched Jesus Christ by the will of God. It would be enough to say Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ, not if you're writing Ephesians, you've gotta say Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ number one and number two by the will of God. He brings in the fullness of God and Christ. That's the nature of Ephesians the book about fullness what can you say about Paul starts out the first word Paul. We could go on and on and on for months. We will do it.

What can we say about him. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. I'm sure his dear mother wanted to pick out a godly name for this little fella pick the one that was the most well-known Benjamite who ever lived the first king of Israel. Saul and she nearly dies Saul and he went out to become a great Rabbi. He was well trained in the school of Gamaliel.

He was a world man.

He knew the societies. He knew the philosophies.

He knew the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

He became a very well-known, a rabbi, a leader, a teacher, a member of the Sanhedrin, he became the most devout anti-Christian leader in the Jewish community he hated Christian anyone after them tooth and nail was on his way to get some in Damascus when the Lord stopped in his tracks converted and made him a preacher of the gospel.

From there he went to pastor a church in Antioch.

After a few years in the Arabian desert. He went to pastor a church in Antioch. He pastored there was for other fellows for a while and one day the Holy Spirit came and asked 13th, says separate enemy saw Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I've call them and the Lord said to him, get out of here now. You're going to get fulfilled what I told you on the Damascus road to take the gospel to the Gentile world and he started on what has to be considered the greatest missionary enterprise in the history of the church he founded churches in the Gentile world and the gospel became more than a small Jewish sect. It became a worldwide message and by the way, the words at Ephesus in verse one do not appear in all the manuscripts in some manuscript there is a blank and there's a reason for that.

There is no local mention of any person in this entire letter.

There is no mention of any city in this letter, there's no statement about any individuals at any congregation. There is nothing personal or local or geographical in the whole thing because this is a letter about fullness and this is a letter about the whole body of Christ. This is not a localized thing and so even and that he talks to the whole church about the identity of the whole church. And the reason there are blanks. Most scholars feel, is that this was a circular letter sent to the churches of Asia minor, one of which was Ephesus, and every church stuck its own name in the blank so we know that Paul even mentioned the letter to the Laodiceans and well may have had in mind this. It could've gone to Smyrna polygamists via Tyra Sardis Ephesus all the way around the cycle of churches in each would've written their own name in the little line where here you have at Ephesus, perhaps to the Ephesians 1st and then from there.

This is Paul's message to the church about the church's identity and being local isn't part of his issue here knows he calls himself and apostle.

He's not just another guy with another opinion.

He speaks for God is the mouthpiece of Jesus Christ you realize are only 14 men in history that could call themselves apostles with the A 14 first 12 Judas dropped out.

The 13th was added.

Matthias and later on the 14th was Paul only 14 men could be said to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. That is a mouthpiece for Jesus Christ, especially credentialed. That was all the credentials he needed those men were chosen for a special arrow Ephesians 220 calls and foundation people they passed away with the passing of that era. They were the Scripture writers. They were the ones who laid down the apostles doctrine. They were the ones who spoke for the Christ. They were the ones who spoke divine revelation in those early years, and Paul. That's all he needs for credentials. He doesn't say Paul AAB AMA PhD DDL LD by blah blah blah it doesn't give a list of current pieces. Paul and apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. What else you need.

God said this is my will. Christ called me and sent me and thus I speak and that's enough credentials to make everybody sit on a list. There's no vanity in his heart there is no self glory is no personal merit. He said I am what I am by the grace of God to Timothy said I was a blasphemer I was a persecutor on the chief of sinners. I'm not worthy of this but God somehow counted me worthy to make me an apostle and he speaks for God.

He had a unique call. Jesus stopped him in his tracks and the Damascus road blinded him with own vision of his glory, and then he said you're my man to go to the Gentiles.

He had an equal relation to Christ. He was a bondslave and he said for to me to live is Christ. That's all I love for that's the only thing he knew, doing all of life in the credible commission. He was dispatch the pasta loss means a sent one to carry the gospel he had delegated power. The power of Jesus Christ and he always recites this fact in every letter that he writes in the very beginning. He says he's an apostle. The only exceptions are when he begins a letter by using his name and somebody else is like a beast as Paul and Savannah's unto the church at so-and-so, if he includes anybody else who's not an apostle, he can't use that term but every case where he just messes himself. He calls himself an apostle, because people questioned it. They said he wasn't one of the original 12 how do we know he's for real, etc. so you always reinforced first Corinthians 91 he says am I not an apostle. Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord, which was the basic qualification you had personally see the risen Christ are not you my work in the Lord, aren't you proof of it so it is that God took this man who was a Christian persecutor persecuting the faithful turnaround made him an apostle and he was double-barreled in his authority. It came from Jesus Christ and the will of God, and those two are always in agreement. So he states a double authority, the fullness of his authority from God and Christ.

By the way, what were the apostles duties on the run by a quick one was to preach the gospel. First Corinthians 117 apostles were to preach the gospel to teach and pray.

Acts 64, giving ourselves continually to the word and prayer. Do miracles. Second Corinthians 1212, acts 1423. They were to build leaders for the church that was their task and Paul was one with double-barreled authority. Second, we see not only a double-barreled authority but we see a double designation of believers. This is very simple quickly mentioned to you, it says at the end of verse one the saints who are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Because Christians by two terms the saints in the faith, and that covers both sides from God side he's made us holy from our side we exercise faith. We are the saints divine definition, the faithful human definition and it is by virtue of being full of faith that we have been made. Saints say no when you say were saints, you mean those little plaster things no saint is not a plastered Christian saint is not canonized Catholic saint is not a sanctimonious individual saint is anybody who's a Christian, every one of us have been made hogging oil holy everyone of us have been set apart in the God in Christ everyone of us have been made righteous and the righteousness of Christ. We are all saints from God side were saints. We acted toward Christ.

So a double designation of believers. We are the saints we are the faithful.

We have believed in Christ, and he has made us holy was not a great beginning.

So double authority. Double designation of believers, and then a double blessing in verse two, you knew that what happened in Grace to you and peace. There's a double blessed that incidentally was the typical greeting. Grace is the New Testament word Congress. It means kindness of God toward undeserving people and when they met, they said, grace to you say why did the Christians always say that. What was a lovely turn. It was like saying I wish to be gracious to you, but more than that. It had a theological meaning it meant something to them in their faith. It was a reminder that they were what they were, by grace I mean we go to some I would say hello what is hello me that's really not too that's not very fulfilling to me or else we say how are you how are II was because my mother and father were in that I was not selling our oils. We say how you feel with my hands were you thinking we have all these little things, how are you doing how are you doing what I'm not doing anything. We have all these meaningless little deals.

How much more significant if when we met each other was a grace to you, grace to you. That's great is God's love and grace to you my graciousness to you, grace to you. That would be a constant reminder that we are we are by grace. This whole community of believers that constitute the church dissolve is all built on grace saw Grace by the way. Grace is the fountain of all blessings. It's out of his grace that everything come in a just a reminder when you greet each other try to break some habits just after you've given a holy kiss.

Then say grace to you. The biblical and then there's another one with double-barreled reading the Old Testament word was shalom.

The New Testament word is a rainy day and it means peace. Grace is the fountain of peace is the stream because I have grace from God. I have peace with God right so that's the other side. So when you go to somebody instead of saying some dumb thing like how are you saying Grace to you and peace, all would not be good. That'll just remind by the way, if you start saying that there everybody you meet Dale pretty soon figure that you are somebody different than they are.

Why do you say that and then you can tell them why you say that all because I wish to offer you God's grace so that you might have his feet and you can move right in.

Grace and peace. It is because of his grace that we have his peace. There would be no peace without his grace. So double authority. Double designation of believers double blessing and finally a double source for all the grace and peace. It comes from God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You see all this fullness double stuff in the first two verse and you get the idea that you're going to get some some tremendous riches coming your way out of the fees. It's all from God the father and the Lord Jesus Christ was Paul's message throughout the book of Ephesians is this that you might understand God's grace that you might possess his peace because you are part of his charge and you have at your disposal is infinite, rich is going to be a fantastic study. I hope you'll get your heart and mind attuned to what God has to say, but fathers, we look at the mystery agent we see the tremendous joy that is ours because of all the riches you've deposited in our account.

We are reminded to say thank reminded to express our love and praise. Thank you for the grace that gives the piece. Thank you for making us one body with you as the head and putting our disposal the riches of all divine resource teachers to know who we are a rich we are, how to use the riches we possess for your glory. Pray in Christ and this is grace to you with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. John is a pastor, author and Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary today showed you the spiritual wealth God has given you. If you are Christian.

It's part of his study from the book of Ephesians titled richer than you think, and friend.

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Box 4000 panorama city, CA 91412 now for John MacArthur. I'm Phil Johnson encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John continues to show you the riches you have in Christ. It's another half hour of teaching God's true one verse at a time on grace to you