Go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians. Our study today, as I alluded to earlier, we'll cover more than the book of Ephesians because we're having to combine a couple of things. And in the Lord's providence and kindness, Ephesians is actually part of a set of four total books called the prison epistles. So that's what we're going to talk about today is the prison epistles with a focus on Ephesians. Because the prison epistles are Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Who wants to venture a guess as to why these are called the prison epistles? Yes. Because Paul is in prison. So these are letters that Paul wrote all around 60 to 65 AD. It gets hard to date with much more specificity than that. I tend to go earlier more towards 60. We know he also died around 66. So it's in that window and he's writing from Roman prison. So just a little bit of background information about this. So in Roman prison, the way it works, is it's not like our current prison system where you go to jail and you've got a bed to sleep in and you've got meals provided for you and all this kind of stuff. Not that prison is glamorous by any stretch, but in this system you're basically chained to a guard and that's all they provide you is the guard to make sure you don't run away. You still have to figure out a way to get where you're going to sleep at night. You have to figure out a way to get your food. You have to figure out a way to get all that you need. Nothing's given to you except a guard to keep you from running away. So it's not super great. And also, because of when these are written, these are, if I can say it reverently, Paul's most mature writings. Now what I mean by that is he's writing these at the end of his ministry. So these are not more inspired than other writings. Galatians, for example, is likely written 10 years before this. But as he progresses, his own giftings, his own care, his own knowledge has grown and increased. And so while they're no more inspired, they are more mature, more developed letters than the other ones. And so they all go together, though, because they do cover his time in prison. Now, the reason we're gonna focus on Ephesians, I'm gonna touch on all four of these a little bit to give you kind of a sense of what they're about. But I'm in the middle of a sermon series on Philippians, so I'm hoping that you feel relatively confident with that book. A few years ago, Dr. Phillips did both Colossians and Philemon. Most of you were here for that. If you weren't, all available on Sermon Audio. Again, we'll touch it, we'll cover it broadly in broad strokes. but we'll focus mostly on Ephesians today. So let me give you some just general background. We'll start with Philippians since I'm pretty familiar. So Philippians, again, written from prison, written to the church at Philippi. You can read about the founding of this Philippian church later on if you want. It's in Acts chapter 16 and it begins in a very, very sweet way. He happens upon a, prayer meeting of a group of Christians that would be called God-fearers. Now what a God-fearer is in the New Testament context is somebody who has come to believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the true God, but they've not fully converted to becoming ethnically Jewish. So these are people that are Gentiles, but they're seeking to know and understand the God of Abraham, the God of the Old Testament. And Paul is able to explain to them the Lord Jesus from the Old Testament, and Lydia and her household are converted and baptized, and the church is born. And I like to point out, when I did this in my first sermon on Philippians, that that's actually very similar to how this church started. This church is the product of a ladies' prayer meeting, just as the church at Philippi was. It happened, smoke on the waters that way. in that building. Ladies from First Presbyterian Church were praying that the Lord would help them to plant a new church, and here we are, some 130 years later. The Lord uses prayer for those things. Now, the book of Philippians, Paul is focusing really on two major doctrines. One is unity. He's pressing them towards unity, and we'll learn when we get into chapter four, that there are divisions and strife within the church. And so he sets up in chapter two, this major focus on unity and humility and being gracious and forgiving and long-suffering with one another. And then in chapter three, he focuses on, as we've been in the last several weeks, perseverance. Because if Paul was in prison, it's because of persecution. And persecution is starting to come in more heavily on the church. Early in the life of the church, they were just considered another sect of Judaism, and they weren't really under much attack. But now, at this point in history, some 20 years later, they are no longer considered a sect of Judaism, and also the Jews have lost a lot of their social privileges, having abused them, and so nobody's really safe. And so he writes about the needs of perseverance. Colossians is going to focus heavily on the sovereignty of our Lord Jesus and how all things are really in his hand. Paul wrote to the Colossians to fortify it against false teachers who might try to impose strict rules about eating and drinking and religious festivals. And he shows the superiority of Christ over all human philosophies and traditions. And so he's really saying, In Colossians, the major thrust is there's teachers coming in the church that are trying to add to the gospel and saying, no, Christ is superior to all things. And he is sovereign over all things. And in him, all things hold together. I'm just going to read to you guys probably my favorite passage in the book of Colossians. It's chapter one, beginning in verse 15, Paul writes, this is of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him." I'm going to pause right there. When he says Christ is the firstborn of all creation, he does not mean that Christ came into creation at some point. He means, rather, that Christ is preeminent over it. In this context, to be the firstborn, to be the eldest, was to be the one who would get the lion's share of the inheritance. So I'm sorry to all of you who have older siblings. You would not know the privileges of firstborn. But that's what it meant here. And we know that he's not talking about coming into creation when he says, firstborn of all creation, because then the very next verse says, For by him all things were created. So everything that has been created was made by Christ, therefore Christ, when he says firstborn of creation, is not created in and of himself. Then he goes on in verse 17, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Verse 17 would be, chapter one, verse 17 of Colossians would be another verse, and I throw these out a lot, it would be good for you all to memorize. In him, All things hold together. When life feels completely out of control, and when you feel that you don't know what's coming next and you don't know how you're going to endure one more trial, one more tribulation, in Him, all things are held together. It feels out of control to you, but it is not out of control to him in him, all things hold together. And it's just such a rich and beautiful passage for that reason. And then he also, uh, he wants them to know that their, their sufficiency is found in Christ and in him alone. Uh, he says, uh, in chapter two or chapter three, rather versus two and three, set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. There, there is a sense in which you believer are hidden in Christ. You are protected in him. You are vouchsafed in him. You are kept pure and secure in him. And Paul wants the Colossians to know that. So that's kind of the general theme. And also what Colossians and Ephesians both do, in both books, and we'll get to Ephesians in just a minute, is they both follow what's kind of the classic or the standard Pauline format, or at least that's what I was told in seminary, and now I know that of the 12 books he's written, three of them follow the classic standard Pauline format, which is not a high batting average for that, but nonetheless, the format is this. The first half of the book, so Colossians chapter one and two, are all about Christ and who he is. And then chapters 3 and 4 are about what you are supposed to do in response to that. Same thing in Ephesians, which we'll get to shortly. Chapters 1 through 3 are all about Christ and what you are to believe concerning Him. And then chapters 4 through 6 in Ephesians are what comes as a response to that. This is Shorter Catechism 3. What do the scriptures principally teach? The scriptures principally teach, first, what man is to believe concerning God. And secondly, what duty God requires of man. The last of these letters that we'll get to in this kind of overview is Philemon. Now, this is not next to the other prison epistles. It's actually the last of Paul's letters. It's right before Hebrews in your New Testament. It's only one chapter. Does anybody know anything or remember anything about Philemon? What's going on here? Yeah, of course, he's a runaway slave. He's a runaway slave. That's exactly right. He is a slave of Onesimus, and he has run away, and Onesimus is a Christian at the church in Colossae, and so Paul knows Onesimus, and Paul also knows Philemon, but Philemon's not converted. But he runs away from his master, finds Paul, Paul shares the gospel with him. He becomes born again and Paul sends him back to Onesimus and with this letter saying, um, I know he was your slave, but now he's your brother and it is your Christian duty to release him, to, to let him be free because if Christ has set him free, how dare you not? Um, and, and it's a, it's a, it's a beautiful testimony and shows really, um, the, the, the, the, it's a, it's a living picture of having been redeemed of having been set free. And Paul is pleading with Onesimus to really live out the faith that has saved his own soul. And so those are the prison epistles. They're all written again towards the end of Paul's ministry. Um, and they all, they all have their own special features, but for today's purposes, We're gonna zero in on full it on excuse me on Ephesians got Philippians on the brain. I'm preaching tonight, so all right, so Ephesians I'm here to say once again Ephesians is a really special book I feel like I say that a lot because there's 66 really special books in the Bible But what's significant about the church at Ephesus, again, this is background information, it's probably the first century church that we know the most about. Ephesus is the only church... No, I can't say that. That's patently not true. Ephesus is one of the churches that actually has two letters written to it in the New Testament. Because there's this one, and then there's also the letter that's written to them in Revelation chapter 2. Ephesus, unlike The other churches that we do know about their foundings from the Book of Acts, usually it's like a paragraph. Ephesus gets the whole chapter. Acts 19 is all about Paul's ministry there. He was there for two years, teaching them every day. It's a well-trained church. It's a well-taught people. And we know that because after Paul leaves, he sends Timothy, his right-hand man, to be their pastor. And this is also the church where John, the apostle, is So they're highly privileged Christians. They have been taught and cared for well. And it's significant, then, to know that background and then see what Paul focuses on in his teaching. I think it should be instructive for us because, I mean, you know, you guys don't have Paul and John and Timothy teaching you directly, right? been well taught here. I don't mean just by me. I mean by all the pastors and all your Sunday school teachers, people who've invested deeply in you, y'all are more mature than most Christians your age. And yet there's this constant need to focus on the basics. And so we'll look at how he does that in these opening chapters. First of all, I want to point out to you, uh, that he begins this section on doctrine, which is again, chapters one through three, And a large portion of his teaching is through prayer. A large portion of his teaching in these chapters on doctrine is through prayer, not teaching about prayer, teaching through prayer. It's a different thing. He's not telling them when you pray, then pray like this. No, he's recording his prayer in his letter, and that prayer is what he is teaching them. And that's, by the way, why I'm focusing as much as I can on writing out my prayers for you guys before the lessons, and writing them out for the pulpit prayers, and also why I have you guys that pray on Wednesday night write your prayers, because it's actually a means of grace. I think it's so often so easy to treat prayer as a perfunctory thing. Who knows what perfunctory means? It's just something you do just because you're supposed to do it. It's just something that you tack onto it, right? And so it's really easy. And then there will probably be prayers like this for the meals at Beach Week. Lord, thank you for this food in Jesus name. Amen. Right? Like, okay, good. Thank you for the food. But like, you're just, you're just saying words, right? You're not really thinking about it. We should never treat prayer like that, especially not before the teaching of the word. So let's look at the two, the two prayers that he records for us. Ephesians, the first one is in chapter one, beginning in verse 15. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and knowledge of him. This prayer is already turned into a Trinitarian prayer. All three members of the Trinity are right there In verse 17, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you what? The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. This is what he prays for already mature Christians, already well-developed Christians that what, that they might know what they've been called to. I think they know Paul. Well, yeah, but they don't really know. We know we're supposed to pursue growth and holiness. We know we're supposed to pursue Christ. But we need to do it better. We need to do it more. We need to press more deeply into it. And I mean, it may sound like a silly example to you guys, but next year, Mrs. Early and I will be married 10 years. I like to think I knew her pretty well 10 years ago, right? Like when I gave her the ring and said, will you marry me? I knew her fairly well at that point in time. But I've continued to get to know her and know her better now. And Lord willing, I'll know her better in 10 years from now, and so on and so forth. That's the idea. It's not that you need a new subject of knowledge. It's that you need to know it more deeply, that you need to own it more personally. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the work of his great might? Okay, that you might know the power of God. Okay, read A.W. Pink's The Attributes of God and read about his omnipotence. That's great. There's so much more to know about the power of God. There's so much more to experience about the power of God. Specifically, what he dials us in on is that great might, verse 20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, that you would know the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in your life, not just the historical fact of its reality, but that you would know the power of it, that you would know the power of the fact that Jesus was raised for your justification, that you would know the power of sin forgiven in your life, that you would experience it and go through that. that you would know that not only was He raised for your justification, but He's also raised for your sanctification, right? We say all the time, and I did this with the communicants' interviews, and we did it with the new members' interviews, what has the Lord Jesus done that gives you hope of eternal life? He died on the cross for my sins. That's everybody's answer. That's a good answer, okay? What I want you to know is he was also raised to give you power to continue to fight sin in your life. He died to pay the debt, but he also raised to give you the power to sin less. And Paul is praying for these very mature, very sound Christians that they would grow in that. And then there's another really great prayer in chapter three, beginning in verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. that according to the riches of his glory, he might grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit and your inner being. Why do they need to be strengthened with power? Because it's 60 AD, and the Roman government hates them, and persecution is ensuing. They need to be strengthened with power through his Holy Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts richly through faith. that you being rooted and grounded in love may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This again goes back to the point we made earlier. In some sense, every Christian knows the love of Christ. Every sincere, born-again, regenerate Christian knows that, right? Galatians 2.20, he loved me and he gave himself for me. We know that. But there's a pressing into Not just knowing it, but experiencing it, and being nourished by it, so that you would know the love of Christ. And he says this is a love that surpasses knowledge. There are some attributes of our God, in fact there are probably more than some, there are many, that are better suited for meditation than explanation. Okay. Because what I mean by that is, is, is reflecting on it and dwelling in it and soaking it in. Um, because it's not that complicated to explain, but it's, it's, it's rich to think about. I, you know, my, my passage for the sermon tonight speaks about, he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. Okay. What's that mean? That means we're going to get a new body. Can I say more than that? Not a whole lot, but it's something that ought to give us hope and encouragement as we reflect on it. And the same thing is true of the love of Christ. It's something that we ought to be growing in. And then of course, there's probably the most famous doctrinal passage in Philippians or excuse me, Ephesians. It's chapter 2, which is, I mean, one of the clearest declarations of the gospel, justification by faith that you'll ever find in the New Testament, 2, 1 to 10. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, total depravity, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working, the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived. We're all born in a state of depravity. Verse 4, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved. A lot of people will explain this doctrine of sovereign election and regeneration and say, I don't know why God did it, but he did it. I know what they mean. But we do know why God did it. We do know why God caused you to be born again if you truly believe the gospel. Because of the great love with which he loved you. That's why. Now, why did he love you? That I don't know, right? I admit. But, the motivating factor behind God's causing us to be born again by the Holy Spirit It's not unknown. It's his love for us. And that's also what assures us that we can't fall away because he loved us before we were lovable. Therefore he will love us as he makes us lovely. And then he gets into in chapters four to six, some of the application. And I'm just going to read the beginning part of chapter four, make a few observations and then we'll be done. So he's gone through all this, rich, meaty doctrine. Read these first three chapters this afternoon, they're awesome. And he says, I therefore, so in response to all that, a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. He's not saying earn your salvation, right? He's just said that that comes as a free gift. You can't earn it. but you ought to walk in a way that shows that you value it, that shows that you have received it and have been changed by the work of Christ in your life. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. What's that look like, Paul? With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. So what's it look like to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called? Walk humbly, yes with God, but also with one another. Walk gently with one another. Be patient. Be thinking about how how words and actions and things like that affect one another. And also, when you are wronged, which happens, be patient and bear with one another in love. Part of that is being eager to forgive. Part of that is being eager to acknowledge fault and apologize. It all is part of what it means to walk in unity with the Spirit, with Christ, by the power of the Spirit, rather. And we'll end it there, but maybe we'll get to this book again sometime. Let me pray. God in heaven, I give thanks to you for this day. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your word. I thank you for these later writings of the Apostle Paul that are just so rich and so much good meat to meditate on. I know that we, I won't even say scratched the surface of them today. We barely began to do so. But Lord, I pray that you would use what has been said for the edification of your people and the glory of your son. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to grow through the means which you've appointed and of the fullness of Christ who fills all in all. In whose name we pray, amen.