Imagine a man who buys a new luxury automobile with heated, 6-way power leather seats, dual climate control, GPS, MP3 player, state of the art radio, etc. Then, he shows it to all his friends and lets them sit in the fancy seats and look at the dazzling cockpit. However, the man can’t use any of the accessories, and he pushes the car everywhere he goes, in the heat and cold, because he doesn’t know the car has an engine to power it all. So, the luxury automobile that was supposed to be a blessing to him is a burden.
Many Christians are like that man because they don’t know the Christian life has an “engine.” The engine in the Christian life is the Holy Spirit. God never intended we live the Christian life on our own. He wants us to live the Spirit-filled life, which requires we do two things …
Ephesians was written to Christians living in a notoriously immoral, sinful culture. For example, the main religion in Ephesus, the “sin city” of its day, was the worship of the multi-breasted goddess Artemis (Ar′-tuh-mis), or Diana (kjv). Statues portrayed her with multi-breasts exposed to depict her gift of fertility. The huge, official statue in Ephesus was housed at her dazzling temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The marble temple, which took 120 years to build, was approximately 225 feet wide by 425 feet long. That is more than twice as wide as a football field and about one and half times as long. There were 127 marble columns, 60 feet tall, on the porch surrounding the temple. The worship of sex in Ephesus is no different from our culture today. They worshiped sex through Artemis, while our culture worships sex through TV, books, movies, the internet, etc. It’s all based on a false idea of love. The world lives in lust, while Spirit-filled living is living in love. This passage reveals four requirements for living in love …
When we become Christians, we receive Christ not only as Savior but also as Lord, which means He is our boss or CEO. As we let Christ be the Lord of our lives, our old values, attitudes, and habits are replaced by new ones. As we allow Christ to take control of our lives, we change and become more and more like Him. Becoming more Christlike requires we do at least five things …
The Spirit-filled life requires continuous spiritual growth so we will not become spiritual pygmies. During our last lesson, we discovered after Christ’s triumphant ascension back into heaven as Victor over Satan, sin, and death, He gave gifts to men (4:8). These equipping, or spiritual, gifts are given to us with great expectations on Christ’s part. He expects us to use them to serve and build up other believers (1 Pet. 4:10). Now, Paul lists four spiritual gifts, but many more are mentioned in the New Testament (Rom. 12:6–8; 1 Cor. 12:8–10; 1 Pet. 4:9–11). The gifts listed here are the different kinds of speaking gifts Christ has given us for the building up, or spiritual growth, of the church. To grow spiritually, you must receive, achieve, and leave and cleave.
Receive instruction (4:11)
Paul writes that Christ gave some to be apostles … (4:11a). The first gift mentioned is apostles (apostolos, ah-pos′-tol-os), which means “one sent with a message” or an “ambassador.” The ultimate apostle is Jesus Christ because God sent Him to earth with a message. That’s why we find what description of Jesus in Hebrews 3:1d–e?
Have you ever wished for more power in your prayer life? Do you sometimes have trouble trying to figure out for what you should be praying? Do you have problems with your mind wandering when you pray? In this passage we find four elements of praying powerfully. Paul begins: For this reason I kneel before the Father (3:14a). The phrase for this reason repeats and picks up the prayer Paul began in verse one. He began a prayer and then parenthetically wrote about the mystery of the ages—the mystery of the church—in verses 2–13. Overwhelmed by the mystery of the church and his privilege of sharing the mystery, Paul exclaims, I kneel before the Father.
When we really mean business in prayer, we often kneel. Kneeling is not a required posture for prayer. However, it reveals a special spirit of submission and acknowledges we are in the presence of an awesome, holy God who is much higher than us. Sometimes in prayer we need to follow what example of the psalmist in Psalm 95:6?
EXPERIENCING GOD’S AWESOME POWER – EPHESIANS 2:11-22
We can’t live the Spirit-filled life if we don’t fellowship with God and God’s people. Jesus saves individuals of all races, walks of life, and backgrounds and makes us one in Him. To live the Spirit-filled life, not only do we need to know who we are as individuals in Christ (as we learned in the last lesson), but we also must realize who we are together in Christ. In this passage, Paul explains four truths we must understand to experience God’s awesome power …
Without Christ we are alienated from God (2:11–12)
Paul begins this section: Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) (2:11). Abraham’s descendants, the Jews, had the privilege of being God’s chosen people. Therefore, what does Moses tell the Israelites in Deuteronomy 7:6b?
Finding God’s Purpose for Your Life (Ephesians 2:1–10)
God has a purpose for our lives even before we are born (Psa. 139:16). In our last lesson we found that God wants to use the same power He used to raise Jesus from the dead to transform our lives. God wants to transform us so we can fulfill His purpose for our lives. To find God’s purpose for our lives, we need to know three things:
Our Predicament Without Christ (2:1–3)
To appreciate who we are in Christ, we must understand our predicament before coming to Christ. Our frightening, pre-Christian predicament was being dead in our trespasses and sins (2:1, ESV). This means we were spiritually dead. What does it mean to be spiritually dead? When people are physically dead, they do not react to physical stimuli. If I fell over dead right now, you could stand over my corpse and say, “Major, are you OK?”, but I wouldn’t hear you. If you didn’t like me, you could kick me and I wouldn’t feel it. Just as a physically dead person doesn’t respond to physical things, a spiritually dead person doesn’t respond to spiritual things. Without Christ we are spiritually dead and will not receive not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14a). Why, according to 1 Corinthians 2:14b–c?
