To the faithful...

Ephesians 1:1b lists three key components: saints, faithful, in Christ Jesus. In my last post I detailed both what I've learned and read about what it truly means that a Christian is undeniably a saint - whether I "feel holy" or not.
Now let's focus on a couple of things: what does Paul mean when he calls the Ephesians faithful, the importance of the word order, and the reality of being "in Christ Jesus."
First when I read "faithful" I immediately thought Paul was saying that these Christians were exercising exclusivity in their beliefs. Where before they were into pagan worship and sorcery, now they were "faithful" to believing in Christ. But that is only half of it, and the secondary meaning of the word used here. The primary meaning to "faithful" is "exercising faith." The reality of their conversion was evident because they exercised their faith. If you look back in the gospels one of the things that Christ Jesus commended people for was their faith - not their "commitment" to the Jewish law, but rather the evidence in their heart that they believed in Jesus and had faith (the hope of things not seen). Often a miracle was linked to faith, and when the Holy Spirit was sent from the Father after the ascension of Jesus there was power in every believer to exercise their faith.
The importance of the word order was lost on me. I have so often sped through Paul's opening address that I missed it completely, but Lloyd-Jones explains that a person cannot separate these identifiers and be either a saint or faithful. He also equates the terms to justification and sanctification. Saint-justified-cleansed by God from the inside and the outside; faithful-sanctified-continually exercising faith and maintaining a reliable commitment to Christ Jesus. The importance of the order is thereby clear from defining the terms further. Saint, Faithful, IN Christ Jesus.

Then let us note the importance of keeping intact the relationship between a saint and being faithful, the relationship between holiness and being a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ...Dr. William Temple has said, 'No one is a believer who is not holy, and no one is holy who is not a believer." These two things must never be separated, you must never put a gap between justification and sanctification...Holiness is a characteristic of every Christian, and if we are not holy, our profession of Christ is valueless (Lloyd-Jones 33-34)."

Finally looking at "in Christ Jesus." Every thing Paul has described has it's source from this statement IN CHRIST JESUS. All of what has been talked about up until this point finds its worth in these three words. Without the miracle of being united with Christ, none of us could be identified as "saint" or "faithful." Remember too whom the Ephesians were (Acts 19 and following); these were not straight laced, God-fearing folks but they were converts! They were instantly saints, and they were exercising their faith only because they were in Christ Jesus.
This should be true of me and anyone who says "I'm a Christian." There needs to be a transformation from sinner to saint, from loose and lazy believism to committed and exercised faithful - to the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord. If I can't say "I am a saint in Christ Jesus" because the statement feels false in my own mind, then I must recognize that is a necessary conviction. Also, if I can't see the marks of exercised faith in my life making it difficult to say "I am faithful in Christ Jesus," then some exercising needs to happen.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  Acts 1:8 ESV

In Christ Jesus, power, the Holy Spirit, will be witnesses...How will I witness and exercise my faith this week?

Ephesians 1:1b

The second half of verse one is still a part of the Apostle Paul's address to the church in Ephesus, and it has been rumbling around in my mind for over two weeks now.

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

To the saints...the saints ...saints...
My first time reading through chapter one in this study, like many times before, I quickly read over these words without fully applying their meaning to my understanding. Almost like I was programed to only engage in the text after the address. But as I read through D. Martin Lloyd-Jones' God's Ultimate Purpose I was struck by his view of this address and the importance of it. He says,

"We find ourselves confronted here, then, by what the New Testament teaches is the basic irreducible minimum of what constitutes a Christian. I am emphasizing this because it seems to me that it is the primary need of the Christian Church at the present time to realize exactly what it means to be a Christian. How was it that the early Christians, who were a handful of people, had such a profound impact on the pagan world in which they lived? It was because they were what they were. It was not their organization, it was the quality of their life, it was the power they possessed because they were truly Christian (Lloyd-Jones 24)."

The "irreducible minimum" is then: saint, faithful, in Jesus Christ. As I hope you've already noted, I'm writing as honestly about my own heart, mind, and soul as I study this thoroughly, and so I must admit that my first reaction to the word "saint" was: no, that isn't me. I'm justified and being sanctified, yes, but a saint I am not that term only defines the Apostles or martyrs. It is not that I do not embrace what scripture says about me, but rather my keen awareness of my deceitful heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Because of this cognitive dissonance, my heart sprang to life and engaged in prayer in order to honestly, critically, and humbly proceed with reading what Lloyd-Jones had to say next:

"The first thing to say of a Christian is that he is a saint...The first thing it means is that we are people who are set apart (Lloyd-Jones 25)."

He goes on to draw the connection between the people of Israel, their distinction among the nations, how God separated them unto himself and the Church. They were different; God intended for them to be a peculiar people, chosen and holy. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say that the phrase in Galatians 1:4 "to deliver us from the present evil age" is equal to the one word "saint" in Ephesians 1:1b. A saint is one who has been delivered from the present evil age.

"The Christian today, like the children of Israel of old, while he is in the world is not of the world; he is a man like other men, and yet he is very different...This not only means that we are set apart in an outward sense, it means that we are set apart because we are cleansed inwardly. A saint is someone who has been cleansed in many ways. He has been cleansed from the guilt of his sin, cleansed from that which excludes him from the presence of God...The saint is one who has been cleansed also from the pollution of sin...Every Christian is a saint; you cannot be a Christian without being a saint; and you cannot be a saint and a Christian without being separated in some radical sense from the world (Lloyd-Jones 26-27)."

We cannot miss this drastic statement and the implications. Paul wasn't writing to moral, nice folks in Holland, Michigan. He was writing to Ephesians (read Acts 19) where the temple of Artemis was and the people made their living by selling her products and promoting the worship of idols. These people were unashamed of their cults, sorcery, and other pagan practices. They were hopeless, and this is one of the locations that God chose through the power of His Holy Spirit to use Paul to proclaim the gospel. The people believed and verses 18-20 (still Acts 19) says that they confessed, divulged their practices, brought their books (cult related, sorcery, magic) and burnt them - in the sight of all. Verse 20: "So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily." The people Paul is calling "saints" are not people who have earned this distinction by birth, nationality, religion but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit. And the same is true today.
Now that is a convicting truth with an "already but not yet" feel to it. When I place myself into the address and receive this truth into my soul - I am humbled. I have been cleansed outwardly and inwardly only by the Holy Spirit and I am a saint. I must accept this calling to be distinct and holy.
My burden for this text is not only that I would receive and live out this truth but also that the Church would be a separated, distinct, holy gathering.
As W.B. Godbey says:

"Ekklesia, from ek, out, and kaleo, to call, means Church throughout the Greek New Testament. If you do not remember that definition you will fall into utter bewilderment on the Church idea, led astray by the Churchism of the present day, which is utterly variant from, and antagonistical to the New Testament ekklesia, which consisted only of the souls called out of the world, and separated unto God. Hence, all worldly churches are simply Satan's counterfeits...This is the glorified Church of the First Born, 'without spot or wrinkle.' The members of this Church are not joined in, but born into it, by the supernatural intervention of the Holy Ghost. This is none of your worldly Churches, as the very word for Church, ekklesia, means the called out of the world; while hagiadzoo, sanctify, means to take the world out of you (Gallagher 61)."  

{If this last quote fires you up as I pray it does :: Please check out the book }

Now this is News!

Committing Ephesians to Memory

I've posted on here before about the Scripture memory that I'm doing this year (if you haven't already checked out what I'm talking about: click here to go and find out) and I have just been blessed to pieces by God's Word! As a child (and let's face it: teenager and young adult too), I thought that "hiding God's Word in my heart" was kind of a routine thing to do just to make teachers, pastors, and parents happy. I have an easy time committing things to immediate memory, and so it was no big thing growing up to just recite a verse 5x's or so and then spit it back out.
But that's just it: I spit it back out.
Then one day, the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of my heart to his Word in Jeremiah 15:16 which says:

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of Hosts.

The light bulb came on and I finally saw that what I was missing the whole point! I have the awesome, incredible privilege of holding my own copy of God's Word and being able to open it and find revelation upon revelation. Yet for so long, I was unlike Jeremiah: I did not eat them.
"I ate them"? You may be thinking, wait a second, what?
Jeremiah was chosen as a prophet; he was commissioned by the Almighty Himself! Look back to chapter one for a moment:

But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth." (Jeremiah 1:7-9 ESV)

Do you see it? God gave Jeremiah a choice when he put his words in Jeremiah's mouth. He could have ate the words that God put on his tongue or he could have spit them out. If he ate them, he would then have to digest them {think over them, be nourished by them, and be delighted by the strength in them} or he could skip all of that and just spit them out. God did not say "Behold, I have put my words in your heart and I've made the decision for you to treasure them." No, God chose Jeremiah, and then Jeremiah had to respond.
Where does Ephesians fit into all of this?
Well, for the second half of this year I will be choosing passages from Ephesians or about the Ephesian church (from: the Acts of the Apostles, letters to Timothy, Revelation, John's epistles) for my scripture memory. {2 each month for a year; 14 down, 10 to go}
And my verse for the second half of July was Ephesians 2:14 ESV "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility." What a merciful peace he is!
Now my verse for August 1st is: Ephesians 1:17-19 ESV

"that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of 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"

Oh Heavenly Father, please bless the reading and memorizing of your Word. Amen.

{Please note that if you found this post through facebook, you may want to enter your email address to receive further posts:: I may be taking leave of facebook in the near future}

Ephesians 1:1a

A thought that has stuck with me from God's Ultimate Purpose by D. Martin Lloyd Jones on the First chapter of the book of Ephesians is this: when I approach God, think about God, or attempt to serve God whom do I think of first? Do I start with myself and move upwards to heaven and seek God or do I start with my eyes toward heaven and descend upon myself?
What's the difference?
The difference is also the main theme of the Epistle; it is the majesty and glory of God. It is seeing God as sovereign.
Ephesians 1:1a ESV

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

Paul has barely begun to write and he is acknowledging that he is writing not of his own will but "by the will of God."
Lloyd-Jones' God's Ultimate Purpose was copyrighted back in 1978 and what he had to say about the importance of how one comes to the reading of God's Word is just as significant today. He says,

The Bible is God's book, it is a revelation of God, and our thinking must always start with God. Much of the trouble in the Church today is due to the fact that we are so subjective, so interested in ourselves, so egocentric (Lloyd-Jones 13).

And further on he says,

We must not start with ourselves and then ascend to God; we must start with the sovereignty of God, God over all, and then come down to ourselves (Lloyd-Jones 14 {emphasis mine}).

Seeing God as sovereign means that I also accept that there is a mystery to the ways of God. In verse 9, Paul spells out that Jews and Gentiles being united under the redemptive work of Christ was a mystery to them for ages. Even though it was revealed to the prophets and apostles by the Spirit, Paul was now at liberty to proclaim that this mystery was now known!
So why is this mystery important in how I view God?
Again, it is because I must view God as majestic and sovereign. God's ways are still a mystery to me, and I must start with my eyes on Him and His greatness. I must recognize that He alone is God over all and I should not dare to think that with my finite, sinful mind I could ever fully understand the will and ways of God.

But take heart and be comforted with me as I unpack this, that starting with a view of God and His sovereignty is a fertile ground for faith and trust to grow...and soon we read {verse 7} of the "riches of his grace."

Face to face with Ephesians

I've had to come face-to-face with Ephesians over the past couple of months. I didn't realize it for a long time that God was leading me to this point of deeper study. He is such a gentleman. I hope you know that quality of His love for you too.
So a brief history of how I came to this point and then a purpose statement:
It is difficult for me to pinpoint the very first encounter with Ephesians {and by encounter I mean, indicators/desires for this deeper study}, but the first that I remember was when I picked up this book:  I love the Church of Jesus Christ. The bride. I want to do anything and everything I can to build up the body of Christ.
So I dig into the letters to Timothy.
Then I stumble upon this message by Matt Chandler On church in Ephesus which I actually posted here back in June. After listening to this teaching, I couldn't stop marveling at the wonderful interlacing of the New Testament. Paul at Ephesus in Acts, his letter to the Ephesians, his letters to Timothy {pastor of the Ephesian church}, and John's letters {elder in the Ephesian church} with a major mention of the church in Revelation. I mean wow that is a lot of the New Testament focus. I began to realize that I wanted to know and understand more and more about this church. What was God trying to say to that church? How is church today similar to this church in both good and bad ways?
Another encounter, or encouragement if you will, with this book came from my dear mentor and friend Joe Ann Shelton. She challenged me to find D.M. Lloyd-Jones' Exposition of Ephesians.
And the very next day another dear friend and mentor said the Lord pressed Ephesians into her heart with regards to sharing some specific encouragement to me.
By this time my eyes were opened wide and I still find myself in wonder and awe at the love of God in how He is directing me so clearly.
Now, all that being said, I do not know what the end of this journey looks like. I do not have a 6 part goal in mind. And I don't know why I feel like I should include you {other than to be a possible encouragement, and for the accountability}. So there in lies the purpose: it is simply to deeply study God's Word & the Ephesian church.
And so begins the journey...

WARNING:: I'm Preparing to Make a Change

To whom it may concern:
I'm writing to inform you that I will soon be deleting my facebook account and to encourage you to follow my blog here if you've enjoyed it in the past. Also, if you are following this blog, I hope you will soon be encouraged by more consistent posts on a project I'm working on...I haven't decided on what to officially call it yet...so I will leave you with a little suspense.
Sincerely,
Cara Thompson