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Hi, I'm Pastor Tom Holliday and I want to welcome you to our study of the book
of Ephesians in daily drive time devotions. We're starting this great new study
today in this tremendous book that talks about the riches that we have because
of what Jesus Christ has done for us. If you're new to drive time devotions, we
go through a chapter of the Bible a week, about 10 minutes a day, five days a
week, and walk through the difference that Jesus Christ can make in our lives.

We always jump right into the verses because that's why we're here. So
Ephesians, chapter one, verses one and two. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by
the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace
and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Right from the beginning, we've learned about the people in Ephesus, who the
letter is written to and who is writing the letter. Paul is the person who's
writing the letter and he begins by saying, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by
the will of God. " An apostle is a messenger who's sent with a commission, an
authorized spokesman for Jesus Christ.

Some people ask, "How could Paul, who began his ministry after Jesus was in
heaven, be an apostle? How could he be sent by Jesus? " Well, God arranged a
special meeting for the apostle Paul on a road called Damascus, where he
specifically and personally called him to serve, to be an apostle.

He calls himself an apostle to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. He calls himself
one who was born almost too late to be an apostle, but not quite too late. He
was called by Jesus Christ.

Paul, an apostle. That's who's writing and who's he writing to? Well, he says
he's writing to the saints in Ephesus.

First of all, what is that thing about saints? Before we get to Ephesus, what is
this thing about saints? The idea you may have in your mind and the Bible idea
of saint are often two different things.

Our idea is reflected in, well, here's the definition in the American heritage
dictionary. A saint is a person officially recognized, especially by
canonization as being entitled, the public veneration and capable of interceding
for people on earth. It's interesting that the second definition in that
dictionary is, a person who has died and gone to heaven.

That didn't fit with, neither of those fit with the people in Ephesus. And in
fact, if you take a look at the New Testament, we are all called saints. Every
Christian is called a saint.

So this idea that we have of a saint being somebody who lived a nearly perfect
life and then has died and later is given this special designation of saint,
like a medal that's put on them, that is not the Bible's idea of saint. The
Bible's idea of saint, well, it's in the word. The word saint means someone
who's been set apart, set apart for God's special purposes.

According to the Bible's definition, all believers are saints. If you're a
believer in Jesus Christ, you are a saint. Now, if as I say that to you, you
think, I don't feel worthy of that.

I don't feel worthy of being a saint. That's the point of the first three
chapters of the book of Ephesus, to show you that, no, you're not worthy in
yourself of being called that, but God has set you apart. And in him, in Jesus
Christ, you are worthy.

He writes to the saints, the saints in a place called Ephesus. Ephesus was one
of the larger cities in Paul's day, originally built as a trade city. The ruin
of its harbor had caused the trade of Ephesus to go down and had made it by
Paul's day into what many called a temple and tourist city, and they affected
each other.

Because in Ephesus, there was a temple of a goddess by the name of Artemis. And
around that temple, the worship was a very unholy kind of worship. Lots of
prostitution involved in what they called worship at this temple of Artemis.

It was a sort of a Las Vegas of its day. I'm sorry, if you live in Las Vegas and
you're listening to this, what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is, there was a
knowledge in the world of its day that this was the type of city that it was.
However, Paul had gone to that city.

You can read about it in the book of Acts. And in going to that city, he'd seen
how Christ could work in a place like that. Ephesus was the place where Paul had
his longest stay, his greatest impact, expressed what he called his highest
love, and also faced his strongest criticism.

So as he writes back to this church in Ephesus, he's writing to a church that
had been very important in his life in ministry. It's the church you can read
about in the book of Acts where he had his longest stay. He stayed there three
and a half years.

He stayed there preaching the gospel because it was having such an impact on the
people's lives. And that leads to the second thing, the greatest impact. The
Bible tells us that all of Asia heard about Jesus Christ because Paul was
preaching in Ephesus.

People from all over Asia would travel to Ephesus, maybe on a holiday, on a
vacation, or on the way to somewhere else. They'd see what was happening with
the Christians there. They'd hear about Jesus.

And then they'd take the news back to their friends. So by preaching in Ephesus,
Paul spread the news to all of Asia. In Acts chapter 20, as Paul goes back to
visit the Ephesian leaders, he talks about it as a place of highest love.

He poured out his life for the people there. The impact that Christ made through
Paul in that city came at a cost. He gave his heart.

He gave his life for those people. And it also came at another cost. Ephesus was
also the place where Paul faced what I would call his strongest, or at least
loudest, criticism.

In Ephesus, Paul's preaching began to affect the local economy. There were some
silversmiths there who made little silver idols of the false goddess Artemis.
And they would sell them and make a pretty good profit.

As Paul began to preach, their sales went down because people were worshiping
the true God now. And because sales went down, they began to try to find a
reason why they could come against and criticize the apostle Paul. And instead
of saying it was economics, they began to go after their false goddess.

They filled the temple of the Ephesians. And the people of the city shouted for
two hours, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians," over and over and over again. To
such an extent that the people in Ephesus were afraid for Paul's life.

Paul writes back to these people in this letter to the Ephesians, about 10 years
after that two-year stay. He was a prisoner in Rome, writing back to these
people that he had loved, that he had served, through whom he had, because of
Christ's impact in them, he had seen great joy come into his life. And as he
writes to them at the very beginning, he talks about the two worlds that all of
us live in as Christians.

He says to the saints of Ephesus, in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.
Notice the two worlds, in Ephesus and in Christ Jesus. That's the two worlds we
all live in.

We live in the world, but we're not of the world. We live in the world, but
we're truly in Christ. In fact, this phrase, "in Christ Jesus," is used 15 times
in this letter alone.

Beginning right here at the very beginning. You are in Christ. When God looks at
you, he sees Christ.

Here's the picture. We're somewhat, as believers in Christ, like scuba divers.
We live in an alien environment, this world.

Well, there is evil. Well, there is wrong. But we have this little tube sticking
out of the water that enables us to breathe.

That's where we're in Christ. And that's the only thing that enables us to
breathe. The only lifeline that we have in the world is that we are in Christ.

And to try to live in the world without being in Christ, it's like a scuba diver
trying to breathe with the tube under the water. You just can't breathe that
way. You are in Christ.

And because you are in Christ, God wants to do something new in your life. And
because God wants to do something new in all of our lives, Paul begins this
letter with a prayer. It begins with a very simple prayer.

"Grace and peace be to you in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. " This
is how Paul begins most of his letters. With a prayer for grace and a prayer for
peace.

And that doesn't mean I should skip over it. That means it's supremely
important. Just because I've heard it before in the Bible doesn't mean I'll skip
on to the next verse.

If God says something again and again, it means it is supremely important. Grace
and peace. Grace.

The Greek word charis, we get our English word charm from this word. God's gift,
God's grace. That's where we live our lives.

In light of his grace and peace. The Greek word irini. If you're named Irene,
you're named for this word, peace.

The idea there is freedom from worry and fear. Peace means that the battles are
really over. We have, because of Jesus Christ, a sense of victory in our daily
lives.

Grace and peace in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where we
start this book of Ephesians. And let's start by thanking God for those two
qualities in our life.

Thank you, God. Thank you for your grace. Your gift of new life and love through
Jesus Christ.

And thank you for your peace. Your gift of freedom from worry, hope, and daily
life because of Jesus Christ. And we pray together as we walk through this book
and see what it has to say to our hearts.

You help us to see ourselves in a new way. See this world in a new way. And see
you in a new way.

Help us to see it all. It all, Jesus, in light of who you are and the love that
you have for us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.