Introduction

Welcome to the first week of our eight-week Bible study on the book of Ephesians. This is a women's Bible study entitled, Finding Purpose in a Confused World. And maybe you have said, I am so confused here. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. Or something like, I am busy all day long, but I never feel like I'm making a difference. We think and say those things because we are wired for significance. We are wired to feel like we make a difference, to feel like we have a purpose. And if you feel that, I think you're going to love this Bible study because in this Bible study, we're going to focus on who we once were and who we are now. We're going to focus on what we believe and how it affects how we behave and the point that we can live with purpose and make a difference. So I titled this Bible study, Finding Purpose, because in this book, we're going to see several layers of purpose. First of all, God's purpose in history, in his plan of redemption, is to, through his people, his church, is to declare his glory, to declare his plan, both on earth and in heavenly places. We're going to find the Apostle Paul's purpose, which he explains to us and is given as an example. And then we're going to look at our purpose in life, stated in many ways, but the main theme is that we are to know God, to imitate God, to declare him to those around us. So as a little bit of a roadmap, I want to do three things this morning. First of all, I want to give a history and overview of the book itself. We're going to go through the first six verses together, and then I'll give you a little inspiration for your personal study time. So let's start right in with history and overview. You can open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter one. We're going to use verse one to answer some questions. The questions we're going to answer, which I always love openings of books because we get to do the who and the where and the when and the what. In verse one alone, we will find the who and the where, and then we're going to back out a little bit in the text to answer when and what. And so for today, I've put the verses also on the screen. First in case you don't have an ESV Bible, I want to let you know I'm going to be reading out of the ESV and the study guide is based on the ESV. You probably would be happiest if you get one, but you can use whatever version that you like. And so verse one says,

And here is both our who and our where. Paul, saints, Ephesus. We find out quite a bit. Let's start with who, who the letter is written to and from. It's from the apostle Paul to the people who are followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ. So if we look at the apostle Paul, I'm only going to briefly state this because we've spent time in other Bible studies talking about who the apostle Paul is. And if you want to look at his testimony, his biography, Acts chapter nine is a great place. There's a great study on that. It's called walking in the spirit. And so what I want to do is get to the second who, which is the saints in Ephesus, the saints. Paul called them saints. It is the Greek word hagios, but we should handle this a little bit to identify what is a saint, because in our culture, we would think that the saint is an extraordinarily nice person, like she is such a saint to live with him or something like that. Someone who has just as super nice, but that's not how it's used here. So I wanted to reach out for a good definition. I went to Bible study tools and lifted out this definition for you. I'll put it on the screen. It says a saint is someone who has set themselves apart for a special purpose. What is that special purpose? The worship and service of the one true God as refilled through his son, Jesus Christ. Of course, I liked that definition because it dovetailed so nicely with our theme. A special purpose. We have a special purpose. And Paul called them faithful to this special purpose. They were faithful saints. Now we're going to pause who and for just a moment and investigate where, because it tells us that they are in Ephesus. And so I love the history part of Bible studies. As we open this up, I want to talk about Ephesus just a little bit. This was a wealthy Roman port city in modern day Turkey. On page four in your study guide, you can see a map. There is a city there today called Seljuk Turkey. Today there's only 36,000 people. In Paul's day, there was 250,000. There was a quarter million people that lived in this place. Because it was a port city, it was a center of trade. It had both sea and land routes for trade. It was on the Silk Road. So there was a lot of goods passing back and forth, of course, a lot of money to be made. And whenever there's a lot of goods passing back and forth, there's a lot of ideas passing back and forth as well, because people are coming together and people are bringing their ideas together. And Ephesus ended up being kind of fascinated with magic and with the occult. It was the place where there was a temple to Artemis. Let me show you an artist rendering of this. It's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And of course, it's an artist rendering because it was destroyed in the fourth century. And so there's nothing of it left, but just a heap of ruins. But in the day, you can tell this was a magnificent structure. Now Artemis was a Greek goddess, and she had a Roman counterpart, Diana. So there's kind of a similarity there, a Greek name and a Roman name. Fun fact, Wonder Woman from the DC comic strip is based on Artemis. Fun fact, huh? So we wonder, I told you that Ephesus has 36,000 people, and we wonder, well, what happened to it? Like New York City got bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's the biggest it's ever been. Why did Ephesus dwindle? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, Ephesus in this time was such an important city, it was second only to Rome in the Roman Empire. It was the number two city. As goes the Roman Empire, so goes Ephesus. That's part of the reason. But the main reason that it became not such a strategic city any longer is in order to build the city, they chopped down most of the forest around it. When you do deforestation, and then over time, over decades, over centuries, and the rainfalls and the topsoil leaves, the harbor that it was on silted up, and today's place where Ephesus was, it's three miles away from the water. So it is no longer a port city. So that became a problem as well. Now what I want to do is kind of go back to the who again, because Paul had history with this church, with these people. You have people that you have history with. It's really fun to get together with people that you have history with. My sister was recently here from Colorado. They don't get to visit us very often, but we have history with them. And way back in the day when we were young, no kids, they rode motorcycles, we rode motorcycles. They lived about 150 miles from us, and we would make plans for a weekend motorcycle ride. Every single time we made plans, it was raining like crazy. We were in South Dakota. They would somehow make their way out to us, and then it was just rain, rain. It's just not fun. It's not really safe, but it's just not fun. And so we would sit around and find something else to do, and inevitably somebody would say, I think it's clearing up in the west. I think it's clearing up in the west. We were so positive, like we wanted to do this so bad. Okay, fast forward to this summer. They come to visit us. We wanted to do a garden tour. It was raining like crazy. How often does it rain here? The day they came, it was raining like crazy. We still tried to do our best to do the garden tour under an umbrella. And wouldn't you know, somebody says, I think it's clearing up in the west. Still as positive as ever. But that's what you get when you have history with people, right? Just those fun little things. But here, what I want to do is talk about where the who meets the when, okay? And share a little bit of Paul's history with the Ephesians. At the time that this was written, Paul was in Rome. He was actually imprisoned in Rome when he wrote the letter. But he hadn't always been imprisoned, and he had spent quite a little bit of time ministering throughout this whole region. So I'm going to give you four points of connection with these people. The first point happened in about 52 AD. Paul first came to Ephesus with a couple named Priscilla and Aquila. They may be familiar to you. He had found them in Corinth. They were Jews. They were also tent makers. And so Paul kind of bonded with them. And they traveled together to Ephesus. That was the first time he entered into this area, was with Priscilla and Aquila. Paul got up and left. He did not stay long there at all, but Priscilla and Aquila stayed. In fact, Dr. Luke went to great lengths to tell us this is where they met up with Apollos, and this is where it is explained that they explained the way of God more accurately to him. It may be that Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos really helped establish that church. But that was the first point of contact. Second point of contact was a while later on Paul's third missionary journey. He returned to Ephesus, and he evangelized the area for two years. Now, that is significant when you stay, especially for the Apostle Paul, to stay somewhere for two years. The first thing he did is he went into the synagogue, and he taught in the synagogue for about three months until he realized there was such a high level of unbelief and opposition that he said, I am out of here. And he found a place, a hall owned by a man named Tyrannus, and then for the next two years, he taught over the noon hour in the Hall of Tyrannus. So this was like a secular location. It was just a hall that people would use. But these years, this connection point with these people, this was a revival. In fact, I would say it was a great revival. As we read through the Book of Acts, I think this is one of the greatest revivals that we see listed there. Revivals are marked by belief and by repentance. They are not marked by excitement. They are marked by people believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and repenting of their sins. And this is what we read about. This is in Acts chapter 19. You might enjoy, I didn't send you there in your study guide, but you might enjoy reading through it this week. It says, many who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. Those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them. Belief followed by repentance, okay? Now, it tells us that the value of those books that they came, those magic arts books that they came and brought was 50,000 pieces of silver. And so it would be fun if we had time for every one of you to give a guess, but I'll just tell you, $6 million in today's money. Okay, so they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're convicted of what the evil that they've been involved in. They bring $6 million worth of stuff to be burned and to get out of their life. That's a great revival. There's one more piece to a great revival, and that is opposition. Belief and repentance is, it's compelling. And a lot of other people, when they see that, it's just like they're drawn in, and so is the opposition. And we learn this also in chapter 19 of the book of Acts. There is a lengthy and a lively, and I think quite comical story about the opposition to this revival. And it centers around one man named Demetrius. And he was a silversmith that made these little silver shrines of Artemis, because that's a big deal. This temple is a big deal. It was their claim. It's kind of like the Statue of Liberty to New York City, right? Okay, no one else has the Statue of Liberty, only New York City. No one else had the Temple of Artemis, so they had these little shrines. And he was concerned. He sees these people repenting in this way, and he was concerned. It's like, this is gonna ruin my business. And he goes and gathers up the other craftsmen, and he says, we are in big trouble. And he got them all enraged about this. And here's what it says. When they heard, they were enraged, and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together in the theater. Did I put up, I never got to the theater. Let's put up the slide of the theater. The artist rendering, look at that. They rushed into the theater. You can tell by looking at that, you can see the harbor and all of that. They rushed into the theater, and Paul wanted to go in, too. And his companions just drug him out, and they said, no, no, no, no. You are not going in there. And it says, some cried out one thing, and some another for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them didn't even know why they had come together. For about two hours, they all cried out in one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Now, you've been at a sporting event where a chant gets going, okay? And it lasts 10 or 15 seconds, 30 seconds, maybe. Maybe you've been to a pro game, and some sort of a chant gets going. Maybe you've experienced two minutes. If you did experience two minutes of a chant, you were just like, whoa, what is going on here? Two hours. Two hours of these people just, you know, this is great opposition. So I wanted to balance that for you and show you what a great revival it was. We burned $6 million of magic art books, and the opposition is two hours of chanting, and so there's often a balance in that. Now, the town clerk eventually basically said, just sue them. What he said was that we have courts, let the magistrate deal with this, and he got everybody calmed down. But everything that we read about Paul's time in Ephesus tells us that the spirit of God was moving. People believed the gospel, people repented of their sins, and there was opposition to the gospel, and a strong church was established. Paul's gift was not to pastor, and so he did not pastor that strong church. He left it to others to do. And Paul scooted on his way, operating in his gift. Now we come to the third point of contact with the Ephesians, the third point of history with them. Paul stopped near Ephesus, stopped at a little island called Miletus, and told the elders of this church, come and see me, because he knew he'd get entangled and stay too long. And it says this in Acts 20, 16.

And so once the elders arrived at this island, and they had their rendezvous with Paul, Paul described to them how he was fulfilling his purpose. He said, the ministry that I had received from the Lord. And then he went on to tell them how they need to fulfill their purpose. These were elders, which was to care for the church of God, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. And so this is a pattern that we will see in the book of Ephesians. This pattern of, here's my purpose, here's your purpose. Finally, the fourth point of contact that we have with Paul in the Ephesians is the letter that we are reading. He was in Rome, he was imprisoned. Now the year is about AD 61, and he wants to write to them. There was no big problem going on in the church. He just wanted to inspire them. He wanted to inspire them to continue to walk out the purpose that God had given them. So we come to what is the main point of this book. I just stated it. But if we look at the book as a whole, it's very organized. It falls very symmetrically into two parts. Chapter one, two, and three talk about our beliefs. And chapters four, five, and six talk about our behavior. And there's a very important connection between them. That is the word therefore. Because we believe, therefore we will behave in like manner. Because of our doctrine, therefore we will consider our duty. And because God has given us a place in his kingdom, therefore we have purpose. This is the key. In order for us to find purpose in our lives, we must first understand our place. What is our place? Well, in this book, you are gonna run into the phrase in him, in Christ, in Christ Jesus, 27 times. To continually remind us as believers in Jesus Christ, what is our place? We are in him. Therefore, we have purpose. Now I'm gonna go to, go on to verse two, and we're gonna look at verses two through six. Verse two says,

We read who blessed us, God the Father of Jesus Christ. We find out how we are blessed. These are not physical, but spiritual blessings. And we find out where we are blessed in heavenly places. These blessings carry a big picture quality to them. They're spiritual, not natural, so they have an enduring quality. They're in heavenly places, so they're not subject to decay and degradation of time and space. They are lasting. And as you begin your study this week, you're going to identify multiple spiritual blessings. That's what week two is all about in verses 1 through 14. And you're going to drop them into three categories, blessings from God the Father, blessings from Jesus Christ, and blessings from the Holy Spirit. This will be identified for you in the study guide. But this morning, we're just going to look at the first two blessings that we have. And those are in verse 4, because He chose us and in verse 5, He predestined us for adoption. Those are the two we want to look at. It says, He chose us in Him. You have been chosen. God planned for you to become united with Him even before He formed the world. And this tells us that God didn't just create the world and say, now what should I do with it? No, He planned for people to be brought into, to be united with Him and connected with Him even before He created the world for them. So this was the plan from the beginning. It was very intentional. And we find out that God is intentional. I love the phrase, He chose us. We used to do a little thing when our kids were little. And we would sit them down often at bedtime. And they're in their little oversized t-shirts getting ready for bed. And we'd have this little thing. And we'd say, we pick you. We pick you. And then we'd have a little, we'd look at our little daughter and we'd say, if all the girls were lined up, all the girls in the world, and then as toddlers love it, tall girls and short girls, and red-haired girls and brown-haired girls. And we'd go on and on and on. And if you ever did it out of order, you know how it is with little kids? Once you say it one time, they'll correct you. It's like, no, daddy, brown hair. Brown hair. So once you say it, you have to remember the same cycle. But we'd go through the same thing. If all the girls were lined up, we'd pick you. And you know what? Sometimes I like to think about that. Like, God picks all of us. But I like to remember, he picked me. The Bible says he chose me. But sometimes being picked, were you ever the last one to be picked on that? Yes, thank you. Me too. The very last one for softball. Never had any upper arm strength there. But what did he want for us when he chose us? He chose us to be holy and blameless before him. Holy means set apart for a special purpose. And blameless doesn't mean, no, so I picked you, so you'll never sin. Blameless is different than sinless. Blameless means that we are not under the guilt and the penalty that sin brings. So he chose us to be holy and blameless, not to be under that guilt and the penalty of sin. Because what? Jesus Christ paid for it for us. And so that was his plan for us. And he predestined us for adoption. Again, meaning he planned for us to be brought into his family. But adoption has a slight twist to it. Spurgeon said, it's a good thing God chose me before I was born, because he would never have picked me after I was born. And that's fun to chuckle at. But the truth is, God did. God knew what you would become. And he still chose you for adoption. And one thing I love about adoption of children who are more than three months old is that they're brought into a family once mom and dad know who they really are. All the goofy things that go along with that. It's like, I still pick you. And that's what God has done for us. I see what you've become. I still choose you. But that's for chapter two. So when you study this week, you're going to mark those blessings in green. But there's also going to be some things that you're going to mark in red. And those are related to finding purpose. One thing we tend to do is we often want to make scripture all about us. But we should first look at God in scripture. And before the apostle Paul tells us about our purpose, he tells us about God's purpose. And this is in the verses that we read. In verse five, we realize that God chose us and adopted us according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace. God's purpose is that his plan, his name, his grace, his glory would be on display. Now, we're involved in that. But that is God's purpose. And it's going to be repeated two more times in this chapter. OK, so the third part of our opening this morning, where do we go from here? I just want to inspire you a little bit about your personal study. Here's how it works. This is a five-day-a-week Bible study. So identify your five days. I know some of you go home and do the whole thing. That's OK. This is your Bible study. You do it however you want to do it. But it is broken up into five days. And every day, there's a few verses that are identified for you to read and to write. And this is one of those Bible studies that we will handwrite the whole thing. So you will need a journal or a notebook of some kind. And every day, you will write out the verses that are identified. It is not a lot of writing. We don't write as fast as we speak or as fast as we read with our mind. And so when we write, it slows us down to process the scriptures in a very useful way. And then in your study guide, you're going to see that I've identified some markings. Oh, when you're writing, I'll just give you a little tip. You might want double space or triple space so that you have a little bit of room in there to do some writing. There's going to be some markings with specific color. As you move along, you're going to identify what those colors relate to. For example, we talked about the first two blessings that we have. He chose us. He adopted us. Those are green. All the blessings that we get from the Lord will be identified in green. And so then in your study guide, there are some directed questions. Once you write out the scripture, there's some questions. Some of them are honestly just word for word out of the scripture. Some of them require a little bit more thinking. Some ladies have told me, oh, it's like a pop quiz. She tells me to write out two verses, and then the study guide gives me a pop quiz about those verses. It could be a little bit like that, but this will be useful when you come together in your discussion group. And then at the very end of every week, there is a page that says questions for thought and discussion. And the intention of that is so that we will have kind of apply that. It's mostly application. You might want to go look at it first before you start your Bible study, but those are useful. Don't miss those. And then, of course, it's important to come back for the teaching part. And this teaching is on our YouTube channel, on our website. So if you're gone, you really don't need to miss anything. You can continue on right through there. So right now and after I pray, even though you haven't studied, there are a few questions for thought and discussion on page 7 of your study guide that we will use this morning. But in closing, I want to mention something about the title again of this Bible study, which is Finding Purpose. If you have asked Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and to live in you, he lives in you, but you are in Christ. You are in him. You are in Jesus Christ. There is no possible way for you to be in Christ and not have a significant purpose in this world. That is impossible. So one of the main focuses of this study will be inspiring you to walk out that purpose. The world that we live in is confused about just about everything, but you're not confused. You know exactly who you are, where you are, and what you are supposed to be doing. And that is one of the biggest blessings, I think, that we will see from this book. So should we pray about it? Father God, thank you for your grace, your goodness shown to us, Lord. And we just want to really commit the next eight weeks as we investigate this book of the Bible, maybe a little bit more deeply than we have in the past, and ask that you would open our hearts to see those things that you want us to see individually. And we just wanna say that we're open to what you wanna show us, Lord. Lord, by the time we get to the second half of the book, there's undoubtedly gonna be some things that you're gonna begin to speak to us about, and I pray that you would prepare our hearts for that section, and prepare us, Lord, to just relish, as Paul did, as he just wrote this big, long sentence, exploded with the blessings that he has in you. I pray that we would see it the same way. Prepare our hearts, Lord, and thank you for this time. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.