Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire, Here's what's coming
up in today's edition.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Ephesians is as inspiring as it is deep. It swells
the soul in praise, encourages the mind and understanding. It
warms the heart and giving thanks. So as we begin
this Bible journey through Festian, I'm want to encourage you
to do something. I want you to immerse yourself in
this letter. Morning before last, I read the first five chapters,
just read it through real slow with a pen, and

(00:29):
I want to encourage you. You're going through this with
us tomorrow, start reading through Ephesians. Because the Bible says
that you have no need than any man teaching.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It is vitally important for a believer in Jesus to
not just listen to teaching, but to take the time
to dive into God's word and to see what wisdom
is revealed by the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Pastor
Jeff encourages you to follow along in this new series
on the Book of Ephesians by taking the time to
read along with his teachings. When you understand the text

(01:02):
on your own, that wisdom can take an even deeper
root in your soul, and the Lord wants nothing more
than for his word to be inprinted on your heart. Well,
let's join Pastor Jeff in the Book of Ephesians, chapter
one as he begins his message, who do you think
you are?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Who do you think you are? I'll tell you a
lot of Christians never do really know who they are
in Christ. It's amazing. And yet knowing who you are
in Christ is something that will change your life. You'll
never see yourself the same. Again. Ephesian is so full
of things. Let's look. Now, let's go ahead and begin,
and I want to do a little background of course,

(01:41):
lay the ground work and tell you a little bit
about Ephesus and the Ephesian Church, and then we'll get
into the first three verses. And after that we will
move in a much faster clip through the text. But
I got to give you some backgrounds, so let's do it.
Ephijians has been called Paul's crowning work. The quintessence of

(02:02):
paul Leanism does not sound fancy. It is both a
literary gem and a treasure of spiritual nuggets. How many
of you can say I've always loved Ephesians. How many
of you can say already the Ephgians has changed your
life at some time or another. How about Ephesians six
on warfare? How about Ephesians on marriage? I mean, it

(02:25):
is so full of things. All right, Those who study
the Book of Ephesians are gonna glean some very important
understandings of Christ and his church, as well as lessons
for life. Now, before we get into the book, let's
see what we can learn about it. Paul founded the
church at Ephesus over a period of nearly three years.

(02:46):
It took him around three years to get it established.
You read about that in Acts nineteen, and I give
you the verses up there. He did it from about
fifty two to fifty five AD. Now he with the
church elders on the beach at Mileitus on his way
to Jerusalem, and you remember it was to the Ephesian
elders he said, you're probably never going to see me again.

(03:11):
And he said, I encourage you to be watchful, because
I know that as soon as I'm gone, grievous wolves
are going to come in and not spare the flock.
And he warned them, and he went on to tell
them I have not ceased to warn you day and night.
So you read those words, and he spoke to the

(03:33):
Ephesian elders when he was leaving and headed to Jerusalem
where he would be imprisoned. And you see that Paul's ministry,
really a lot of it was a ministry of warning.
He warned the saints. He warned them to watch out
for the enemy. He warned them to watch out for
false prophets, false teachers. He warned them about those grievous

(03:57):
wolves that would come in from among them, that wolves
would rise up within the flock. You know, Satan goes
to church. I'm gonna say that again. Satan goes to church.
You say, Pastor Jeff, that sounds weird, almost sacrilegious. Well,
it's just true. Satan goes to church. Don't you remember

(04:19):
when Jesus walked into the synagogue and it says that
there was a man in there and a demon rose
up in him, and Jesus cast the demon out right
there in church. Satan goes to church. Paul said, wolves
are gonna rise up from amongst you, and they're not
gonna spare the flock. So he warned them. So he
had a ministry of warning. He warned all the time.

(04:42):
So and how often do we hear warning in our
day from Pulpits not near enough, but it needs to
be some warning going on. Amen Now, in Jerusalem, Paul
was arrested about fifty seven AD and imprisoned first in
cesarea from about fifty seven to fifty nine AD, and

(05:04):
then he was under house arrest in Rome about sixty
to sixty two AD. And he probably died no later
than sixty three to sixty five AD, likely earlier. And
howd he die He was beheaded. And when they beheaded Paul,
I'm gonna tell you what I feel about this. When
they beheaded Paul, they killed the greatest man on the planet.

(05:27):
They lost the greatest mind, the greatest theologian, the greatest missionary,
the greatest preacher, the greatest teacher, and in my humble opinion,
the most christ Like man on the planet. But they
took his head off. Thank God, he wrote. Amen. Now,

(05:52):
Paul obviously wrote Ephesians from prison, but prison where well,
we can't be sure of it, likely either Cessor or Rome.
And most scholars date the letter to the Ephesians around
sixty to sixty two AD from Rome. So he wrote
this very very shortly before he was martyred. Now the

(06:14):
letter seems to have been written to the church at Ephesus,
though it doesn't directly address problems from that church, as
do some of the other letters you read as other letters,
and he talks right to the problems going on in
that church and names it, but he doesn't do that
in Ephesians. It's more general. Ephesians seems more like a

(06:35):
tract than a personal letter, and it was probably intended
as a circular letter to be read in the house
of or in the house churches of Ephesus and Western
Asia Minor. See, they didn't have email, they didn't have
snail mail. They just would send a letter out and
it had to be carried from church to church by

(06:57):
faithful Christians. So he might say out a letter that
gets to you six months later, because he didn't have
any of that. You know today, I did a little
Facebook posting and within three hours he had gone to
over five hundred people. I got to tell you, I
like that if I wrote a letter and it it

(07:18):
took forever just to get to a little group of people,
that would be discovered. But that's what happened. They would
send out letters with the understanding that it would be
carried from church to church, and the leaders of that
church would stand up and read it to the congregants.
And that's the way they did the letters back in
Paul's day. Now, Ephesus was founded about eleven hundred BC,

(07:42):
going all the way back to the beginning of Ephesus.
That's a long ways back, eleven hundred b C, over
a millennium before Jesus. Estimates of its population in the
first century where Paul wrote and where he lived and
when he lived begin at a quarter million inhabitants and

(08:03):
go up from there. So it was a large, thriving city, Ephesus.
It was famous for its temple to the goddess Artemis
Diana of Ephesus, an idol, a huge structure made of marble,
two hundred and twenty by four hundred and twenty five
feet at its base. That's huge, supported by beautiful pillars

(08:28):
and rising to a height of sixty feet. Considered one
of the seven Wonders of the ancient world. But you
know what, it was an idol, and Ephesus was steeped
in idolatry, and idolatry opens the door to the devil.
And so you have this city with this gigantic statue
of an idol, and so the whole city was given

(08:49):
over to idolatry, and so there was a spiritual darkness
over Ephesus. The city has been studied by archaeologists since
around eighteen ninety five and that work continues, and some
of the important buildings present during Paul's ministry catch this.
There was a huge theater on a hillside that could
seek twenty four thousand people, and you thought, only we

(09:11):
had stadiums twenty four thousand people. And we know that
later when they martyred Christians, they would martyr them with
stadiums like that full and everybody cheering as wild animals
tore Christians apart, that's where they had gone. So here

(09:31):
he had this huge theater twenty four thousand seats, and
you can read about an Acts nineteen twenty nine. And
then there was also an impressive town hall, a thriving
commercial market. There was baths in gymnasiums and a medical school,
and a stadium seven hundred and fifty one feet long,
which is a quarter of a mile. Seven hundred and

(09:53):
fifty feet long stadium ninety eight feet wide, built during
Nero's reign you know what, that almost sounds like something
from today. No wonder, Solomon said, there's nothing new under
the sun. Okay, so ephesis was happening. If you were
a worldly person, then then Emphasis would have been one

(10:15):
of the places you wanted to go visit, or maybe
you wanted to live, because it was a happening, thriving city,
full of free enterprise and things to do, places to go,
people to see. And besides the cult of Artemis or Diana,
there is evidence of various other mystery religions, and there

(10:37):
was the practice of magic you read about in Acts
nineteen nineteen. There was worship of Egyptian gods as well
as a devotion to a large number of other deities.
So do you see that when Paul went there, how
the burden would have been on him to preach the
gospel in this city? I mean they were in witchcraft,
they worshiped idols, they were in source, they did all

(11:00):
these different things, worshiping Egyptian gods. They were steeped in
spiritual darkness and blindness. No wonder, he said to them,
we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers,
rulers of the darkness of this world spiritual wickedness in
heavenly places because he saw such satanic activity in Ephesus. Hi, everybody,

(11:23):
I'm pastor Jeff, and thank you for listening to Hardwire.
You know it's so important who you allow to define you.
Somebody or something is defining every one of us right now,
because who defines you is going to decide what you
think of yourself. So in this brand new series out
of Ephesians called who do you Think You Are? We're
going to explore your true identity as a believer in

(11:47):
Jesus Christ. And to help you follow along with this
powerful series, we want to get you a brand new
free devotional by simply texting identity to eight one seven
forty eight four four seven. Once again, that's identity to
eight one seven four eight four four seven sixty seven,
and we'll get that free devotional right to you so

(12:09):
you can follow along in this powerful series and have
your identity better formed in Christ. Let's get right back
now to the message. We know that a Jewish synagogue
existed in Ephesis because of Acts nineteen verse eight, but
they haven't found it yet archaeologists, but we know that
it was there. The Jewish community possessed citizenship, they were

(12:29):
exempted from military service. They were granted freedom to practice
their religion according to their traditions. But there's a real
question whether Paul's letter to the Ephesians was really intended
for the church at Ephesus exclusively. And let me explain
that in verse one, the phrase in ephesis is missing

(12:49):
in several early reliable Greek manuscripts. It's not there. Probably
the explanations. The original letter was intended, as we talked
about a moment ago, as a so of a circular
letter for the church at Ephesus as well as others
in Asia Minor, to be read and then sent on.
So it may not have been aimed only or exclusively

(13:10):
at Ephesus. Since Ephesus was the best known church in
the area, the copy it made would be the source
of most of the copies of the letter made for others,
probably inserting its own name in the first sentence. Now,
the subjects in the letter don't seem to be tied
to any particular situation in Ephesus as much as just

(13:34):
churches in general. Of course, John mentions Ephesus when he
talks about the seven Churches in the Book of revelation,
and Jesus reads the mail of that church in Ephesus
and directly addresses this church. But anyway, we're gonna still

(13:55):
call it the letter to the Ephesians, even though it
might have been meant to be only circular and not
only for them. Jesus scared enough to talk directly to them. Now,
why was the letter written? Since Paul's founding of the
churches in the area around Ephesus believers seem to have
won many gentiles to whom Paul's letter is now directed.

(14:19):
There were converts from a Hellenistic environment of mystery religions, magic, astrology.
And by the way, folks, do you know that when
I read things like mystery religions and magic in astrology,
America is full of those things. Full of those things.

(14:39):
I mean, America is stooped and drenched and saturated and
steeped in so much idolatry and really witchcraft and mystery
religions and magic that this could be talking to us.

(15:00):
They feared the converts, especially the gentile converts in ethesis.
They feared evil spirits, and they weren't sure about Christ's
relationship to these forces. And they also needed encouragement to
adopt a lifestyle worthy of Christianity because they were being
freed from things like drunkenness, sexual immorality, theft, and hatred.

(15:26):
And they also may have lacked respect for the Jewish
heritage of their faith, so they had a lot of sin.
So that's why Paul addresses a lot of things we're
going to find in the book to the Ephesians. Now,
Paul uses a number of words in Ephesians that would
have been familiar to his gentile Christian readers from their
former religions, words like head, slash, body, fullness, mystery, age, ruler,

(15:53):
and so on and so forth. Paul uses these words
to demonstrate to his readers that Christ is far above
and superior to any hierarchy of gods and spiritual beings?
Is he not? Yes, he is. That they are all
lesser beings under Jesus Christ. These Ephesian converts need to

(16:16):
see that Jesus had power over all the things that
they had been involved in and could really set them free.
So the language of Ephesian serves an apologetic function, apologetic
meaning of defense of the faith for the church that
was in a pluralistic society, very much like America is

(16:37):
right now. Now. Here's a great little summary of Ephesians
by Bible scholar F. F. Bruce. He says this quote.
The letter was written to encourage gentile Christians to appreciate
the dignity of their calling, with its implication not only
for their heavenly origin and destiny, but also for their

(17:01):
present conduct on earth as those who were heirs of
God and sealed by the Holy Spirit. We're going to
see the difesion deals with these things, the greatness of God,
the Exalted Christ, salvation, and the present dimension meaning right now.

(17:22):
The status of believers in Christ, the unity of jew
and Gentile. Nobody's better than anybody else. We're all equal
at the foot of the cross. The struggle with Satanic powers.
Anybody struggled with Satanic powers in the last year. I'm
gonna try that one again. If you've struggled with the

(17:43):
enemy in the last year, let me see your hand,
all right? That makes me feel better. I was feeling
alone there. The ethical obligations of believers, the apostle to
the gentiles, the church. We'll be exploring each of these
incredible subjects in our journey through this book and the
structure of Ephesians can be considered and halves it. Really

(18:03):
the first three chapters and the second three are different.
The first half, chapters one through three, focuses on theological
and doctrinal issues. The second half gets real practical. And
anytime Paul wrote a letter he would always deal with
theology in the first part and practical application in the
last part. So first three chapters we're going to be

(18:25):
looking at some really profound theological truth. It's going to
rock your world. Now, Ephesians is as inspiring as it
is deep. It swells the soul in praise, encourages the
mind and understanding, It warms the heart and giving thanks.
So as we begin this Bible journey through Fijian, I'm

(18:46):
want to encourage you to do something, want you to
immerse yourself in this letter. Morning before last, I read
the first five chapters, just read it through real slow
with a pen, and I want to encourage you. You're
going through this with us tomorrow. Start reading through Ephesians.
Because the Bible says that you have no need than
any man teach you, but the same annoying that you

(19:08):
have received, who abides in you, will teach you all things.
And bring to your mind all things that Jesus told you.
Now that means that the Holy Spirit, the Great Teacher
of the Church, lives inside of you, and he will
illuminate this book to you. So open it up in
the morning and let's go through it together. Okay. Read
it in different translations as well. And there's no excuse

(19:31):
for not having different translations because they're on the web.
I mean they're everywhere. You need to go to Bible
Gateway or Bible dot Net or any of those places
and see all kinds of different translations. Read it in
different translations and get a hold of the bigger picture
that Paul's giving us. Now as you read, let your

(19:52):
spirit listen and soak up the truths. Read wide, and
read read deep. Read wide, and read deep, and think
about what you're reading, because you're reading the Word of God.
And believe me, it'll reach you and it'll speak to
you and it'll change you. You might also try reading

(20:13):
it aloud. Today I read a whole bunch of psalms aloud,
and I prayed a bunch of psalms aloud. Read the
Word of God aloud. It'll bless you. Now as you
read Ephesians, I want to encourage you to get priority
to prayerfulness rather than just logical analysis. Let God talk
to you. How many you believe when you open up

(20:34):
the Bible God wants to speak to you. How many
of you know He will speak to you. So don't
just approach it logically, approach it devotionally, approach it prayerfully.
Say now, Laura, whatever you want me to get out
of this letter that you gave to Paul, you gave
through Paul, and it's in your holy Bible. Whatever you
meant for me to get out of it, speak this

(20:55):
to me Lord, and let me hear you, and he
will talk to you. Now, here's what we're going to see.
Paul's prayer for us is and it's powerful. He said
that you may know him better. That's a constant refrain
in Ephesians. I want you to know him better. Anybody

(21:16):
in here want to know the Lord better? Well, you
know what, if Eesian's going to help us know the
Lord better than we know him right now, and that's exciting.
When we're done with this, you're going to know the
Lord better then you know him tonight. You're going to
know him better. He said that the eyes of your
heart may be enlightened in order that you may know

(21:38):
the hope to which he has called you. Wow. And
then he goes on the riches of his glorious inheritance
in the saints and his incomparably great power for us
who believe. That's a mouthful. And you know what, You'll
see that Paul has a real hard time ending a sentence.

(22:03):
Comma comma comma, and some of his single sentences go
for verse after verse after verse after verse. That was
a small example right there. All right, let's begin chapter one,
verse one and through three. Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus,
by the will of God to the Saints in Ephesus,

(22:26):
the faithful in Christ Jesus. Read this with me in
verse two, Would you, everybody, grace and peace to you
from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every
spiritual blessing in Christ. Wow. Amen, that's a mouthful. Now

(22:51):
just look at this. As soon as Paul is finished
with the preliminaries of opening the letter, he breaks out
in praise God. Immediately read it again with me. Praise
be to the God who has blessed us. Now, the
beginning of Ephesians abundantly proclaims all the blessings that we

(23:13):
Christians are blessed with. God's amazing generosity is on display.
He is very, very generous. Now, before we look at
the details of these verses, I want to take a
look at the big picture. I want you to see
the forest before you see the individual trees. In his introduction,
here's what he tells us. We are say with me
in Christ, we are holy and blameless, chosen, adopted as

(23:41):
sons and daughters of God and forgiven. And we have
been given knowledge of the mysteries of God, a purpose
to live for God's praise, and the Holy Spirit as
a foretaste of future glory.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
The Book of Ephesians begins with a list of promises
that you are entitled to as a child of God.
That list is at the beginning of the book to
remind you of what you signed up for. Yes, the
life of a Christ follower can be difficult, but Pastor
Jeff reminds you that the rewards you stand to gain
far outweigh any obstacles you may face in this current life.

(24:23):
It is better to live as part of a community
of believers than it is to live in unrepentant sin.
We have more information for you about Hardwired.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
This message is another great teaching from a series that
we pray has been meaningful to you. We want you
to know that we're grateful you're listening and would also
like to extend an invitation to you. You can easily
donate to Hardwired. All you have to do is tap
on the present icon, which will take you to the
Hardwired given page. You can also find Pastor Jeff's profile
and tap the give button before we close today's program.

(24:55):
When you love to hear what Pastor Jeff will be
speaking about next time, here's a glimpse of what's coming
up on Hardwired.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Coming into your full potential as a follower of Jesus
isn't an overnight process. In fact, it starts slowly, but
over time the Lord will begin to highlight and help
you purge sinple behaviors from your life. This process is
called sanctification and it is a lifelong mission. Faster Jeff
will teach you about the importance of sanctification and why

(25:22):
you should embrace the slow process because it teaches you
to trust in God to provide your salvation instead of
your own words. Thanks for taking time to be with
us today as we studied God's word. If you'd like
to hear more teachings from Faster Jeff, is it hardwired
dot word on behalf of Faster Jeff and the entire
production team. We invite you to join us again right

(25:45):
here on Hardwired