Simple Grace Radio

In in our text,  we see that there is a profoundly sober significance to Easter. Whatever might be said about it, it isn’t harmless. Easter contains a threat to mankind. It foretells a great peril, an existential crisis for every man, woman, and child. Every person is in need of God’s grace. Praise God – he is a Missionary of Grace!

We come to a wonderful story, a repentance story. It's an Old Testament version of "The Prodigal Son" told by Jesus. Jonah, the prodigal son, finding himself in the pit of death, is brought to his spiritual senses and restored to his spiritual status and calling.

The sailors on the boat with Jonah, the pagans, seem much more sensitive to the reality of God than the prophet. And that is why this a tragic story. God rescues the pagan sailors – but the prophet gets judgement. But the great wonder of this story is that God has provided a way for great sinners to be rescued by the sacrifice of one man.

The book of Jonah is the story of a man who believed in grace but did not understand or embrace grace. The evidence is simple – he did not share God's heart for a lost and wicked world. In this short book, God shows that his saving grace is not for Israel’s comfort but for his own glory. 

In our text we see that, what breathing is for the physical body, prayer is for the spiritual body. As Paul concludes his wonderful letter – he ends with a call to prayer. Prayer is foundational for a healthy Christian life. Prayer is what makes everything else he talked about in this letter work. 

One of the greatest temptations for a child of God is the temptation to ignore the reality of a spiritual battle. We are constantly being tempted to make peace with the world. Scores of professing Christians and churches are abandoning the sexual ethic of the Scriptures for the ethic of our age.

Have you ever wondered why life has to be so hard? Why is there so much conflict? Paul reminds us of two critical truths we often forget. First, we are in the midst of a battle with spiritual forces of evil – and will be until the day we die. Conflict will be a defining, unavoidable reality in the life of every believer. Second, we will only be strong as we stand in the strength of the Lord.

The text deals with the age-old problem of the relationship between workers and employees. The problem is that both masters and servants are in slavery to their own sinful desires and no social program or political system has the power to free us from our sin. But what man cannot do, God can and does, through the gospel and the regenerating, sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. 

The counsel we have from God’s Word about family structure is profoundly counter-cultural. Our families should be one of the primary ways the world sees the power of the gospel at work in our lives. To that end, children and parents each have a calling.

Marriage, according to Paul, is a death-sentence. It is a willing embrace of death to self in order to love your wife or submit to your husband. A wife will evidence the power and presence of the Holy Spirit within her though a freely chosen submission to her husband. A husband will evidence the power and presence of the Holy Spirit through a Christ-like love for his wife.

We have come to one of the most unpopular passages in the Bible. In the eyes of the world, the idea of wives being required to submit to their husbands is utterly ridiculous. In an age where marriage is under assault in every way – we, the people of God, need to be absolutely clear about what the Bible teaches, about what Christ commands.

The Holy Spirit was absolutely necessary to live a truly Christian life. A truly Christian life will show evidences of the Spirit’s presence. That is clearly Paul’s point in this part of his letter.

It’s amazing how a text written over 2,000 years ago can so accurately describe the culture in which we live today. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us to realize that there is nothing new under the sun. The church in Ephesus lived in a culture very much like ours - blatantly pagan and aggressively perverse. 

Love for one another and towards one another is the primary and necessary evidence of a genuine profession of faith. This is precisely what ought to define the culture of the church of Christ. 

In this letter we see that Christians were made for the church. It is their natural home. The authenticity of a profession of faith is revealed in the Christian community. That’s Paul’s point in this part of his letter. 

Gospel transformation is usually a long, slow, process. Conversion doesn’t immediately remove old habits. The process of transformation is just that – a process. The primary point of Paul’s words in 4:17-24 is that Christians are called to intentionally live according to who we are in Christ. We are called to live lives in keeping with the truth of the gospel. 

The Christian life, according to Paul, is inherently church life – it a life lived within the context of fellow believers. It is inherently communal and covenantal. But what if we were doing church all wrong? The question we have before us is:  How does Jesus go about building His church? 

True doctrine does not exist for its own sake or its own ends. It is the foundation upon which Jesus builds his Church. The true gospel is the power of God that creates a true people of God. And the words Paul uses to describe a church founded on true doctrine, the true gospel, would be “loving and unified”.

The essential experience of the Christian life is the experience of “Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith”. The Christian life really is, at its core, about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. 

There is a glorious, confounding, mystery to the grace of God. It consistently overturns and opposes human expectations. The confounding nature of grace is made manifest perfectly in the life of the Apostle Paul. This man had been a volcano of self-righteous hatred and violence against believers. But the confounding nature of grace is precisely its glory. And that is what Paul cherishes as he writ...

Here, in Ephesians 2 there is a counter-cultural proclamation that there is only one thing in all the world that can truly accomplish reconciliation – the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is not merely creating individual saints; he is creating a whole new humanity.

We carry with us a fortune of infinite value, a treasure of lavish grace and eternal glory – and aren’t really aware of it. It often fails to function in our lives. We so easily live as though we were spiritual orphans instead of eternally chosen, blood-bought, dearly beloved children of God.  We are going to further unpack this precious gift as Paul explains the purpose, the principle and the pro...

To become a Christian is nothing less than being raised from the dead. To be a Christian is to have undergone the most radical, miraculous, and eternity-altering change possible. And it is all due to the mercy of God. Now, why would these believers in Ephesus need to hear this? Well, because when life gets hard, these things are easily forgotten.

The Christian life has a social reality to it – we are united to Christ, brought into the family of God where we share one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Paul prays that the believers in Ephesus might experientially know the hope to which they’ve been called, the riches of God’s glorious inheritance and the greatness of God’s power. That is the intended experience of the Christian life. 

Peter talks about a normal Christian faith in and love for Jesus that results in inexpressible joy filled with glory. Is that how you would describe your Christian life? Is that what people see when they look at you? Do the people who live with you see joy and love and peace as the dominant traits of your life? Shouldn’t they?