Every word in this text is breathed out of the mouth of God, and because it is from God, it is deeply theological and has practical applications for us. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, was once a Pharisee who was radically converted and used by God as a vessel to spread the very gospel he tried to destroy. An apostle is an authorized messenger sent with delegated purpose and authority who does not speak on their own behalf but speaks the message given by the one who sent them. Therefore, when Paul speaks, it is God speaking, and we must submit to God’s words as our supreme authority because God’s will is greater than yours and way better.
The term saints is a general term that refers to all believers who have been set apart and consecrated for service to God. These saints are faithful, which means they are full of faith given as a gift of grace. Our entire identity and purpose is defined by being “in Christ Jesus,” a phrase that is critical because it points to the reality that we are united with Christ by the Holy Spirit. Because of this union, our whole identity is wrapped up in him, and we are daily striving towards holiness until the day Christ will be fully formed in us for all eternity.
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So here we go. I like preaching introductions and salutations now because most of the time we just kind of skip through them. Like, “Oh, it’s just Paul writing to the Ephesians. Grace to you, blah blah blah. Let’s go.” Don’t do that. There’s so much here that God has given to us. God, every word in this text is breathed out of the mouth of God. Every word; he didn’t start speaking after Paul finished his intro. It starts with Paul. This is what God has for us. And therefore, since it’s from God, it is deeply theological as well. It has theological foundations and also practical applications for us. Listen to these verses once again: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Paul—you remember Paul, we’ve talked about Paul before.
Now if you haven’t been here since we—I guess it’s been a while now, hasn’t it—since we preached through Titus, that would have been the last letter we preached through that was written by Paul, then maybe you don’t know who this Paul is or you are not as familiar, or it’s good for us to be reminded because repetition is how we learn. There we go. Paul was a Pharisee. And immediately when you say that you’re like, “Oh, that’s mean. Don’t say that about Paul.” That’s what he was. He was a Pharisee. That word has become like a curse word in churches up to now because over the last 2,000 years we read about the Pharisees and what they did in the Gospels. You’re like, “I don’t want to be like that.” And so to call somebody a Pharisee is like the ultimate cursing of a fellow believer. Man, you’re being a Pharisee. Whoa, whoa, whoa. But that’s who he was. He was a Pharisee. He was one of those guys. He was one of the religious leaders of the Jewish people there when Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected during that time.
But Paul was radically converted. Remember that story on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9, he was struck down with blindness by light from the Lord and the Lord spoke to him there and he was radically converted. The Lord met him, changed him, saved him. But he was a Hebrew of Hebrews as he says in Philippians chapter 3. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was like the Jew of all Jews, he was the best of the best of the best. And he persecuted followers of Jesus. He was zealous for that. He was the man in Jewish circles. But Philippians 3 there he tells us that he counted it all as rubbish—trash, sewage is the more correct kind of term—compared to knowing Jesus Christ. As good of a life as he had, as good as he had it, as much influence as he had, it was all worthless in comparison to just knowing Christ Jesus is Lord. And we know that this man was used by God as a vessel to spread the very gospel that he tried to destroy in the first place.
Paul was an apostle. The word apostle, apostolos, it means a delegate. It’s an authorized messenger. He was sent by God. The word apostle doesn’t mean necessarily somebody sent by God in the Greek verbiage. It just means someone who is sent as a delegate. It’s one who has been sent by another with some authority to share a message with authority, with the authority of the one who sent them. This is one with delegated purpose and authority. This kind of person, the apostle, would not speak on their own behalf. They would speak the message that they were given by the one who sent them. So this would be like in the day a king who would send out an edict through his apostles to the citizens in his country. So the messengers would go out from the king, share the edict that the king gave. So the message then is coming from the king even though it comes by means of the messengers of the apostles. That’s what an apostle is.
But Paul wasn’t an apostle of a simple earthly king or emperor. Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus. He had a special title, a special message, a special delegation that he was tasked with. Paul was an apostle of God himself. We’ll break down Christ Jesus in a minute, but let’s just remember this Christ Jesus who we’re talking about is God. There is no higher authority there. There is no one greater than God. Amen. So Paul is an apostle sent out as a messenger to bring the message from God to his people. He didn’t come to bring his own message. When he speaks, he doesn’t even have to say—except for right here just to start the letter with—to say, “Hey, upfront, I’m a messenger from Jesus Christ himself.” That means everything that comes out of his mouth is God speaking. Everything we’ve got here is from God.
When Paul speaks, it’s not Paul that we’re obeying or disobeying. It’s God. We have to keep that clear in our minds. Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus. Of course, this is just one of many references to Christ Jesus throughout this letter. I mean, even in just these first two verses, we have five references to God. Here’s the first one. It happened after four words: Christ Jesus. Christ, meaning the Messiah. This is a title given to Jesus because he is the promised Old Testament Messiah, the anointed one, the one who was prophesied hundreds, thousands of years before, even from the very protoevangelium in Genesis 3, the promised seed of the woman who would come and crush the head of the serpent. This is the Messiah. This is what Christ stands for. He’s the anointed one, the promised coming savior. Christ Jesus. Jesus is his name.
We looked at Matthew chapter 1 very clearly. When he was given this name, they told him to call his name Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins. His name is the gospel. His name is his purpose. Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus, sent by the Savior, sent for the purpose found in his name to save God’s people from their sins. Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. When you talk about God’s will, there is an aspect of his will that is a unified will. There’s an aspect of his will that is secret, sovereign, that only he knows. There’s an aspect of his will that he has revealed to us so that we can know it. And there’s an aspect of his will that he desires for things to take place that don’t take place.
The point is the will of God is grand. And for Paul to say that I have been sent out as a messenger by God’s will is a bold statement. Because what he is expressing here is something that we can’t really express. We know that he has sent all of us as messengers in one sense; we are all called to make disciples and share the gospel. But he was sent to actually reveal God’s words to us, to give them to us in this form, to write them down. This letter comes with apostolic authority that is only given to those at the beginning there by God, delegated by God. We can’t claim that. Listen to me: we can’t claim, “God gave me a word to give to you,” and claim that it has the same authority as Scripture. But Paul could. Paul did. Paul was able to because that was a special authority delegated to certain men so that we now 2,000 years later will still have what God has already said.
The reason we don’t need more is because it’s sufficient. He’s already given us all we need for life and godliness. It’s done; it’s a completed canon. But Paul is at this time revealing God’s will. It has been revealed to him that that is what God’s will is for him specifically. So he knows that it’s God’s will because God has commanded him to do it, but also he is the apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Meaning that it’s not just mere permission, like Paul was asking, “God, I’d really like to be able to do that. Can you work me into this?” No, it’s by His will, not Paul’s. It’s not my will, but God’s will whereby I’m doing these things where I’m writing you these things. This is a man under the authority of God. Listen to me: Paul is not claiming some authority that God did not give him.
That sounds plain and simple. You get that right? He’s not claiming something that God didn’t give him. But why am I stressing that at this moment? Because pulpits are filled with men who assume that they can call themselves into something that God has not called them into. For example, God has revealed his will to us in his word, which means as we’ve talked about when we went through Titus, he has commanded exactly what a man should be like if you’re going to call him as an elder in the church. And if a man stands in the pulpit and he doesn’t fit those qualifications, he’s not meant to be there. That is not the will of God that he is there. It’s not by God’s will; it’s by his own will that he stands in that pulpit to preach. So we got to be careful about how we say this is God’s will or not. And the only standard for that is found right here in God’s revealed will, his word. So Paul doesn’t appoint himself; he has been appointed by the will of God as an apostle.
So this part of the verse is doing a couple things. First, it’s establishing his apostleship in order to verify that this letter is truly of God. And that’s important because 26 out of the 27 New Testament letters are warning of false teachers that are out there as ravenous wolves seeking who they can devour. Paul has to verify upfront like, “I’m Paul. I’m an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” I’m not a preacher of God’s word by my own design. It’s establishing apostleship in order to verify so people don’t think, “Well, where did this letter come from? It could have come from any of those false teachers at the time.” We must hear these words as coming from the very mouth of God.
Yes, the Lord carried Paul along as he wrote down these words in order to write down exactly what—but these are God’s words. So we must then—if this is God’s words—we must submit to them. We must submit to God’s words as our supreme authority. As I mentioned a minute ago, to disbelieve or to disobey the words of this letter is not to disbelieve or disobey Paul or a man. It’s God himself. So we must hear, we must read, we must learn, we must study, we must apply and remember these things. Why? “I’ve hidden your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you.” What is sin? It’s disobeying God’s law. We need to hear it, study it, learn it, apply it to every area of our lives to which it refers.
So when we come to a verse that says, “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons”—you don’t get to say, “Well, I don’t believe that. I don’t like that.” You can say, “I don’t understand that,” and that’s okay. But you can’t disbelieve or disobey it. Amen. These are God’s words. And as difficult as it is—it is difficult—when you get over to chapter 4 and into chapter 5 and 6 where it says things like, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” You don’t get to say, “I don’t like that. I’m not doing it.” Listen, you can say, “I don’t understand that,” and it can be explained and we can ask for wisdom in how to apply that in a godly, biblical, wise way in marriages. But you don’t get to say, “I don’t believe it or I won’t obey it.” These are God’s words. He’s the ultimate authority, not you, not me. He gets to say how it is. So as we read through this letter, we have to recognize that he’s an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.
These are God’s words through Paul to you and me today. God’s will is greater than yours. And not just greater as in stronger and overwhelming and overpowerful, but like greater as in way better. Amen. But I think I know better for my life. But you don’t. He does. I think it would be better in my marriage if I don’t submit to my husband or if I don’t love my wife as Christ loved the church. I think I would rather do it this way. I think it’s better for our marriage because God doesn’t really know our unique situation. You’re wrong. God’s will is greater. It’s by his will that we live and move and have our being. We must submit our will to his will. We are his servants. We’re his messengers. We’re his people. We’re his for him to command. We’re called servants and slaves of Christ. We belong to him. He can do with us as he pleases. He can use us as he desires. He can tell us what he wants us to do.
And we can say how high, how much, how far, or we can say nah, but we won’t be in the will of God. Jesus is our Christ. He is our Messiah. He is the promised one to come and he will save us. He has saved us; he will continue to save. And because he has done so, he commands our allegiance. We belong to him. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. Because of the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, this word saint is misused, misunderstood. Most people think of saints as those who have been venerated; they have some higher level of Christianity. That’s not what saints are. The Bible never speaks of saints in that kind of way. I mean, he’s using the word saints in an introduction in the most plain part of the letter.
Saints is a general term that refers to all believers. You are a saint. If you have trusted in Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’re a saint. That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be worshiped or praised, because that’s not what saint means. It just means you have been set apart. Saints means you are the holy ones of God. And holy again doesn’t mean a higher level; it just means you’ve been set apart. You’ve been consecrated for service to God. Using the word saints about ourselves helps us remember what our purpose is. “Oh, I’m a saint. I’ve been set apart by God for him, to obey him, to do what he has commanded.” You know, I probably shouldn’t cheat on my taxes then as it’s coming up. These labels are important. These titles are important. This is what God calls us. We’re his holy ones.
You’ve been set apart for something different, church. You’re not to be like everybody else. You’re not to be like the world anymore. The world’s not saints. That’s you. To the saints, to the church, to the believers, to the Christians. I like saints though. To the saints who are in Ephesus. In some of the earlier, better manuscripts, the actual phrase “in Ephesus” is not there. What I’m saying is the copies that we have of this letter that have “in Ephesus” was a copy that was written in order to go to Ephesus, but the original was meant to be a circular. Not he’s not aiming these teachings at a specific church; this is general doctrine and practice for all of Christianity. So that was actually written like there was a blank there: to the saints who are at Tumbling Shoals.
The point was it wasn’t meant just to go to Ephesus; it was meant for all the churches of the region. And now again, in the canonized form, for all the churches from that point on for us. There’s nothing in here that is meant just for that early church. It’s meant for us today. This is what we are to believe. This is what we are to obey. This is how we’re to live our lives, how we’re to act in certain relationships as we get to chapter five and six. This is how we should think. This is how we should act today. In particular, it did go to Ephesus, one of those cities, one of those places where the church was. But the main point is it’s to the saints there, to the church. And it was meant for all the churches: “to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful.”
Faithful means full of faith. Again, a reference back to the saints. It doesn’t necessarily mean only to those Christians who are actually being faithful, though let’s just call it what it is: there’s some of us that aren’t as faithful as we should sometimes, but that’s not his point here. His point is saints and faithful ones. It goes together. We are the saints. We are the faithful. That’s what God calls us. That is our title. That is who we are because we are full of faith. First of all, if you’re a Christian, that means you have faith to believe in Jesus which was given to you as a gift of grace. You are a faithful one. If you don’t have faith, you don’t have Jesus. So you’re either full of faith or without it. This word isn’t used so that you can find which level you’re at. No, you either have faith or you don’t. You are either in Christ, you either have faith in him or you don’t. So he’s writing to the church, to the saints, to the faithful ones who have been given this faith as a gift of grace which we’ll find out more of in these first few chapters.
But also faithful in a sense that the faith that God has given us is never meant to be resting there. It comes out. We continue to live by—we’re not just saved by faith, we also live by that same faith. Those who are truly saints, truly believers, live out the faith that they have. We’re obedient. We continue in faith. We continue to follow Jesus. We continue to live for him. We continue to walk by faith that scripture talks about. We continue to serve the will of God. To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus. So now we got to pause here. We got to spend a little more time here. We’ve already talked about Christ Jesus. But this phrase “in Christ Jesus” is going to come up a lot. And there is so much packed into it. Well, what does it mean to be in a person?
Are you in me, am I in you? No, that’s weird. Don’t say that. Gross. So what does it mean to be in Christ Jesus? We need to understand this phrase because he uses it again and again and again. Now, not just in this letter, but all throughout the New Testament this phrase is used. This phrase is critical to understanding our identity and purpose as saints and faithful ones because it’s referring “in Christ Jesus” back to both the saints who are in Christ Jesus and those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. They’re the same people, but the emphasis is that we are saints only in Christ Jesus. We are faithful only in Christ Jesus. We’re not saints and faithful ones on our own. You cannot make yourself a saint. You cannot make yourself a faithful one. God does that work; Christ does that work. You are only that in Christ Jesus. Scripture tells us that in him we live and move and have our being. Scripture also tells us that it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
This “in Christ” points to the reality that we are united with Christ by the Holy Spirit. When the spirit comes, brings regeneration, he unites us with Christ Jesus. Galatians tells us: “I’ve been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” Our life is his life. His life is our life in Christ Jesus. We have been united with him. But “in Christ” also explains that our lives of faithfulness is also only by the power of Jesus working through us by his spirit that is in us. Paul tells the Colossians at the end of chapter 1 that he works, he toils, he struggles in the faithful service to God that he’s doing with all the energy that is—Christ powerfully works within him. “In Christ” also tells us that our identity is wrapped up in him, our purpose.
Listen, you don’t—I hate cultural Christianity today. You don’t come to church because that’s what you do on Sundays. You are the church because Christ has saved you and redeemed you and united himself with you for a different life. Amen. If you’re only different on Sunday morning when you show up to this building, you’re not in Christ as much as you pretend to be. But when he saves us, our whole identity is wrapped up in him. Our purpose becomes his purpose. Our goals don’t matter anymore; we want his goals. Our ways will become his ways. Our thoughts, we want them to be his thoughts. We want our words to be changed so that they’re more like his words. Church beloved, your whole life, every part of it can and should be defined by these two simple words: in Christ.
In this lifetime there is the “already done” portion of that statement. We are already in Christ. We are already saved in him. We are united in him. And we are becoming more like him, but we’re not there yet. We’re daily striving towards the holiness that is only found in Christ until one day, that last day, we are glorified and Christ will be fully formed in us for all eternity. That’s what we’re waiting for. That’s what we’re pursuing. That’s what we’re going after. And it’s only done in Christ. And in Christ alone. “In Christ alone my hope is found, He is my light, my strength, my song.” We’re going to end there.