Wake Up 1

Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

0 ratings

· 2 views

Notes

Transcript

Intro:

When we begin a new book, we generally spend some good time in the beginning night talking about the intro of the Book. We want to answer the questions of Who was the author? Who was writing it? What was the Surrounding circumstance? The theme of the letter.

Let me give you an example of why this is important.

THAT GIRL IS BAD

Who was the book of Ephesians written to?

Most likely not to ephesus

Circular Letter in Asia Minor

The book of Revelation speaks of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

Very Large Pagan community. Many temples

Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord ().

Who wrote the book of Ephesians

There are some in recent centuries that have questioned this but it is based on a bad form textual criticism.

Divinely apponted

by the will of God

Heavenly realms

now not yet

The theme of Ephesians

Know who you are in Christ

Scientists know that ducks tend to imprint soon after birth. To “imprint” means that they attach themselves to the first thing they see after they hatch, thinking they are “that” thing. This is supposed to work for the duck, since, when they hatch, the first thing they normally see is a mama duck.

This phenomenon backfires, occasionally. Once, for example, a duckling was hatched under the watchful eye of a motherly collie dog. The baby duck took one look at the collie and decided that the dog was its mother. It followed the collie around, ran to it for protection, and slept with it at night. It spent the hot part of the day under the front porch with the collie. When a car pulled into the driveway, along with the dog, the duck would run out from under the front porch quacking viciously, trying to peck the tires.

Some things could not be changed, however. The duck still quacked, enjoyed the water, and flapped its wings. Sometimes it acted like a duck, and sometimes it acted like a dog.

Christians often experience a similar confusion in identity. We have been born into and grown up in a fallen world, so we have learned the ways of the world. We have become like it. When we become a Christian, we are in Christ. We die to the world and are born again, so that, spiritually, we are no longer who we once were (). Too often, however, we don’t see ourselves correctly. We act like the thing we think we are, rather than what we really are. We believe and try to do the right things; but for the life of us, we cannot get it exactly right. When we least expect it, a car pulls into the driveway of our life; and we explode from underneath the front porch, quacking viciously and pecking at the tires.

Who are we? We aren’t supposed to do that. We’re supposed to be swimming around in clear blue lakes, bobbing for seaweed, preening our feathers, and laying eggs—not quacking at cars or harassing the cat.