Robert Jeffress - Holy Living In An Unholy World - Part 2
Hi, I'm Robert Jeffress, and welcome again to "Pathway to Victory". After Christ's death and resurrection, the apostle Paul set out to spread the gospel around the world. One missionary journey brought him to Ephesus. And the church he established there began to flourish, but as these fledgling believers sought to grow in their faith the pressures of a pagan culture threatened to snuff it out. Today we're going to study Paul's wise counsel to the church at Ephesus. My message is titled "Holy Living in an Unholy World" on today's edition of Pathway to Victory.
Now, he went to Ephesus. He would come back on his third missionary journey. Let me just say a word about the city of Ephesus itself. The big industry in Ephesus was making these little figurines, silver figurines of the Goddess Diana for people who would come to Ephesus, and they would hold on to them and pray to them and so forth. So that was their livelihood. So Demetrius gathers them together with the workmen and said, "Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that Gods made with hands are no Gods at all". "He's hurting our bottom line. We're about to go bankrupt because of this man Paul preaching that Artemis is not real".
Verse 27, "'not only is there a danger that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute but also that the temple of the great Goddess Artemis is regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will be dethroned from her magnificence'. And when the people heard this, they were filled with rage and they began crying out, saying, 'great is Artemis of the Ephesians'. And the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater," that's the amphitheater I was telling you about, "And they dragged along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia".
They would have loved to have had Paul come in there too. Paul wanted to come, but his associates said, "You'll get killed if you do, and God's got other things for you to do". So under protest, he stayed away, but they took his associates in there. And now notice what happened. Verse 35, "After quieting the crowd, the town clerk said, 'men of Ephesus, what man is there after all who does not know that the city of Ephesus is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and the image which fell down from heaven? So since these are undeniable facts, keep calm and do nothing rash'". "This little thing called Christianity, it's going to burn out soon. We've got the great temple of Artemis. It will stand forever".
I love to preach in front of the ruins of the temple of Artemis. They're there. I always read this passage. I said look at the temple of Artemis today. Hardly anything left of it. Does anybody even know in today's world who Artemis is? You would be hard-pressed to find one person in the world who said, "I am a follower of Diana". They're all gone. Nobody is meeting on Sunday mornings around the world to worship Diana. It's gone. You can't find a follower of Diana after 2,000 years, but there are hundreds of millions of followers of Jesus Christ the Son of God 2,000 years later. The church is stronger today than it's ever been in history. That is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That was Paul's experience in Ephesus.
Now, let me just say a word about this epistle to the church at Ephesus. Paul left there after two years. He ended up in Jerusalem where he was arrested and he was taken to Rome for his trial and he was imprisoned in Rome. Now, there are two imprisonments of Paul, I believe. The first imprisonment was in an apartment. He had rented quarters that he paid for. He was under house arrest, so to speak. It was from there that he was able to write some of the pastoral epistles like Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians, but even though he was under house arrest, he was chained to a different Roman guard every eight hours. And these guards were special guards. They were members of the praetorium, a special unit that guarded Caesar.
And remember, just think about it. Paul was chained to a different guard every eight hours. What do you think they talked about? I guarantee you they didn't talk about the weather, they didn't talk about the stock market, they didn't talk about the outcome of latest chariot races. Paul used that opportunity with a captive audience to share the gospel, and that's why he said in his letter to the Philippians, "I want you to know, brethren, that my imprisonment has turned out for the advancement of the gospel, for even those of Caesar's household are hearing the gospel".
That is, the gospel was taken from the praetorium guards to even members of Caesar's own household all because of Paul's imprisonment. While he was there, he wrote these letters. We call them the prison epistles. Sometimes he wrote with his own hand, sometimes he dictated to an amanuensis or secretary, but he wrote those epistles, and he was visited by people. Epaphroditus came from Philippi, and Paul sent back the letter to the Philippians with him. Another runaway slave named Onesimus met Paul in Rome, was converted, and Paul sent a letter and told him to go back to his owner Philemon.
And Paul had a word to Philemon about how he was to relate to Onesimus. And then there was a man named Tychicus. Sounds like I've got a stutter, doesn't it? Tychicus. He was a leader from colossi. And Paul sent back with him the letter to the Colossians and the letters to the church at Ephesus as well. Now, let me just say a word, an outline of the book, the way it's laid out, the book of Ephesians. You know, some books are almost all doctrine with some application. That's true of Romans. Romans has 11 chapters of doctrine, and then starting in chapter 12, five chapters of practical application. Some books of the Bible are totally application with no doctrine. That's through the Book of Proverbs.
The Book of Proverbs is great for how to live life in this life, but you'll never find anything in it about how to get to heaven when you die. It's all about life in this world. But what I love about Ephesians is there is a perfect balance between doctrine and application. It's laid out perfectly. The first three chapters have to do with doctrine. The second three chapters have to do with application.
I just finished reading the biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of the great British pastors of all time. He said something that I could resonate with. He said, "I spend half my time telling my people why they need to study doctrine and I spend the other half of my time telling them why doctrine's not enough. The fact is you need both doctrine and application". God did not give us the Bible to make us smarter sinners. That wasn't the purpose of the Bible. It wasn't to increase our level of knowledge but our level of obedience.
I know there are many pastors, many small group leaders, Sunday school teachers who watch "Pathway to Victory". Let me just say a word to you, as well as to our own church here. If you're in a position of teaching God's word, remember content without application is spiritual abortion. Let me explain what I mean by that. If you teach a great doctrine of the faith or you teach a great passage from scripture and never answer the so-what question, you've missed the point. As teachers, we have to help people make that application. In light of this great doctrinal truth we've learned today, what difference should this passage make in the way we live, in our commitment and followship of God?
If you as a pastor or teacher don't apply the truth that you've just taught, you've stopped the teaching prematurely. You haven't allowed it to go full term to produce the spiritual life it needs to in your listeners. And that's why it's important that we have a balance between doctrine and application. You see that with Paul. In chapters 1 through 3, he talks about the great doctrines of the faith. In 4 through 6, it's about duty. Or another way of looking at it, chapters 1 to 3, our wealth in Christ, chapters 4 to 6, our walk with Christ. The first half of the book is about belief. The second half of the book is about behavior. The first half of the book deals with precepts. The second half of the book with practice.
In Ephesians 1:3 you've got the key verse for the first three chapters. "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ". But then the great pivot takes place in chapter 4, verse 1. "Therefore i, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called". That's an outline of the book of Ephesians. Let me just briefly say a word about the survey of the book, some of the things we're going to look at.
Beginning next week we're going to start with chapter 3, in the next 2 weeks go to chapter 14. These are great doctrinal truths about predestination, election, God choosing us. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who because of his love has predestined us according to the kind intention of his will. People are saying right now, "Pastor, do you believe in predestination? Are you one of those"? Of course, I believe in predestination. You can't believe the Bible and not believe in predestination. It's right there in chapter 1. God predestined us. He elected us. He chose us.
Well, what about free will? What about belief? The Bible also talks about that as well. And next week we're going to begin looking at the subject of predestination. I title the message "The mystery and the blessing of predestination". It's a mystery, no doubt about it, but it's also a blessing to every one of us. God has chosen us, and that has great implications. But nobody who is chosen can be saved apart from personal faith in Christ. That's what you see in Ephesians chapter 2. One of his blessings is grace.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith", there has to be a personal exercise of faith. We're not saved by faith, we're saved by God's grace, but we receive it through faith, and that not of ourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. And we'll talk about the relationship between faith works and grace in Ephesians 2. And then Ephesians 3, the emphasis is on the unity of believers in Jesus Christ. We are unified in the body of Christ. And then chapter 4, as we get into application, Paul is going to talk about spiritual gifts, he's going to talk about the purpose of the church is for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.
And then chapters 5 and 6 are about relationships, how our faith ought to impact our most important relationships. And then beginning in Ephesians 6 beginning with verse 10, Paul gives us a word about spiritual warfare. "Finally, be strong in the Lord, in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand firm against the schemes of the devil". Now, get this. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places".
Our death struggle we're involved in is not with our mate, it's not with our children, it's not with our employer. Our ultimate enemy is satan himself, and he has a scheme, a plan to take us down, to destroy us, but that plan will not succeed. Now, what are the practical principles that emerged from the introduction to the book of Ephesians? I want to leave you with two quick truths. And this is the application part, and I hope you find it to be encouraging. Number one, every Christian lives in the world. Every Christian lives in the world. This letter is not addressed to the Christians who are in heaven. It's to the Christians who are in Ephesus. Paul could be saying today to the Christians who live in Dallas we live in the world, not in heaven yet, which means we shouldn't be surprised when problems come into our life.
In January of 2002, our pastor of 50 years, Dr. Criswell, went to heaven. Many of you were here for his memorial service in the historic sanctuary. I was pastoring in Wichita Falls at the time, but I was able to be a part of that program and join Dr. Brunson and Dr. Hawkins and Dr. Patterson in speaking at Dr. Criswell's service. And I always remember something Dr. Patterson said in his remarks. He was president of the Criswell college at this particular time he was talking about, and he was upset about something that was going on and he went in to see Dr. Criswell and he said Dr. Criswell looked at him and said, "Lad, I can see that you're down. You're upset. What's wrong"?
And Paige said he decided to have a little pity party for himself right there in Dr. Criswell's office and told him all the horrible things that were going on. Dr. Criswell listened empathetically and said, "Lad, remember this. As long as you live in this world, you're going to be in a storm of some kind, but if you are in the will of God, you're safe from the storm". What a wise word. We as Christians don't need to be surprised at the storms. They're part and parcel of living in a sin-infected world. "In this world," Jesus said, "You will have tribulation, you're going to have pressure, problems, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world".
Every Christian lives in the world, but every Christian also lives in Christ. I told you Paul loved that word, that phrase in Christ. He uses it 164 times in these letters. Twenty-seven of those times are in the book of Ephesians. What does it mean to be "In Christ"? Means this. If we are in Christ, because of our relationship to him, we are as close to the heart of God as God's own son Jesus Christ because we are in Christ. It means that God has the same attitude about us that he has about his own son when he said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased".
God loves you just like he loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and that means you are therefore safe from anything or anyone in the world. In his commentary on Ephesians, Dr. Criswell uses the illustration of being on an ocean liner out in the middle of the pacific ocean. You're surrounded by hundreds of thousands of square miles of water, but you don't have to worry about the sharks, you don't have to worry about drowning as long as you are in the ship because when you are in the ship, you are safe. So it is with our faith in Jesus Christ.
I remember some time ago a woman called me on the phone. She said, "Pastor, I was saved when I was a little girl, but I've wandered away from God and I really feel like I am demon-possessed right now, and that if I were to die right now, I would go to hell". So I said, "I want to ask you two questions. Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God"? She said, "Yes, I do". I said, "If you were to stand before God and he would ask you, 'why should I let you into heaven,' what would you say"? I'd say, "Because I trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins". I said, "If that's true, if you believe the Bible and if you are in Christ, listen to what Jesus himself said about you in John 10". "I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. No man shall snatch out of my hands, those whom the father has given me".
You are safe because you are in Christ. Isn't that a great truth? Yes, we have problems, but we are safe when we are in Christ. All the riches that Jesus Christ has will one day be our inheritance. We have some of that inheritance right now, but most of it is reserved in heaven for us and awaits us when we see Jesus one day. And that knowledge of who we are as Christians in Christ and what we will become and receive one day ought to guide everything we do right now.
When Victoria grew up in 19th-century England, no one told her for a long while that she was destined to become the queen of England. After all, what little girl could handle that kind of truth? But the day came when a teacher revealed to her her future, that she was going to be not only the queen of England but the ruler over the British empire.
You know how she responded as a little girl? Her words were, "Then I will be good". And from that point till the day she died, everything she did was filled with that knowledge of who she was and who she would become right, one day. And that's what Paul is saying to us. The fact that we are in Christ and one day we're going to inherit everything that Jesus has, that knowledge should control what we do, how we act today. "Therefore I urge you," Paul said, "To walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called". That is the message of the book of Ephesians.