Ephesians (Program #4) – Predestinated Unto Sonship

When we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior, is it because we choose Him or because He has chosen us?  Well, on one hand, we need to make a decision to receive Him but the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 1, “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love,” The first blessing in the New Testament is God’s choosing, His selection of us.

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Ephesians (Program #3) – Chosen to be Holy

Let me ask you to consider a simple question, “How has God blessed you?” Most people when asked to recount the many blessings that they received from God would likely list things like their family or their good health or maybe success in business and earthly possessions. Others might give a more spiritual answer like ‘God has blessed me with His enduring mercy or undying love’. But the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians says very clearly that God’s blessings are all spiritual and they’re in the heavenlies and they’re in Christ. Furthermore, when he had the opportunity to offer his blessing to God, it was not for His mercy that endures forever or for His love or grace, rather it was being the God and Father of our Lord and Jesus Christ. Well this is how Ephesians opens – it is most unusual to say the least but it also conveys a wonderful sense of the rich and profound content of this book.

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Ephesians (Program #2) – Three Aspects of Well Speaking

Of all that God possesses and does on the earth, the single most important thing to Him is the church. In fact, the church is the unique subject and perhaps the highest book in the New Testament Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. But if you were asked, “what is the church?” How would you answer? Well that is what we want to see today – “What is the church?” not from our perspective but from God’s perspective.

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Ephesians (Program #1) – Introductory Word to the Book of Ephesians (1)

Many books in the New Testament deal with practical issues associated with sinful fallen man with his struggle with problems, failures and difficulties. These books are written from the perspective or point of view of the sinner. One book in the New Testament however, uniquely takes God’s perspective, God’s view – and that book is Ephesians. Because of this very fact, many scholars consider this book to be the highest of all in Scripture. What this book reveals primarily is the church – the church not as an organization, a society or a school but as the center and focus of God’s eternal purpose. God desires us to see the church and to value the church as He does. But in order to do so, we need to climb up to that same vantage point and view the church from the heavenlies as God does.

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2 Corinthians (Program #40) – The Minister’s of the New Covenant (13)

2 Corinthians chapter seven is very unique in the New Testament. It’s hard to find even a thread of teaching or doctrine in this chapter. But rather we are allowed into Paul’s heart to touch the deep and intimate feelings that he has regarding the believers in Corinth.

7: 3…”you are in our hearts...”
7:4… “I am filled with comfort, I overflow with joy in all our affliction.”

This is the apostle, fully restoring and fully reconciling those whom he had previously rebuke for their many failures and sins in his first epistle to the Corinthian church.

Although we may only see his tender emotional feelings been expressed here. Under all is his strong desire for the church in Corinth even all the believers and the entire body of Christ to be brought up to the standard that he revealed in another of his epistle, Ephesians. Ephesians 4:16

16 “..all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”

To see this link between 2 Corinthians 7 and God’s eternal purpose in Ephesians is rare glimpse into the depth of the riches in God’s word.

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Revelation (Program #46) – The Correspondence Between Revelation and Ephesians

“Be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man..” and “Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil..” These verses are from the book of Ephesians, and give us a practical way to become the man-child, the overcomers, the stronger part among God’s people.

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2 Peter (Program #2) – The Divine Provision (2)

Peter begins his second epistle with the matter of faith. In fact he addresses the epistle “to those who have been allotted faith”. Faith is an mysterious thing and often misunderstood by believers and unbelievers alike. Many people may be even most people think that faith is something that we need to some how produce or find in order to believe. But according to Peter, faith is something allotted to us. The apostle Paul made a similar point in Ephesians, “for by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourself it is the gift of God.”

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Colossians (Program #24) – Christ-The Constitution of the New Man

Paul the Apostle often repeats a thought if not the exact phrasing of the important truths that he opens up in his ministry. For example, both Ephesians and Colossians tell us that we must put on the new man. While we may think we understand his imperative, “to put on the new man”, but then again as often as the case when our understanding has become full and our view adjusted by the light of God’s Word, what we think and what the Bible reveals are often not that similar. I believe that such will be the case today for many in our listening audience as we come back to Colossians.

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Ephesians (Program #75)-Various Aspects of the Church

Through out the ages, many commentaries had touch the book of Ephesians. It’s an Epistle unlike any other in the Bible for it takes the heavens as its’ view point to unveil the Church, God’s eternal purpose.

Many agreed that this book is the highest revelation in the New Testament regarding God’s eternal purpose.  Listen Paul’s word again in Chapter 3.  “That by revelation the mystery was made known to me, …….. the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit, that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel.”

Yes, this is the book of the mystery of Christ hidden but now been made known. For this Paul consider himself a prisoner of Christ with the high calling to enlighten all, he says, “that they may see what the economy of the mystery is which through out the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things. In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the Church according to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This revelation is still been unveil in this age in which we live. And it is been the goal of this long life-study that we conclude today with our 75th program on the book of Ephesians.

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