Let's take your Bible tonight and come with me to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians and chapter number 1. Let's start again. I'm starting a series. Not a little series. Starting a series entitled, Unsearchable Riches. Unsearchable Riches. And we're going to spend however long it takes on the book of Ephesians. I was talking to another pastor today and he says, well that'll keep you busy for the next number of years. I don't know how long it will take us to get through the book of Ephesians. It is a mighty book. It is a brilliant book. Of course all the Word of God is brilliant. But the book of Ephesians is a particular gem. And we're going to look at it. We're going to delve into it tonight and next week. I'm not going to do it verse by verse. But tonight and next week we will just be looking at verse 1 and verse 2 as we look at the apostle and his epistle. And we're just going to take an introduction and set the book in its context this week and next week. And then the third week, we'll have our night of prayer. And then we'll get back into looking at our Bible study. As was the format last year, we're going to do three weeks of Bible study every month. And then the fourth week, equally as important, is going to be a night of prayer. Please, folks, do not come out for the three weeks and not come out the fourth week. Prayer is equally as important. So the fourth week is not a break, but it's a time when we can come together to pray. specifically in this month. In the last Wednesday of the month we're going to be praying specifically for our missionary work. But tonight it's the apostle and his epistle and we're just going to read the first two verses of Ephesians chapter 1. Verse number 1 it says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord. Jesus Christ. And we're just going to finish there at verse number two. Can I encourage you over this next maybe week or so to read through the entire epistle of Ephesians? It's always good to do that once or twice as we start a Bible study. But as we come to the book of Ephesians, what a great book it is. You know, there has been many literary masterpieces penned in prison throughout history. Masterpieces like Martin Luther's letters from Birmingham jail. That's really his autobiography that he wrote in prison. Marco Polo's travels. Nelson Mandela's autobiography is 27 years in prison. He wrote his life story. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and even Adolf Hitler's Mann Kampf. all masterpieces of literature that have been written in prison cells. But all those pieces of secular literature, no matter how brilliant they have been, are incomparable to Paul's four prison letters. Though he was imprisoned three times, it was during his two Roman imprisonments that God employed the Apostle Paul to pen his famous four prison epistles. They were of course Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians. And all four were written in prison. Four epistles that both detail and define many of the doctrines of our faith. Now, it's always dangerous to pick a favorite, and I'm not going to do that, but certainly among scholars of the four, Paul's epistle to the Ephesians is quite possibly the jewel in the crown of those four epistles. The poet and hymn writer Samuel T. Coleridge said that Ephesians is the divinest composition of a man. William Berkeley, the theologian, calls it the Queen of the Epistles while Ruth Paxson in her book calls it the Grand Canyon of Scripture. You know, I feel a little bit like the Apostle Peter as he stepped out of the boat to go to the Lord where we're stepping out into deep waters as we step out in a study on Ephesians. But it is a deeply rich book. It's a book that is deeply doctrinal and yet at the same time it is immensely practical. Borrowing the words of Peter we could conclude that in Ephesians we find all things that pertain unto life and godliness. If you had no other book in your Bible and you wondered what your faith was about and how to live out your faith, then the book of Ephesians would suffice. But the grandest thing that certainly I find about the book of Ephesians is that through Paul, God gives us a glimpse of the unsearchable riches that are ours in Christ." The word riches is a word that is used throughout the epistle some five times. In fact, it's the book in the New Testament that uses and refers to riches the most, and certainly the epistle of Ephesians gives us a glimpse of the unsearchable riches that are ours as a believer. John MacArthur says Ephesians is the bank of the believer. You know, regardless of the numbers on your bank statement tonight, believers are the richest people upon the earth. We are the richest people upon the earth and yet here's the thing, many of us don't realize that or live in the reality of that fact. We only need to take a cursory glance at verse number three to immediately read that, that as believers, even the poorest of us have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ. Paul speaks about the unsearchable riches of Christ. We have riches that cannot be counted. During the Great Depression, the United States in the early 1930s, a man by the name of Mr. Yates owned a huge piece of land in Texas where he raised sheep. Financial problems had brought him to the brink of bankruptcy, but then all of a sudden an oil company had done some research and they believed there may have been oil on his land. And so they asked Mr. Yates permission to drill on his land. There's nothing to lose, Mr. Yates agreed, and soon, at a shallow depth, the workmen struck the largest oil deposit at that time on the entire North American continent. And quite simply, overnight, Mr. Yates became a billionaire. But you know the amazing thing though is that the untapped riches were there all along. For years he had grazed sheep. For years he had just skimmed the surface. For years he had worked the land but never delved into its depths. He didn't realize the riches that were right beneath his face. And so often as believers, we don't realize just how rich Christ has made us. We're so spiritually rich. You know, here's the thing. It's so very easy in the world we live in, isn't it, to become discontent. It's so very easy to become dissatisfied. So very easy to become disgruntled. It's so very easy even to become disillusioned. The Apostle Paul writing from a prison cell could have become any one of those four things. But here's the thing, and I'm convinced, a Spirit-directed, Spirit-applied study in Ephesians can cure each one of those ills as we open our hearts up and ask God to reveal what is truly ours. in Christ. As God reveals to us what true riches look like, true riches that cannot be counted or measured in material terms. As God shows to us what is truly ours, what he has really granted, what blessing he has fully bestowed upon us. And the lovely thing is it has all come to us in Christ. And soon everything we see around us is going to pass away but the unsearchable riches that are ours in Christ are ours eternally. Now to understand the book. we must understand the background to it and as I mentioned a few nights ago when we looked at Ruth if you're ever going on holidays it's good to look at where you're going do some research look at the area around it as we start a new study it's always good to look at the background to the book and we're going to do that as I've said through the the simple thought of the apostle and his epistle we're going to look at the apostle tonight and we're going to look at the epistle the nuts and bolts of it next week but let's Look at the Apostle and you know it was written of course by the Apostle Paul and we know the Apostle Paul the famous man of God but how much do we really know about him and certainly he was the man behind this masterpiece. The very first word of the epistle tells us that. It says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, in keeping with the custom of the day, the letter opens with the author, and then the audience, and then the accolade. We do it the other way around. We start with the audience, Dear John Smith, and we then give our greeting and the subject of the letter and then we finish with the author, we sign it with our signature. But here the word of God is different. Paul begins as the author, he then speaks about the audience to the saints which are at Ephesus and then he gives them the greeting or the salutation which is very particular to Paul. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now in the minds of almost every believer, my own included, Paul stands as a giant of a man. He stands as a genius of a theologian. If somebody was to ask me of all the New Testament, who is the epitome of godliness, probably most of us would say the Apostle Paul. He is a mighty and was a mighty man of God. And yet here's the thing, as we look at him, that's never how Paul saw himself. never how Paul saw himself. His name Paul was a Roman surname and it meant small or little one. That's what Paul actually means, small or little one. And Paul's name certainly lived up to Paul's nature. That's how he saw himself. He didn't see himself as a theological genius. He didn't see himself as a spiritual giant. He didn't see himself as the epitome of godliness. Rather look at what he says about himself in Ephesians chapter 3 and verse number 8. Let's look at verse number 7 as he considers his calling. He says, Wherefore I was made a minister according to the grace of God, given unto me by the effectual working of his power, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. Is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ? We often refer to Paul as the chiefest of saints and yet he's referred to himself as the chiefest of sinners. You see for the heights of his spirituality Paul remained humble. What a lesson there is even in that. Of course the Apostle Paul didn't start life as Paul. We all know how he started as Saul. Man if you could have got Paul along for a testimony meeting what a meeting it would be. He started life born from the tribe of Benjamin. He was most probably named after it's most famous king of course, King Saul. And what a man he was. If you had a son, you would have wanted him to have been like Saul. He was a model that every mother would have wanted their son to follow. Where was he schooled? He was schooled by Gamaliel, that great teacher of the law, that great father of the rabbis, you could say. Saul went on to become a rabbi. He then became a Pharisee. He was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a socialite. He was a philosopher. He was just one of those guys that could have fitted in anywhere he went. He could have conversed about anything. He was highly intelligent. He was highly cultured. He had so much going for him. In fact, when he writes his own autobiography of what he once was in Philippians 3, he says he was circumcised the 8th day. He was of the stock of Israel. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As touching the law, he was a Pharisee concerning sin. He would persecute the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law. He was blameless. Paul was the complete man. He had it completely together. Of course, as he referred to, he was the infamous persecutor. He was that resolute enemy of Christ, that ruthless adversary of the Christians, so devout was he to the Jewish cause, that he literally caused havoc throughout Jerusalem. How that he plundered the homes of believers. How that he consented to the death of Stephen. How that even on the road to Damascus he was going with the sole purpose and duty of again putting a stop to the work of God. And isn't it amazing what God can do, and it serves to remind us that tonight beyond the reach of God is grace or the gospel. No sinner is too hard for God to save. No sinner is so deeply hardened in their sin that God cannot reach down and save them. What a man Paul was, all until the Lord confronted him, challenged him, and changed him on the Damascus road. You know, if ever a man could sing what a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart, it was Saul. Of course, on that day that he was converted to Christ, he was also commissioned by Christ. Remember how he fell blind for three days? On his knees he said, What wilt thou of me to do? It's a great thing to pray when we're just saved. Lord, thank you for saving me, but what is it you want me to do? Didn't want to be saved to sit on a shelf. Of course, it took three days for the Lord to reveal his will to Paul. He sat for three days in blindness. Then along came that man with one of the hardest tasks, perhaps, in the New Testament to go, Ananias to go and put his arm around Saul, and he says, brother Saul, The Lord says, don't you worry, Ananias, about going to see him. Don't worry about his threatenings. Because in Acts 9 and 15, God said to Ananias, he's a chosen vessel unto me. to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. God had a threefold mission for him, to take his name to the Gentiles, to take his name to kings, and to take his name to the children of Israel. And right through the book of Acts, Paul stood before kings. Paul went to the Gentiles, and of course, Paul had a great burden for the children of Israel. He's a man with a great purpose. And yet for all that, he was a man totally absent of pride. You know how easy it would be when God had changed your life and God had given you this great commission that you're going to turn the world upside down for him, that you're going to make such an impact. You could have walked around like a peacock. And yet for Paul, he was just Paul. For his great purpose, he was a man absent of pride. And look at how he opens this letter. He doesn't open this letter as high-flying Paul. He doesn't say, you know, I'm this, that, or the other. He just says, I'm simply Paul. I'm just simply a sinner saved by grace that God has commissioned. He writes this incredible epistle just as that little one. Isn't it interesting that he doesn't say, as the apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul. He doesn't put that first. He just says, I'm starting right where I am. I'm starting with what I am. I'm just Paul. All boasting was gone. His attitude now was different. His only boasting was in the cross. His attitude now was that of 2 Corinthians 4 and 7 where Paul says, Paul was very, very aware of his own weakness. He never got too big for his boots. That's why R. Kent Hughes says that Paul's smallness became the median for God's bigness. His weakness, a channel for God's power. I wonder tonight, do you put yourself down? I'm not a preacher. I don't understand the depths of scripture. I'm not this. I'm not that. I'm not the other thing. I'm not a platform man. And so the list goes on. The smaller we are, the greater God can work through us. He's not looking us to be mighty. He's not looking us to be fantastic. He's just wanting us to be available. You know, we can't imagine Paul running around boasting that he was the man who wrote Ephesians, setting up tables of book signings and so on. You see, it wasn't about the scribe. It was about the Savior and the great grace he had shown in choosing Paul to be the pen. You know, it serves to remind me that God's word It's never about us. It's always about Him. Whether that's a mission work, whether that's church work, it's never about us, not about our interests. Regardless of the heights of ministry God may take us to, regardless of the feats in ministry that God may permit us to accomplish, as somebody else gave me as a motto, stay low, go slow, and never blow. And that was certainly something that Paul lived out. But now, why Paul was just an ordinary man, he did have extraordinary authority, because he goes on to say, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. Yes, he was an ordinary man, but he did have extraordinary authority. So that the readers would take his message as being from God, he cites his credentials for writing this letter. And he actually writes with a double authority. He writes as an apostle, And he writes as one of Jesus Christ by the will of God. In other words, he writes with the full force of the divine authority of both the Father and the Son behind him. How necessary that is when you're being tasked. with writing such an epistle as in Ephesians. Now, let me just pause at this point as a little side note because there's certainly in today's society perhaps there's much confusion as to what an apostle is. You'll hear people today and they've got apostles in their church. Well, I'm not just so sure. What is an apostle? An apostle simply is a messenger for God commissioned with a message from God. God's mouthpiece on earth used to reveal special revelation. Now, there were only ever 14 proper apostles. There were only ever 14 apostles in the sense that Paul was. There were the 12 disciples, including Judas Iscariot. You'll get that in Matthew 10. And then there was Matthias, of course, Judas Iscariot, he betrayed. And then Matthias was chosen in Acts 1 and 26 to be, to fill his shoes. He was the 13th. And then you have the Apostle Paul, and he was the 14th. Now listen, in terms of the apostles, as we see them in the New Testament, that's where it stopped. There were only 14. It doesn't matter if you go to a church and they've got apostles, they're not apostles as God intended. The apostles quite simply got the church off the ground. What was their main duties? Their main duties were to preach the gospel, teach the saints, work miracles, write the Bible, and lay the foundation of the church. That's what apostles were there to do. In fact, look at Ephesians chapter 2 and verse number 20. Paul sets this certainly for us clearly when he says, If you've ever built a house or seen a house, the foundation is the first thing that's laid, then everything else is built upon it. You don't keep building the foundation over and over again. And so while their ministry was supernatural, their ministry was short-lived. Their impact, their influence ended with that first Pentecostal era. when the church was established. Somebody says to you today that they're an apostle. You ask them at what point they've seen the risen Lord, and that was one of the chief qualifications. So Paul was one of these But they have died out and certainly they were used as the foundation of the church. And certainly Paul was used as one of the great foundations of the church. Of course people like to doubt and to dispute Paul's apostleship which led him to constantly defend it. But of course he was qualified. He had seen the risen Lord. 1 Corinthians 9 and 1 talks about him being born as one out of time and of seeing the risen Lord. Lord, he was very much qualified. Of course, it was the will of God for Paul to be one of these foundation builders, to lay the immovable doctrines of God at the foundation of the church. But I want you to know this. He was Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's not serving the Sanhedrin now. He's not commissioned as a rabbi now. He is the apostle of Christ. Paul counted this a great honor. The highest calling and commission to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. I don't know what you are in terms of your office or whatever. If you're an elder, you're an elder first to Jesus Christ. I'm a pastor first to Jesus Christ. You're a deacon first to Jesus Christ. You're a Sunday school teacher first to Jesus Christ. You see, we're called first for Him and of Him. And certainly Paul, he was able to say, I am an apostle of Jesus Christ. What a high calling. That was a calling that lifted it far above anything earthly. In Ephesians 6 and verse 20, Paul takes it a little bit further, for he goes on to say, if you look at it in Ephesians 6 and verse 20, he says, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. You see, Paul realized that he was called of God to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ. He was called of God and not of man. And therefore, he had a duty to put the interests of God above the favor of man. And that's something that's so difficult to do. In Galatians 1 and 10, Paul himself said, for do I now persuade man or God? Or do I seek to please man? For if I yet please man, I should not be the servant of Christ. You know, that's a lesson. We all do well to learn Paul, his first desire was to please the Lord. He grasped that it was the Lord that called him, and ultimately he was answerable to the Lord, and he only wanted to please the Lord. So easily we can get ourselves into the trap of wanting to please man. of doing things to keep the peace, of putting the interests of God second, of not wanting to ruffle feathers so easily we can even be afraid of men. But of course the fear of man is the snare of the devil. But Paul was not a man pleaser. He was an ambassador for Christ and he sought to please the Lord. But as I say, don't misunderstand what Paul is saying here. As he cites this office, and I've already said this, but it's not a statement of arrogance, but rather it's a statement of authority. There's no vainglory when Paul says he's an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. But it's a statement to catch attention. It's a call to sit up, shut up, and listen up, for Paul was not writing his opinion, but he was writing God's truth. Godly commentator John Stott says, when we approach this great book, we must regard its author neither as a private individual who is ventilating his personal opinions, nor as a gifted but fallible human teacher, nor even as the church's greatest missionary hero. but as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and therefore as a teacher whose authority is precisely the authority of Jesus Christ himself, in whose name and by whose inspiration he writes. Oh, I know that Paul is the human author, but Christ is the divine authority behind this book. Now I want you to see this carefully and look here because he says he's an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. God had a great plan. It was God's will that Paul had this office. But here's the thing, though he was an apostle commissioned by the will of God, Paul was not spared adversity. Rather, he is writing this letter from the confines of Roman prison. Look at Ephesians chapter 3 and verse number 1. Paul says, for this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. He is the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Paul writes this letter most likely during his first imprisonment in Rome. If you turn back to Acts chapter 21 and verse number 33, you'll see Paul being arrested, Acts 21 and verse 33. 21, verse 30, let's start from verse 30 and just a little bit of context. All the city was moved and the people ran together. They took Paul, drew him out of the temple and forthwith the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came on to the chief captain of the band that all Jerusalem was in an uproar, who immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down onto them and went They saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains and demanded who he was and what he had done. And then there was a great multitude who had a great tumult and a great uproar. And essentially Paul had been arrested for the gospel. He had been beaten. He had caused a great uproar in the city. And here he is arrested. He's put in chains and he's led off to rest. Now he's put under house arrest. I don't know if we have a house arrest. I suppose maybe Maccabre is a bit like house arrest. I don't know. But in house arrest there was great freedom certainly during the day. And then at night time so the prisoners wouldn't escape then they were chained. I suppose that is a bit like Maccabre. Paul was on house arrest here, and he was chained at night. And it's during this time that Paul puts his time to good use. But I want you to go back to Ephesians chapter 3, because the key phrase in this is Paul is arrested, he's been beaten, he could have been broken, he could have been discouraged, and he goes to prison. And yet having reflected on all that he has just endured, he says, I, Paul the prisoner, of Jesus Christ. Now, Paul had been arrested by Caesar. He was due to be sentenced by Nero, but he was the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that when you put chapter 3 and verse 1, beside chapter 1 and verse 1, Paul didn't just view his apostleship as being the will of God, but also his hardship. It's so very easy to say, you know, the will of God for my life is to be a pastor. The will of God for me is not to suffer. Paul says, no, no, it's the will of God that's allowed me to be an apostle. But it's also within the will of God for me to be beaten and broken and thrown into prison. That's within the will of God. You see, when Paul gets saved, he surrendered to the complete lordship of Christ. And he said, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Lord, whatever path you take me down, I'm going to be the greatest ambassador I can for you. You know, it takes great grace. to recognize the sovereignty of God in our lives, not when we're at the front serving the Lord, not when we're enjoying being on the mountaintop, but when the Lord permits that same person who stood in a pulpit to be imprisoned or a prison experience some kind of suffering, to say, I'm in this place as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. You know, the hospital bed. can be one of the greatest places for the witness of the gospel. And maybe that's why God takes us to those places for prolonged periods. Of course, the Lord had warned Paul when he called him that he would be a great servant, but he would also experience great suffering in Acts 9 and 16. Again, the Lord said to Ananas, I'm going to show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. He's going to go before kings. He's going to turn their Gentile world upside down. He's going to go to the house of Israel. But here's the thing, on the flip side, it's also my will that he's going to suffer. The thing is, all of us as believers, we suffer. Suffer in various ways. God has reasons for that. I don't have time to get into all that tonight. But the attitude we have As we face adversity, it's massive, it's paramount. The theologian William Barclay used an illustration, he says this. One's point of view makes all the difference in the world. There's a famous story of the days when Sir Christopher Wren was building St. Paul's Cathedral. One occasion he was making a tour of the work in progress. He came upon a man at work and asked him, what are you doing? The man says, I'm cutting this stone to a certain size and shape. He came to a second man and asked him what he was doing. The man said, I'm earning so much money at my work. He came to a third man at work and asked him what he was doing. The man paused for a moment, straightened himself and answered, and he says, I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral. To one man, it was just a job. To another man, it was a means to make money. But to the third man it was a great privilege, as hard as the work was, to be serving a great man in Sir Christopher Wren and building a great building in St. Paul's Cathedral. Barclay says this, He may either grumblingly regard himself as an ill-used creature, or he may radiantly regard himself as the standard bearer of some great cause. Was it pleasant in prison? No. Did Paul enjoy it in prison? Not a chance. But his attitude was, I'm helping Christ build his kingdom. Even if I have to go to the confines of a Roman prison, This is where God has me right now to be his ambassador. Paul didn't let either his circumstances or his chains get in the way of serving his Savior. He submitted to the will of God. And out of such a heart, God brought forth the masterpiece that is Ephesians. One of the Bible's brightest lights was penned in one of society's darkest places. You know, as I thought about that, what are the excuses we sometimes put when it comes to why we don't serve the Lord? Or we're asked to do something and we put up an excuse. Paul didn't let either his circumstances or his chains be an excuse for getting out of what God wanted him to. Imagine if Paul had have went to the prison and just curled up in a ball and felt so sorry for himself, we wouldn't have had. what we have before us today. And so, as Paul sits in Rome, the Lord prompts him to pen a message. And we're gonna finish with this just now. Back in Ephesians 1 and verse 1, Paul is prompted by the Lord to pen a message to two groups of people. He writes, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints, which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, Notice the first thing. He writes to the saints, saints with a small s, okay? The word saints appears throughout the epistle. It's a very important word. It's a word that you and I do well to study, but the book of Ephesians is a word for the living, not the dead. Saints, what are they? They're literally set-apart ones. They're sanctified ones. Here's the thing, every single believer is a saint. You don't need to worry and wait until you die to become a saint. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church and others have canonized people because of their great martyrdom and because of their great endeavors, and they've made them saints. Here's the thing, you and I are saints the minute we're saved. We're set apart, we're sanctified, every believer is a saint and it's not because we are naturally holy but it's because God makes us holy. The word saint refers to our standing not our state, it refers to what God has made us. He has made us a saint. We are saints in this world. As such, we are set apart ones. We're to live those separate sanctified lives in this world. You know, somebody has said a saint is like a boat. I thought this was actually a good illustration, not mine. But a saint is like a boat. The boat's purpose is fulfilled when it is in the water, but its function and usefulness deteriorates when water gets into the boat. And so too for saints, when too much of the world gets into them, they cannot be effective saints in the world. We're sanctified, we're set apart. And Paul writes here to the saints, set apart ones, God's children. Now here's food for thought for you. It says, to the saints which are at Ephesus, the little phrase there at Ephesus, while it appears in our Bible and it appears in many, many of the manuscripts, it doesn't appear in some of the oldest New Testament manuscripts. The New Testament, the translation we have is made up of lots of manuscripts that are compiled and brought together. But the phrase at Ephesus doesn't actually appear in some of the oldest. Now without doubt this letter was read in Ephesus, however it may not have been intended specifically for Ephesus, and the reasons for that are these. Scholars suggest, as you read throughout the epistle, there's no reference to anything local in the letter. You'll not find Paul writing anything specifically relevant to Ephesians. There's no mention of any specific people, no specific places, no specific peculiarities. Rather, the thought is it may have been a circulatory letter that was intended to have been passed around the churches of Asia Minor. You know when you actually, if you could see some of those earliest Greek manuscripts, they actually have Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ to the saints which are at, and then there's actually a blank, there's actually a space in the text. And the idea was that each recipient church would then insert their own name and apply the teaching to themselves. In Colossians 4 and 16 you can look this up another time. Paul references a letter that comes from Laodicea. And it may have been this one in Ephesians. It may have been this Ephesian letter as the Ephesian church finished with it. It would be like us, you know, again receiving a letter. We would finish with it. We would pass it on to Caridoph. And then Caridoph would pass it on, you know, to Cumber and Cumber. And the letter would be circulated. And here's the thing. Yes, there is undoubtedly the letter of Ephesians was read in Ephesus. But there's so much general teaching in it for you and I. Paul goes on, not saying that that phrase is there or wasn't there, I'm just telling you something that might be of interest, but Paul goes on to say, he writes, unto the faithful in Christ Jesus. The word faithful carries two real meanings. It really describes what we are as believing ones, those full of faith in Christ. The word also refers to what we ought to be as believing ones, those fully faithful to Christ. A saint is what we are, and faithful is what we should be. You remember that. A saint is what we are, and faithful is what we should be. But you know, the final three words, and with this we're finished, is a key phrase in the book of Ephesians. He says, to the faithful in Christ Jesus. It's a key phrase referred to many, many times in one form or another throughout the epistle. And if you want a definition for what a true Christian is, what a true saint is, that's what a true saint is. You know, people today, what are you? Well, I'm a Christian. What is a Christian? If you want to know a proper definition of what a Christian is, a Christian is one who is in Christ. We do the children's talk sometimes, and we write out the word Christian, And the word itself gives you what a Christian is. A Christian, there's two eyes in Christian. One eye is in Christ, and the second eye follows Christ. Write it on a bit of paper. And that's a great definition for what a Christian is. But a Christian, a true Christian, a true saint is one who is in Christ. John MacArthur says, a Buddhist does not speak of himself as in Buddha. Nor does a Muslim speak of himself as in Muhammad. A Christian scientist is not in Mary Baker Eddy or a Mormon in Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. They may faithfully follow the teaching and example of those religious leaders, but they are not in them. Only Christians can claim to be in their Lord because they have been made spiritually one. Folks, as we close our meeting tonight, and as we come to prayer, whatever kind of day you've had, whatever kind of week you've had, whatever's going on in your life at the minute, isn't it such a blessing we can say that we're in Christ? Isn't that wonderful? It's a bless your heart to be able to say tonight that whatever else I am, I'm in Christ. I can lose my job, I can lose my home, I can lose my family, I can lose my marriage, I can lose my money, I can lose everything in life. I can never lose my savior, I'm in Christ. And I want to tell you tonight, and you think about this the rest of this week, there is no more serene, no safer, no more secure place than to be in Christ. Yes, we live in the world, but we also live in Christ. You look at that verse number one there. We are at Ephesus, so to speak, but at the same time, we're in Christ Jesus. That is our new spiritual position. It's our permanent, eternal location. Yes, we live in the world, but we're not of the world. We're in two places at the one time. We're in Ephesus. but we're in Christ. That's what makes us different. Therefore, the challenge to keep us going, at least until the weekend, is having Christ in us, and with us being in Christ, we're then called to be faithful. Faithful to his cause, faithful to his church, and faithful to his commission. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God to the saints of Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. the apostle, and we're going to leave it there tonight. Next week we're going to look, God willing, at the epistle. We're going to look at its setting. We're going to look at the subject of it, the structure of it, and then we'll deal with verse 2, the salutation, and that's hopefully how the study will progress next Wednesday night. But may the Lord bless this study, even this first study, to all of our hearts tonight. Number 1 to 6, and we'll stand just before we come to pray. who seeks the love that Jesus...