Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20030629.htm

EPHESIANS: GOD'S SURE PLAN FOR INSECURE TIMES
Part IV: Settled Living In View Of God's Great Commitment To Us
(Ephesians 2:1-10 with 4:1-3)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

We learned last Sunday that we can trust God's all-sufficient power that is directed to us to live above anxiety.

Well, since then, a number of events have occurred to reveal that anxiety can often be a CONTINUING challenge to our faith, showing our faith in God as a way of living needs constant nurture:

(a) Immediately following the worship service last Sunday, and in keeping with our message on anxiety, a believer approached me about a need in another Christian to handle pressing anxiety in his life.

(b) Then, Tuesday when I entered my office to begin my week's study on messages, I found Judy Noddin had put a message on my answering machine about her husband, Charlie: his blood count numbers were down, he had a mild infection and was back in the Veterans Hospital in West Haven, Connecticut with his ongoing battle with lymphoma. "Keep us in your prayers! Thank you, bye!" was how she closed her message! Judy and Charlie know what it's like to deal with the threat of anxiety as an ongoing challenge!

(c) After the service last Sunday, another believer spoke with my wife about her concerns regarding the Church's financial situation and the meeting coming up today. As we all know, we have been preparing for this meeting for two weeks, so this lady was sharing her concern about the results of today's meeting.



Well, in view of the fact that the BATTLE over ANXIETY is NOT just a SINGLE EVENT, but sometimes a very CONSTANT one, is there any ENCOURAGEMENT we might have NOW about what concerns us TODAY from the Lord?



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "I know from last week's message God's power is available to HELP us when we face life's worries. Can you ENLARGE on that idea as TODAY I STILL need my FAITH bolstered to that end!"
  1. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers, seeking to ENCOURAGE them to live SETTLED, SELFLESS lives in the face of temptations to be very INSECURE:
    1. Paul had human cause to live in anxiety as he wrote as a prisoner for his Christian faith during his first Roman imprisonment, cf. Eph. 3:1; Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, 1978 ed., "Intro. to . . . Ephesians," p. 1672.
    2. Paul's readers had cause for constant fear relative to Paul's welfare:
      1. When Paul had evangelized at Ephesus, he was met by a stadium riot as the whole city became stirred up about the possible loss of sales in idol images from the Gospel he preached, Acts 19:23-29.
      2. Later, Paul's ship made a stop at Miletus, a port near Ephesus where he met with the Ephesian elders to reveal they would see his face no more due to his future imprisonment and death, Acts 20:25.
      3. This news caused these elders to weep, Acts 20:36-38.
    3. Thus, the history of Paul's ministry with these Ephesians had been full of humanly stressful circumstances, and would have tempted them all toward feeling anxious in view of such stresses.
    4. Nevertheless, WHILE in PRISON and perhaps communicating for the LAST time with his beloved Ephesian converts, Paul urged his readers to SELFLESS and hence SETTLED living, Ephesians 4:1-3:
      1. Paul urged his converts with intensity as a prisoner for his faith to live worthy of the mission to which God had called them, Eph. 4:1.
      2. Specifically, he urged them to live selfless and hence settled lives:
        1. Paul called his converts to live humble, gentle, patient, lives where they were to bear up under the immaturity and faults of each other in God's love, Ephesians 4:2.
        2. Paul called his readers to maintain the unity that God the Holy Spirit had created in them in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4:3.
  2. One reason Paul called for such SELFLESS, SETTLED living rises from his PRIZING the GREAT COMMITMENT God had made to SAVE and EQUIP them to LIVE ABUNDANTLY for Him, 2:1-10:
    1. Paul wrote about his readers to show that apart from God's salvation, they would have experienced God's eternal wrath in hell, Eph. 2:1-3:
      1. Paul noted his readers had once lived according to the world's evil system that is under Satan's influence, that they functioned in total disobedience to the will of an infinitely righteous God, Eph. 2:2.
      2. In this state, they had performed works of the sinful nature that doomed them in themselves for God's eternal wrath, Eph. 2:3.
    2. Yet, because of God's great mercy and love for them even as sinners, He had performed a wonderful eternal salvation for Paul's readers:
      1. Though they had been dead in their sins, Paul's readers had been so loved by a merciful God, that when they trusted in Christ's Gospel (Eph. 2:8), God had made them spiritually ALIVE in CHRIST, positionally placing them on His right hand of honor and power in Christ in heaven, Ephesians 2:1, 4-6.
      2. Because of this spiritual repositioning, Paul's Ephesian readers would one day exist in heaven as God's eternal trophies of His infinite grace and kindness to them, Ephesians 2:7.
      3. [Paul noted such a salvation is based upon God's unmerited favor alone; no human being has any meritorious contribution to make to produce this salvation in Christ, Ephesians 2:8-9!]
      4. On top of it all, God's rich mercy and love then equipped Paul's formerly eternally doomed, pagan readers to live godly lives in works that were meticulously planned and equipped by God for them to do from before the beginning of time, Ephesians 2:10; 1:4!
Application: To end the struggle with continual anxiety, (1) we must first TRUST in Christ for salvation from sin to escape God's eternal wrath of a future, eternal hell, John 3:16. (2) Then, worry DISSOLVES (a) as we come to UNDERSTAND the INFINITE commitment GOD has ALREADY made to us JUST to SAVE us from an eternal hell and EQUIP us to SERVE Him as detailed in Ephesians 2:1-10. (b) Then, ARMED with these truths, we LIVE above worry and meet the needs of other believers with an attitude of humble, gentle, patient forbearance to preserve the unity of the Church body as God wants us to do!

Lesson: In VIEW of the GREAT COMMITMENT that God has ALREADY MADE to us believers in Christ who had been former objects of God's eternal wrath, a commitment revealed in God's marvelously saving and equipping us to SERVE Him with works planned and furnished before TIME began, we can AFFORD to live ABOVE anxiety TODAY; indeed, we can actually AFFORD to bear up SELFLESSLY under the immaturity of fellow believers and preserve the unity God has founded in the Church in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4:1-3.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 I really must tell you of an event that happened on Monday to reveal God's deep commitment of love to you as a Church family!

My wife and I were traveling east on Route 202 by the western edge of the Nepaug Reservoir toward Canton last Monday at 5:45 p.m. where we entered a sudden, severe cloudburst with hail and lightning! That event convinced me to stay faithful to this work regardless what happens even to my salary at today's meeting, and that even if I don't understand it all! Allow me to explain:

The Channel 8 TV weatherman told us Monday's storm had been created by a storm that had left our area earlier that day, but that a long arm of that same system had wound back from the sea and come down into our area. This fact reminded me of a rare storm that came on our Church Wednesday Prayer Meeting on May 10, 2000 when a system had actually backed up from the ocean to form a cloudburst with lightning. At the time, I had been wondering if God was wanting me drastically to change something in my ministry. Yet, that storm had caused a spark to flash in our meeting room, something I quickly knew was God's signal for me to stop considering that change! This conclusion arose from an event in my first pastorate; I had there in 1981 been frightened by a lightning shower when I had given my resignation so as to take another pastorate with a bigger salary! As that move had turned out to be an awful one, and I recall from history how God used lightening to correct Martin Luther's direction, and I had then been teaching out of 1 Timothy 6 against the love of money, I know God had warned me by that storm NOT to change pastorates!

In addition, the western edge of the Nepaug Reservoir has often reminded me of a picture on our living room wall with the verse telling us to trust in the Lord and not our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). When the cloudburst hit us on Monday at that spot, I could not help but thinking of that Proverbs passage and its application to today's meeting! So, God wants me to stay committed here, particularly if the meeting affects my salary, and even if I don't understand it all!

I just thought you'd like to know how committed GOD is to YOU as a Church! He loves you enough to have given me a "shock treatment" on Monday to keep YOU SETTLED TODAY!

So, DON'T be ANXIOUS -- your GOD is on YOUR side!