Identity, 1/06/2019

Pastor Pete Hartwig

Sermon Notes

Identity – Ephesians Overview

 

Hoyle’s baby Logan

 

Resolutions: What you have resolved says something about you, how you see yourself and your perceived place in this world.

 

A book of the bible/ Letter

 

Who wrote it?  Who is it written to?  Why was it written? What can we learn?

 

Who is the Apostle Paul?

 

Philippians 3:8 If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

 

Saul to Paul

Acts 13:9  Then Saul, who was also called Paul…

 

Acts 7: 57-58 at this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

 

8:1  And Saul approved of their killing him. He held their coats.

The Church Persecuted and Scattered

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 

 

SLIDE: But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Acts 8:3

 

SLIDE: Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  Acts 9:1

 

Read Acts 9:1-10

 

“Apostle Paul” Firsthand experience with Jesus and a commissioning from him!

1 Corinthians 15:8-10. last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.

 

SLIDE: Who are the Ephesians?

 

Ephesus: Wealthy, cultic, prosperous, Idolatrous

 

Acts 19 Paul plants the church in Ephesus.

The goddess Artemis Riot.

 

 

SLIDE: Paul’s purpose for writing the letter

 

That followers of Jesus would understand who they are in Christ!

 

SLIDE: Identity

 

Jewish Prayers…

 

BIG SLIDE:

Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

 

The Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

 

The eyes of your heart

 

hope, inheritance, great power

 

 

“great power” – to blow up stuff.  To get more and more and more power.

 

What the power if for?

 

BIG SLIDE:

BIG EPHESIANS 3:17-19 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

 

Why? So you know who you are.  Identity

 

I WAS SO GONGESTED I COULD HARDLY TASTE IT

DRUG WARNINGS – the stuff that heals can also harm

 

SLIDE: Why Paul’s letter to the Ephesians?

 

‘life is just a dirty trick. A short trip from nothingness to nothingness. There is no remedy for anything in life, man’s destiny in the universe is like a colony of ants living on the end of a burning log” Ernest Hemmingway