Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, 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. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with our pastor and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. The church in the first century city of Ephesus bears surprising resemblance to our churches today.
These young believers really struggled to grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus while surrounded by a pagan world. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares how the book of Ephesians can teach us to live for Jesus in a godless culture. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? David and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. If you missed yesterday's program because of the holiday, you wouldn't know that we're embarking on a brand new study of the book of Ephesians. This is Paul's New Testament letter to a fledgling church in Ephesus. They were excited about following Jesus, but the pressures of the pagan culture they lived in threatened to crush their enthusiasm.
And so Paul gave them some wise counsel that applies directly to Jesus. I'm calling this series Holy Living in an Unholy World. And to help you get the most out of this practical series, I've written a book for you. It's brand new and it's called Holy Living in an Unholy World.
We live in a cynical world that's infected by sin. In my new book, I'll show you how God's wisdom will protect you and strengthen you against the forces that are working against us in today's world. Let me send you a copy to your home right away. It's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. And then, coming this May, I want you to join me on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise. On this once-in-a-lifetime vacation experience, one of our stops will be to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, where I'll get to show you the sites where Paul conducted his ministry to the young Christian church. Please take a look at the magnificent itinerary for this fabulous trip.
The dates are May 5th through 16th, and you can reserve your spot today by going to ptv.org. Now, we're going to say more about my brand new book and other resources later in today's program, but it's time to open our Bibles to the New Testament letter to the church at Ephesus. I titled the first message in this series, Holy Living in an Unholy World.
Now, today, for the few minutes we have, I want to do three things. First of all, we're going to look at an overview of the book of Ephesians, specifically the background of this book, which is key to understanding what it's all about and what it means to us. Secondly, we're going to briefly survey the book.
I call it Preview of Coming Attractions, just some of the things we're going to discover in the book of Ephesians. And then finally, in a few minutes, I want to close with two practical applications from the book of Ephesians. First of all, let's look at an overview of the book.
First of all, look at the author who wrote it. Well, Paul identifies himself in verse 1. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.
Now, notice who he wrote this letter to, to whom he wrote this letter to the audience. It's found in verse 2. To the saints who are at Ephesus. Let me just say a word about the city of Ephesus itself. It's modern-day Turkey, where it's located.
It's the western part of Asia Minor. It was a great city of commerce and very prosperous. But there are two things Ephesus was known for.
First of all, it had a large amphitheater, open-air amphitheater with about 25,000 seats. But the city's greatest claim to fame, secondly, was the temple to Artemis, or as the Romans called her, Diana. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
It was a temple that was four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens. And Paul came back in the third missionary journey, and he ended up spending two years preaching the gospel. 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. 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 the 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 Praetorian guards to even members of Caesar's own household, all because of Paul's imprisonment. While he was there, he wrote these letters. We called them the prison epistles. Sometimes he wrote with his own hands.
Sometimes he dictated to an amanuensis, a 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 Colossae. 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 true of 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 Martin 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.
Remember what I said at the luncheon last Sunday? 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 fellowship 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 leaders, in your listeners. That's why it's important that we have a balance between doctrine and application.
You see that with Paul. In chapters one through three, he talks about the great doctrines of the faith. In four through six, it's about duty. Or another way of looking at it, chapters one through three, our wealth in Christ. Chapters four through six, 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 through three, 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 four, verse one. 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 three.
In the next two 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 one. 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. Next week, we're going to begin looking at the subject of predestination. I titled 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 two. 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. We'll talk about the relationship between faith, works, and grace in Ephesians two. Then Ephesians three, the emphasis is on the unity of believers in Jesus Christ.
We are unified in the body of Christ. Then chapter four, 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. Then chapters five and six are about relationships, how our faith ought to impact our most important relationships. Then beginning in Ephesians six, beginning with verse 10, Paul gives us a word about spiritual warfare. Finally, be strong in the Lord and 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. He has a scheme, a plan to take us down, to destroy us, but that plan will not succeed. Now look at what is happening with Israel. This is ultimately not a human struggle.
It is a spiritual struggle against the forces of darkness. You see, God said, I'm going to create a people, the Jewish people, and they're going to be an object lesson, a human object lesson of divine truth. It's through Israel that I'm going to display my power. It is through Israel I'm going to display my loving kindness. It's through Israel that I'm going to display my sovereignty, and I'm going to make this promise because they are my people. They will endure forever. Do you realize Israel is the only nation in the world that has the promise of endurance? God hadn't given that promise to the United States. We are not going to endure forever.
Hate to tell some of you that, but you need to know it. We are going to fall at some point. Doesn't mean we become lackadaisical. Doesn't mean we don't push back, but America is going to fall. Only Israel, believing Israel, has the promise of endurance, and Satan says, well, let's just see about that. The reason Satan has his sights set on Israel is if he can destroy Israel, he can prove that God's incapable of keeping his promises. So from the very beginning, Satan has done everything he can to destroy and annihilate Israel. He's done it through human leaders like Pharaoh, like Antiochus Epiphanes, like Herod, like ultimately the Antichrist. The Antichrist is the world leader who will unleash the greatest persecution Israel has never known. But the Antichrist will not succeed because Jesus Christ is going to return. And Jesus Christ will have the final say in Israel, believing Israel will come to fulfill and receive the promises God has for her. But right now, what we're witnessing in Israel is a spiritual evil. It is Satan himself who is empowering Hamas and the Iranian rulers to try to wipe Israel from the land.
But they will not succeed in their effort. That's the promise of God. We face the same kind of struggle in our life as well. Now, what are the practical principles that emerge 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 Page 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 if the storms are 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 his letters.
27 of those times are in the book of Ephesians. What does it mean to be in Christ? It 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. 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 were to 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.
Do 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 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. Well, I hope that today's message has inspired you to walk worthy of your calling.
I'm renewed in my commitment to do so and I hope you'll join me. Earlier you heard me refer to a brand new book I've written to coincide with this study of Ephesians. Like the series, I've titled my book, Holy Living in an Unholy World. The first few chapters in my book deal with our spiritual wealth from Jesus Christ. That is, the treasure trove of blessings we have as believers in Christ. The second part of the book deals with our spiritual walk. It answers the pressing question, how are we to navigate through the darkness of today's world?
And how do we remain strong and true? This is a highly practical book. It's uncanny how this first century letter from Paul feels like one that could have been written about today's world.
Ephesus was a prosperous city with all the temptations afforded by wealth. And Paul helped his friends in this time period and every generation thereafter understand how to remain holy in an unholy world. Ask for a copy when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. You'll be among the first to own it because my book, Holy Living in an Unholy World, is brand new. Now in closing, let me say a word of thanks for your generous gifts to Pathway to Victory. I'm pleased to report that our ministry has gained more and more territory, reaching more and more people because of the voluntary gifts from friends like you.
Honestly, I couldn't do this work without you. Together we are piercing the darkness with the light of God's word. David. Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you the brand new book by Dr. Robert Jeffress, Holy Living in an Unholy World. To request your copy, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. Now when you give $75 or more, we'll also send you all 19 messages from the brand new Holy Living in an Unholy World teaching series.
These messages come on both DVD video and MP3 format audio disc, along with the companion study guide. Again, call 866-999-2965 or go to ptv.org. If you'd prefer to send your donation by mail, write to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
That's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. For centuries, Christians have debated the complex doctrine of predestination. How can we reconcile God's sovereign choice with human free will? Join us for the message, The Mystery and the Blessing of Predestination. That's Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
