The Unchained Gospel

This is part 8 of our Ephesians video series. For more info visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

“…that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” – Ephesians 4:22-24

In chapter 4 of Ephesians, Paul begins his descent from the throne room of Heaven to the living room of the everyday Christian. For three chapters he has explained to us where Christ lives so that he can in turn effectively hit us where we live. This section of scripture is about as practical as you could get when it comes to spiritual things.

Once we place our faith in Christ, who is the ultimate fulfiller of the Law, we can sometimes live our life with a “blank check” mentality. It is tempting to think that there are no rules for the Christian because we are not under the law, but under grace. But Paul is quick to curb that attitude by encouraging believers to not continue living the way they did before they learned the truth of the Gospel. Many of us eagerly accept Jesus’ words of forgiveness and grace in His statement to the adulteress woman, “Neither do I condemn you.” But we also need to be reminded of the exhortation that followed, “Go, and sin no more.” Or as other translations render it, “Go and leave your life of sin.”

The thing I find most interesting is that we can sometimes think that God’s holy standard of living has changed now that Jesus has fulfilled the law on our behalf. On the contrary, God still requires holiness from His people, the difference now is that He has provided a way for us to be holy. Jesus didn’t simply take our sins on Himself on the cross, He went a step further by offering us His life. His righteousness. This should not only motivate us, but actually enable us to walk in a way that honors and pleases God.

In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God accomplished what He had spoken by the prophets hundreds of years before, He had given His people a new heart, and placed a new spirit within them. His Holy Spirit. And Paul tells us in Romans that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead gives life to our mortal bodies!

From the moment of our conversion, the Spirit goes to work molding us and shaping us. We are no longer our own. We have been purchased by God with the blood of Jesus. The presence of the Holy Spirit is proof of that. This is something that all Christians wrestle with each day, which is why we are miserable when we try to do things our own way. Our habitual, sinful behavior is now incongruent with our new nature. Our own attempts at behavioral modification will always fall short, which is why the Spirit is the one who needs to do the work. But we do have a part to play – we need to yield to the Spirit’s work.

How do we grieve the Holy Spirit? By not allowing Him to do the work. If we are constantly reverting back to our former conduct, then we are essentially bringing the Spirit of God back into the tomb and confessing that we are still dead to sin. Paul says that when you become a Christian you should no longer walk in your old way of sin because those who do alienate themselves from the life of God. There should be a clear distinction between our new life and our old life. It may be time for a little spiritual spring cleaning. A time to say “Out with the Old, and In with the New.”

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:31-32

This is part 7 of Ephesians video series. It seems to be a most timely message considering our current issues in our society. I hope you will be blessed by it. For more content visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” – Ephesians 4:4-6

As we transition into the second half of Ephesians, Paul wants us to put the truths he expounded on in the first half into perspective. The first three chapters have been very doctrinal; the final three chapters will be very practical. In other words, now that he has told us what God has done for us, he wants us to see what God wants to do through us.

Our role as believers is simply to allow God to use us as His hands and feet to do what He has already enabled us to do. Easier said than done, right? He has called each of us to something specific and significant, and He desires that our calling be lived out cooperatively among all the saints in the body of Christ. We have seen through our study of Ephesians how God desires that all would find their identity in Christ and in Him alone. We are no longer to be identified by the choices we make, the work of our hands, or (gasp!) by the nation we pledge our allegiance to. We are Christ’s and we are one with Him, along with every other true believer in Jesus.

It’s important to note that though there is now no distinction among the saints in regards to our standing in Christ, it does not mean that God wants a bunch of clones running around the church. God celebrates diversity; in fact, the Scripture refers to the manifold wisdom (Eph. 3:10) and grace (1 Pet. 4:10) of God. The word “manifold” in the Greek means “of various colors.” In his 1st epistle, Peter speaks of how God has given everyone specific gifts according to His manifold grace and it is our responsibility to be good stewards over how they are used to edify each other.

The world teaches unity through conformity, which may keep the peace but ultimately it falls short of what God desires for us. This counterfeit, man-made “unity” is achieved by ignoring differences and convincing us that we’re all the same. But our differences, specifically as Christians, are engineered within us by the hand of a multi-faceted, creative God for the betterment of the body of Christ as a whole. Because these differences are from God, the only way we can achieve true unity is by yielding our lives to the Grand Designer of them. His Spirit will reveal our differences, and teach us to love and celebrate them. Not just love in spite of them, which is often the world’s philosophy, but by teaching us to embrace the different quirks and bents of each individual so as to glorify Christ and accomplish the unity that He desires.

We are all a part of His body, and just like any human body each part is different for a reason and has its own role to perform in order for the body to function to its fullest capacity. Perhaps one person has great spiritual vision and would be considered “the eye” in the body of Christ; another person may have an overwhelming love and compassion for others and would represent “the heart.” Me, on the other hand, I would be “the mouth.” Sometimes the “loud-mouth” would be more appropriate, because I love to talk about and communicate the things of God. Unfortunately, many of us live our Christian lives thinking we’re merely “the tonsils” or “the appendix.” We’re a part but not a vital part. We don’t know our exact purpose and therefore we feel like we can be easily removed with no lasting effect on the body.

If that’s you, then ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your understanding so that you may come to the knowledge of Christ, and the integral part that God has prepared for you to play. When each individual member yields to the Holy Spirit, He will use our idiosyncrasies to knit us together under the banner of His Love. Then the world will see our love for one another and the good works God is doing through us and glorify the Father. You see, when we allow God to build His Church, His Way, the Church as a whole is fully able to perform its primary role – to shine as a beacon of faith, hope, and love to a dying world.

“…but, speaking the truth in love, may (we) grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” – Ephesians 4:15-16

Part 6 of our Ephesians video series. www.theunchainedgospel.org

“…He made known to me the mystery… which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel…” – Ephesians 3:3a, 5-6

We all like a good mystery, especially when we are the first person to solve it. Nothing beats the feeling that comes from figuring out the ending to a movie before it happens and spoiling it for everyone. But none of us could dream up a mystery as intricate and intimate as the God of all creation. Paul uses chapter 3 of Ephesians to reveal this mystery, but in order to fully understand this great mystery we need to get into a little history.
In Genesis chapter 12, God called a man named Abram to go to a land that He would show him. No road map, no GPS, just faith in what God had promised. And what was that promise? That God would give him a son and that He would make Abram a great nation- one by which the whole world would be blessed. But God doesn’t work in the way we’d expect. People would say He works in “mysterious ways.” Many years go by, Abram’s name has changed to Abraham, and there is no sign of what God had promised coming to fruition in Abraham’s life. But still God had a plan that He would bring about according to His own timetable, not man’s. Fast-forward a few centuries and we see the birth of Israel as a nation, just as God had promised. Soon after, Israel would ask for a king so that they could be like the other nations. Over time numerous kings rose to power, only to fail as a result of their own sin and idolatry. Through the prophets God spoke of a True King- One that would reign forever. Not just over Israel, but over all the nations, thereby blessing them.
In due time, God would send His Son, Jesus Christ. He came to fulfill all of the promises that God had made to His chosen people. However, as we saw in Ephesians 1, we (the Gentiles) were also chosen, we’ve been adopted into His family. God had planned from before the foundation of the world that the Gentiles would be fellow heirs along with the Jews through belief in His Beloved Son. (Eph. 3:6, 8-12)
Jesus came to the Jews as their promised Messiah but they rejected Him just as the Scriptures prophesied. He was ultimately declared a blasphemer and insurrectionist as His own people chanted for His death. God had predetermined it that way. It is because of that rejection of Jesus as Messiah that the gospel was taken to the Gentiles by Paul, whom God had called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul discusses this in even greater detail in Romans 11, where he says that we are “grafted in among them.”
The new covenant instituted by Jesus’ death and resurrection made it so that all men can gain access to God through Him and Him alone. The sacrifices were no longer needed; Jesus was sacrificed once for all. There was no more need for the priesthood; Jesus became the perfect High Priest. He did not need to first atone for His own sins because He was sinless. The veil of separation was torn apart and now all people can come boldly into the presence of God through Jesus Christ. There is no distinction among God’s children. We are all recipients of Christ’s riches.
This truly is a marvelous mystery! But thanks be to God that He has not kept these things hidden from us, but rather has given us the ability to search them out and experience a life-altering knowledge of them. Let us pray as Paul did- that we may be able to understand this mystery and that our lives would be marked by its revelation.

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—
to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” - Ephesians 3:14, 17b-19

Part 5 of our Ephesians video series. For more info visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

CHRIST, OUR FOUNDATION

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone…” – Ephesians 2:19-20

Now that we have been reconciled to God through Jesus, it is important that we establish a firm foundation. A major part of that foundation is in the understanding that God not only reconciles us back to Himself, but He also brings all people (Jews and Gentiles) together as one in Christ.
As humans we have a tendency to build ourselves on our reputation or our own accomplishments. Our society thrives on building a name for one’s self without the help of anything or anyone. But a foundation that is built on anything but Jesus Christ is destined to crumble to ruin. Jesus Christ must have His rightful place as the Chief Cornerstone in the life of every believer and in the assembly of His people. In order for us to understand this spiritual truth we need to first understand what a cornerstone is. “The cornerstone (or foundation stone) concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.”1Wikipedia definition If Jesus Christ is not first in our lives then we will not grow into a healthy and holy temple. If as a church we are not in agreement on the centrality of Christ then we are unfit for God to meet us by His Spirit in our worship.
There is an internal unraveling that happens when Christ is not paramount. If we are not founded on the Rock and built up by His Spirit, then we will falter when the attacks come, and they will come - attacks from within, and without, the church walls. When dissensions arise, more often than not they are the result of people pursuing their own best interests rather than what’s best for the whole body. It is like a tree that has been attacked with rot and termites from within. Even when the damage is not evident on the outside, all it takes is a strong wind for the entire tree to be uprooted. If Jesus is not our foundation then we can easily be blown about by every wind of doctrine that passes through the church.
When we discuss church growth it is usually in regards to attendance, but I’m not talking about a growth in numbers, I’m talking about growing into a dwelling place for God. Most churches move away from the foundational truth of Jesus Christ in order to fill the seats on Sundays. That type of growth is not lasting and ultimately does more harm than good to the body of Christ. The type of growth that God is interested in comes from digging deep and laying a good foundation of doctrine with Jesus being the cornerstone, but a lot of people would rather teach a shallow Gospel because it’s more accessible and pleasing to the ears. The number of people that say they’re Christians is vast, but how many congregations are a mile wide and only an inch deep? The result is many congregations that are leaning too far to the left (liberalism) or too far to the right (legalism).
Just as Christ made peace between God and man, He is also able to bring peace between all people, but only when we see past the minor differences between denominations and place our foundation on Christ rather than the traditions of men. It is then that we are able to experience the true presence of God in our assembly, because we are founded on His Son.
“…in whom (Jesus Christ) the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” – Ephesians 2:21-22

Part 4 of our Ephesians video series. For more resources visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

CHRIST OUR PEACE

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation…” – Ephesians 2:13-14

Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ, without whom all mankind would be at odds with God for all eternity. He alone bridges the great chasm of separation caused by our sinful rebellion. Because our sin makes us unholy we have been separated from a Holy God. There is a list of requirements that God has put in place in order for us to be deemed holy and perfect. Unfortunately we are incapable to follow that law to the letter. In fact there is an endless archive for each person documenting all of the ways that we have broken God’s law and that record is set in place as judge and jury against us. But now for the good news: there was actually One Man who did perform according to the rules- the GOD-Man, Jesus Christ.
The Word took on flesh so that He could put into motion God’s predetermined plan of redemption. In the likeness of men He came and lived a sinless life. While our natural man is sinfully inclined and whereby cursed, Jesus Christ was without sin yet became a curse for us. In His death on the cross, Jesus took on the sin of the entire world - past, present and future. God then judged that sin with His holy wrath. It pleased God to do this because of what the sin represented. This sin divided; it built a wall around our hearts and blocked our access to the throne of God. God declared war against that great enemy at Golgotha, and then raised the flag of victory three days later by the emptying out of a rich man’s tomb. Jesus was indicted according to the laws that we had broken. He was punished according to the penalty that our sins deserved. Once the wages of sin were paid for in Christ’s blood, God raised His Son from the dead, conquering the enemy of sin and death once and for all. We no longer have to fight for the dark side against God. We have been brought back into fellowship with Him; the fellowship that was broken in the Garden of Eden by man’s decision to put his will ahead of God’s will. All of this was made possible because God loves us, as is demonstrated in Jesus, who reconciled the fallen world back to Himself by being obedient to the point of death according to the will of the Father (2 Cor. 5:18-21, Phil. 2:7-8). We were separated from God because we exalted our will ahead of God’s will. We are reconciled back to God by Jesus submitting His own will unto the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39, John 5:30). Praise the Lord for His amazing love! And for the beauty found in His Word!
You may feel like you are so far from God that He could never accept you. I know that I have felt as if I had outrun the Lord’s love at times. According to the Bible, Jesus removed that which separated us from God when He died on the cross. If we put our faith in Jesus Christ, our Prince of Peace, then we have access to the throne of God (Heb. 4:15-16) because of His shed blood. And because of what He has done for us, we can know with surety that we will never again be separated from God’s love which is in Jesus. (Romans 8:35-39)

“…having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” – Ephesians 2:15-16, 18

Part 3 of our Ephesians video series. For more info visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…” – Ephesians 2:4-5

Have you ever tried to do something good to make up for something you did that was bad? Those of us who have grown up in some sort of religious system have come to adopt this methodology in order to please God. That’s where mere “religion” falls short. “Religion” is man’s attempt to earn God’s favor by completing a set of dos and don’ts. We think that because the wages of our sin is death, then obviously the wages of our good works must be eternal life through salvation, right? WRONG!

You see, the one underlying truth throughout all of Scripture is the fact that God decided to love us regardless of whether we have responded to His love or not. That’s where His grace comes in. God loves us so much that He rewards us according to the work His Son completed on the cross and not according to our own works. How could God lavish such extravagant benefits on one, who up until now had only acknowledged Him with enmity? There is nothing harder to comprehend than the grace of God. It is human nature to want to bring something to the table. We are trained from a very young age to be independent, to carry our own weight if you will. That’s why God’s grace confounds the great minds of this world, while a simple child is somehow able to grasp it. It would have been enough for God to have only shown us mercy by not punishing us according to our sins. Instead He chose to lavish His grace upon us. Neither of which we deserve, which is why we run into trouble.

Because we don’t deserve God’s grace, we take it upon ourselves to try to earn it, or pay God back for it. God’s grace will never be the byproduct of man’s labor. The minute we begin to get our hands in the mix is when we begin to say to Him that His grace is insufficient and therefore, “grace is no longer grace.” (Romans 11:6) If God needed us to make grace work, then it wouldn’t be able to stand on its own and therefore it would not be sufficient to save us while we were His enemies. Because we are enemies of God before we are saved, then we obviously do not play a factor in His grace. God prepared a way for His enemies to become His children. He orchestrated and executed this Master plan from before the foundation of the world so that no one could ever claim that they had something to do with it. The only thing we have to do is accept the free gift of His grace.
There’s another side of grace that Christians seem to misunderstand. Paul addresses it in the book of Romans. People begin to use the grace of God as a license to sin rather than a springboard to holiness. Paul says, “God forbid!” Before God’s grace we were dead in our sin, but now BY God’s grace we are dead TO sin. If God’s grace is able to free us from the power of sin, why would we continue in it? These are truly convicting words even as I type them. It is all by grace because God knows the heart of man. We are proud, insolent people who shook our fists at God in rebellion. This is what makes His grace so unfathomable! We were His enemies, yet He delivered His Son to die for us, by His grace. We were destined for hell because of our sinful nature, yet He made a way for us to saved, by His grace. If only we could grasp the concept of God’s grace, then we would stop our negotiating, stop our sinning, and start living according to the amazing grace by which we have been saved.

“For by grace you have been saved though faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

Part 2 of our devotional series in the book of Ephesians. For additional resources, visit www.theunchainedgospel.org

“Therefore I also… do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him…” – Ephesians 1:15a, 16-17

When we were little children, we were taught to pray with our eyes closed. Probably good advice, since children are so easily distracted by things around them- like the incredibly loud breathing of a sibling, for instance. But how many of us bring that mentality into our adult spiritual life? Are we praying with our spiritual eyes closed? More than that, are we trying to understand God’s Word with blinders on?

I often catch myself skimming the Scriptures, hoping to find a little nugget that can stimulate a thought for the day. A little Chicken Soup for the Soul™ if you will. I often come to God’s Word with a “what have you got for me today” mentality. As if I should be rewarded for simply making the time to read the Bible or pray. “Okay, Bible, you’ve got 15 minutes, show me some magic.” Don’t judge. I know there are other people out there who can relate.

Christians regularly forget the true power to which they have access. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in us and can awaken our spirit to understand the deep things of God. The trouble is, often, that we have our eyes set on other things. There are trivialities stealing our gaze from the Lord. We wonder why the reading of His word seems stale and empty, when we our constantly interrupting our focus, thinking about some to-do list or some self-seeking agenda. Oh how hard it is to put all of ourselves aside and allow our eyes to be opened to God and closed to everything else! It seems nearly impossible in this day and age to shut out the noise and block out all the images grasping for our attention, but it isn’t. Not with the mighty power of God.

We need to be disciplined when we pray and when we read the Scriptures, if we expect God to reveal His truth to us. There is nothing wrong with writing a list of prayer requests to gather our thoughts. I find that writing out my prayers holds my focus and helps me to stay on point. It may also be helpful to keep a journal to write down different things we pick up from reading the scriptures. I often look back to notes that I’ve taken in the past and find real insight that God provided that may not have made total sense at the time. God desires for our eyes to be set on Him, and if we approach Him deliberately with that intention, then He will reward us. So many people want to know God’s will and His calling on their life, but they don’t turn their eyes from distracting things and onto the Lord. They often forget to silence their phones in church. I guess there are other calls that are just as important as the one the Lord has placed on our life. These same people find it hard to follow Jesus’ teachings, but they have no problem “following” their favorite celebrities online.

The truth of God is staring us right in the face. Are we just looking past it? We have access to the Living Word of a Loving Savior in our hands. Are we turning a blind eye to it? As Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus, let us pray the same: that our eyes would be opened to understand God’s calling on our lives, our undeserved inheritance, and His amazing power.

“… the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe…” – Ephesians 1:18-19a