Living Hope

Philip Miller: Have you ever wondered what it would take for the undying life of God to be planted deeply within you, to take root and to sprout and flourish and branch out into abundant living? And once it’s begun, to know that it will never stop.

Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I’m Larry McCarthy, and in today’s program, we’re beginning a new series in one of my favorite books of the Bible, Ephesians. Talk about living hope. What a hope we have that the transforming power of the gospel brings new life.

Pastor Philip, what would you say to someone who says, "Yes, I’m in. Yes, I want this abundant life, but is it really actually possible? It all sounds just too good to be true."

Philip Miller: Pastor Larry, it does sound a little too good to be true. We all want abundant life. We all dream of what it might be to be whole and alive. And there are so many used car salesmen out there telling us, "Buy this, get this, and you’ll be happy." So we’re naturally skeptical, I think.

But the key here is there’s a track record with the gospel. There are real changed lives, the power of testimony. When we see the Ephesian Church, we’re watching real people in a real place in real time whose lives have been utterly transformed by the gospel. And if it can happen to them, it can happen to us as well.

Larry McCarthy: Oh, I’m excited. So let’s go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church where we discover what it means to be alive in Christ.

Philip Miller: I was on a hike a few years ago when I saw this peculiar thing. There was an old dead stump that was decaying and crumbling away, and from the death in the very center of this was growing a brand-new tree. And somehow, into all that death, a little seed had fallen and had taken root and had sprouted and come to life and had taken over the place.

I thought to myself, what a beautiful picture of the life of Christ in us. Into all the decay and deadness and rot of our lives, the seed of the gospel has fallen in and taken root, and the divine life of God has come alive inside of us and is sprouting and growing and taking over everything.

We’re now beginning a new series today in Ephesians, and the letter that Paul writes to the Ephesian Church is all about what it means to be alive in Christ. If you’ve ever wondered what it would take to come truly alive, this is a great book for you. Have you ever wondered what it would take for the undying life of God to be planted deeply within you, to take root and to sprout and flourish and branch out into abundant living?

And once it’s begun, to know that it will never stop? It will go ever deeper, ever higher, ever wider, ever greener, all the days of your life, and then forevermore. Because friends, to be alive in Jesus Christ is to be abundantly alive forever. Amen? Amen.

So grab your Bibles. Let’s open up to the book of Ephesians as we’re just going to look at the first two verses today as we kind of wind up and begin this series. Ephesians chapter one, verses one and two. If you’ll listen as I read, this is the word of the Lord.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to the Lord for the reading of his word.

Now, this passage begins with a salutation, like much of our examples of first-century correspondence. It begins with an author. We get the Apostle Paul’s name here. Apostle means "sent one." He is sent out by Christ Jesus, he says, according to the will of God.

He’s writing about AD 60 or 61 during his first Roman imprisonment. Paul wrote four letters from that jail: Ephesians, this letter that we have, Philippians, Colossians, and another book called Philemon. These are called the prison epistles.

The recipients of this letter are the saints who are in Ephesus. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city located on the coast of what is now Turkey, on the western coast across from Greece. It was home of the magnificent temple to the goddess Artemis. If you use the Roman nomenclature, that’s Diana, just for your reference point.

This temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was magnificent and beautiful. This letter is now written to the saints, the believers, the followers of Jesus, the church that is there in Ephesus.

He begins with a greeting: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You’ll recall that the traditional Jewish greeting was "Shalom," peace, peace. But whenever Paul starts his letters, because of Jesus, he starts with grace and peace because it is by grace that we actually have peace with God, right? And so this is where he begins.

That’s how it begins. It’s very straightforward. But before we get further into this letter, we need to first understand the setting and the context of this book. These are real people writing real correspondence in the real world facing real difficulties.

In order to gain a grasp on what’s going on in Ephesus, we actually have to look at quite a number of spots. We need to look at Acts chapter 19 and chapter 20. We need to look at 1st and 2nd Timothy, and we need to look at the Book of Revelation, the second chapter of the Book of Revelation. That’s quite a spectrum.

Buckle up this morning. We’re going to have a little tour de force of the New Testament. We’re going to see a splendid beginning, a sobering warning, and sustaining grace. There’s your outline: splendid beginning, sobering warning, and sustaining grace. Would you bow your heads? Let’s pray, and we’ll jump right in.

Father, we need to know what it means to be alive. We want to come alive. Some of us are kicking the tires on what it would mean to believe in Christ and surrender our lives to you. Lord, I pray that you would show the beauty of the life that you offer to us through this series.

Father, some of us have been following you for many years, and we need to learn to metabolize the life that’s available to us in a deeper, more meaningful way. So, Father, we give you ourselves. We hold nothing back. Come, change us, teach us, mold us, remake us. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.

All right, so this begins with a splendid beginning. If you have your Bibles, flip over to Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter 19 and 20 document for us the beginning of the church in Ephesus upon Paul’s arrival there in the fall of AD 54 on his third missionary journey. This is where it picks up, Acts chapter 19, verse one.

Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. Upon arrival, he found some Jewish disciples there who followed Jesus, but they had not yet been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit like Jesus had told them to be baptized. They didn’t know about that yet. Paul catches them up, he baptizes them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They receive the Holy Spirit with power, and it changes their lives.

Now skip down to verse eight, Acts 19, verse eight. Paul entered the synagogue, which is the Jewish worship center, and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way—this is a shorthand phrase for the Way of Jesus—speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took his disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus, which was a public lecture hall there in the city. This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

For the next two years, Paul proclaims the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, the good news of the gospel, that through Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, God is reconciling all people to himself, including you and me. If we admit we are sinners, believe that Jesus has done everything to make us right with God, and commit our lives to him as our Savior, our Lord, and our King, we can become children of God, alive in Christ.

Notice that both Jews and Greeks are responding to the gospel proclamation. We have in Ephesus a very multi-ethnic church that has now been born.

Now go down to verse 11. God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus Christ over those who had evil spirits, saying, "I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims."

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Don’t you just love that the demon had heard of the Apostle Paul? His ministry was so profound that even in the underworld, he had become a household name. I think that’s fantastic. Then these seven sons of Sceva attempt to wield the name of Jesus like a magic spell, and it goes very badly for them. I’ve never been in a lot of fist-fight moments, but I figure if in the beginning you’re wearing pants and at the end you’re not, you probably didn’t win that round.

Everybody hears what happened. Verse 17: This became known to all the residents in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was extolled. Many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. A number of them who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. They counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Books in the ancient world were rare. Books of magic spells were in high demand. These 50,000 pieces of silver put the value of the books destroyed in the category of several million dollars. These Greek believers are turning away from their false gods, their magic arts that they had followed all of their lives, and they are turning with all their heart to Jesus no matter what it cost. Isn’t that beautiful?

Now verse 23: About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who had made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, "Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, that she may even be deposed of her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship."

This is amazing, friends. You see the gospel is changing society. It’s shaping and now even impacting economic transactions. It registers in their world. Demetrius is stirring everyone up. He says, "We’ve got to do something."

It goes on in the rest of the chapter to describe a riot that occurred that the city clerk eventually had to calm down, but only after two hours of sheer mayhem. Here’s the bottom line: the Ephesian Church began with gospel power and transformed lives. These folks went from death to life, from darkness to light, from magic arts to following the Way of Jesus. Their conversion was dramatic. It was radical. It was decisive. The truth of the gospel had won their minds and the love of Jesus had won their hearts. It was a splendid beginning.

Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I’m Pastor Larry McCarthy. We’re so glad you’re with us as we dig deeper on how the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ transformed the lives of the people in the ancient city of Ephesus and how the gospel is transforming lives and hearts today.

Pastor Philip, I love that image of the dead stump and something alive sprouting up out of it. Everybody can relate to that; we’ve all seen it. But let me ask you this: How has the gospel transformed your life, and are you able to identify a time when you saw that change occur?

Philip Miller: My journey began when I was four years old. I grew up in church, and my mom tells me I came home and I said, "Hey, I want to ask Jesus into my life." I knew he loved me, I knew he had died for me, and I knew I didn’t want to go to hell. Hell has a really bad marketing plan, and I knew I wanted to be in heaven. And so I prayed a little prayer with my mom by my bed. That’s sort of where my story begins.

But what’s interesting is I don’t think I really got the gospel in all of its fullness in that moment. That came later. I defaulted into a kind of transactional relationship with God. I figured if I was really good, then God would love me. I transferred that from my life. If I got good grades or scored a goal, my parents would applaud, they’d cheer me on. I thought God must be like that, and if I do really good things, maybe God will love me. Of course, that’s not the gospel. I’m trying to earn something that God wants to give me by grace alone.

It took until my 13th year, in my early teens. I had done some real sinning. I had anger in my heart, lust in my heart, and I knew I was the problem. That’s really scary if you’re on a performance track where you’ve got to earn your way to love and acceptance because you’re a failure. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I hid it and I concealed it.

But then there was a moment, Pastor Larry, where I finally got real. I said, "God, here I am, all the mess of who I am, and I need you to save me. Not just from my sins, but from me. I’m the problem." For the first time in my life, I tasted grace.

I found out I was loved for Jesus' sake, not because I was good, but because Jesus was good for me. I was loved and accepted by my Heavenly Father because of what Jesus had done. That’s the grace that fell into my life. The tree came to life and sprouted. That’s the day everything began to change for me.

Larry McCarthy: I sure can relate to that, and I’m sure many of our listeners can too. I think, particularly here in America, so much of our self-esteem is derived from what we do, from our job, from our vocation, and everybody has been on that treadmill to nowhere where you’re trying to find identity in things that just don’t satisfy.

In Ephesus, their livelihood was tied into this book and the idol worship there with the temple of Artemis or Diana. They paid a big price for this when they threw that stuff away. But why were they willing to do it? Why were they willing to just throw all that away?

Philip Miller: The reality is they found a better treasure, didn’t they? They found something more powerful than their old gods, than those magic spells. They found something worth giving up everything in order to have it, in Jesus Christ. Which is beautiful, isn’t it?

I think there’s always a cost when we come to Christ. There’s always something we have to lay down. That’s what repentance is. We’ve got to repent, lay it down, turn away from a whole way of life, a whole way of idolatry, the things we’re clinging to, and turn to Christ and all that he offers. There is this laying down in order to take up all the beauty of Christ, which is powerful.

The reality is Jesus really is that good. He really is that powerful. He really offers that kind of life. And so that’s the invitation. Will you lay down everything to have the greatest treasure of all, Jesus Christ? That’s the key.

Larry McCarthy: I like that. There’s always a cost. So for the unbeliever who’s saying, "I’m tired of just chasing empty stuff. I’m tired of chasing for my identity in things that don’t satisfy," the gospel makes a lot of sense. But what about the person out there who’s listening who says, "I’ve accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I’m not experiencing this transformation you guys are talking about"? Do you have a word for them?

Philip Miller: I think the challenge that we face, and it really is modeled there in Ephesus, is you’ve got an old way of life and Jesus is offering a new way of life. You really have to let go of one to grab ahold of the other.

What I see a lot of people doing, and I’ve done this myself, is sort of try to straddle the fence. You sort of have it both ways. I want to have the world and all that it has to offer in one hand, and I want to hold on to Jesus and his salvation in the other. I don’t want to be too crazy, too radical, and go all in. That’s just for nutzos, right?

I’m just going to sort of straddle the fence and try to have both. I’m going to have the world and Jesus and sort of live in both spaces. Jesus comes to us and says, "Wait a minute. You cannot serve God and money. You can’t serve two masters. You’re going to have to pick one, love one and hate the other."

You have to make a choice. I think that’s the challenge for a lot of us. In America, we’ve got this American dream. You want to be prosperous and have everything going for you, wealthy. There’s goodness to that at some level.

But the question is, what kingdom are you living for? Are you going to live for this world and all that it has to offer, or are you going to live for the kingdom of God and all that Jesus is bringing into your life? If you want true abundant life, you’re going to have to choose. You’re going to have to pick one and pick Jesus. That’s the key.

Larry McCarthy: "All in," say our listeners. "I hear you. I want this transformation. I believe in the gospel. But so now life is not going to have any challenges for me, right? Everything is going to be just gelato and everything is going to be good."

Philip Miller: Wait just a minute. Well, that’s exactly where we’re going next. In Ephesus, they have a splendid beginning, everything does look so good. They’re turning from idols and magic arts and they’re turning to the true and living God. This is beautiful.

But then challenges are coming. As Paul leaves, he’s going to give them warnings. It’s going to get difficult. There are problems on the horizon, and you’re going to have to be bold and face those things. Guess what? The key to surviving all those pressures that are coming is the gospel.

Larry McCarthy: I’m excited to hear about this conversation next time as we explore how the gospel actually protects us from the threats—the threats without and the threats within.

There’s no better way for you and I to grow than to get back to basics, to get back to the essentials of the Christian life. That’s why we’re offering Dr. Sweeting’s excellent book, *How to Begin the Christian Life*. Dr. Sweeting, as you’ll recall, was a former senior pastor of the Moody Church, and he’s given us a thoughtful, timeless guide to growing in our faith. Dr. Sweeting passed on to glory in September 2024. He was 99 years old.

His legacy of deep love for God and the gospel continues to inspire us all. In this book, you’ll find chapters that cover such relevant topics as your relationship with the Holy Spirit, Bible study, the Christian’s relationship with the world, and how to be sure of your salvation, and so many more.

For a limited time, we’re offering this book for a donation of any amount. To request your copy of *How to Begin the Christian Life*, simply go to livinghopeoffer.com, or you can call us at 1-800-215-5001. That’s livinghopeoffer.com, or call 1-800-215-5001.

Ephesians gives us a vision of what it means to be alive in Christ. That’s why we here at Living Hope are deeply committed to helping you to discover all the resources that you have in Christ. Our prayer is that Dr. Sweeting’s book will guide you in your daily growth as a child of God.

Thank you for joining us on Living Hope, where you’ll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.