The Ephesians Story (Part 4)

Continued from Part 3 –

Don’t erase the plagues and don’t erase the stink. Don’t erase the fact that they got up at 5:00 in the morning and 4:00 in the morning in order to meet, so the slaves could get back to their early duties. Don’t erase the love and the care. Don’t erase the mutuality. Don’t erase the koinonia. Don’t erase the corporate tears. Don’t erase the centrality of the message that Epaphroditus brought: Christ. Christ. Christ Jesus.

20, 30, 40 people, probably a maximum of 35 or 40 believers in that town. Maybe they got up to 50. And somehow or other, that little group of believers raised enough money by selling pigs and cows and giving up their grain to get Epaphroditus on a ship to Rome so he could come back and tell those folks about Paul. And when he got back, he broke open a letter. Are you ready to hear it? We’ll take the first two lines, and we’ll go home and come back tonight. Before I read it, would you like to ask a question? Would you like to make an observation?

Let me just say one thing. You are supposed to be in that room. It’s where you belong. That was the original intent thwarted by Constantine in the year 300; we haven’t recovered yet, with a Christo-pagan religion that was reformed by Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Melanchthon, Erasmus, and a few other people. You belong in that room. It’s your God-given right, and let it be your natural habitat. You are a species apart from the unbeliever. You have something operating in you; they don’t. You have an organ in you that they don’t have. It’s called your spirit. And you got…you’re possessed. You have someone living inside you who’s not a human being. So, you’re not the same species they are, and their habitat is something called the world system. Your habitat is the ekklesia: it is a civilization within itself, it has a citizenship uniquely its own, and it has a lifestyle unlike the rest of the world. Dogs run around in packs, birds and flocks, fish in schools, heathen in civilization; believers, in the ekklesia.

Half of you are slaves. You have one or two merchants. And praise God, we got a place to meet. We even have one sister who is married to one of the soldiers, who is wealthy, and she comes down from one of the villas to meet. None of us ever tells one another what our last name is because to know our last name is to know whether we’re a slave, a great unwashed, a merchant, or among the Roman wealthy. Christians never told one another their last names. They did not have a pecking order or a caste system when they walked in that door. A woman might own a slave, but in that room, that slave was free, and that rich woman was not wealthy. She was a sister. That brother was not wealthy; he was a brother. And they’ve all hugged Epaphras, who has been around for a couple of days. They all know that it’s Saturday night, and they’ve all gathered and their torches on the wall. Epaphras is going to read this book; this letter that’s written to them from a brother named Paul.

Now what’s their image of Paul? Very radical brother. Very strange. Raised up all those churches nearby in Asia Minor. He had something to do with this brother’s salvation, Epaphroditus. He’s (Paul) in jail now for the Gospel; he’s going to appear before Nero: he’ll either get his head sliced off or set free. They’ve heard about him. In a way, he’s a legend, and they also know that he’s quite hated and very controversial. I doubt there’s any hero worship; there is more than a matter of wonder at this man. But they do know and they love him and respect him, having never met him, and Paul of Tarsus, under house arrest, has written this book, this letter, and they open it. They have heard of the confrontation between Paul and Barnabas and the church in Jerusalem. They have heard how the Gentiles don’t have to live under Jewish law. They have heard of the controversy that happened in Galatia. These are stories they tell one another, like you tell stories about what happened in certain places. They know about the Judaizer who went to the four churches in Galatia and told the Christians there that Paul was not an apostle.

They have probably read by now the Galatian letter, when Paul said, “I was an apostle not by man’s will but by the will of God.” They know these stories, and they kind of admire this rebel of sorts. And Epaphroditus opens the book, and it starts off with “Paul”, and they go, “Yeah.” Now listen, they paid for this letter. They’re excited about this. An apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. And they say, “Yeah.” And the next words, “to the holy ones.” Now, it says in Ephesus, but this is not a letter written to Ephesus. It’s written to Colossae; two letters to Colossae. To the holy ones in Colossae. And it’s like when those two words are said to the saints, it’s like a great curtain opens and a new world is born right in front of you. And brothers and sisters, it’s contrary to virtually all the Gospel you’ve ever heard in your life. To the, not “the saints”, that’s a transliteration; the translation is to the holy ones in Colossae.

Now you’re sitting in that room, and you’re a slave. You got one eye out. You’re about 35; you look 70. You’re illiterate. You have tattoos around your mouth. You work for a master. He has a manager of fields, you work out in the fields, and this morning you got beaten over the head and screamed that because you are a stupid, ignorant slave under the iron heel of a Roman master, and the manager who works under him has picked up his cruelty, and you got screamed at, thrown down, and beaten. But tonight, you have gathered with the people of God, and Paul says you’re a holy one.

No letter Paul ever wrote started off “To the elders”. To the church of God in Colossae or to the church of the holy ones in Thessalonica. The only two people who own the church are God and the holy ones, not the elders and not the apostles. That’s beside the point. The point is, he always starts off with two words: God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ones in the ekklesia. And that’s what’s on the stage when the curtain opens: the holy ones. I put that up against our Gospel of condemnation. He didn’t say, ‘Holy if you behave, holy if you didn’t sin, holy if you do this or do that, but don’t do this or that.’ The declaration is timeless and unconditional. Here is the lifetime of your life, from the day you were saved to the day you die, from the day you are saved to the day you die: you’re holy. And after you die, you’re in Christ.

Brother, sister, you are a holy one. Not going to be, not maybe, not sometimes, but you’re a holy one, and that gathering was built on the knowledge that every human being who walked into that room was holy. You are a holy thing in the midst of a world that’s corrupt and dying and stinks like the street does. But you, in the midst of all this poverty, anxiety, pain, and misery, and sin, you are one who is holy. And the gospel begins, that four-month gospel. He could come into a town, a heathen town where Christ had never been named, and leave four months later, and there be a church of Jesus Christ with people in love with one another. You are holy.

Now, Gene, it’s a beautiful day. How holy, sister? How holy? How much holiness have you got? How holy? Tell me. All of the Lord. What do you mean by that? All of His holiness. Now you have heard this, but these people grew up on it. This is their gospel. They didn’t start off with a gospel that says, “If we confess our sins, people just forgive us our sins, forgive us, and cleanse us of all our righteousness.” These people started off with a gospel that said, “You are as holy as God is holy. You are as holy as Christ is holy.” And a little later, we’ll find out. You know why you’re holy, Jane? Because you’re in Christ, and there is nothing that ever got inside of Jesus Christ, but what it was holy. The line blurs and disappears in Christ between His holiness and yours. Slave, you’re holy. Let’s see what else. They all do this. Epaphroditus told them; they had never met a Baptist preacher. You who are faithful in Christ Jesus, who are in Christ Jesus faithful. Now, you can look at the word faithful all day long and wonder whether or not you’re faithful. Don’t look at that. Look at “in Christ.” You are in Christ Jesus. The faithfulness is established.