Latest / A Chapter a Day Bible Reading / February 26 - Ephesians 1

Transcript

February 26 - Ephesians 1 · A Chapter a Day Bible Reading

• 0:12
  Hello, friends. It's shown here.
• 0:14
  It is the 26th of February. That's a Monday.
• 0:17
  It's the start of a new weekend. Well, it feels kind of like the
• 0:22
  start of a new life for me. Yeah, that's sort of an
• 0:25
  exaggeration. So, as many of you would know,
• 0:29
  this weekend I was ordained as a Deacon in the Anglican Church.
• 0:34
  I'm now the Reverend Sean. Wow.
• 0:38
  And as many of you would know, there has been a whole lot of
• 0:41
  conflict and discomfort in me heading into that.
• 0:43
  But over a number of days of retreats, yeah, God has done
• 0:47
  some amazing work in me and kind of prepared me.
• 0:51
  And I just feel so incredibly blessed and humbled and like
• 0:57
  this church has validated God's call on my life to step forth
• 1:02
  into this ministry, which is just crazy and wonderful and an
• 1:07
  incredible privilege. So I I wore a dog collar for a
• 1:14
  bunch to try and get my head around this.
• 1:16
  And yeah, my Bishop told me, Sean, next you need to walk down
• 1:21
  the street dressed in clerical gear.
• 1:25
  Yeah, that is my journey now. And that is just the most
• 1:29
  incredible privilege. And for those of you who have
• 1:31
  encouraged me along the way, Chia, thank you so much from the
• 1:35
  bottom of my heart this this role is all about serving God's
• 1:38
  people and you have served me and loved me and upheld me.
• 1:42
  And for that from the bottom of my heart I just thank you so
• 1:45
  much. But here we are.
• 1:47
  We are up to a new week and this week we are going to be reading
• 1:51
  a visions. Now I feel like I've misled you
• 1:55
  because last week I was telling you how much I love Colossians
• 1:59
  and I think I love Ephesians more if that wrong.
• 2:01
  Is this my favourite? I don't know.
• 2:03
  It's it is the most incredible book where Colossians was
• 2:07
  written to a church going through the the challenges that
• 2:11
  they were facing in their context.
• 2:13
  Ephesians then uses a bunch of the content from Colossians.
• 2:16
  Paul uses some of that to encourage this church as well,
• 2:21
  but this church isn't going through specific challenges per
• 2:25
  se, so he just writes this encouragement to build them up
• 2:29
  and to to teach them some more of the fundamentals without a
• 2:33
  particular bent in mind. He just wants to teach them and
• 2:38
  encourage them. So Ephesians is just filled with
• 2:41
  widely applicable gold and we are going to dip our prospecting
• 2:47
  pans into this river and find ourselves some gold Nuggets
• 2:51
  today. How awesome.
• 2:54
  So let's do it, friends. Let us read together Ephesians
• 2:58
  chapter one. This letter is from Paul's
• 3:11
  chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.
• 3:16
  I'm writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful
• 3:20
  followers of Christ Jesus. May God our Father and the Lord
• 3:25
  Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
• 3:29
  All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
• 3:34
  blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms
• 3:39
  because we are united with Christ even before He made the
• 3:43
  world. God loved us and chose us in
• 3:47
  Christ to be wholly and without fault in His eyes.
• 3:52
  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by
• 3:57
  bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
• 4:00
  This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
• 4:04
  So he praised God for the glorious grace He has poured out
• 4:09
  on us, who belonged to his dear Son.
• 4:12
  He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our
• 4:17
  freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.
• 4:21
  He has showered His kindness on us, along with all wisdom and
• 4:26
  understanding. God has now revealed to us His
• 4:30
  mysterious will regarding Christ, which is to fill His own
• 4:35
  good plan. And this is the plan.
• 4:38
  At the right time, He will bring everything together under the
• 4:42
  authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth.
• 4:47
  Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have
• 4:51
  received an inheritance from God, for He chose us in advance
• 4:56
  and He makes everything work out according to His plan.
• 5:00
  God's purpose was that we Jews, who were the first to trust in
• 5:04
  Christ, would bring praise and glory to God.
• 5:08
  And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the good news,
• 5:12
  that God's saves you. And when you believed in Christ,
• 5:16
  he identified you as His own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom
• 5:21
  He promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee
• 5:26
  that He will give us the inheritance He promised and that
• 5:29
  He has purchased us to be His own people.
• 5:34
  He did this so that we would praise and glorify Him.
• 5:40
  Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus
• 5:43
  and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped
• 5:47
  thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly asking
• 5:51
  God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you
• 5:56
  spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your
• 6:00
  knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be
• 6:04
  flooded with light so that you can understand the confident
• 6:08
  hope He has given to those He called His holy people, who are
• 6:13
  His rich and glorious inheritance.
• 6:17
  I also pray that you will understand the incredible
• 6:20
  greatness of God's power for us who believe Him.
• 6:24
  This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead
• 6:28
  and seated him in the place of honour at God's right hand in
• 6:32
  the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or
• 6:37
  authority, or power or leader or anything else, not only in this
• 6:42
  world, but also in the world to come.
• 6:46
  God has put all things under the authority of Christ, and has
• 6:50
  made Him head over all things for the benefit of the Church.
• 6:55
  And the Church is His body. It is made full and complete by
• 7:00
  Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself.
• 7:15
  Oh Lord, there is so much in this.
• 7:18
  You have done so much for us. Oht.
• 7:21
  And we are just so grateful. And as we read that you have
• 7:26
  done all of this, chosen us, rescued us, purchased us so that
• 7:31
  we could praise and glorify you, And so that is what we do right
• 7:36
  now. Ah, we just lift you up.
• 7:40
  We adore you, we praise you and your name above every other
• 7:46
  name, and we just place you in the highest place in our lives.
• 7:52
  Let everyone of our actions, let every breath we draw, be in
• 7:57
  praise to you, our loving Saviour and God.
• 8:06
  Thank you for the intimacy of your presence and your love for
• 8:09
  us. It is just more than we can
• 8:13
  ever, ever expect or dream of. But here you are loving us
• 8:17
  nonetheless. We pray all of this in your
• 8:22
  loving name, Jesus, Ah, man.