Ephesians Part 7 (Wonderful Work of Salvation)

Intro: Let us do a little review this morning before we begin the first major section of the contents of the book of Ephesians. We have given an introduction to the letter. We looked at the historical city of Ephesus. My wife was reading in the Daily Bread booklet the other day and one of the readings was on the city of Ephesus. This ariticle pointed out how the silt of the Cayster River gradually pushed out the shoreline and eventually Ephesus lost its prominence due to this slow silting process. The application drawn was that as Christians we must ever guard against the slow silting of sin in our lives. You know, silt is made up of particles ever so small. In the Song of Solomon we learn that it is the little foxes that spoil the vineyard. Well, we looked at some of the beauty of Ephesus and those events recorded in the book of Acts where the Gospel first came to Ephesus.

Then we considered the introduction of the letter to the Ephesians as given in 1:1-2. We saw that the Paul is the writer of the epistle, and that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God. We are told in this introduction that the recipients were the Christians, the saints in Ephesus and that these saints are also those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Then we saw that Paul desired for these Christians to experience the grace and peace of God and that these come from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.