Sunday, September 28, 2008

What is the "Search for Significance"?

Good morning and welcome to class. Today we begin our new study, “The Search for Significance” and it is now expected to run from today until December 14th, with a one-week break on Thanksgiving weekend. We have covered many books and had some healthy and productive discussions about what scripture has to say about us as people and how we relate to one another. This study, in my opinion, is going to be the single most important one we have ever done. If this doesn’t impact you and how you think about yourself in a major way, I will be surprised.

I want to start by asking the open question, “What is the Search for Significance”? (Discuss) I believe the best answer to this question can be discovered by first looking at Adam, the man, and his situation as he was created. Then we will see what God did for him with the giving of Eve, the woman. After that we can look at what happened in the garden, and see what the results of the choices and actions involved were. Then our question will be answered.

I want to start with one of the most poetic Psalms there is, let us read the whole of Psalm 8. Now let us reread just verse 4:

What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? NASU

What is God, through David who wrote this, saying in this verse? (Discuss) Does anyone have the KJV; it uses a different, and more enlightening, word in the place of the active verb “care”. It is translated “visit”. I think this verse speaks to us about how important we are. It says that God thinks of us constantly and is always with us, because He visits us. I believe that this is one of the seemingly obscure references to the Holy Spirit found in the Old Testament. Let us keep all this in mind as we unwind the meaning of the search.

I am going to assume that we are all familiar with the account of creation found in Genesis 1, with further details provided about the creation of man and woman in Genesis 2. So I only want to highlight a couple of points for our use today.

First, in Gen 1:27, God says:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. NASU

We were created on the sixth day, we were the last being created, and we were the only being made in God’s image. Next we look at Gen 2:7, it says:

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. NASU

This says that we were not created from nothing, but we were made from other things God had created previously, and that when we were made, God breathed life into us. When the Scripture talks about God’s breath it is referring to the Holy Spirit. So this act of “breathing life into us” by God is the moment he gave us a Soul with a live spirit, and that is why the word says “and man became a living being”. Next let’s look at Gen 2:18, 21, 22 and 25.

Then the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (18) NASU

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. (21-22) NASU

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (25)
NASU

God saw that it was not good for the man to be on his own, so he made the woman out of his side. The Hebrew word translated here as rib is “tsela”, pronounced, “tsay-law”, and is better translated as a side of the body, meaning both flesh and bone. This indicates a “designed in” intimacy, as they were “one flesh” from the beginning. Finally when the word says they were naked and not ashamed it means that they were totally innocent (naked and didn’t know it) and secure in whom they were (not ashamed). From back in chapter 1 we also know that God would spend time with them in the garden as they learned about the world He had created for them, directly from Him, from Him in the physical sense. (Ask if the implication of this is apparent, it was Jesus Himself that was present there!) Everything was in order, they were in a right and intimate relationship on a person-to-person basis with God and were secure in Him and because of all these things they knew they were important to Him.

As described in Genesis chapter 3, in steps the serpent, and you all know the story. He tricked the woman into disobeying God, the man then made a free choice to follow in this disobedience. The pair of them lost their innocence, they lost their security, they lost their intimacy with God, they lost the person-to-person relationship and therefore they lost their sense of importance.

From that day on all mankind has been on a quest. A quest to recapture what they lost. A quest to find the sense of importance they lost that infamous day. A quest to regain the knowledge and feeling that we have real value, which our culture calls self-worth or self-esteem. That is what we are calling “The Search For Significance”. Does anybody have any questions about this, it is fundamentally important that we all grasp this point.

I want to point out now what God says the “search” we are on looks like from His perspective, and this is not in the book. Let’s look at Isa 53:6:

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. NASU

This is from that amazing piece of Scripture, Isaiah chapter 53, which prophesies about Jesus so vividly. For me this is one of those rich verses that is often overlooked during a typical Bible study. We are not going to do that today.

First I think we can all agree that this verse identifies that it refers to all of mankind, there are no exceptions. Then it speaks very loudly to us when it says “like sheep”, it tells us that from God’s perspective we look like sheep. He, God, is not talking about how we look; he is addressing how we act. To Him we act like sheep! To gain a better perspective and understanding of what God sees, let’s look at how sheep behave.

Does anybody have thoughts on how sheep behave?

· Mostly they tend to stay where they are put, with the herd.
· When they do drift, they wander aimlessly, and end up out of the sight and security of the herd, becoming unprotected.
· When scared they run in all different directions, and can become lost.
· When unsupervised they follow a few select herd members, even if that means running off a cliff.
· They will follow a shepherd who uses his voice to guide them and soothe them in times of uncertainty, but they will still ignore the shepherd when it suits them.

I don’t know if we can all agree, but I think that is a good description of how humans behave too! These things are some of what God sees in all humans. Our verse describes this behavior as “each of us has turned to his own way”.

So God sees our “search” as though we are sheep who have wandered from the safety and security of the supervision of the shepherd, and are looking for him. We are sheep who need to regain their status with the shepherd as loved and cherished individuals. Does anybody have anything to add?

Let’s now move on to the central tenet of the book, which is found in chapter 2.

The author lays out a basic theory for us in chapter two when he says that in our fallen state we all attempt to get our sense of importance, our significance, from two inappropriate sources. Can anybody remember what the author said they were? Yes, they are; the approval of others and our personal performance. He gives us a simple equation to consider, it can be found on page 21:

· Self-Worth = Performance + Others Opinions

The author correctly identifies this as a lie of Satan. When we start to believe this lie, as we all do to one extent or another, it leads us into thoughts, feelings and actions that hurt us. The rest of our study breaks this lie down into its component pieces and shows us God’s solution to the problem of the false beliefs generated by this lie.

This is where I want to end the lesson today, are there any thoughts, observations or questions that someone might have?

Now I want to talk a little about the devotional for those that are going to go through it. First, please commit to finishing what you start. It will only take a few minutes each day for 60 days. Second, if something interesting strikes you in this daily journal, please choose to share it in class. Lastly, be disciplined as much as possible by doing it one day at a time, and allow the Holy Spirit to touch your heart as you work through it.

That’s it for today; next week we cover the subject “Approval Addict”, which is chapter 3 in the book.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

An Overview of Ephesians

Good morning and welcome to class this morning. Today we are going to have a special lesson before we begin our 11-week study into the Search for Significance. I asked for suggestions and one of our members came up with this idea of studying the book of Ephesians. I trimmed it back a little to an overview. So let us get started by opening up our Bibles to Ephesians 1:1, what does it say?

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: NASU

What does this tell us?

· It was written by Paul, the Apostle.
· It was written to believers.
· It was written to the church at Ephesus.

Believe it or not there used to be a controversy over whether this letter was actually written to the believers at Ephesus. This was because there were three very old manuscripts that did not include the words “in Ephesus”, but now the consensus is that it was indeed written as stated.

As we take a look at this letter that Paul wrote I want us to try to put ourselves in Paul’s place. By doing this we will be able to get an understanding of the significance of this letter.

First, Paul was under house arrest in Rome, as described in Acts chapter 28, and he had gotten there due to his making an appeal to Caesar about the trial results from his arrest in the temple at Jerusalem. Just like Jesus, he faced the council, they plotted to kill him, he then faced the Roman administrator, then the king. The roman administrator could not have him released or executed like Jesus because Paul had appealed to the Caesar so he was finally sent to Rome.

Second, Paul faced a problematical question. How long did he have before he was placed in front of Caesar, with its highly likely outcome of execution? There is no way he could know this so he had to decide what to do with his time, he had to prioritize his work. So he decided to write some important letters. During his time under house arrest he wrote Colossians, Philemon, Philippians and Ephesians, this happened in approximately 60-61 AD.

Third, whom should he write to, and why? For us this morning, the question is why Ephesus? To answer that we need to look at what the city was at the time.

Ephesus was the biggest Greek city in what was called the known world at the time; only Rome and Alexandria were bigger. It is estimated that a population of up to 500,000 lived in this port city, located at the mouth of the River Cayster. It was the gateway to the Roman province of Asia, which is basically modern day Turkey, and was the capital of the region.

Ephesus was the site of the great Temple of Artemis, the Greek goddess of fertility, who the Romans called Diana. The Temple of Artemis was four times bigger than the Parthenon in Athens, and was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. While it has not been conclusively proved that child sacrifice was conducted at this temple, it was a practice of the peoples in that part of the world as a fertility offering.

Acts chapter 19 records that when Paul was in Ephesus, many miracles were performed by God. Verse 20 says this:

So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. NASU

This is important for us to understand because Ephesus was a center of dark spiritual activity. I would say that it was most likely the most spiritually dangerous place that Paul ever encountered.

The sum of this information is this, and it answers the question we asked about why write to the church at Ephesus? The city was the center of both human and ungodly spiritual activity for the entire province of Asia. What happened in Ephesus eventually found its way to the rest of the province, and was exported around the so-called civilized world through its trading partners. As the powers of darkness and secularism were defeated there, the whole world would see it. Of all the cities that Paul visited, this was the most important.

It was so important that Paul installed his “son in the Lord”, Timothy, the person he trusted the most, to oversee the church there. It was so important that he chose to write this letter we are looking at, as his way of strengthening the church there. He knew that he may never get back to see Timothy or his friends there, and he wanted to give them two major messages:

· To remind them of what God has done.
· To encourage them to fulfill their calling.

So we find that Paul provides a good overview of the Christian life to the Ephesians that has become a timeless message for all believers. Let us go through the book and highlight some of the more important mini messages.

Eph 1:1-2 is the greeting, which we have already looked at.

Eph 1:3-14 is sometimes called the Ephesians’ Doxology, which simply means song of praise. It contains some important things for us:

· 3-6 declares God divine purpose for saving us, the church, began with the Father’s identification of His believers in eternity, and this is “to the praise of His glory”. (v6)
· 7-12 looks at the fact that in the fullness of time He saved His church by the redeeming work of Christ, “to the praise of His glory”. (v12)
· 13-14 identifies that we were saved and sealed by the giving of the Holy Spirit, “to the praise of His glory”. (v14)

Eph 1:15-23 is a prayer of thanksgiving and petition for knowledge, understanding and wisdom for believers.

· 15-16 is a moment of thanks for the faith and love of the believers.
· 17-23 is the prayer request for spiritual wisdom, and knowledge to understand all that God has done, and spells out some of it.

Eph 2:1-3:21 goes through the steps that God has taken to carry out His eternal plan of salvation.

· 2:1-10, Paul clearly tells us that both Jew and Gentile are saved by grace alone.

Let’s actually read verses 8-9:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. NASU

I want to spend a moment on this verse. What is unique about this peculiarly Christian doctrine? (Discuss) It is the issue of “works” or the errant thinking that a person can earn their way into God’s presence. Christianity is the only religion that states it, Judaism implies it or points its followers toward it, but until Christ came it wasn’t made clear to them. (Any other thoughts?)

· 2:11-22 discusses how God united what is called the “circumcision and uncircumcision” into one church through Christ. Jesus is pictured here as our “peace”, Jehovah Shalom in the Old Testament, and also as our cornerstone with whom we fit as one body.
· 3:1-6, God has revealed the mystery of His plan, first to His Apostles and then to us.
· 3:7-13, God instructed Paul to speak of this mystery of the plan of salvation to the gentiles, and thereby revealing it also to the angels, which are called “rulers and authorities in heavenly places” in v10. (Read verses 8-11)
· 3:14-21, a prayer to strengthen, with power, the believers through the Holy Spirit. Paul finishes this section with “to Him be the glory forever and ever”.

Eph 4:1-6:18 is a long treatise on how to walk with God.

· 4:1-6 is a call to unity bonded together by peace, let’s read it!
· 4:7-16 exhorts us to use the gifts we have all been given to serve the church. (Ask the class to identify, if they comfortable doing it, one gift they are using to serve Parkway with.)
· 4:17-24 instructs us to separate ourselves from pagan lifestyles and to become spiritually renewed to be like God in righteousness and holiness. (Read v22-24)
· 4:25-5:2 tells us not to “grieve the Holy Spirit” by lying, indulging in sinful anger, stealing, bad language, resentments, slander or any other wickedness in our Hearts. Be kind and tenderhearted, just like God.
· 5:3-14 is a call to call to moral purity, walk as children of light, guarding against impure thoughts, words and actions.
· 5:15-21 says to be wise, be filled with the Spirit and to worship God in fellowship, and be accountable to each other.
· 5:22-23 is our love and respect passages. Love and respect each other in our marriages.
· 6:1-4 love and respect in other family relationships.
· 6:5-9 honor God in your employee/employer situations remembering that every person has great value in the sight of God.
· 6:10-18, the final instruction. Be aware that you are engaged in a war, a spiritual war. Stand firm and use the defenses God has given you in battling the true enemy, the rulers, the powers and the forces of darkness that occupy the world.

The last few verses are Paul talking about his personal situation, which he knows might be of concern to the believers in Ephesus.

I am going to close now, but before I do, has anybody got any last questions about the book of Ephesians?

Next week we begin our study about every person’s “Search for Significance”.