Welcome to Truth for Life, where today we begin a study in the Book of Ephesians.

Today, Alistair Begg shares with us what was foremost on the Apostle Paul's heart and mind in the midst of his own challenging circumstances.

Let's begin at the very beginning just for a moment and remind ourselves that Paul is writing in this letter to the saints,

this is chapter 1 and verse 1, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

So we reminded ourselves as we began our study that the true believer lives in two places, that they were in Ephesus and they were in Christ.

If you are a Christian here today, you have a residency that is in Cleveland or the environs and you are also in Christ.

That your real citizenship is to be found in the heavenly places, whatever your ethnicity or your passport may say.

And Paul in writing to these Ephesian believers is using the terminology which was his favorite terminology.

He does not make mention of people as being Christians when he writes, in fact I think he would have found it rather strange to have people ask him if he was a Christian.

I don't think he would have asked us that either. He would have said to us, are you in Christ?

And I commend to you the little rehearsal of that phraseology if you just start at the beginning of chapter 1 and work your way through, you will find that it comes again and again.

And Paul is affirming the fact that for us to be placed in Christ as individuals and in chapter 1 he says, you know, and you all so were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believed.

He's describing if you're like a moment in time or a period in time where that which God had planned from all of eternity became the reality of these individuals.

They were to later look back and see that this was grounded in the eternal will and counsel of God and that their security was in this.

But at the same time for them to be placed in Christ was to be placed into a community that was a multinational and multi-racial community called the church.

So that if you are in Christ this morning, then I want you to know that although you may be an only child, you have brothers and sisters throughout the entire world.

In fact, you have people with whom you are related that spend the centuries that one day when we are all brought together in a new heaven and in a new earth, we will have occasion to say to one another, hello brother, hello sister.

And for the present time as you look around on a routine Sunday, we have a little indication of it here.

This is the wonder of the church. And at the end of chapter two, Paul says, it's important for you Ephesians to realize that you are sharing citizenship, that you are members of one family, and that you are stones or breaks as it were being built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.

If you and I are tempted, and some of us I think are tempted, let's just be honest, to view the gospel in terms of what it means to me as an individual.

If I see it solely in those terms, then I will be tempted to regard, quote, church stuff as excess baggage, just something else that's sort of optional extra.

You see, that's why when I say to you, it really matters that you're here. I'm not on about job security. I have a job security whether you're here or not.

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