We took diverted from our normal rhythm in Ephesians and examined it through the lens of Advent. When you see the full Christmas narrative (Gen. 1-3, The Gospel accounts, Revelation 12, etc.), Ephesians takes on a whole new light.

Our ‘growing up in Christ’ does not create our holy status but reflects it, honors God by it, and aids others through our expression of it. Ephesians 4:17-5:2 invite us not to become someone new but to become like who we really are.

The world was made by a God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. [We] were made for mutually self-giving, other-directed love. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made.

Paul’s prayer in the center of Ephesians (3:14-21) gives us a robust, grandiose vision of how we can actually start live into being the New Creation people he’s been describing — and it starts with prayer.

The manifold wisdom of God evident in Christ’s united body, the church, becomes a witness to all of creation (both humans and the heavenly realm) of the greatness of the gospel’s transformation of the human heart.

Ephesians 2:11-22 shows us that rather than the church gathering at the temple to celebrate God’s victory in Jesus, she gathers as the temple of the victorious Christ Jesus!

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…”

Jesus, the suffering and exalted Messiah of Israel, fulfilled God’s calling for Israel and all humanity. Now, the people of Jesus share in his death, resurrection, and exalted rule over the cosmos.

Paul makes three petitions to help us pray... We should pray to know God better (v. 17). We should pray to know God’s riches (v. 18). We should pray to know God’s power (v. 19).