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Part 7 of 7
The Blueprint Series — Ephesians
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Welcome to The Blueprint. We believe there are three ways to live your life: culture's way, the church's way, and the king's way—the way of Jesus. We believe the way of Jesus is not just right, it is better. It is superior. It is not just righteous, it's wise. It is not just good and godly—it makes good sense.
The Bible is the blueprint to the king's way. To experience God's best and to have God's best flow through us requires more than just principles. It requires power, presence, and prayer. That's why we don't just teach about God at Blueprint; we make space for people to encounter God through the ministry of prayer.
I want to start with an axiom that I've regularly repeated: How far you go and how much you grow is not just determined by how you see God; it is equally impacted by how you see you.
King Solomon put it this way in Proverbs: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." You will always behave in a way that is consistent with how you see yourself. The enemy understands this. He doesn't have to disrupt your behavior by directly attacking your behavior. The enemy influences your behavior by robbing you of your identity.
This is the plot and ploy of Satan: not only to dilute and destroy the way we see God, but also how we see ourselves.
The enemy was the first individual to engage in identity theft.
Let me illustrate this with a personal story. A few years ago, I received a letter from a collections company about a phone bill I had never incurred. It was aggressive and confusing. Through investigation, I discovered that someone had opened a phone account in my name in New York. They had stolen my identity and used my information for personal gain.
Here's what's important: identity theft doesn't just rob you of information. When identity theft goes unchecked, it robs people of income, access, and peace.
Some people have had their income stolen and never got to watch the resources they worked for. Some have been locked out of their own accounts—locked out of something they have a right to. And it steals your emotions. When I got that letter, I lost my joy. I felt aggravation instead of the peace of the Lord.
Just like this is the case naturally, this is also the case spiritually. The enemy uses identity theft to rob us of resources that heaven wants to give, lock us out of spaces that God wants to walk us into, and steal the joy that God wants us to experience.
When I say spiritual identity theft, I mean this: The enemy has taken our sense of awareness or alignment with who we are currently called to be.
My question isn't "Do you know who you were?" My question is: Do you know who you are?
Some of us know what it feels like to have lost ourselves—not knowing where we are physically, but feeling like we've lost our identity. We're trying to regain who we are. That's an awareness issue.
Then there are times when we are clear on who we are supposed to be in this season, but the frustration is we can't align our life with what we know. That's an alignment issue. The enemy is after both our awareness and our alignment.
The believers in Ephesus faced this exact struggle. Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire. It was home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World—the temple of Diana. It was a major commercial hub, a center of magical arts and occult practices, and it was saturated with competing identity claims.
When people in this context became Christians, it created confusion. They understood who they used to be. They understood how they used to live. But now they were relearning a new way of living in a context where very few people were actually living that way.
They had become new, but they had to resist the urge to stay normal.
And let's be honest—this is not just a struggle for people in Ephesus. This is a struggle for many of us in our current era. We are wrestling with the tension: "Lord, I want to be new, and I want to feel normal at the same time." What's right doesn't feel right. What's new doesn't feel normal.
Your spiritual evolution triggers satanic attacks.
Throughout Scripture, you can see this pattern. When David was anointed in 1 Samuel 16, the Philistines rose up against him. Spiritual advancement triggers satanic opposition.
This is particularly true when your advancement makes you a contributor to God's agenda, not just a consumer of it. When you get saved, you're a nuisance to Satan—that's a life he lost. But when you say yes to God and become an instrument He uses to change other people's lives, you become a threat. That triggers a different degree of aggression in spiritual warfare.
Your spiritual development and mine brings with it a degree of disruption. I want to normalize this.
Maybe your issue isn't salvation. Maybe God is progressively sanctifying you, taking you from faith to faith, from glory to glory. Each time God walks us into a different iteration or expression of ourselves, we might deal with the tension of being called to the new while fighting the temptation to want to be normal.
In Ephesians 1:1-2, Paul writes:
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to God's holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before Paul addresses the Ephesians' identity, he models something about his own. He teaches in the greeting itself. And this is what I want you to see:
Paul writes this letter while imprisoned. He's in a Roman prison. Yet he doesn't say, "Paul, a prisoner of Rome." He says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus."
He doesn't allow his condition to claim his name. Where I am is not who I am.
His adversity doesn't have the authority to name him. He's teaching the believers at Ephesus: You cannot let life label you. His greeting alone is teaching them this truth.
This reminds me of a story from Genesis 35. A man named Jacob had a wife, Rachel, who was giving birth to their youngest child. It was a troubled pregnancy that cost her life. When she was giving birth, she named the child Ben Oni—son of my sorrow. She was naming him in pain.
But Jacob walked in and said, "What is his name?" When they told him Ben Oni, he said, "No. I cannot let my son live his life with that label." She's naming him in pain, because pain will make you call some things the wrong thing. Jacob said, "His name shall be Benjamin—son of my right hand."
This is a picture of what our heavenly Father wants to do for us once we become His children. He knows you've had some Rachel-like experiences that have labeled you, and you're walking around in an identity that is inconsistent with His intention for your life. But when you become a new creature, He gives you a new name.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to God's holy people in Ephesus... to the saints... to the faithful...
These people were reared in an environment with all sorts of occult practices. They were probably stumbling on their spiritual journey. Yet Paul addresses them as "saints" and "the faithful."
When you become a new creature, when you get born again, your heavenly Father walks in the room and says, "I don't care what they called you until this moment. When you come through the spiritual womb of God, being born again, you may have been called 'sinner' before I walked in the room. Now you're a saint."
Because when I become a new creature, He gives me a new name.
When Paul says "to God's holy people in Ephesus" or "the saints in Ephesus," this is both positional and prophetic.
In the New Testament, we find language like "in Christ." If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. You are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Paul uses the word "imputed righteousness." This comes from the legal realm and means a declaration. When the Bible says I have been justified, it means the record has been expunged legally. A declaration has been made that I'm not guilty. The evidence to convict me has been washed away by the blood.
This is the idea: My heavenly Father, the righteous Judge, has declared me not guilty and imputed to me positionally His righteousness. So now I'm declared righteous because of my faith in what Christ did. So now God treats me like Christ. I'm in Christ.
There's something called substitutionary atonement—the principle of representation. I suffered because of what Adam did in the garden. But Paul says: By one man's disobedience, many became sinners. But by one man's obedience, many became righteous. So I suffered because of Adam, but I'm saved because of Jesus. God looked at what Jesus did. When I put my faith in the atoning work of Jesus, now God legally declares me as what Jesus is—righteous before Him.
But here's what sanctification does: Just because I'm righteous positionally doesn't mean I'm living right experientially.
There's been righteousness deposited in my spiritual bank account. Sanctification helps me withdraw the righteousness that's been deposited into my day-to-day living. Experientially I become what I already am positionally. I'm a saint positionally, but experientially sometimes we don't act saintish. Spiritual growth and spiritual formation make me more experientially and practically what I am positionally.
This is why it's more than just positional—it's also prophetic. He's saying: This is what you are positionally, and this is what you're going to be experientially as you continue to grow on the journey.
When a child is adopted into a family, they are family positionally once the adoption is finalized. But they don't look like the family yet. They're not acting like the family yet. They're not behaving like the family yet because positionally they've been adopted, but practically and experientially they've got to live into that identity.
When we get saved, we're in the family. And now God says, "Now that you're in the family, let me teach you how this family behaves."
Jesus teaches this in Matthew 6. He tells His disciples: When you weren't in this family, you had to figure out what you're going to eat, where you're going to sleep, what you're going to wear. But all these things the Gentiles seek after—they have to look after themselves because when you're an orphan, you've got to look after yourself. You're conditioned to looking out for yourself.
But even when you come into My family, you engage in the same behavior you used to engage in, though you don't have to now. Jesus is saying: You've got a Father now, and I've got to teach you how to live like you've got a Father.
The longer you stay in the family, the more likely you are to behave like and even start looking like you belong. This is why it's prophetic. Paul is saying: As you experience the sanctifying work of the Spirit, you're going to start looking like the family you've been adopted into.
There's a Hebrew tradition where the changing of names is a prophetic indicator of character changes. Abram became Abraham. Sarai became Sarah. But one of the most obvious is Jacob, whose name means trickster, schemer, swindler, but was changed to Israel—prince with God.
If I keep telling you who you are, you're going to become what I tell you.
I love this about the Bible. Even in a book like Hosea—if you're complaining about your calling, read Hosea and you'll stop complaining. God says to Israel through Hosea: I'm Hosea. Israel, you've gone to the streets. Every idol, ambition, and success—you've gone there. And I run out and get you. I buy you back. And I don't need you. People are looking at me wondering why I'm with you. People are telling me who you were and who you are. And you prove them right. And I come and get you and bring you back.
That's believers in Ephesus. And Paul says: "Holy ones, saints, faithful ones—if I keep telling you who you are, eventually you're going to become experientially what I'm declaring positionally."
Because Ephesus keeps telling you who you're not, I'm not going to stop telling you who you are. And you are going to behave in a way that is consistent with the way you see yourself. The way you see yourself is largely going to be determined by who or what you give the authority to name you.
I'm going to tell you: You are salt of the earth. You are light of the world. You are chosen. You are royal. You are beloved. You are selected, elected, and predestined. You are the apple of My eye. I'm going to keep telling you who you are because Ephesus keeps telling you who you are.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This isn't a pleasantry. This is a prayer.
Paul is praying that in the midst of all you're experiencing in your spiritual journey in Ephesus, you experience unearned, undeserved, unexplainable favor—grace. And in the midst of all the internal and external confusion you're dealing with, his prayer is that you experience peace.
Paul is a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee from the tribe of Benjamin. His concept of peace isn't Greco-Roman. His concept of peace is Shalom—not just an emotion, but a condition. Shalom is the opposite of fragmentation. It's wholeness. Nothing missing, nothing broken.
Grace and peace come when you and I get a revelation of our identity.
God won't favor who you're pretending to be. Until you and I are who we're called to be, we won't experience peace. But God uses that discomfort—that lack of peace—to get us in alignment. When there is awareness of who you are and alignment with who you are, you experience grace and you experience peace.
Throughout Ephesians, Paul will give us prayers he prayed for believers in Ephesus. I believe these prayers will reveal and expose the heart of the Father for us.
In chapter 4, Paul reminds them: Because you're seated (in heavenly places), now walk worthy of the vocation which you're called. If you don't know how you're seated, you won't be able to walk.
And then as you're walking, you're going to run into satanic opposition. So in Ephesians 6, he tells them: Sit, walk, and stand.
Paul is intentional in this epistle. There's insight here that can aid us as we wrestle with the tension of being called to something new while fighting the temptation to want to be normal.
If there's a you that you lost that God wants you to refind, my prayer is that happens. And if there's a you that you lost that God wants you to leave, my prayer is that happens too. I believe God's going to bring us into greater awareness and greater alignment with who He's called us to be.
