Day 36: Ephesians Epilogue Episodes: The Revival That Changed Ephesus: Acts 19:11-20

Following Jesus means trusting Him more than anything that once promises us security. Long before Paul wrote Ephesians, God powerfully transformed the city. As people came to faith in Jesus, many publicly confessed their sins and burned their costly magic scrolls. They exchanged fear, superstition, and false security for trust in Christ alone. The gospel didn't simply add Jesus to their lives- it completely reordered them. 

Reflection: What have you learned to trust more deeply because of your relationship with Christ?

Transcript

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Hey everyone, happy Monday and welcome to our epilogue series, four days of just tying it all together with the rest of the Bible and gospel from what we've learned in Ephesians. Today we're taking a look into Acts 19, verses 11 through 20, because we're going to get into the revival that changed Ephesus. And this happened years before Paul is then imprisoned in Roman writing the letter that we just finished studying to the Ephesians. This was essentially the beginning of the radical transformation of the city and so many people coming to surrender their lives to Jesus. And it costs them in ways that I think make it very obvious. It's not something we have to think about, you'll see. And makes us question ourselves and how much are we holding back our own surrender from Jesus as compared to what we're going to learn today? All right, let's get into it. I'm reading from Acts chapter 19, verses 11 through 20. God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul's hands, so that even face cloths or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Now some of the Jewish exorcists also attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches. Seven sons of Skeva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this. The evil spirit answered them, I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul, but who are you? Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them so that they ran out of the house naked and wounded. When this became known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, they became afraid, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem. And many who had become believers came confessing and disclosing their practices, while many of those who had practiced magic collected their books and burned them in front of everyone. So they calculated their value and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver. In this way the word of the Lord spread and prevailed. Amen. That is the word of God. Long before Paul wrote Ephesians, God powerfully transformed the city. As people came to faith in Jesus, many publicly confessed their sins and burned their costly magic scrolls. They exchanged fear, superstition, and false security for trust in Christ alone. The gospel didn't simply add Jesus to their lives, it completely reordered them. Following Jesus means trusting him more than anything that once promised us security. Acts tells us that Paul spent over two years teaching daily in Ephesus, and that was very long for him compared to the time that he spent in other cities. During that time, the gospel spread throughout the entire province of Asia. But Ephesus wasn't spiritually neutral. It was famous throughout the Roman Empire for magic. People traveled there to purchase spells, and professional magicians sold written incantations. Amulets promised protection. There was even the famous Ephesia grammata, which were mysterious words believed to possess supernatural power, which were carried like good luck charms. Religion, fear, and business were deeply intertwined. We talked a little bit about this in the beginning, but just to fill everyone in and make sure we're on the same page, to give you an idea, Ephesus, regularly compared to like Vegas and City was also the location of the Temple of Artemis, one of the wonders of the ancient world. People traveled to come to it. And Artis was their local god. Artemis was their local god, also known as Diana, as the Roman god Diana. And she represented fertility and prosperity. So everything they did, they really valued worshiping Artemis before business deals, before uh societal festivals, um, even at their homes when they had dinner, before, like we would pray before our dinner, they would often offer offerings to local gods, a lot of Artemis. And so when Christians began to say, Well, I'm no longer worshiping another god and stopped participating in these, often what happened is their community would be offended by that. Um, they would think it was strange, but also say, Well, maybe the reason that we didn't get that last deal is because you haven't been making the correct offerings to the God. And that's why we're not being prosperous right now. Now, that's how religion, fear, and business were deeply intertwined. It everything following Jesus cost them more than just reputation, even it could cost them income. Now, Luke records something remarkable here in Acts. After many believed in Jesus, they then confessed their practices and burned their scrolls. The value of the scrolls was listed as 50,000 silver coins. This wasn't symbolic, it was financially devastating. Imagine in today's equivalence world, people would be publicly destroying millions of dollars worth of things that they once believed gave them power. I would say a great example of this maybe are crystals. Like, um, what's that guy? Um the husband, Spencer Pratt. Like he was all into these crystals, and at some point in the reality show, he's talking about like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a crystal. This would be like someone like him coming out and saying, I believe these crystals gave me this energy and all of stuff, and I spent a million dollars on it, and I'm just gonna throw it out into the waste now because my life is only going to exalt God. I'm no longer gonna worship other gods, and this is a representation of that. And why were they doing it? Because they had discovered someone greater. The gospel is always asking us what are you trusting? Sometimes idols are obvious, and sometimes they're even respectable, like success, control, approval, security, relationships, money, reputation. Anything that we rely on more than Christ becomes a functional idol. The believers in Ephesus didn't simply stop practicing magic, they transferred their trust. And that remains the heart of repentance today. Following Jesus means trusting him more than anything that once promised us security. So as we end today, here's our reflection question What have you learned to trust more deeply because of your relationship with Christ? Awesome. Talk to you tomorrow. Love you.

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Bye bye.