Before Paul asks the church in Ephesus to do a single thing, he spends three entire chapters reminding them who they truly are. That is not an accident, and he keeps reaching for the same two words to say it – “In Christ.” In fact, Paul uses some version of that phrase 11 times in the first chapter alone, because for him it answers nearly every question worth asking. Where does your worth come from? Where do you actually belong? What is still true about you on your worst day? You are “In Christ.

So, this Fall we are exploring Ephesians 1 to 3, where Paul stacks up one staggering claim after another: you were wanted before the world began, you were spiritually dead and God made you alive, you were an outsider and God brought you all the way near, and there is a love holding you now that you will never finish measuring. These are the core truths Christians have staked their lives on for two thousand years, and they are not abstractions. What you believe about who you are will shape how you handle failure, how you treat the people who are not like you, what you do with your fear, and whether you are ever able to rest. So come sit in the deep end with us for six weeks. We are not going to rush past the theology to get to the practical part. We are going to let Scripture do what Scripture does, tell us the truth about God and let that truth quietly reorder everything else.