A GRACIOUS CONCLUSION
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 17, 2024 under 2024 |
Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from March 17, 2024 from Ephesians 6:23-24
Theme: Paul’s farewell words reinforce to us all the glorious blessings that are now ours in Christ.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Today, we come to the final words of Paul’s amazing Epistle to The Ephesians. We’ve spent over a year and a half going through this letter together in detail; and yet, I feel that we’ve barely scratched the surface of all that it tells us. I honestly wish we could start over and go through it again—and revisit all of the wonderful blessings it tells us that are ours in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I find that—as we come to the last two verses of Ephesians—there’s a sense in which we are being invited to review this letter once again. You see; the closing words of Paul’s letter touch on the main themes that were covered in the letter itself.
Let me illustrate this to you by first reading the opening words of Paul’s letter. That was how our study began. In Ephesians 1:1-4, Paul wrote;
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love … (Ephesians 1:1-4).
And in those words, we see how some of the great themes of this letter are set before us. The letter is about the rich spiritual blessings that are now ours in Christ; ‘every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’. And Paul mentioned such things as grace and peace. They are ours through faith in Jesus; and are given to us in the context of the Father’s immeasurable love. All the spiritual riches that could ever be had from God the Father now belong to ‘the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus’ as present possessions. We who are in Christ are rich indeed! And the blessings of grace, peace, faith, and love through Jesus Christ are what the apostle Paul elaborates on in this letter.
And as we come to the close of this letter, what do we find? We find those same blessings mentioned again. In Ephesians 6:23-24, Paul wrote;
Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen (6:23-24).
It’s as if in these concluding words, Paul was saying, “My dear beloved brothers and sisters; I’ve spent a whole letter telling you about how truly rich you are in the spiritual blessings that are yours in Christ. And now, as I close this letter—as by way of benediction—I now commend these things to you again and pray that you be abundant in them. They are all yours. Read what I’ve been led by the Holy Spirit to write about them. Learn more about them. Grow in them. Rejoice in them. Bless God’s name for them. And most of all, live in a manner worthy of them—and all to the glory of the God and Father who has given them to you through His Son Jesus Christ.”
Given the fact that the apostle Paul ‘bookends’ his letter with an affirmation of these things, I would say that the best way to bring our study to a close is by reviewing the content of this letter, and thinking about what it tells us concerning these things once again.
As we can see from these last two verses, Paul’s farewell words reinforce to us all the glorious blessings that are now ours in Christ.
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So then; let’s begin by asking …
1. WHAT ARE THE SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS HE AFFIRMS?
First, Paul mentions the spiritual blessing of peace. He wishes peace to his readers by saying, “Peace to the brethren …”; and he then goes on to explain that this peace is from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace is a wonderful blessing. It’s something that we often wish upon others. But we need to understand that the peace Paul is talking about isn’t the kind of peace that people usually think of today. The peace that people typically think of today is ‘peace’ in the sense of an absence of conflict or trouble—what we might call a ‘circumstantial’ kind of peace. That, of course, is a wonderful and desirable kind of peace to have. But the peace that Paul is speaking of is a much more substantial kind of peace than that. The peace that Paul is talking about is the kind of peace that’s characterized by an end of enmity between two parties—the end of hostility between enemies.
And in this case, the peace that Paul is talking about is—above all else—a peace between ourselves and God. Paul wrote about our desperate need for this peace in 2:11-12; when he said,
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (2:11-12).
As Gentiles, we were outside the covenant promises that God had made with the people of Israel. He had established that covenant with the Jewish people through His law—expressed in commandments and ordinances that were written down by Moses. Those commandments and ordinances made sinners out of the people of Israel because they couldn’t keep them. And those same commandments also made outsiders of all the Gentile people because the written law distinguished the Jewish people from the Gentile world. What a horrible situation we were in! As Paul said, we had no hope, were without God, and in the world!
But Paul then went on to write in verses 13-17;
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near (vv. 13-17).
With His sinless life, Jesus our Redeemer has fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law of God for us. And with His death on the cross, He paid the price for the guilt of our sins. And now, nothing stands in the way of being reconciled fully to God. We both—Jew and Gentile—can have peace with God through His Son Jesus Christ. So when Paul wrote that final greeting, he was writing to Gentile believers who were now made ‘one new man’ with Jewish believers … and was wishing them the blessing of ‘peace’.
Now; peace with God—being right with Him and being able to approach Him freely as our Father—is the fundamental basis of all other kinds of peace. If I’m at peace with God, and if you’re at peace with God, then we both have a solid basis for peace with each other. And Paul wrote about that too. In 4:1-3, he said;
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (4:1-6).
We’re not told to go out and try to ‘make’ peace for ourselves. And it’s good that we’re not … because we can’t. Instead, God has established peace for us by bringing us into a state of peace with Himself through the cross of His Son Jesus. So now, in Him, we have been bound together in unity; and it’s now our task to ‘endeavor to keep that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’.
And what’s more, God sends us out together into the world to be ambassadors of peace with Him through His Son Jesus. Paul wrote about that too. In Ephesians 6:15—in telling us to put on the full armor of God—Paul wrote that we must be sure to have shod our feet
with the preparation of the gospel of peace (6:15).
The gospel is the story of who Jesus is and what He has done for us. And when we faithfully go out into the world and proclaim His story—inviting people to put their faith in Jesus and be made at peace with God through Him—we’re marching forth as ambassadors of peace!
So; that’s the first great spiritual blessing that Paul reminds us about in the closing of this letter—peace. And the second blessing that he mentions in his closing words is love. “Peace to the brethren …” he says, “and love …” This is also from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Love is also a wonderful blessing. And the people of this world also typically wish love for one another. The Beatles thought that that’s all you need. But the love that this world often speaks of is an emotional kind of love—a love that draws us to others because of what we see as attractive in them. The kind of love that Paul talks about is different. It’s agape love—the love of self-sacrificial action.
And the kind of love that God has shown to us didn’t come from anything attractive that God saw in us. Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 2:1-3. He said,
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others (2:1-3).
There’s nothing attractive about that! When God looked upon us in our condition of enmity toward Him, He didn’t see anything that would have drawn Him to us. We were dead in trespasses and sins, and there’s nothing attractive about someone who is dead. And worse than that, to Him we were ‘the walking dead’. We walked according to the sinful patterns and practices of this world and in partnership with the devil. We were destined for God’s just wrath and eternal judgment.
But then comes two of the most wonderful words in all the Book of Ephesians—“But God …” Paul went on to write;
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (vv. 4-7).
God raised us up in Christ from out of our dead and decaying condition, made us alive, and seated us in the highest place of honor that there could possibly be before Him. And why did He do this? We’re told that it was “because of His great love with which He loved us”. If we ask God why He saved us and brought us to such glory, the simple answer we would receive is that it’s because He loved us with unmerited, undeserved, unlimited love. He agape-loved us so much that He gave His own beloved Son in order to redeem us from out of our dead condition and unto Himself.
And that love was not just from the Father only, but also from the Son Himself. Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to make that sacrifice for us. Jesus’ love for us—both in His sacrifice for us and His ongoing care for us—is to be the motive and the model of our love for one another. As Paul put it in Ephesians 5:25-29;
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church (5:25-29).
This is the spiritual blessing of love that is ours in Christ. It’s a love so great that it moved God the Father to give that which was most precious to Him, for the most unworthy and undeserving of us, in order to bring us to the greatest height of honor and glory in the universe. And this blessing of love is now what motivates us to love one another. If God the Father and Jesus His Son loved us with such sacrificial and giving love, then we ought to love and serve one another. Paul wrote about this too. In 4:13-16, he said that we’re to minister to one another …
till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (4:13-16).
Now; a third blessing that Paul mentions at the end of this letter is faith. Paul wrote, “Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ …” That faith is a whole-hearted belief in, and a reliance upon, the promises of God concerning His Son Jesus.
And we might be a little surprised to read that Paul included faith in the list of blessings. After all, is ‘faith’ really a ‘blessing’? Is it really “from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”? Isn’t ‘faith’ something we come up with, and put into practice, and place in God’s promises? Well; yes and no. We do place an active, intelligent faith in Jesus. But in Ephesians 2:8-9, Paul lets us in on an amazing secret. The faith that we place in the promises of God the Father—the very faith in Jesus by which we’re saved—is actually itself the Father’s gracious and undeserved gift to us. If we have faith in Jesus at all, it’s because God the Father first gave that faith to us. Paul wrote;
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast (2:8-9).
If the faith that I have originated from within myself, then I could very easily boast of my salvation. I could brag that it was my doing; because it was my faith in the promises of God that saved me. But the fact is that my faith didn’t even come from myself. It couldn’t have come from me, because I was spiritually dead in trespasses and sins; and someone who is spiritually dead can’t manufacture anything at all—not even faith. God graciously gave us that faith to believe and be saved.
So then; to have faith in Jesus Christ is an immeasurably great blessing from God. We should praise Him and thank Him and say, “Father; thank You so much that You gave me the faith to believe—and saved me by Your grace through the faith You gave me!” And what’s more, we should pray that our faith grows. That’s something else that Paul wrote about. In 1:15-23, he wrote something that is very much worth reading slowly and thoughtfully. He told the readers of his letter;
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1:15-23).
God’s gift of a faith in Jesus that saves us is only the beginning of the blessedness of that faith. As God mercifully expands our understanding of His promises to us, we see an ever-growing expansion of the blessing of those promises—all taken hold of by us, and put to work in daily living, through His gift of faith.
And finally, a fourth blessing that Paul mentions is grace. Grace is another way of speaking of God’s unmerited favor toward us. And so, Paul wrote, “Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.”
All that God has done for us is done by His grace—His unmerited favor. We don’t earn His favor. We don’t deserve His kindness. Instead, He gives us all that He gives us freely. What a wonderful blessing! Since we didn’t earn His favor, we also cannot be taken out of His favor. Paul tells us in Chapter 1 about all that the Father does to save us—choosing us before time for Himself and predestining us to adoption as His own sons and daughters—
to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved (1:6).
How great is God’s grace to us? How much is He prepared to give to us? Paul wrote about that too. In 4:7-8, Paul wrote about how God has equipped each one of us in Christ with the ability to serve Him and to minister to one another. And he wrote;
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says:
“When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men” (4:7-8).
So then; here are the four great blessings we find described to us in this wonderful letter: peace, love, faith, and grace. We have found these blessings highlighted to us in Paul’s letter.
Someone might ask where the blessing of ‘joy’ might be found in all of this. Shouldn’t that be on the list too? And I would suggest that if you experience peace with God, grow in His love, walk by faith, and rest in His grace, you’ll certainly have an overwhelming sense of the blessing of joy. Living in the light of the wonderful spiritual blessings that Paul outlined for us in this letter is definitely the pathway to great joy.
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Now; before we depart from these words, I’d like to draw just a couple of things to our attention.
First, we might ask how certain we can be that these blessings belong to us. Can we truly trust that they are ours, count ourselves rich because of them, and rest our eternal hopes upon them? And the answer is that we definitely can … if we remember who it is that these blessings come from. Paul tells us about this in these closing words. He assures us that these blessings come “from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. It’s by the initiative of the Father that they are given to us, and it’s through the obedient sacrifice of our Lord Jesus that they are secured to us.
So these blessings are certain and secure because of who it is that gives them to us. Our great need is to know them. As Paul put it in 3:14-21;
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (3:14-21).
And that leads us to one more thing to consider, and that’s to whom these blessings now belong. They don’t belong to just ‘anybody’. As Paul tells us, they belong to those who are the ‘brethren’—that is, those of us, both men and women, who are joined together by a common faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They are “all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity”; that is, with an incorruptible, lifelong gratitude by faith for Jesus for what He has done for us, and with an authentic love that shows itself in obedience to Him.
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What a wonderful letter this is! What a joy it has been to study. How grateful we should be that God moved it upon the heart of Paul to write it, and that He preserved it for us even to this day. How eagerly we should be to read it again and again, and let the truths of these great blessings sink into our hearts and transform our lives. In Jesus, we have complete peace with God, everlasting love from Him, all the faith we need to enter into the fullness of His blessings, and grace for every situation in life and for eternal glory in heaven. We can continually walk—day by day—in an ever-growing blessedness of peace, with love, by faith, in grace.
That’s the great message of Ephesians. So, let’s add our own joyful ‘Amen!’ to Paul’s close to this great letter:
Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen (6:23-24).
AE
