Faith and Love
Notes
Transcript
The Dynamic Duo
Greeting and Opening Prayer:Good morning, brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for bringing us together today to worship and learn from Your Word. Open our hearts and minds to receive Your message. Help us to grow in faith and love, and to reflect Your glory in our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Ephesians 1:1–2 (ESV)
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction to the Theme:Today, we are going to explore the dynamic duo of faith and love as seen in Ephesians 1:15-23. These two qualities are not just fundamental aspects of the Christian life but are also inseparably linked in our walk with Christ. Understanding their relationship helps us to live more fully as followers of Jesus.
II. Exploring of Ephesians 1:15-23
II. Exploring of Ephesians 1:15-23
A. Context of the passage
1. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
Context of the Passage:Some further context into the book of Ephesians he Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians while he was imprisoned. Despite his circumstances, Paul’s heart was filled with joy and thanksgiving for the believers in Ephesus. He had heard of their strong faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints, and he was moved to pray fervently for them.
III. Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer Ephesians 1:15-16
III. Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer Ephesians 1:15-16
As we come to our text we see as Paul transitions from the greeting and our conversation last week talking about God’s providence, how he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He created us in him with his glory in mind and when we realize this, that God has saved us not by works but by his mercy and grace it leads us nicely in this passage here.
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,
This faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards the saints becomes a very important part of what we believe in the church. What we confess teach and believe. You see faith and love go together like salt and pepper, ketchup and mustard, and even a mom and dad. I would even go so far as to say that you really cannot have one without the other. You must have both faith and love and love and faith, each pointing to one another as a dynamic duo, or as the church father John Chrysostom calls faith and love “a wonderful pair of twins”.
They absolutely must go together, for to have love without faith you find that it just becomes an emotion like the old Tina Turner song what’s love got to do with it, in it she says what’s love but a second hand emotion, and from a world perspective this is true. To have love without faith is to merely rely upon the heart and I only need to remind you what the bible says about the heart. Jeremiah 17:9
Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Thus the opposite is true as well faith without love, well it is James says faith without works is dead. You see when you have faith you love. John points this out well in 1 John 3:16-17
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
Love becomes the work of faith, to have faith is to love like the father loves and without love you are as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Again however this is another one of those tensions that must remain for all too often we have a tendency to fall off one way or another either we tend to put so much emphasis on love that it becomes a universal acceptance of everything, in which faith then dies at the hands of doing good by your own strength or power. Or the opposite of that is to put so much on faith without works that we forget the love of Christ Jesus, how he saved us, how God showing his love for us laid down his life for us. We love as he first loved us, and that knowing this great love moves us to faith, and faith to love and again a tension must remain.
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
Now as Paul sees this in the church at Ephesus, as he hears about this, he then says that he gives thanks for them for keeping this faith and love, and remembering you in prayer. It is true then that when we love our brothers and sisters, we pray for them. Faith leads to love, and that love moves us to care for our neighbor, praying for them, proclaiming the gospel to them, helping them in times of need.
IV. The Power and Riches of God’s Inheritance Ephesians 1:17-19
IV. The Power and Riches of God’s Inheritance Ephesians 1:17-19
Tying this theme together Paul moves on emphasizing the need for this faith that leads to love, by showing the love God has for us as I just mentioned. This agian we know from what Paul writes to the Romans that ever important doctrine for us to understand Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
As Paul prays for the Ephesians, it is as well we pray for one another and continue in the great commission.
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
Again we must consider the words of 1 Corinthians 13:1 again.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
Truth in love, we preach so that you may come to understanding of faith, and live in the assurance of faith, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the words of Christ, all of this for the glory of God. For in knowing all of this, in being raised to new life in Christ Jesus, you are given a Spirit of wisdom, your are given the knowledge of saving grace all for the hope that in which you are called for this glorious inheritance of the saints.
and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
Again this is not something that we do, no it is faith coming to us, building up in us by immeasurable greatness of his power. We simply must have faith, that is to believe what God has said, believe this promise that has been given to you in the waters of baptism, that the old self is drowned and raised to new life. Where Christ has put his name upon you and Titus 3:5
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
V. Christ’s Exaltation and Dominion Ephesians 1:20-23
V. Christ’s Exaltation and Dominion Ephesians 1:20-23
that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,
We confess week after week this truth when we profess our creed, either the Apostles or Nicene creeds that we believe in Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. This is the gospel, the good news that God has saved us and leads us to the next part of this confession Paul makes,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
The church which is his body. It is truth that he says that, the church is the body of Christ, some the hands, some the feet, do not discount yourself in any way, that as you were baptized, you became a member of the Church of Christ, and being in the church you are in the body and if in the body you, yes even to the smallest child here among us, to the oldest member each and every one of you has a role to play, a part in the body and thus needed. 1 Corinthians 12:21-26
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Coming all together then we see how it is faith and love working together in the body of Christ as we encourage the faith of one another by the mutual building up, we show love and when we love as Christ first loved us, we also build up faith in the week, by showing his grace and mercy.
Thus we come to again another passage of Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13:13
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Amen
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
