Incorruptible Love
Following Christ our Head • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
Jesus’ prophecies are coming true.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.
And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
We spend a lot of time avoiding tribulation, which Jesus said would only grow toward the end. And we spend much less time developing our capacity for love, which Jesus said would be in short supply toward the end. But He also said that these would be the conditions for gospel proclamation until the end comes. How can we engage a dying world with the gospel of God’s love for them in Jesus Christ? It will happen as we share our lives with one another and as we love Jesus with the undying love He has for us.
Share Your Life
Share Your Life
Paul closes his letter with encouragement. He is sending a beloved brother to share personal news with these believers.
So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.
Paul wrote this letter because he had some important things to teach this church that couldn’t wait. But a letter can’t replace the personal connection he has with the people. He wants to share his life with them. There are stories to tell about what God has been doing. And because Paul can’t travel himself, being chained in prison, he sends Tychicus.
If you were going to send a friend to a church that was struggling to understand God’s love for them so they could grow in their love for Jesus, who would you send? You would want someone who set an example in these attributes.
Tychicus was one of Paul’s closest and most trusted companions. He had come from Asia (what we now call Turkey), and most likely from Ephesus itself. He had shared life with Paul as they made disciples of Jesus. They had experienced danger and difficulty and been comforted by the love of Christ. They were honest and open with each other. As Kerry Doyal says, “Paul entrusted his news and reputation to Tychicus.”
Tychicus was a “beloved brother” and a “faithful minister in the Lord.” He was committed to loving relationships and he was committed to Jesus and His mission. I need people like this in my life.
Do you have a brother or sister in the faith that you trust so completely that you can share everything going on with you? Do you have anyone that encourages your heart, that breathes courage into you? Are you making time to spend with that person? We need that.
Isolation and loneliness are the new epidemic not enough people are talking about. With all of our smart phones and video calls, we are less connected at the heart level than ever. Harvard Graduate School of Education found that “Twenty-one percent of adults in the survey reported that they had serious feelings of loneliness.
People between 30-44 years of age were the loneliest group — 29% of people in this age range said they were “frequently” or “always” lonely
Among 18–29-year-olds — the rate was 24%
For 45–64-year-olds, the rate was 20%
Adults aged 65 and older reported the lowest rate: 10% felt lonely”
The CDC says, “Social isolation and loneliness can increase a person's risk for:
Heart disease and stroke.
Type 2 diabetes.
Depression and anxiety.
Suicidality and self-harm.
Dementia.
Earlier death.”
The ease of our technological connections is misleading us to assume we are more connected than ever. But this is what Michael Frost calls “excarnate” connection. For humans to flourish, we need connection at all levels, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical. If you try to disconnect one of those, our flourishing begins to diminish. We found during the pandemic that the very people we were trying to protect with social distancing were the same people that walked in on a Sunday and wanted a hug or a handshake. Physical presence and embrace is not optional.
Texts, emails, and phone calls really can’t replace personal presence.
So, Tychicus is going to visit in person and share how Paul is and what he is doing, so that he will encourage their hearts. The word translated “encourage” here is the word for exhort, or urge, or invite along. I am most encouraged when I hear what God is doing in your life or through your ministry and you invite me to get involved with you or urge me to engage in disciple making ministry of my own. When I go to our district conference or talk with another Christian who tells me what they see God doing in and around them, I am encouraged, strengthened, and built up, to press on in gospel ministry.
Is there anyone you share your life with? Who is the person that strongly encourages you to engage in making disciples of Jesus? What could you learn from them if you asked? Who is someone you love and can encourage to engage in gospel ministry, making disciples? Sharing with that person what you are doing and how you see God working will strengthen them.
Love Jesus
Love Jesus
Paul closes the letter by tying a bow with the thread he has woven through this letter: living in the love of Jesus.
Verse 23 describes the blessings of the new covenant established in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God and peace with one another. How are we living in that peace? Are you happy to receive it and keep it for yourself, or is it a blessing you extend to others in love? This peace was meant to be shared. Like the Jewish greeting, “shalom”, we would bless everyone with the wholeness and flourishing we receive from Jesus. Peace is not just a greeting, but a goal we work toward in our relationships with one another. I consider your needs more than my own. I seek your peace with God in Christ. I walk in love with you and give of myself that you may be made more whole in Jesus.
This requires love with faith. This is a special combination in Paul’s writings. It is sometimes connected with hope as a trio.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
And sometimes, just love and faith. Paul explains the connection between them in Galatians 5,
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Faith - the kind of faith that unites us with Christ - doesn’t come by keeping the outward forms of religion. It does not work for love, it works through love. If I have faith that moves mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. I can say I believe in Jesus, but where is the proof? Love is the sign of my union with Christ through faith.
Paul says in Ephesians 6:23 that this peace, love, faith combination are a blessing that come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not something you can make up or find in yourself. You can’t create enough good vibes or sitr up feelings to match the peace and love God gives. It only comes by faith in God the Father and God the Son who give us their peace that surpasses understanding and their incorruptible love.
But when we are filled with their love, there is a blessing of grace for those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in an incorruptible/undying way.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
I think this is the first mention through this whole letter of our love for Jesus, and Paul sneaks it into the last line. Why? We can profess our love for Jesus as the Head of our church. We can sing songs of devotion and pray prayers of undying love. But if I am being real, there is no undying love in me. The only chance I have is to be filled with God’s love, to learn to love with His love. And Paul has spent much more time in this letter on the love of God for us.
Everything God does for us He does in love.
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,...and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Paul’s ultimate prayer is that God would strengthen and expand our hearts to truly know and trust in His love for us.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—
that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
If you are going to be filled with God’s fullness, first you need Him to strengthen your heart to receive His love, because you can’t know God without knwoing true love. And without faith you do not believe or trust in a love so pure and your corruptible heart is not strong enough to receive it. But if the Holy Spirit grants you faith in Jesus Christ so that Christ dwells in your heart, you will be truly rooted and grounded in God’s love. Christ in you will purify and strengthen your love. We grow in Christ as learn to live in His love.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
If we are going to be effective in proclaiming the gospel of God’s love for the world through Jesus in a time in which the love of many has grown cold, our hearts will need to grow in our capacity for love. The source of our incorruptible love for Jesus is the love of God shared with us by the Holy Spirit and the personal presence of Jesus in our herats.
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
There are so many things that corrupt our love for Jesus or cause our love for Jesus to grow cold. It could be a love for the things of this world. It could be inattention to our relationship. But mostly it is our love for self. We want our comfort more than we want to follow Jesus on the way of the cross, ministering the gospel to a dying world. I have found that what keeps my love for Jesus alive and vibrant is sharing life with brothers and sisters who will share in gospel ministry together. When I see Jesus working in people’s lives, I grow to love Him more. It takes my eyes off myself and the things of this world that would compete for my love for Him.
His personal presence in us supplies our undying love for Him. And we share that love as we invite one another alongside to make disciples of Jesus, our Lord and Messiah. As we share life with one another, sharing Jesus stories, we grow in our love for Jesus together.
If I am honest, I do not want to share my life with others. Life is much easier by myself. And If I’m honest, my love for Jesus is not incorruptible, undying. I need Christ in me. But Jesu is the one who shares His life with us and supplies incorruptible love.
Communion
Questions for Discussion
Who are you sharing life with right now? Who is encouraging you?
What do we learn about God in our passage?
What does God share with us, according to verse 23? In what ways are these blessings strengthening our relationships with one another and with God?
What do we learn about ourselves in this passage?
Who is someone that has encouraged you to engage in disciples making ministry? How would you describe them? What have you learned from them?
Who is someone you could encourage to engage in gospel ministry? What would you invite them to do with you that would strengthen them?
How do we grow in an incorruptible love for Jesus?
How will you respond to this passage this week?
Who is someone with whom you can share this passage this week?
