Family of God (Eph 6:21-24)

Family of God (Ephesians 6:21-24) Intro: Good morning y’all. I went chasing rabbits this week… figuratively and literally. Anyone else have bunny issues this time of year? Those cute little stinkers can be obnoxious and destructive. Goodbye strawberries and hello holes in my yard. But I figuratively chased rabbits this week too. I went hunting for any additional information on Tychicus’ relationship to Paul and got off on Paul’s other companions and then also got off on whether or not Paul actually had two Roman imprisonments or just one. (…) Needless to say, it was fun and informative until I realized I was in a different county. But the good side of that experience was not only that I enjoyed studying, but that I was reminded again that these were people who knew each other and had real relationships with one another and had personal knowledge about many details of each others lives that they shared in the new family of God. And that’s when I realized that that’s exactly what I should focus on from the text at the end of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. The family of God needs faithful servants who recognize the privilege of being recreated for a new relationship with God and who embrace the responsibility of caring for one another and advancing the gospel together. Read Passage & Pray: God of all glory and grace, you know my heart. I thank you first of all that I am yours and therefore you are mine. And that unique, wonderful relationship with you through Jesus Christ, has brought me into a new relationship with your people. So God I thank you too for our church family and for our gathering together today to hear from you. Heavenly Father, I am acutely aware of my frailty, but that’s ok because I’m just a vessel this morning for the truth of your word at work by the power of your Spirit. In your strength and for your glory, manifest yourself to your people in such a way today that we will be both shaken to our knees in dependence on you and at the same time be elevated above the noise and troubles of this present life to see clearly who we are in you and who you desire for us to be as your church. We pray with confidence because of the precious blood of Jesus by which we have been purchased to belong to you, Amen. I. The family of God needs faithful servants who recognize the privilege of being recreated for a new relationship with God and who embrace the responsibility of caring for one another and advancing the gospel together. II. This is our 33rd and final sermon from the Bible text of Ephesians. Before that we had 18 sermons in Philippians. (Not that the number of sermons makes any difference,) but I was very mindful this week to be in earnest prayer for our church family to not move on from these two letters the Holy Spirit has written and recorded for us by the pen of Paul (or probably dictated by Paul and inked out by somebody else in many cases)… to not move on without feeling the full weight of God’s desire for the new Christian life and his design for the Christian family, the church. A. It’s a sad state of affairs when we Christians let our lives somehow manage to still be about us. I believe and therefore teach that the thrust of Paul’s letter to the Philippians is that we who have been saved to a new relationship with God must have our minds set on a single purpose—to live is Christ (1:21). We who have become partners in the gospel no longer live for anything other than trusting God and advancing the gospel. Indeed, we must see that there is a mission, and that the mission is to know Christ and make Him known. So we put no confidence in ourselves but only in our King to make us humbly sacrificial like Him to work together toward pursuing Him and proclaiming Him. To that goal, and that goal only, do we strain with ambition in this race we call the Christian life. (That is what makes your life now a distinctly Christian life.) All earthly pursuits fall away like chaff when our Lord emerges as the only mission—to know Him and to make Him known. B. It’s an equally sad state of affairs when the body of Christ fails to recognize the importance in God’s plan for local churches to be regional representations of His Bride, as well as the need of the church for Christians to be faithfully growing and serving the Lord. What defines us is our love for God and for one another—those are the words of Jesus, our new Master. Now how can we keep aligned with that unless we’ve got it in our heads that God has made this growth and service for the mission a joint endeavor in his new family? How can we trust our hearts to be adequately and accurately passionate for God unless we are in a church family that values the word of God to be the tool the Holy Spirit uses to empower transformational change in us? How can we stay committed to being his hands of sacrificial love unless we are working side by side and supporting and challenging one another? C. The finish line is God’s glory and he has told us that this is the way to get there. You have been given spiritual life in Christ and that new life has one mission—to know Christ and make him known. In order to accomplish this purpose God has placed us in the family of God to work together to grow in love for Him and to serve Him by loving others. D. [I give you that lengthy introduction because 1. It is probably the most important thing you need to remember and apply, and 2. It matters greatly to the text at hand.] III. Paul had companions. (Now I know that may sound stupid obvious, but it speaks to the importance of Christian companionship, of teamwork, of the church being the church.) A. Think about it. This great and fearless missionary, the apostle to the Gentiles… had help. Paul was never so foolish as to think that he didn’t desperately need the family of God. In fact, when he writes his 2nd letter to Timothy, probably the last one of his life before martyrdom in Rome, he begs Timothy in ch. 4 to come to him quickly because he’s suffering in relative spiritual solitude. Almost everyone else is gone (either deserted or sent on ministry elsewhere), only Luke is left. Paul desires Christian fellowship more than he desires freedom from his chains. B. So when he talks here about Tychicus, and elsewhere about others, he is so sincere in his love for them and in his commendation of them for their faithful service. Tychicus is “a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord.” 1. This co-worker is almost certainly carrying the letter to Ephesus [map], probably along with the ones to the Colossians and to Philemon about Onesimus (and a letter to the Laodiceans that we don’t have today).  Paul knows him to be trustworthy and faithful [trustworthy enough to take Onesimus the runaway slave back to Philemon – once a runaway slave, now a brother in Christ]… (but about Tychicus) because he has traveled and worked with Paul some since the third missionary journey, where we see in Acts 20 Paul picking up various men to accompany him and likely to responsibly carry and deliver financial assistance to the Jerusalem church (from their various regions) when Paul completes another missionary circle. (vv.1-6) [map] 2. Tychicus was from the Roman province of Asia [back], which is the area for the letters, and possibly even from Ephesus, as we know Trophimus was. This matters because Paul apparently, when he could, often sent people back to their own local areas, to the region of their church family, to deliver the letters and to encourage their hearts with news of Paul and the ministry. This was the case with Epaphroditus of Philippi (ch. 2). C. Soak in Paul’s concern for these local churches, whom he visits when he can, writes these letters to, and sends his own companions to. And see his sincere love for them in vv. 21and22 of Eph. 6. – Paul leaves out his usual long list of greetings from his other companions (Col. 4), but states that Tychicus will fill them in on “how we are.” D. Imagine that Rich had lived and worked here with us for three years, investing his heart and soul into relationships with us and into teaching us the doctrines of faith and practice. Then when he leaves to go work with other churches in his ministry tour he takes Andy with him. Sometime later he is unjustly captured in Jeff City and sent to DC to stand trial for being a teacher of the Way. In his heartfelt concern for you for those who still need Christ instead of for himself, he sends Andy all the way back here with a letter to strengthen and encourage us. That’s the relational concern and responsibility that Paul and Tychicus and their whole team has for the local church and working together to advance the gospel. And they model it for the churches, even asking them to pray for their ministry of gospel advancement (vv. 19-20). IV. Now all that I’ve just described about Tychicus and Paul’s companions and these local churches points to the second part of this thesis. – The family of God needs faithful servants who recognize the privilege of being recreated for a new relationship with God and who embrace the responsibility of caring for one another and advancing the gospel together. [Now to explain the first part we go to Paul’s closing benediction. And we’re about to get all theological again. Re-read vv. 23-24.] V. In his benediction Paul prays upon them Peace, and love with faith, which flow from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. His benediction prayer wish concludes with “Grace with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.” [***] A. Grace… and Peace… and Faith from God, and Love for God and his people… tie a nice final knot to some key themes in Paul’s letter, and together they reinforce something of central importance about the gospel. B. The gospel is about a relationship—a relationship with triune God through the sacrifice and mediation of his Son according to the eternal will of the Father, received by faith in us through the initiating and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The good news, the gospel, presented in your Bible is that God offers us a relationship by recreating us in Christ. And a new relationship with him is a relationship with his people. C. I want to show you this again so that you can feel the full force of it. (I won’t review the parts about power and prayer, b/c we just did that recently, but those are extremely important things as well.) If you are mentally rolling your eyes then you can stop it right now before I have to come down off my preaching pedestal and smack you. Remember, we think it’s important to carefully comb through these letters (and other books of the Bible) the way that we do, but we have to also keep in mind the overall message and movement of it b/c these letters can be read and reread, as they were intended, in a short span of time. So bear with me, because you will hear the themes and feel the weight and truth of the gospel being about being re-created for a new relationship to God and his people. 1. 1:2-8a 2. 1:13-16 3. 2:1,4-5,8-10 4. 2:12-16,19-22 5. 3:7-12 6. So when Paul moves from the deep theology that undergirds how they should practice their faith, he pleads with them to walk in a manner worthy of having been called/recreated to a new relationship with God and his people. 4:1-3,11-13 7. We have been recreated and taught in Christ therefore… 4:22-24, 5:1-2 8. 5:15-18, followed by practical illustrations of how that plays out even in our household relationships. 9. All of this comes back around to Paul prompting us that we must rely on God’s strength and put on his spiritual armor to stand firm because we’re battling against unseen spiritual forces that want to twist the gospel and cripple the church. But we are reminded in the end that we must stick together and learn together and grow together in this new relationship to God and each other as we aim to advance the gospel. Above all, we must be people completely dependent on God in prayer for him to strengthen us by his Spirit and grant us grace (undeserved favor of God) to succeed in loving him as we should and making him known to others with singular focus. VI. The family of God needs faithful servants who recognize the privilege of being recreated for a new relationship with God and who embrace the responsibility of caring for one another and advancing the gospel together.