Ephesians 1 vs 15-23
Ephesians Chapter 1 Verses 15 – 16
· I love this and truly I believe the importance (and weight) of what Paul just said cannot be overstated! Thinking about and in describing the most influential and significant aspects of the church there in Ephesus, Paul points not to their explosive growth, or their great numbers, the awesomeness of their building, their incredible worship or their phenomenal Bible teaching. What he praises them for and what he is most thankful for is their faith and their love!
· Isn’t that just marvelous! How many people are at your church? How big is your building? What’s your salary? Is the church able to support you? What’s your growth strategy? How many missionaries do you support? Do you have programs for the entire family? These are the questions I get from other pastors, well-meaning friends and good-hearted new people. And I get it!! But don’t you want to know if we are absolutely in adoration of Jesus here!? I NEVER get that question!
· Don’t you want to know that there is true and real and unrestrained and Godly love for our fellow man here? Oh yea of course I do but if you have missions support and if you have a grand building and if your worship is tip-top quality (I’m talking fog-machine quality!), then that will be here, right? NO! Not always!
· Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
· Let me share with you a little inside baseball, personally. I’m here to turn a profit for God! And I am in no way walking about money! Jesus said to the profitable servant in Matthew 25:21, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” Church, the place where God is corporately worshipped and served in Spirit and in Truth, should be a place of GREAT GAIN. And that gain, that profit is souls captured by the grace of God unto eternal life, and hearts/lives filled and refilled and fueled and refueled with and in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control!
· A grand building is not the goal. It is a blessing. Perfect preaching, programs, plentitudes of parishioners…all desirable and great…but absolutely not priority in measuring the quality and caliber of a church. Faithfulness and love, specifically as Paul says here “for all the saints,” is everything. That is a profitable church unto the Kingdom of God (profitable person for that matter as well)!
· Now, faithfulness is a bit more involved/difficult to detect because there is a HUGE personal aspect to faithfulness and that takes a bit of time to investigate. But love is far more observable. I am a world-class singer! I should lead worship! I don’t care, do you love the people? I am classically trained in hermeneutics and hold my doctorate in divinity from the best Bible College! Can I teach here? Do you love the people? I’ve written church curriculums for children’s’ ministry for 30 years! Can I serve in Kid’s Ministry here? I really don’t care what you’ve written. Do you love the children, here?
· Listen, being a person who loves and serves your fellow saint earns you nothing in the economy of God. Love is rather simply evidence of your maturity and personal proximity to Jesus. Love is the birthmark of a born-again believer!
· And check this out…super interesting, Paul doesn’t say here to this church that he is impressed, blessed and thankful for their love for God, he says that he is impressed, blessed and thankful for their love for each other. Why? Because that is the real evidence of God’s work in us…not that we claim to love God but that our love for His people, that and those which and whom He loves, is evident and consistent.
· 1 John 4:20 says, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” John 13:14 says, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
· I think we’ve talked enough on this one… But to sum it all up in a statement that is worth a sermon series, Jesus never said, “You will know My disciples by how great and often they teach on end times. You will know My disciples by the fact they only sing songs composed by perfect people and groups. You will know My disciples by how awe-inspiring their meeting place is…” These are all reasons in the past, among many others, why people have left this church and others… You guys don’t make end-times center stage here…, you guys sing songs in your worship sets written by churches that are an absolute mess…, you guys don’t have the programs we are looking for…
· Ok, wherever you go, may you grow…because Jesus said in John 13:35, “You will know that they are My disciples by their love for one another.” And that is the sole aim and priority here. To love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength…and as a result of that, the part of that that you can see and participate in, to love one another as our own self. And we are promised by Jesus in Matthew 6:33 that if we seek Him first…He will add everything, everything else needed.
· So, yea, we don’t accentuate end times enough… I’m thankful that God has placed that calling on YOUR heart! How about you LOVE the people here and when your love is secured for God’s people, lets open the church every Sunday night, or Monday night, or Tuesday night, or Thursday morning and have you COME and answer the calling God has placed on YOUR heart?
· So yea, these songs with outstanding messages and lyrics get under your skin because they are composed by sinful man, how about you LOVE the people here and when your love is secured for God’s people, take notice how your brother or sister who is able to eat meat is so very blessed by a particular song whose lyrics by the way are wholly and entirely Biblical…and then walk in Paul’s exhortation perhaps to the Philippian Christians in Philippians 4:8 that, “whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things…”
· I get it though, I understand… I don’t want to judge you, in fact because of God’s love for you, even as you do err, my desire is to love you. But as for me and my house, situated as close to God’s house as spiritually possible, what I will focus on and what I will seek, until God removes this mantle of responsibility and accountability for this ministry from me, is that we walk in faith personally and that we love each other fervently…and that’s IT. That is our SOLE focus! And that is why I am MOST proud of what God has done and is doing here in this church! And so, we move on…
Ephesians Chapter 1 Verses 17 – 19
· This is the way to pray for someone. People ask me all the time, “How can I pray for you?” Well, this is definitely it! And here’s the amazing part of it all. We are literally praying for what we already have and yet what we don’t fully know! It’s essentially a prayer that we would realize and experience what we already have in Christ!
Ephesians Chapter 1 Verses 20 – 23
· All of that is a done deal. Complete, finished, accomplished… Jesus is exalted and the blessings of God on my life, the exceeding greatness of God’s power towards me and towards you, is the same power that rose Jesus out of the dead! I want to know that more. I want to understand that more so that my hope and confidence and even actions can be solid, as they should be…
· And Jesus has been given to the church. Given to us! To be Head over all things which He is and must be here. And in doing so we walk in this amazing characterization of being the fullness of Christ who fills all in all. Which means, people will be saved, helped, loved on…man, just filled, fueled and refilled and refueled. That is my plan for 2023, my three-year, five-year plan and all of our employee goals here!
· One more thing…the Head calls the shots. Figures things out…leads… But the head is also the smiler, the singer, the encourager, even the celebrator. Jesus bobs His head with the worship beat, HA! And God help me, by His grace, and by the prayers of His saints, this will be a church constantly and forever growing through humility and worship in the spirit of wisdom and in the revelation of the knowledge of Jesus. Our eyes of understanding being enlightened as we know better the hope of Jesus’ calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance now extended to the saints and as we glimpse time and time again and take hold for ourselves personally and corporately the exceeding greatness of His power towards us as we simply believe in Him, man we each grow closer and closer and closer and closer personally to the God who loves us incredibly!