The Gospel Centered Community - Faith Working Through Love

Okay, so we're doing, we're having this series this summer about how the gospel changes the way we do life together, and so we're going to talk about that some more this morning.

We're going to talk about how faith and love work together.

Okay, and love is.

Love is this word that is like so nebulous sometimes.

Right, and we all know we're supposed to love, right, and we all got this little sneaking suspicion that love is kind of an answer probably to most of our problems, right, but I have a question.

As I've been reading the scripture this week and preparing for this, I had a question as I've been reading the scripture this week and preparing for this.

I had a personal question.

It's my question that I've been asking the Lord.

That really, I think, makes everything really practical.

And the question is how can I love you like I'm supposed to love you?

How can I love you like I'm supposed to?

How can I love you like I'm supposed to?

So I was thinking about it that love is just a predominant message in literature, in movies and in songs too.

I saw this survey, which was done from top 40 songs from 1960 to 2010,.

Right, so, 50 years of top 40 songs.

Right, years of top 40 songs.

Right, and what do you think the number one theme in top 40 songs in over 50 years was?

You got any idea?

You guys are so sharp.

I mean it's like you're tracking.

This is great.

Nearly 70% of the songs had lyrics about relationships or love.

Of course they did.

Of course they did Because we were made to love.

We were made in the image of a God who loves and we were made to love.

And Jesus said that when we love God and love people, we are covering every base.

We are actually fulfilling everything.

The law says everything.

The prophets said, if we can do those things.

But love in a fallen world is complicated.

Can I get a witness this morning?

It's not easy.

Love in the abstract is beautiful and it seems easy, but love in reality, loving real people in real situations, is real hard.

Part of those songs, two of those songs that were written over that period of time, were written by the Beatles.

One was All you Need Is Love and the other one was we Can Work it Out.

And then they broke up.

Love is complicated, it's hard.

So how can I love you like I'm supposed to?

That's the question, and there's an answer.

There's an answer.

So so far in the series we've talked about the fact that God himself is a God of community.

He is a God within his very nature.

There's father, son and Spirit, and he created us as communal beings.

He created us in his image.

So this is part of who we are is beings who are supposed to be connected to other beings, right, but the fall turned us in on ourselves and it made relationships go bad, and so we start shying away from the very things that we need to be healthy people.

But in Christ, because of what Jesus has done, he has redeemed us.

He's redeemed these relationships and he restores our ability to live together in healthy community, and it's in those very relationships that we have that we actually are transformed into His image.

So today we're going to learn that the gospel itself is what empowers us to obey God's call to live as we ought to live, live together with one another, live valuing one another and love one another.

So what does biblical community look like, or how should we interact with each other?

That's the question, right, and the Bible is not vague on this topic.

The Bible is very specific on this topic.

You probably have heard a lot of the one another scriptures where it talks about how we're supposed to actually live together.

And I was looking at these one another scriptures.

Of course, the biggest one is love one another right, that's in there at least 16 times in the New Testament at least.

So that's a big one.

But I wanted to talk about these one another scriptures.

But I wanted to turn it around and make it really personal for me.

I want to talk.

I'm going to read through these and just say this is how I'm supposed to love you.

Okay, I'm supposed to love you.

I'm supposed to be devoted to you.

I'm supposed to honor you above myself, to live in harmony with you and to build you up and to accept you.

I'm supposed to warn you.

I'm supposed to serve you.

I'm supposed to bear your burdens.

I'm supposed to forgive you and be patient with you, be kind and compassionate to you.

I'm supposed to submit to you and look to your interests and to bear with you and to teach you and to comfort you.

I'm supposed to encourage you and stir you up to love and good works.

I'm supposed to show hospitality to you.

I'm supposed to employ the gifts that God gave to me to benefit you.

I'm supposed to confess my faults to you.

I'm supposed to pray for you that you might be healed.

So how can I love you like I'm supposed to?

That's tough.

Well, this book that we've been going through Gospel Center Community talks about two ways you think about this, and one way is resolution and one way is resignation.

Resolution is I'm going to try harder.

I resolve to love you.

I'm going to do it.

You grit your teeth and you do it.

I'm going to do it, and I think I can and I think I can, and I think I can and I think I can, but I find that I can't.

I actually find that I fall short of it.

Right, that's resolution.

I'm going to undo it.

And then the other one is resignation, which is nobody can do it.

So I'm not even going to try.

But what kind of world would it be if we didn't even try, if nobody even tried?

That would be a tough world, right.

But there is an answer and we're going to look to the Bible this morning and find the answer, and I'm going to tell you the answer we're going to find up front.

Okay, this is like cherry picking this morning.

This is a very easy sermon for you.

I'm going to tell you the answer we're going to find right now and then we're going to find the answer.

Okay, is that right?

Here it is.

It is my faith in the work of Jesus that makes me able to love you.

It is my faith in the love of Jesus and the work of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus that works in me, that makes me able to love you.

So my text today is one verse in Galatians and the entire book of Ephesians.

Okay, so we're going to read Galatians first, galatians 5, 6.

And it says this For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

And the key phrase there is faith working through love.

Faith and love go together here.

Okay, so Paul is talking about this thought that outward actions do not change the heart.

Circumcision was a sign of the old covenant, but merely being circumcised doesn't make you right with God, any more than merely coming to church or being nice to people makes you right with God.

Outward things don't change the heart, and I can try to keep the law of God and I can try to keep the law of man, and I can try to keep the traditions of my culture, and I can still be as mean as a snake to you.

Why is that?

And sometimes, the more legalistic, maybe all the time, the more legalistic I get, the meaner I get.

Why is that?

How can I love you like I'm supposed to?

But here Paul is saying that faith and love work together.

Okay, faith works through love.

That's what we're going to talk about today.

It's my faith in the work of Jesus that makes me able to love you.

So we're going to explore that one verse by looking at the entire book of Ephesians.

We're not going to read the entire book of Ephesians, but I do have a challenge for you.

We're going to talk about three kind of positions or elements on the journey, our journey with God in the book of Ephesians.

But I do have a challenge for you.

If you choose to accept it, okay, I dare you, those of you who need a dare, I dare you, I dare you, I dare you to read Ephesians 1 all the way through Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 9, and ask two questions.

Ephesians 2:9

Okay, read that passage and ask these two questions.

Number one what has God done for us in Christ?

And number two what does God ask us to do?

What does God require me to do?

What has God done already and what does he require me to do?

What has God done already and what does he require me to do?

And I just tell you, if you do that, if you read that and you think it through and you allow that to get into your heart, this is like repositioning your entire life around the truth of the gospel so that out of that you begin to live the way you're supposed to live.

This is really profound.

Paul starts the letter to the Ephesians in chapter 1.

It's very profound.

Chapter 1 and chapter 2 are the beginning, but what's in there at the beginning is at the beginning for a reason because this is the foundation of everything that's going to follow, and so what he talks about is everything that we have, we've been given by the work of Jesus.

And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you what you'll find, but I'd love for you to read it this week too and do the homework.

It'll help you.

Okay, if you read chapter one through chapter two, verse nine, here's what you find.

God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ.

He chose us, he predestined us in love, he adopted us, he accepted us, he redeemed us, he forgave us, he lavished his grace on us, he gave us wisdom and understanding, he made us know the mystery of his will, he gave us an inheritance, he included us in the beloved son, he sealed us by his spirit and he made us his own possession.

That's part of it.

All of this is yours in Jesus.

And Paul stops right there.

There's this great prayer there at the end of chapter one that maybe you've heard a lot, maybe you've prayed it.

But he stops there and he prays God, would you open their eyes?

He just stops.

He says he stops there and he prays God, would you open their eyes, would you?

He just stops.

He says all this is yours in Jesus' weight.

Stop, god, open their eyes, let their eyes be enlightened to see this.

And the word he uses there is apocalypse.

Okay, the word for open eyes, because apocalypse means an unveiling, like something is revealed, like the book of Revelation.

In other translations, like in other nations, other countries languages, the book of Revelation is called the apocalypse.

Right, apocalypse means you see something you didn't see before.

And Paul is saying open their eyes to see something they haven't seen before.

But it's not an end times thing, it's something that's happened for all time.

It's not what's going to happen, it's what has already happened, what is already there, something that lasts forever, right?

So it's not focusing on end times, but all time Not will happen, but what has happened?

God helped them to see what's already happened.

And then he continues.

He keeps it going.

He says he's called us to hope, he's given us an inheritance, he's given us great power, he's given us a head of the church, which is Jesus.

And when we were dead in our sins, god raised us back to life, because by grace you've been saved through faith, and it's not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

And he says in there that God has raised Jesus up and seated him in the heavenlies and given him authority over all power.

And then he says that he has raised us up and seated us together with him in the heavens.

This is where we start the book of Ephesians.

Okay, we start with a position, and our position, the first position in your walk with God, is resting.

I'm not working, I'm resting All the things that he's done for me in Jesus, not that I tried and tried and worked and earned, and maybe I can keep it, I don't know.

It's what's been given to us already in Jesus, and it's actually looking back.

If you think of it.

This beginning of Ephesians is looking back to the beginning of creation, where God created man.

And he created man.

You know what day he created man on.

You remember Sixth day, the evening of the sixth day.

At the end of the sixth day he created man.

So the first full day of man on earth was what day?

It was the Sabbath day.

It was the seventh day.

It was rest.

The first thing man did, by God's order of design and creation, was to have a day of rest.

And Paul opens this letter up and he's getting ready to talk about what we do and how we live our life.

But this is how you start you start sitting, you start resting and in that creation, by the way, it says, the evening and the morning were the first day.

The evening and the morning were the second day.

It's interesting, isn't it?

Because to God in creation, scripturally, we can say that the day starts in the evening, it doesn't start in the morning.

Now, I wasn't raised that way.

I was raised that my day starts when I wake up.

I wake up, I'm kind of groggy, I pull myself together and I work myself all day long, until I fall in bed at night.

That's not the way it is, though, and even to this day, this is the way the Jews celebrate the day.

When do they start the Sabbath?

Neil Sundown, sundown, when they started at the end of the day.

No, that is the beginning of the day, because they began with rest, and so I began to change things in my own mind, and I actually started praying this prayer as I go to sleep.

Lord, I thank you that I start my day right now.

It's 10 o'clock at night, but I'm starting it right now, and I thank you that I can rest in this good bed you gave me, and I thank you that I can rest in this good bed you gave me, and I thank you that I can rest in this great grace that you gave me in Jesus, and I rest, and tomorrow I will wake up from my rest and I will walk.

I'll work, but we start right here.

This is where we start.

We are grounded in Jesus, we are adopted, we're chosen, we're included, we're sealed.

We're chosen, we're included, we're sealed, we're resting.

That's it we rest, okay, so first step in your walk with God is resting.

And then I asked this question, this second question, that's what God has done for us in Christ.

But the second question is what does God require me to do?

And I looked, and I looked through that whole scripture and I only found two things.

God requires two things from me.

Number one is to believe what he's done and number two is to praise him for it, to the praise of his glorious grace.

Paul says a couple of times in there to the praise of his glorious grace, this grace which he poured on us, he lavished on us, he dumped this grace all over us, and now we praise him for it.

This is what we're required to do Believe in the work he's done already and thank him for it.

That's where we start.

Okay, that's the first position in your Christian life.

But then Paul keeps going.

In the next verse, chapter 2, verse 10, he says this for we are his workmanship.

He just got finished saying it's by grace you're saved, through faith.

It's not of your works, lest any man should boast, but now we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, walk in them, and then, if you keep going and you go to chapter 4, verse 1 says this I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.

Walk.

So the first position in your journey with Jesus is sitting.

The second, it's resting in him.

The second is walking.

Okay, therefore, walk, and out of this place of rest.

God has already done in Jesus for us.

We're enabled to live the right way.

Okay, and he begins to talk about what it means to live correctly.

But we need to understand this place of resting in the gospel.

From that place, I'm changed.

This is what Paul is referring to when he says we were dead in our sins and were raised back to life.

God made us alive.

It's that Old Testament prophecy, speaking about the new covenant which was to come.

I will take away your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit inside of you.

And I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit inside of you and I will cause you to follow after me.

So, chapters 1 and 2, that's what that is.

And now he puts his spirit inside of us and he causes us to follow.

So what God has done for us in the gospel enables us to walk.

That's the important part.

I do the works from a heart that's been changed and that's overwhelmed with thanksgiving and for the kindness of God.

So he says walk worthy.

Interesting Therefore.

He said, therefore, referring back to chapter one and two, because of what God has done, therefore, walk worthy.

And he begins to say what this new heart looks like when you live out of a new heart and you're walking.

It is what it's don't lie anymore, speak the truth.

It's don't steal, rather work with your hands.

It's don't be controlled by substances, be controlled by the Spirit.

He says be patient and gentle and humble and unified and honest.

Don't be controlled by anger.

Watch your mouth.

He says that more than once.

In fact.

He says watch your mouth, don't grieve the Holy Spirit.

Watch your mouth.

Okay, your mouth is.

Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, watch your mouth, okay, your mouth is important to not grieving the Holy Spirit.

Be sexually pure, be a good, wise, spirit-led spouse and parent and child.

And then he literally says be an imitator of God.

Imitate God, I mean live like Jesus, be like Jesus.

And he says walk worthy, walk in the light, walk in love, walk with wisdom.

It's a walk, and a walk is just steps right.

A walk is taking.

It's taking steps one at a time, and it's making decisions every day that are consistent to my commitment to Jesus.

That's what a walk is.

Now, yesterday, some of us went out of town to a wedding.

Some of us were in the wedding.

Yesterday we saw Nate and Abby Jones get married and it was beautiful, it was great, it was terrific.

But I thought about that.

Okay, we had the ceremony and Tyler did a great service.

It was great.

So the ceremony man and wife sign the paper.

It's done right.

Legally they are married.

They can file the taxes jointly.

I don't know.

They can do whatever.

Legally, they can do everything.

Okay, it's, they can do whatever.

Legally, they can do Everything.

That's they.

Okay, it's legal.

But I want to ask you this so they were married at that moment.

They were married right, but do they really know the fullness of what oneness is at that moment?

No way, no way.

It takes years of walking together and beauty and struggle and conflict and decisions that are consistent with their vows, but they're married Right now, today, they're married, but they're learning.

They're learning to grow into what they already are.

That's it.

Same thing you can think about if a couple adopted a child right and as soon as the papers are signed, the child is theirs.

It's done.

The child is a legal heir to all of the fortune.

The child is a legal member of this family.

They can count that child off on the taxes too.

I don't know why I'm on taxes today, but it's in my brain.

Adoption happens in a moment in time when the paper is signed right, and that child is under the care of the parents and that child has a family.

That child is a legal heir, right.

But at that moment of signing the child doesn't know what it truly means to have a father, to have a family, to have a safe place.

It takes years.

You got to walk through that right.

Sonship happens over a period of time.

They grow into what they already are.

This is what we're talking about.

We already are, we are.

We're resting here, but we're growing into it by the power of the work of Jesus inside of us.

We're walking in love and light and in circumspectly or wisdom right.

Looking around Circumspectly means to look in all directions.

Wise, thinking things through wisely.

Okay, so the new heart comes from faith in Christ.

We're born again in a moment of time.

But then we walk, we learn to become what we already are.

The ability to walk comes from a new heart and the indwelling spirit.

So how can I love you like I ought to love you, because I have a heart that's been changed.

And then I begin to walk it out.

And then Paul moves on to another phase of spiritual growth.

So in chapter 6, he says this chapter 6, verse 10, finally, finally, at the end of it all, finally, the end of the letter.

Okay, finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor that you may be able to withstand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.

So the third position we rest, we walk and then we wrestle.

We wrestle, but we wrestle out of a place of rest.

He didn't start in chapter 6, did he?

He started in chapter 1.

What God has already done in Jesus Christ empowers me to wrestle, to pray, to fight, to stand, to armor up, put on your armor.

And even this armor that he gives is gospel-based.

It's rooted in a finished work.

Right, we have a belt of truth.

Truth is a person.

It's Jesus we have, and it's in his finished work too.

We have a breastplate of righteousness, not our own righteousness, but the righteousness that's been given to us.

Imputed is Jesus's righteousness that's been given to us.

We have shoes of the readiness, of the gospel, all the things that Paul has been talking about in chapter one and two.

We have a shield of faith.

That's not our own faith.

Even we have a shield of faith.

That's not our own faith.

Even that faith is a gift from God.

Even we have a helmet of salvation, which is a gift from God.

Again, you know it's finished.

It's a finished work.

Okay, all this is what we fight with, but it's not of our own doing.

We don't fight in our own strength.

So our walk with Christ flows in this progression.

First we rest in the finished work of Jesus.

We rest, and then we walk.

Out of that rest, we're enabled to walk, and we walk uprightly, and we walk as we should walk, with each other, and we stand, we wrestle, rest, walk.

Wrestle In that order, please.

That's the order.

It's very important.

It's very important because of this.

Many people are exhausted.

Many people are exhausted or hurt or disappointed or even deconstructing their faith because they haven't started right here in the rest, maybe they came into this Christian thing through the door of chapter 6, right, and they've been fighting.

They're focused on the battle, they're focused on the enemy, they're focused on their own zeal to be able to fight my faith, to fight my prayer, my armor, my effort to tear down strongholds pressing in, sometimes striving in this battle.

Right, I'm so zoned in on the spirit world that my spiritual life is defined by my zeal.

My spiritual walk is defined by my zeal.

And Paul understood this.

You remember he called himself a very zealous person.

He said I was zealous, even above all my peers.

He knew what it meant to be zealous for something, but that zeal that he had actually caused him to fight against what God was doing.

He was zealous in the law and fighting God.

So zeal by itself is not a good thing, not necessarily a good thing If I'm ungrounded in grace and I focus on the spirit world in grace and I focus on the spirit world, I become flighty, unstable and just weird, squirrely, just weird.

You know, you've seen some weirdness, maybe we've all had weirdness like that.

Right In my own zeal, I focus on the enemy and I end up living under this weight that I wasn't meant to carry.

It's my job to fight this battle and I set this frantic pace and I'm not even aware of this place of rest.

I came in through the door of chapter 6, and I didn't even.

Maybe I understand the gospel, maybe, like I understand, it's through Jesus I'm saved, but I don't understand the fullness of what he's done and I'm not living in that place of rest.

Or maybe you came through the door of chapter four, but not the real chapter four, kind of a twisted chapter four, because chapter four is just the outworking of a heart that's been made new.

It's a natural thing.

But if you twist it and it becomes a list of do's and don'ts, then it's moral imperatives, it's legalistic, performance-based approach to God.

It's you better do this.

You better not lie.

You better not steal.

You better not drink.

You better not lie.

You better not steal.

You better not drink.

You better watch out, don't lose your ticket.

Watch out, it's all on you.

It's a list of do's and don'ts and, in my own strength, I try not to lie, not to steal, not to grieve the Spirit, not to speak badly about you.

I'm focused on what not to do.

I'm focused on what not to grieve the Spirit, not to speak badly about you.

I'm focused on what not to do.

I'm focused on what not to do, like a good Pharisee, and Paul understood it.

Because, well, paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, according to the law, blameless, he said In his own understanding of it.

He said I was blameless according to the law, and yet he was breathing out threatenings and murders.

He had hate so deep in his heart.

Man, have you noticed that when the more a person focuses on the law, the more mean they get?

It's not because the law is bad.

The law is good, but sin of pride is bad and it goes bad on you.

So some people never get to rested and seated because they never knew this rest was even available.

They came through the door of chapter six, or they've been led by leaders who lead churches through chapter 6.

Or they lead churches in chapter 4.

And they never have been over here.

Now we're supposed to walk and we're supposed to wrestle.

That's part of Christian life.

Okay, you don't leave that be.

This is part of it.

We're supposed to do it.

Living right and fighting is part of it, but you have to do it.

Living right and fighting is part of it, but you have to do it out of a place of rest.

It's really important when you forget the beauty of the gospel, then your wonder is gone and you become a bitter rule keeper or a zealous witch hunter.

And how many wants that in your life?

Ain't nobody got time for that.

It's really important.

It's really important and I think all of us in some way probably have a story, a testimony, of being more in chapter four and more in chapter six and less in chapters one and two.

Probably.

That's true, right, and I personally, I've learned that I had to just deconstruct my home faith, but not away from Jesus, but into real Christianity.

And I learned that deconstructing is not very, it's not really a bad thing if what you constructed in the first place wasn't scriptural.

Deconstruct it into grace, into the basis of Christianity.

Flip the script right.

My faith is not on my ability to have faith.

My faith is not in my ability to fight against the powers.

My faith is not in my ability to do what I know is right.

My faith is in someone and in the faithful nature of that person and in the finished work of that person, and out of that work I'm enabled to walk and I'm empowered to fight.

Now, okay, that was Ephesians in 20 minutes.

Now we're back to community, okay, so let's finish it up talking about community, and I have a confession to make to you all.

The Scripture says to confess your sins to one another.

Right, I have a fault to confess to you, right, paul?

I see now.

I understand now what I didn't see before.

Paul is writing Ephesians to a whole group of people.

So all of these uses of the word you in here are plural you, it's y'all, y'all.

So, and I didn't understand that, I have to confess that for years I was guilty of personalizing Ephesians directly to me.

I thought it was only for me and it's probably just a product of maybe my own selfishness or maybe my own individualistic culture that we live in, right?

But Paul has been saying all this tied into community, and he says things like this in Ephesians he says that you're fellow citizens with the saints and you're members of the household of God, that you're joined together as a holy temple.

It's temple imagery, living temple.

And he says that we're built together, temple of the Lord, built together, a dwelling place for God, us together.

We are the new temple.

So Ephesians is not primarily about me, it's primarily about God and what he's done in Christ and it's secondarily about all of us in community.

And oh yeah, it's about me because I'm part of all of us, so it does apply to me as well.

But here's what I learned we grow in the knowledge of the gospel together, so we rest together.

We grow in practical Christ-like character together, we walk together and we learn to resist the enemy.

Together, we wrestle together.

And I learned that there are depths and dimensions of the love of God that are impossible for me to know if I'm not regularly around other Jesus followers that are not like me.

And that's important because this whole thing is written to Jews and Gentiles.

And there's this us part of Ephesians.

And if we could all travel back to the first century Palestine and maybe we would feel the tension that he's talking about here, because there was a huge tension between Jews and Gentiles it's likely that most of the people in the Ephesian church in Ephesus were Gentiles, but there were Jews there as well.

But you remember that in the temple in Jerusalem there was an outer court.

There was an inner court right In the outer courts.

The Gentiles could come outer courts Inner courts, only for the Jews and a big wall of partition in between.

And Paul is saying here that Jesus broke down this wall of partition in between.

Part of him destroying the principalities and powers is he destroyed this wall between us, between Jews and Gentiles, and he made one new man and he built us into a house, a dwelling place for God.

That's part of the powerful work that Jesus did when he destroyed principalities and powers.

So God changes our relationship with him.

We were enemies, but now we're reconciled, and he changes our relationship with each other too, these other people from whom we may have been alienated.

Maybe it's not Jews and Gentiles from whom we may have been alienated, maybe it's not Jews and Gentiles, maybe it's socioeconomic, maybe it is cultural, maybe it's, I don't know.

We have so many categories of us versus them.

Right, it's y'all and it's us, and we kind of live that way for some reason.

But he removes from our hearts, the prejudice and the partiality that's naturally in our carnal hearts, and he brings us together.

So let me finish by this one verse, in the middle, right in the middle of Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 17 through 19.

Ephesians 3:17–19

Paul's praying again.

He prays a lot in this letter.

He prays again.

He prays 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, rooted and grounded in love.

This is where we are in chapter 1, right, the great love with which God has loved us, rooted and grounded in the rest of the gospel, the resting.

There we can understand together the greatness of this love, to gather the greatness of this love, what God has done in Christ empowers us to understand, with all the saints, in community, the fullness of his love for us, so that we can love one another.

So when Paul says maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.

And Paul says there's one body and there's one spirit and one hope of calling and one Lord and one faith and one baptism and one God and father of us all, all of this unity that he's talking about here, how can I love you like I'm supposed to?

And then, and the answer is chapters three through six, which is what it looks like for me to love you is only possible because of chapters one and two.

It's the gospel that works inside of me, that changes me, that causes me to be able, that empowers me to be able to love you, and we love because he first loved us.

But that's not just motivation, that's ability.

You know, I understand.

I'm motivated to love God because of his love for me.

He loved me first and so I turn and I love him back.

I get that.

But it's not only motivation, it's ability.

It's literally.

I'm unable to love him until he loves me and he changes me and he gives me all those spiritual riches in Christ that he's given to me, and then I'm able to walk and love you.

So ultimately it comes down to this In practical ways, every day, I judge all of you as either worthy of my love or not.

I mean, it's kind of blunt, but it's really true, isn't it?

You're either worthy of my love.

In my eyes, you're either worthy of my love or not, and everybody that I'm meeting throughout the day either worthy of my love or not, and I can only see your value if I understand my value to God.

I can love you because he first loved me.

And when Paul uses this temple language, they understood temple.

This was a great Neil reminded me this yesterday.

This was the great city of Ephesus.

There was a huge temple there, one of the wonders of the world.

They understood the temple and what goes on inside a temple.

And when Paul is writing to them that you are the new temple, you're the dwelling place of God.

This was so important to them because they had a reference point for where God was and what we're supposed to do to worship him.

It was a temple in Jerusalem, but within 10 years of when this letter was written, that temple would be destroyed Forever, changing the way they would understand worship.

There's no more physical place for God to dwell, no more place for us to come and offer sacrifices.

What great love it was for God to speak through his apostle and tell them but there is a temple.

When the temple is gone, there's still a temple.

You are the temple.

You are a temple built together, a dwelling place for God, and the liturgy of that temple is love one another, as I have loved you.

And it looks really practical and it's laid out there in the scripture, but that's the bottom line of it.

And how can we do it?

We can't do it through the law, so the law and the temple had to be done away with.

We do it through the gospel.

We love each other through the gospel.

So how can I love you like I'm supposed to love you?

Here's the way I thought of it this week as I'm reading this.

If I can rest in him, I can risk loving you.

So I'm going to try.

Why don't we stand up?

I want to pray for us all.

You understand that Paul wrote this out of his own experience.

He was a man who was driven by performance and driven by zeal, and he became a man who understood what God had done for him in Christ and he became a man who could rest Rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

He learned how to live loved, and the only way that we can be whole people is to live loved.

And the only way that we can deal with the emotional brokenness that's caused by a broken world is to live loved.

And the only way that we can deal with the emotional brokenness that's caused by a broken world is to live loved.

And the only way for me to obey the command of God to love you is to live loved, loved by Christ, rooted in His love.

And the only way for us to wage war like chapter six war is to live in the peace of God that comes through the gospel, to live loved.

So let's just pray that as a prayer this morning.

Father, we just want to ask you to give us grace to understand.

We pray for a revelation.

Give us an apocalypse, god.

Give us an apocalypse, god.

Give us an apocalypse, lord.

Open our eyes of our understanding to see not what's to come but what has already been, lord.

Not the end times, lord, but for all time, what you've done in Jesus.

Open our eyes, god.

Teach us, god.

Teach us how to rest in what you've done for us, lord.

Our souls wander and our souls are just.

I don't know.

We have this, some kind of adrenaline that just pushes us and drives us, lord, and it looks in different ways for each of us, lord, but we need to learn to rest.

Teach us, lord, how to rest in you first and then to stand from that resting place and to walk and to fight together.

And, lord, I'm asking you also, as you teach us to do that, lord, I'm not praying that just as an individual prayer.

Lord, I want that in my life, but we want it together, lord, Teach us to do this together.

We realize that we're a temple.

We realize that we're built together.

We are a dwelling place for God, all of us, lord, together.

So teach us how to grow in our rest together, lord, teach us how to grow in our walking in righteousness together.

And teach us, lord, how to fight together.

We pray, I pray your blessing on each of us.

God, I thank you that your gospel comes to us and bears fruit and increases in us, even as it is increased all in the world.

Lord, lord, let it happen, let it increase.

And, lord, I pray, especially today, that that beauty of that peace that the gospel brings would be shed abroad to other people.

Lord, that we could be able to hold this peace out in such difficult times, lord, in such hateful times, in such crazy rhetoric.

Lord, in such division, lord, that we can live lives of peace, we can live loved, and that that would be seen by others and we can invite others into this beautiful gospel of Jesus, and I pray your grace and your peace on every home that's represented here.

Lord, I pray that you would bless everyone, that you would keep everyone, that you would make your face to shine upon everyone, lord, that you lift your countenance upon everyone here, lord, and you would give us your shalom In the name of Jesus, amen.

Amen.