The Call to Watchfulness and Faithfulness

Well, this is it. This is our last week.

We come to the end of Ephesians and we began this back in August

and went back and looked, which means it's been just over seven

months. We've been studying this letter

that Paul wrote not to just to Ephesus, but to all the churches

that were in that region. And we say by extension, he's

writing even to us today. There's a liturgy and every

moment holy. They wrote a liturgy for

lamenting the completion of a beloved book.

I thought this might be appropriate to to help us along,

the author writes. My heart aches each time I

received these beautiful, distant rumors of that far

country. Of course, I do not want such a

story to end, for it's wedged open for me away, like a window

through which I've glimpsed a vision of things more as they

one day will be than as they are now, in these hard and sorrowing

lands of exile. Thank you, Oh my God, for loving

me enough that you would rouse my deepest desires again,

appointing these longings as true signposts planted in a

war-torn and cratered landscape, reminding me that all history is

leading at last to a king and a Kingdom and pointing me ever

onward toward his righteous and eternal city.

Amen. So we're left in this war-torn

Kingdom, but we, we look, there's excitement.

We're we get to start Deuteronomy next week.

There's a joy in getting to submit to a new author and a new

book, but there's also a lament and having to say goodbye to

Paul and to these churches in Ephesus.

And as we finish the story, I want to go back and just recap

for a minute everything that we've learned so far in this

series. Ephesians is the queen of the

Epistles. That's not the Tour de force of

Romans. It's not first and priority and

prominence like Romans, but it's more beautiful and lovely than

all the others epistles. It's what we call it, the queen

of the Epistles. And there's really little in

this book that you can't find somewhere else in the Bible.

But the uniqueness of this book comes from the beauty that Paul

writes with and the rhetorical flourish that he adds.

And it comes with with beauty and with power.

We we've seen Paul focus on our new identity and defining us as

being in Christ for from him and through him and to him are all

things that's from Romans, but it's true here in Ephesians.

You see Paul's focus on Jesus and his exaltation as Lord.

You get that overwhelming impression.

We see God's cosmic vision for his church in these six

chapters. We saw back in chapter 1 just

how incredibly involved your salvation really is.

And he goes back to the love that God had for you before he

created you. And we saw that our salvation is

from God the Father and through the Son and by the Spirit as

you've been predestined unto adoption, that he had a plan

that you would become a child of God even before the foundation

of the earth. And then your redemption was

blood bought by the love of Jesus Christ and that redemption

was applied to your heart by his Holy Spirit.

The moment you believe by faith. The beauty of chapter 1, chapter

2 said how we can be saved. Justification by faith alone

came through the the legendary passage.

For it is by grace that you have been saved through what faith.

And this is not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not of

work, so that no one can boast. And then he adds beautifully,

for you are God's handiwork. You are God's masterpiece that

he's created in Christ Jesus for good works.

And he prepared them beforehand that you should walk in them.

Then came the great prayer of Paul for power in Ephesians 3,

that according to the riches of His glory, He might grant you to

be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner

beings, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout

all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. We saw He gives you the power to

know what you have no capacity or power to know, namely the

love of God. Chapter 4 Paul talks about the

incredible unity of the church. As he says, there's one body and

one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that

belongs to your call. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and

Father over all, who is through all and in all.

And then came chapter 5. As we've moved into this really

practical section, He shows you that this is not just

theoretical and theological. This is not just something that

we know that's distinct and compartmentalized from our life.

We see just how practical the implications of this theology is

extends to how we interact with one another, how we joke with

one another how we order our marriages and our households and

our families. Chapter 5 verse 22 wives

submitting to your own husbands as to the Lord verse 25 husbands

loving your wives as Christ loved the church and your

children. Chapter 6 verse one and two

obeying your parents and the Lord for this is right.

Honor your father and mother and all of this tied together was

teaching you above all your identity is found in Christ

Jesus and in his local church. So 35 times you are reminded

that you are now united with Christ.

Your identity is in Christ. And the culture tells you your

identity comes in in many places.

It's from your biology, it's from your intersectionality,

it's from your sexual orientation.

And these things may play some role in your identity.

They'll add to it that your identity is found in what you

produce and what you accomplish. And that may be true in part,

but Paul tells you this, Ephesians tells you this, that

your identity is found for first and foremost, and being a child

of God and belonging to the household of God by faith, this

is your family. This is where you belong.

This is the most important thing about you.

And we reflect back on everything that we've learned

and everywhere we've been. Now we have to ask the question,

how shall we then live in light of these six chapters?

How shall we then live? And Paul ends the book with

three calls. You saw the first one last week.

There's a call to war. There's a call to watchfulness

and there's a call to prayer. I'll go back and recap.

First the call to war and then this week looking at verses 18

to 24, the call to watchfulness and the call to prayer.

Read with me these final verses. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians

618 to 24. Important to note, it's a comma

leading us into verse 18. Praying at all times in the

Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making

supplication for all the Saints and also for me, that words may

be given to me, and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the

mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains,

that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you

also may know how I am and what I'm doing.

Tikicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister, and 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. Peace be to the brothers and

love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus

Christ. Grace be with all who love our

Lord Jesus Christ with love. Incorruptible.

First call came last week. We were called to war.

Number one, we're called to war. It was in verses 10 to 17.

The call to war was also a call to strength.

If you remember, he says be strong in the Lord and in the

strength of his might or literally be strong in the Lord

and the strength of his strength because you're in a battle and

the war is not won by your own strength.

It's his strength. So we're praying in our in our

verses today in the spirit and we're called not just to

strength, but we're called to to take up arms, as he says, take

up the armor of God and then put on the armor of God because

we're in a spiritual you consider what it means to live

the Christian life. Paul says this is the metaphor

he gives. When you consider your life,

your calling, I want you to think of it as spiritual

warfare. You are taking part in a war.

And when we think of the Christian life, we often think

of the Christian life in in terms of simplicity, right?

Meaning I need to just leverage all that I have.

I need to give everything that I have to the Lord.

I need to sell what I have, live this simple life.

It's all about getting as much money as possible to the church.

Many people take vows of poverty, maximizing what we give

away. And the Bible corrects our

thinking and it says, no, look at your Christian life instead

as one of strategy, not necessarily simplicity, living

like the Nordic countries, but it's strategy, leveraging

everything that God has given you for this war and for his

Kingdom for the sake of the gospel.

I was thinking on this. If everybody lived like George

Mueller, we all sold all we had, took vows of poverty, His story

wouldn't even make sense there. It took a whole host of other

people that were leveraging their their resources and their

education and their occupation that made all of that possible.

And so each has been given resources and gifts to leverage.

And we have to be strategic. It's a wartime mindset, not

necessarily living first and foremost simply, but living

strategically. Our minds are impressed with

winning the war. So he says, take up the armor of

God. He says, put on the armor of

God. It's a metaphor for virtue.

Put on righteousness and arm yourself with theology and the

truth and with doctrine and carry along with it the

assurance of your salvation. He says Christ has bound the

strongman. We plunder his goods.

It's war, it's strategic. It means the time for comfort

and relaxation and entertainment is is gone and now is the time

for wartime strategy. We tried to hit on this in our

in our budget meeting. The elders came and it was it

was really a strategy meeting. How are we going to leverage our

resources in this conflict? And we said in that meeting that

our, our church has been blessed with a measure of health, a

measure of talent, and a measure of, of resource.

And so now we ask, what are we going to build?

Now is the time to build and how are we going to be strategic?

And it began for our church with what God has already revealed.

It's it's training counsellors in the expansion of a

counselling ministry. As we, as we realize we are not

beginning a counselling ministry, we are a counselling

ministry. And now we're equipping

ourselves to be prepared. There's plans for church plants

in the work. We're going to be strategic with

new gospel witness. There's partnerships in North

Africa, the expansion of our theological library, new city

partnerships through the Justice and Mercy team, where we love on

families with children and are serving children through

deepened relationships with DHS and safe families.

This is our church's wartime strategy.

This is our strategy. And the greatest innovations in

history come during wartime because urgency breeds

innovation. I think of Isaiah and the the

piece of armor that's missing in the New Testament that it had,

that it described the Messiah. It said he wrapped himself in

zeal like a cloak. There's an urgency when you're

in a war. And so there's an article that

was published a few months ago by the US Department of War

where they look back on all the innovation that World War 2

brought. It's really interesting to to to

see and think through this. It said.

If you enjoy a microwave oven or radar or your computer or duct

tape or penicillin or GPS or the Internet, you have the fruit of

these of this conflict that we enjoy everyday, but we forget

they came from wartime innovation.

Paul says you're called to war now, live with wartime mindset.

And like the metaphor of a soldier, Paul brings up now the

metaphor of a sentry. SENTRY.

As you look at the second call, it's not just a call to war, but

because we are in a war, he says.

I now call you to watchfulness. Second call is a call to

watchfulness. And the call comes in verse 18

where he says keep alert. That's the imperative.

Stay awake, keep alert, and do it with all perseverance.

Interestingly, probably only interestingly for me is the word

vigilante. If you study that word,

vigilante is an individual who takes law enforcement into their

own hands without legal authority, which is why it

becomes the stuff of legend and comic books.

But these vigilantes, they, they see the legitimate agencies as

inadequate, and so they operate outside of them.

And what's most interesting about this word is that the word

vigilante comes from the Latin vigilare, which means to stay

awake. They're saying somebody's got to

stay awake and keep watch. And the word vigil means awake

or alert and vigilance means watchful.

And the word entered our American vocabulary in the 1850s

when they they had men who had to keep watch on the frontier

when there was no one to keep watch.

And it were it originally meant neutrally A watchman.

And this is what called Paul's calling us to be.

This is what Paul is calling you to be.

You are a century. You are a, a soldier standing

guard and keeping guard. You are vigilant.

And this theme of watchfulness, this call to watchfulness is a

theme throughout the the New Testament.

So it's actually a major theme of the New Testament.

You go to Matthew 24 to 25 that the parables there are called

parables of vigilance because Jesus keeps commanding his

church to stay awake and to keep watching, to be prepared for

that day. And what does it mean to be

awake? Theologians see several layers

or levels of wakefulness. I want to introduce you to the

the three levels. The first one is Christological.

There's a Christological wakefulness, which means this is

our call to be alert and awake. And it's rooted in Jesus's

alertness and awakeness and vigilance.

We're following after our Master and our Savior who was awake.

He, he applies to himself the metaphor of a shepherd, in part

because the shepherd is vigilant in watching over the sheep when

they can't watch over themselves.

He says I am the Good Shepherd. He, he puts it as and John 10 as

opposed to these careless hirelings that really don't care

about the sheep. And so he sees them and he

guards them. The, the hirelings see the wolf

coming and they leave. He says I am the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

He was a hired hand and not a shepherd sees the wolf coming

and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf snatches and

scatters them. I am the Good Shepherd.

And so Paul takes that language, that imagery of the shepherd,

and he actually applies it to the shepherds of local churches.

And most important for Ephesians is he, he actually applies it in

Acts 20 to the shepherds of the Ephesian church, which is

presumably who he's writing to the shepherds and their sheep.

He says to them in Acts 20, Pay careful attention to yourselves

and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you

overseers to care for the Church of God, which He obtained with

His own blood. I know that after my departure

fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and

from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted

things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore he uses this word, Gregory oh.

Therefore keep alert. Be alert.

And Gregory, Oh, if you know anyone named Gregory, their name

means alert or watchful, vigilant.

As an interesting aside, that's why 16 popes have taken that

name for themselves, Pope Gregory, because they want to be

alert and vigilant. This is what pastors and leaders

of local churches are called to. And Jesus takes that.

Paul, you know, Paul applies it to to shepherds and teachers and

leaders. Jesus applies it to all of us.

He says in Mark 13, as Joshua read for us, he commands his

whole church to stay awake and to be watchful for the coming

day of Jesus Christ. And so we've said theologians

see multiple levels of watchfulness.

Well, this is the second. This is what Jesus commands you

to. It's an eschatological or an end

time watchfulness. We're watching for the end.

And as we watch for the end, we're living in light of the

end. This is your wartime mindset.

We're not living as if time's going to go on forever because

we know Jesus says these are the last days.

And because of that, the third level of watchfulness is

ethical. Watchfulness has a moral demand

of you. It demands a response of you.

We are to live holy lives because the end is near.

We're to live holy lives because this is it said in the language

of Ephesians, Our armor doesn't come off until Christ comes and

he's not here yet. And so we leave it on.

We keep our righteousness going before us.

And so helpful to understand this, I'm going to put another

word on you. We taught this word to our

Wednesday night tips for teaching class.

You have to be awake because of this word, soporific.

Anybody know the definition of soporific tending to produce

sleepiness? This was Paul's sermon when he

preaches. And there's the guy in the

window, poor little, what was his name?

Eudicus. He preaches and he, he wasn't

interesting enough. So Uticus falls asleep and he

falls out the window and dies. So that's my warning to my

preaching tips for teaching Class B.

Don't be boring. People could die soporific.

Stay awake, keep awake, morally charged readiness.

The world will lull you into a kind of sleep.

Scripture picks up on this metaphor of sleepiness.

Jesus warns Luke 814. He says, As for the seed that

fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go

on their way, they are choked by the cares and the riches and the

pleasures of this world. Be on guard for these very

things. You're choked by the cares and

riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

The rich fool in Luke 1219 to 20 says, soul, you have ample goods

laid up for many years, so therefore relax, eat, drink and

be merry. And that's not the wartime

mindset that Jesus had in mind. He actually says to him, You

fool, tonight your soul will be required of you.

Take care of him. Going all the way back to the

beginning. Moses says, stealing time from

our next message, Take care lest you forget your God.

This is his way of saying, stay awake.

He says, lest you have eaten and are full, and you've built good

houses and you live in them, and your silver and your gold is

multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied.

And he says, then your heart will be lifted up and you will

forget your God. So as you, how did you get the

house you want, as you get the raise, as you get the salary, as

your money increases, and as God blesses you, by the way, as he

says he will when you live according to the principles of

the word, take care, stay awake lest you forget Him.

He says to the Church of Laodicea.

John does in Revelation. You say, I am rich, I have

prospered, I need nothing. Those are the words of a sleepy

church. So comfort and prosperity lead

to pride. Pride leads to forgetfulness and

forget. Forgetfulness is is a damnable

estate. It's a dangerous, dangerous

place to be. The command of the church is

this stay awake, Paul that the Thessalonians says it in these

words. Let us not sleep as other people

do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

What is he talking about? He's talking about

entertainment. Entertainment is everywhere.

Pleasure is everywhere. To be had, comfort, distraction.

There's a momentum of your life along the path that you've

already set it on. And is is is that momentum there

because it's easy and it's the path of least resistance or are

on you? Are you on this path because

you're in a wartime mindset and this is where you can produce

the greatest fruitfulness for the Kingdom in this war?

You have to stop and ask critically in, in a moment of a

personal awareness and alertness, say, am I on the path

that I'm on because it's right and good and beautiful and true?

Or am I on the path because it's easy?

You have to be awake. You have to ask yourself, and

you can't ask yourself this at a restaurant.

The world distracts you. You step into a restaurant and

there's the sports channel and there's fails going on on this

TV and here's trivia and everything else and they're

trying to distract you so you don't even understand how long

it's taking to get your food. You can't think with all these

distractions. You have to get alert and get

away and pray there was a time. Years ago I this was very aware

to me. I had a day.

You've had days like this. You wake up late, hit the snooze

bar one too many times. You Sprint to work, no shower.

Worked hard all day, worked through lunch, very short lunch.

Had plans with my friends when I got off of work.

So got off of work, had a podcast all the way to their

house, stepped into that room with board games and pizza and

flashing lights and music and left his house at 11:00 PM.

And I remember leaving the house and it was dark outside and I

was like, when did this happen? When did it turn dark?

It was dark when I left. And just remember, he has a very

long driveway and I'm walking down this driveway and I hear

tinnitus and ringing in my own ear.

And it was my wake up call to realize I've been awake.

I've been asleep all day. I was asleep until 11:00 PM.

And if God wanted to tell me anything, if you wanted to

whisper anything to me, if I was going to be sensitive to

anything of the Lord, he would have had to wait until this

moment apart from the car crash. Or the Lord has a way of getting

your attention. But I was not alert to the

things of God until 11:00 PM. And this is in part what he's

talking about. He's saying keep alert, stay

awake, be watchful, don't get distracted, don't get involved

in the flow of life. Don't question whether what

you're doing is good and beautiful and true.

But look at ask the question, what may the Lord be demanding

of me? What, what may he be asking me

to leverage on behalf of this spiritual war?

Am I awake or have I fallen asleep?

Call to arms, a call to war, a call to wakefulness.

And the third call is a call to prayer.

And I want you to think, if you've ever gone to two or a

castle, if you've ever gone to the Tower of London, if you ever

go to a museum, what do they put out front right there when you

walk in the premier places? What do people want to see?

We want to see the swords. We want to see the cannons.

We want to see the Shields. We want to see all the cool,

manly old stuff that they had at the weapons, the armaments in

Warcraft. Because that it's saying that

this defensive structure, this nation did some pretty cool

things. It just tells us something

interesting happened here. They they weathered conflict.

The people here accomplished great things.

Everything about swords and Shields communicates action, and

in the same way, everything in Ephesians 6 orients us.

It screams action, communicates action, and it gears us toward

it. The armor is on.

We put on the armor the sword truth, the breastplate of

righteousness, the shield of faith.

We've taken the helmet of salvation in the shoes of

readiness. We've wrapped ourselves in zeal

as a cloak, and by this we can withstand all the flaming darts

of the evil 1. And then he finally says, And

we, we've been given our swords. And Paul says, now that your

armor's on, now that I have your attention, now that you're

listening, now that you're awake, now that you understand

that you're in a war, now that you're vigilant, here's what I

want you to. Here's what I want you to do.

Go in your inner room, close the door, get on your knees, close

your eyes and pray. This is Jesus recommendation for

spiritual warfare. I hope you feel the contrast

there of you're in a battle and here's your armor and now go to

your inner room and close the door.

Have your having your armor on. I want you to take the most

humble and vulnerable position possible.

It's the same position as one who's being executed and turn

the lights off and and pray and prayer is a wonderful tool

because it has great power and it's working.

It's how spiritual progress is made.

And this is just a reminder. It's his strength.

He's going to say here in verse 18 that you're praying in the

Spirit. You can't move mountains, but

when you pray, God can. It's just a reminder that this

is a humbling and utterly humiliating thing.

It's showing in our natural way of thinking.

There's really nothing less that we can do in the eyes of the

world than to go in our closet and close our eyes.

It's foolishness in the eyes of the world.

But Jesus says, Paul says from the perspective of God, there's

nothing more powerful. There's no more powerful weapon

than prayer. It's at the heart of spiritual

warfare. So Paul says we're praying and

we're praying in the Spirit. This is what it means to be

strong in his strength. We're not strong only in our

spiritual gifts and we're not strong only in our natural

affinities that he's given us, but we're strong in the Lord.

And so he sets prayer off here as distinct from this, the

spiritual weapons and the armor. It's not attached to a piece of

armor, but it's very important, as we've already said, that

verse 17 ends, at least in my translation, with a comma.

And the commentators make much of this because he's saying it's

still connected. It's the same, the grammar

continues, it's the same thought.

Along with the armor of God is prayer.

And it answers, How are we supposed to be watchful?

You're to put on the armor of God and you're to pray.

You're the sentry on the wall. You're looking out as you see

things in the world, as you see the things that are happening in

the war, You pray. That's how you're putting on

this armor. And it's actually given more

attention than any individual piece of armor is, which is why

Charles and his song Soldiers of the Soldiers of Christ arise.

He calls the church to put their armor on.

And he says, pray without ceasing pray.

Your captain gives the word he summons cheerfully obey and call

upon the Lord to God. Your every want an instant

prayer display. Pray, always pray and never

faint. Pray without ceasing.

Pray another song by Duffields in the same thinking.

He says stand up, stand up for Jesus.

Put on the gospel armor. Each piece put on with prayer.

When Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane and he needs strength

for the task that was ahead of him, what does he ask the

disciples to do? 2 things, watch and pray.

And he rebukes them, saying, could you not stay awake?

Could you not be alert with me for even an hour?

And he says, my betrayer is at hand.

And so the watchful life is a prayerful life.

We're called to watch and pray. Read with me again.

Ephesians 618 to 20, you'll see this theme.

He says praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and

supplication to that end, keep alert with all perseverance,

making supplication for all the Saints and also for me, that

words may be given to me and opening my mouth bold to

proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an

ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought.

And so prayer and and being awake and being alert is, is a

dangerous thing because it makes you face yourself right.

You've got the distractions away and now it's just you and God

and it's very vulnerable time. It's why I think husbands

praying with their wives is, is such a difficult thing to do

because you're, you're burying yourself before God, you're

being completely vulnerable and you're doing it with somebody

else. So it's, it takes effort.

And as Paul calls you to pray, he gives instructions here on

how you're supposed to pray. There's four kind of

instructions that he he ties to this.

This is the first thing. How are we to pray?

Number 1, he says you pray at all times.

You could say praying with every opportunity.

You're the century, you're looking out.

What you see you bring to God in prayer.

And this is the overflow of what we say in the Christian life is

koram deo. We live our lives.

Koram deo. We're before the face of God in

constant communion with God. And it may be sappy, it may be

lame, but when I personally think of prayer, the image that

comes to my mind is the image of a mountain lake.

Some of, you know, if there's a kind of a mountain valley and

there's a lake there, it's the stuff of puzzles where the you

can't tell where the lake ends and the sky begins because the

water reflects the lake. And I think of that because you

don't know where heaven stops and the earth begins.

And I think that is a, a wonderful picture of the

communion that comes with, with God and men and prayer, right,

that there's a, a meeting point between heaven and earth.

It's this open channel of communion and communication with

God. We say pray at all times, pray

with every circumstance, at every opportunity, pray without

ceasing. This is why we say prayer is

like breathing. We pray at all times.

Second, he says we pray with all prayer and supplication with

that prayer and supplication. Prayer is just the general word

for prayer. Supplication is or are the

specific requests that you bring before God.

So you've got the general and the specific.

And so he's saying literally through every prayer and

petition at every opportunity or occasion, we're praying without

ceasing every conceivable form of prayer.

So all prayer means all kinds of prayer.

And so when things aren't going according to the plan or how you

thought your life should go, then you come to God with a

lament. And remember, even the biblical

model that lament always ends with a declaration of trust in

God. And so you use this formula.

You're praying lament when God delays and answering your

prayers. You're praying through praise in

every circumstance, praising God for who he is, praising God for

what he's done, looking for opportunities to praise him.

You're you're confessing, confessing where you've fallen

short, confessing sin, repenting of sin.

You're giving Thanksgiving for everything that he's done.

We're, we're, we come with a thankful heart.

We bring supplications and petitions, which means our

specific prayer requests saying, Lord, save the souls of my

children. Lord, heal my broken heart.

And then there's intercession where we're praying the same

things, but on behalf of other people.

Lord save his children, heal her broken heart.

We're praying for other people. And you can look and say, where

am I lacking in my praying? Where do I need to diversify and

to to take all kinds of prayers? So there's a comprehensiveness

to prayer, which is why he says he adds all occasions, bringing

all kinds of prayers on all occasions for all things to God.

It's like breathing. So you see watchfulness and

prayer go together, watching and praying.

And as you're watching, you're praying.

And so he adds, you do this with perseverance.

The third we're praying with perseverance and perseverance

implies hardship. Otherwise he would have just

said, hey, be really disciplined as you try and do this every

day. You know you're saying, no,

it's, it's going to be hard and there's going to be delayed

answers to your prayer. And so you need to persevere in

prayer. It's why you have to pray

through delayed answers and pray through weariness and, and

sleepless nights. That's your opportunity.

When God wakes you up at 3:00 AM, you can say, Lord, this is

my opportunity to come before you.

We're praying through discouragement.

We're praying through heartache and humiliation, and it gets us

through our periods of spiritual stagnation, an experience of

guilt and shame. And so we pray and persevere

because this is how we persevere, in the strength of

the strength of Him. Remembering that Christ is on

His throne right now, interceding for us.

Remembering that His Holy Spirit is praying for us even now,

interceding for us with groanings too deep for words.

We pray as he prays, and then he adds finally forth for all the

Saints. Paul's already said, you see

that again, the comprehensive nature of prayer.

Paul says, take up the whole armor of God twice.

He says the whole armor of God, and having done all that is all

that you can, all things, then you will be able to withstand

all things. Verse 16, he says in all

circumstances you can extinguish all the flaming arrows.

Verse 18, praying at all times with all prayer and

supplication, with all perseverance, making

supplication for all the Saints. And so here, all the Saints

means everyone in your church. And we've made that easy for

you. If you open up your app and you

go down to the the very bottom, there's a directory you can pray

for everyone. Open up your directory.

It's a tool in your hands and pray for your church.

And he says in verse 19, Oh, and also for me with, with all this

power, all this praying that you're doing, please don't

neglect to pray for me. Paul says, I heard a pastor this

week, He said a guy asked him to.

He said, I'm committed to praying for you, pastor, I'm

going to pray for you for six months.

And he said, he said my my gut reaction was why not a year?

What do I got to do to get a year?

But he says, OK, I'm praying for you for six months.

He said, amazingly, I committed to praying for him because if

he's committed to praying for me, I don't want anything to

happen to him because then no one's praying for me.

So he said I started praying for him.

You see the reciprocal nature. We pray for the Saints.

He says, pray for me. Spurgeon was asked, what's the

secret of your ministry? His answer, My people pray for

me. And look at what Paul doesn't

ask them to pray for success, a protection from harm or danger,

no travel, mercy, prayers from Paul, deliverance from suffering

to be spared from opposition. He didn't say remove the thorn,

pray that this thorn would be removed.

He didn't pray to get out of jail.

Instead he prays verse 19 that the right words would be given

him while he proclaims the mystery of the gospel.

He says, I want to get this right.

I want to say the right thing at the right time.

And verse 20, that I may proclaim the gospel boldly.

So his prayer request is for utterance and bold speech.

And then he says, as I ought to speak, help me to speak, as I

must speak, as I should speak. And then we come to these last

four verses, the final greeting and the final benediction.

And you, when you read these 4 verses, you're, you're really

getting the sense more than the rest of the letter that you're

reading somebody else's mail. You can read with me verses 21

to 24. We'll see the final words of

Paul, he says, so that you may know how I am and what I'm

doing. Take a kiss, the beloved brother

and faithful minister, and the Lord will tell you everything.

I've sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know

how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.

Peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the

Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus with love

incorruptible. He brings up this man Tychicus,

who's probably, as we are not known names in Scripture, we're

probably not going to be remembered for all of our work.

But Tychicus is an unsung hero. He was the one who carried the

Ephesian letter. He's the one who carried the

Colossian letter. He's named in the book of

Philemon, who probably carried that letter to Onyismus.

And so he was the one that carried the word of God.

He's Paul's scribe, which means that he may have been discussing

these scriptures with Paul even as he's writing them.

And so we don't know what kind of role that he has.

But Paul says of Tikakis, he's going to tell you everything,

and he's going to encourage your heart.

He was Paul's ministry partner. And you move even past him.

Alan says of this, this final greeting, that the epistle began

with such a lengthy, unrelenting word of blessing, talking about

verses 3 to 14. And he says, and he returns to

the posture of benediction at the close.

The enveloping nature of blessing is perhaps a lens for

how the entire epistle Canon should be read.

We're reading this as a blessed church with our identity in

Christ. He says it began with blessing.

It ends in blessing. It began with grace and peace.

It ends with grace and peace. And these, this closing comes in

the form of a benediction. And Paul's showing us with what

he's doing with the words that he's saying is that we can be

joyful in every circumstance. Remember where he is, He's under

house arrest, arrested, chained to a prayatorian guard, and he's

writing these beautiful things. He's showing you that God's

presence can be known and trusted truly in every

circumstance. We read this and we forget he's

in jail and he he prays 4 things here at the end, 4 things are

given over and blessing, peace, love, faith and grace.

And again, the epistle began with grace and peace.

Peace, love, grace and faith are woven throughout the whole

epistle. And now he kind of binds them

all together at the end. And he ends with these words.

Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus with love

incorruptible, and that means incorruptible by death.

So the epistle begins with the love of God and eternity past,

and it ends with the love of God and turning into eternity

future. So how do we end our study of

Ephesians? How do we end the queen of the

Epistles? Look at Paul's final application

one more time. He says in light of everything

that you've learned, remember your new identity.

And in light of everything that you've learned, he says there's

a call to war. Be strong in the Lord and in the

strength of his strength. And he says, put on the whole

armor of God that you may stand. And his final application is be

vigilant and pray. And I want to end with the

Lord's Supper, and I want to end again by praying with you.

Would you bow your head as we go before the throne of grace?

O Lord God, thank you for Paul. Thank you for his words.

Lord, may we be changed and may we take these things we've

learned and press them on our memories and in our hearts and

our conscience, our will and our affections, so that we can live

out the ideal that you've put before us.

These are the fundamentals of the faith.

Lord, You've taken us all the way back to the beginning, to

the basics, teaching us that we've been adopted.

We've been predestined for adoption.

We're loved, grace and peace and love and faith have been

multiplied to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And there's no earth identity out there that we have to earn

or maintain or keep up. We are children of God.

Impress on us all of these things.

Lord, be with us as we move on and we look toward Deuteronomy.

Bless our time there, God. Keep us awake and vigilant until

that last day. We pray this in Christ's name,

Amen. Thanks for listening.

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respond to this sermon, visit our website at

www.heritageshawnee.org.