Targets of Grace: Paul's Final Message to Ephesus (Eph 6:21-24)

Good morning, and what a blessing it is to study God's Word with you today.

My name is Pastor Simon. Our mission here at Dillingham Moravian Church is to make

disciples of Christ through the study of God's Word as we trust in Christ together.

Yusuf Dikek, beyond a shadow of the doubt, is, or at least was,

the most recognizable shooter in the world.

Maybe you've heard of him. At the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Turkish shooter became

a global phenomenon as his nonchalant shooting style caught the attention of the world,

making him a subject of the flurry of viral memes on the internet.

And a crowd of competitors draped in state-of-the-art equipment,

including shooting jackets and precision goggles,

Yusuf Dikek, in his casual clothing, normal spectacles, and his non-shooting

hand casually tucked in one pocket stood out.

The simple yet impactful aura instantly captured the imagination of millions,

drawing comparisons with fictional pop culture heroes like James Bond and John Wick.

The fact that Dykek is a former army man in real life only added intrigue to the narrative.

I share this story with you because it's the job of a shooter to hit the target,

and Dykeck was very good at his sport.

In Christ, Christians are targets of the love and peace of God. Let's pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we have such a wonderful and beautiful love from you that

we are to be thankful for.

Thank you for being our God. Thank you that you have sent your son,

Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and pay the blood debt that we owed and could never have paid.

And you have paid it for us. Thank you.

Lord, as we go to your word today, teach us and guide us, show us yourself,

show us what you want us to know from this passage, and may you apply it and

work it into our lives by your grace.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Here at Dillingham Moravian Church, we have been learning through a teaching series

on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The theme of this letter is the unity of God and how God has unified the church

in Christ and then how we as the church can practically live in the unity of God.

Previously in Ephesians 6, God taught us through Paul that Christ believers

are to surrender themselves to be enabled to live according to God's ways by

the controlling power and strength of God.

Paul also made the point that Christians are to put on the full armor of God

so that we can stand firm against our real enemy, the devil,

and his forces of darkness.

We are also taught that the main offensive weapon of God's armor that we are

to pick up and use is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Moreover, as Christians, we, you and I, are to be continually on the alert and

persevere to pray for all the saints of Christ.

Paul also asked the Ephesians for a prayer request.

Paul's prayer request for boldness to share the gospel is an excellent example

of a godly prayer for us to imitate in our own prayer life.

And here's where we come to the homestretch of Paul's letter.

Paul in Ephesians 6, verse 21-24 wrote, But that you also may know about my

Ephesians 6:21–24

circumstances, how I am doing.

Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord,

will make everything known to you.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us

and that he may comfort your hearts.

Peace to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.

In this last message in our preaching series of Paul's letter to the Ephesians,

there are three main points that I want to bring to your attention today.

The first truth is that as Christians, we are to think of others before ourselves.

Years ago, I met a family who gave a vacation time they had to bring medical

supplies to Haiti and to share the gospel.

During their spare times throughout the rest of the year, they would spend their

time amassing the medical supplies and Bibles that they would use on their trip.

The money that the families would spend on vacations or even more possessions,

they spent on medical supplies, on Bibles, and the families they adopted in Haiti.

Even the children were taught to save their money for this ministry and were

involved in every step of the ministry.

All of the children grew up to be active in ministry and are now sold out for Christ.

The idea of putting others' needs before our own is similar to what Paul was

doing when he wrote to the Ephesian congregation he loved.

In verse 6 he says.

In chapter 6, verse 21, he said, But that you also may know my circumstances and how I am doing.

Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord,

will make everything known to you.

I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about us and

that he may comfort your hearts.

There are two aspects of these verses that I would like to bring to your understanding now.

First off, I want you to remember that Paul was in prison, chained to a Roman

praetorian guard. He did not have freedom.

The last time that Paul, or rather the Ephesians saw Paul, was before he went

off to Jerusalem, knowing that they may never see him again alive.

In Acts 20, 17-38, Luke recorded Paul speaking to the Ephesian church leaders.

And now behold, bound by the Spirit,

I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there,

except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city,

saying that chains and afflictions await me.

But I do not make my life of any account, nor dear to myself,

so that I may finish my course in the ministry which I received from Jesus,

to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

And now behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the

kingdom, will no longer see my face.

And let's go down to verse 36.

And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

And they began weeping aloud and falling on Paul's neck, and they were kissing

him, being in agony especially over the word which he had spoken them,

that they would not see his face again.

And they were accompanying him to the ship.

We have to understand that Paul stayed in Ephesus for a total of three years,

longer than any other place that he was ministering to.

Paul loved the Ephesians, and they loved him.

The Ephesian congregation did not know what had happened to Paul.

Maybe he was dead or imprisoned.

Again, recall where Paul was, in prison.

But he did not think of himself, but thought first of the Ephesians to give

them comfort, to know that he was still alive.

To that end, he sent Tychicus so that they may know what happened to him.

Not only did Paul send Tychicus to comfort the Ephesians with news of Paul,

but also as a messenger to bring his letter to the Ephesians.

This letter was not only a comfort, but was and is one of the greatest doctrinal

teachings of the nature of God, of the unity of the Holy Trinity,

the unity that God has brought to Jewish Christ believers and all believers

in the grace and salvation of Christ Jesus.

The letter to Ephesians also broke down how God's unity is to be applied to

the church, and thus sending Tychicus to Ephesus was also to get Paul's letter

to the hands of that church and that city.

Today we know just how important this letter is, as it is an essential part of the New Testament.

And I believe that from Paul's perspective, the single greatest gift that he

could have given his Ephesian friends was to show them just how much God loved

them in Jesus Christ, and that is exactly what this letter shared.

The second aspect of Ephesians 6, verses 21-22.

Ephesians 6:21–22

We have to understand how Paul felt about Tychicus.

To Paul, Tychicus was a beloved Christian brother and was a faithful minister of the gospel.

The word that Paul used for beloved meant special, someone who was dearly loved

and cherished, sometimes preferred above all others and treated with partiality.

Paul also called Tychicus faithful, responsible, worthy of or requiring responsibility

or trust, or held accountable.

You see, Paul had high standards for those working with him.

Paul had a very high estimation of Tychicus for him to call Tychicus beloved

and a faithful minister or servant of the Lord.

Ephesus was not the first place that Paul sent Tychicus to minister.

Tychicus was also sent to Colossae to minister and visit the church there.

He also took Tychicus on one of his missionary journeys as well.

How can we apply the truths of Ephesians 6, verse 21-22 to us as Christ believers today?

Ephesians 6:21–22

First off, Paul really loved the Ephesians, and he wished to show them love

by sending Tychicus with news of him and with the letter to the Ephesians,

which is part of the greatest love letter ever written.

For us as Christ followers, we must imitate Paul as he imitated the love of Christ.

We are called to show compassion and concern for fellow believers in Christ,

and one of the best ways that we can show the love of Christ is by compassionately

communicating the gospel of God's love.

We also need to understand that not all of Paul's letter to the Ephesians was

easy to hear, but was still part of loving God and loving others in Christ.

We do not have to go far here in Dillingham or in Bristol Bay to see hurting

people who have gone through some trauma or people who have been grieving loved

ones who have died, as the Ephesians may have thought Paul had died,

or people who are sick or ill.

And as Christians, we are called to show the compassionate love of Christ for

them, but we are also not to forget to share the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is love.

Moreover, Paul loved the believers in Ephesus because he entered into deep fellowship with them.

They became as close as family to him.

And to have this same love for fellow Christians, we too must have the same

type of deep fellowship with each other in our local body of Christ.

Secondly, just as Paul saw the faithfulness and responsibility of God in Tychicus

and trained him to serve the Lord, we also in the church.

Are to seek out those who are surrendering to God's work in them and train them

or aid them in any way so that they can serve the Lord in the areas they're called to.

Discipleship towards the focus of the Great Commission is at the heart of the

love of God for the world.

And we, you and I, are called to make disciples within the spheres of life that we have been placed in.

It may be that you're ministering in a program ministry at church,

and you see other church attenders that are growing in the Lord. Pray for them.

Take them under your wing, so to speak.

Mentor them towards ministering where the Lord is leading.

Maybe you are serving the Lord out in the community in your workplace.

Pray for God to lead you to people you can disciple, mentor in the faith,

and then actively seek them out.

Disciple, mentor them, and take them out with you when you serve in the community.

So far, we have learned that Paul sent Tychicus to comfort the Ephesians with

news of Paul and as a messenger to bring the gospel truth of Jesus Christ to

them in the form of his letter.

Paul also extended the peace of God and love with faith to the Christians in

Ephesus. As Christ follows today, we are to share the peace and love of God with faith to others.

Paul in Ephesians 6, verse 23 blessed the Ephesians by writing,

Ephesians 6:23

Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I would like to show you three of the attributes and gifts of God that Paul

was extending to the Ephesian church.

The first gift that Paul extended to the Ephesians was peace,

which meant blessing of peace, a state of peace that is a blessing or favor from God.

Bible teacher and apologist Del Tackett went even further to say that the Greek

word that Paul used for peace is equal to the Hebrew word shalom,

which meant all of God's good poured out towards His people.

You see, shalom did not just mean peace. but all of God's good for that person,

all of God's good, His love, His mercy, His protection, His salvation, His peace and joy.

Shalom is the state of well-being that we as Christians are now in right relationship with God.

And through Christ's death and resurrection, Christ's believers have been brought

into a state of peace or shalom with God.

And thus Paul was blessing his Ephesian church family with all of God's good towards them in Christ.

Secondly, the word that Paul used for love was the Greek word agape, or the love of God.

Agape love, or God's love, meant to have a strong non-sexual affection and love

for a person and their good as understood by God's moral character.

Especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges on

another person's behalf. have.

Paul communicated in his blessing

that God the Father so loved the Ephesians and the world that He gave up or

He forfeited His own rights and wants towards His only begotten Son and sent

Him down to earth to become a puny human mortal and a slave and be tortured and crucified on the.

That all people owe God. In his blessing, Paul was communicating the love of the Lord,

or Yahweh, Jesus Christ, for the Ephesians and the world, who gave up all his

rights and all his privileges as God to sacrifice his own self for us.

Paul in Philippians 2, verses 3-7 commanded, Do nothing from selfishness or

Philippians 2:3–7

empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another is more important than yourself.

Do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others.

Have this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus,

who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God

a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself,

taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men.

Then from there we know that he.

Allowed himself to be crucified for our stead. Back in Ephesians 6,

Paul was extending the full love of the Father and the Son to his Ephesian church family.

However, I want you to see that Paul prefaced the love of God with faith.

And I believe this is important because in order for us as Christians to be

able to understand and know the love of God, especially in times of trial,

we must have faith in Christ.

We must be able to trust God to know that He does love us, especially when people

hate us and are cruel to us.

That even when we feel like no one loves us or that we are unlovable,

we can completely trust in the love of God in Christ.

The author of Hebrews wrote about faith in Hebrews 11, verse 1.

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Paul taught in Galatians 5, 5-6, For we through the Spirit, by faith,

are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything

but faith working through love.

The main application I want you to see from Ephesians 6, 23,

is that God has extended to us all His peaceful goodwill and love towards us in Christ.

Just like my earlier illustration, where once we were targets of God's wrath,

we are now targets of God's love and peace.

I want to encourage all who are listening.

Life can be brutally hard at times. For some of you, maybe you've recently lost

loved ones, or you're quitting an addiction and you're finding it really challenging,

or maybe you're struggling with depression or mental illness, or it could be.

Financially you are struggling, and it's putting a strain on your relationship.

Some of you may be sick with cancer or some other illness or recovering from surgery.

Please know that if you've truly responded to the grace of God with faith in

Christ, then you are a child of God, and as such, you are recipients or targets

of the majestic love of God.

God is at peace with you, and you are so loved by God, and that in His love,

the Lord is always with you.

Do not forget the truth of God's love because the truth of God will guard you

and protect you and carry you through any challenge.

Yet we also need to remember God's love, not in an arrogant manner,

but continually in a humble, trusting attitude because it is by humble faith

in Christ that we can know the love of Christ and abide in the love of God and be obedient to it.

The last overarching truth that God through Paul is teaching us today is that

God gives grace to those who love the Lord with an incorruptible love.

Once again, North Korea is number one on the world watch list for the most deadliest

country in the world to be a Christian.

If you are caught with a Bible or worshiping Christ in North Korea,

you are immediately executed, along with seven generations of your family.

But as with most of the messages that Open Doors receive from North Korean underground

believers, words of Scripture, gratitude, and praise reveal the church with

a deep faith and a resolve to cling to the gospel.

With an unchanging and steadfast faith in the Lord, we have come to deeply realize

that we must never abandon our faith in Christ.

One believer shares, not even if it costs us our life, we have to stand firm

for the truth of God's word.

I share this news with you to demonstrate to you the undying and faith-filled

love that the North Korean Christ believers have for Christ.

And this is a concept of an undying love.

It's what Paul blessed the Ephesians with by writing in Ephesians 6, verse 24.

Ephesians 6:24

The word that Paul used for grace in this verse meant a beneficent disposition

towards someone, as in divine favor.

And so Paul was writing to the Ephesian church that God directs his beneficent

divine favor towards those who love the Lord Jesus with an incorruptible love.

The words with an incorruptible love or undying love literally means incorruption,

incorruptibility, immortality.

It has the idea that the believer's love for the Lord Jesus Christ is to be

pure, not corrupted with wrong motives or secret disloyalties.

The love that Paul was writing about in his benediction is an undying love or

a love that lives forever.

This is a love that encompasses faithfulness and steadfastness,

someone who is pure and solely devoted to God.

Yet I want you to notice that Paul didn't just give a blanket statement of God's

grace to all believers in Christ like he does in other letters.

Rather, Paul wrote that grace would be given to those who have an undying love.

Are faithful to Christ. And the question is, why would Paul say this?

Because God's grace only works in us when we use it.

Grace is the outflow of the love of God to us that He has given us in salvation

through Jesus Christ's death on the cross and resurrection.

However, God continues to shower us with His favor as we grow in Christ.

Grace needs to be responded to by the love of God or by love towards God and

others through faith in Christ.

And the more we respond in loving God with a faith-filled undying love towards

God and in God towards others, the more God gives us His grace.

You see, it's a wonderful cycle

of love that we get a privilege of being a part of as we abide in Christ.

I believe it's essential for us to remember that not too long after this,

God sent a vision to the apostle John in part about Ephesus.

John recorded the ascended Jesus in Revelation 2, verse 4-5 regarding the church in Ephesus.

Revelation 2:4–5

This is what he says in verse 4, But I have this against you,

that you have left your first love. Remember, we're talking about undying love.

Therefore, remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first.

But if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent.

Remember that God's love has to be responded to with love in action towards God and others.

Unfortunately, the Ephesian church was not acting out of the faithful love of

Christ. Maybe they were given into pressure from the culture to stop believing

Christ, or they were compromising on key doctrine, or they weren't loving others.

No matter what the Ephesians had lost, they lost Christ as their first love.

And thus Christ commanded them to repent, or He would remove their lampstand,

meaning their witness or His presence with them.

In our culture today, faithful love is very challenging.

Yet we're all called to faithfully love Christ as we trust in Him.

What areas of our lives are we called to be faithful in? In every single area.

An undying, faith-filled love for Christ permeates every aspect of the Christian's life.

Like the North Koreans, we must never compromise on our belief in Christ as

God and the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

If you are married in the Lord's grace, you must remain faithful to your wife or husband.

No matter the temptations and pressures of this culture to be unfaithful with

our minds and actions, we are to love our spouses with an undying love that Christ has for us.

We must be faithful to our children to love them and provide for them and never

leave them until they get married to go on with their next stage in life.

And then we really don't leave them anyways.

We just continue to love them and pray for them.

We must be faithful to God with

our eyes and mind, not to put before them worthless and impure things.

We must be faithful to our local church body and love them as Christ loved us.

We are called to be faithful in our jobs as long as the Lord calls us to work there.

We are to demonstrate the undying faithful love of Christ in our community so

that Christ will become more famous where we live.

And as we are faithful, we proclaim to the Lord that we love Him with an undying

love and the promise is that He will give us His divine favor.

So what then has God through Paul taught us today? We are to encourage and comfort one another.

As Christ believers with Christ's love and be ministering God's word to others.

Secondly, we are to extend the goodwill of God and His love with faith to believers

in Christ but also with those who are not yet in Christ.

And lastly, we are to respond to the grace of God by loving God with an undying

faithful love to which God gives us more of His grace.

And I want to encourage you today that as you are following Christ,

don't give up hope in Christ.

When the culture is continually barraging us through AI and through media and

through the peers around us or in our workplace with the things of this world that are not of God,

let us not give in.

May we cling to christ

and his word and stay faithful to

him no matter what just as the north koreans are

being are sticking to their faith

in christ even if it means immediate death thank you lord for your love for

us teach us and grow us and how to love you as you love us with such an undying love.

We thank you, Lord. We praise you. We bless you. In your precious Son's name,

Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

Have a wonderful Sunday. May the Lord bless you all. Amen.