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Ephesians 6:10-24
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 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 the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 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. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 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, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
21 So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. 22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts.
23 Peace be to the brothers,1 and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
It's great to see you all. I especially, want to say welcome to anyone that's here for the first time. I mean, high threshold, just getting in the door. So thank you for being here. And, we're we're finishing up.
Jeffrey Heine:This is our last week in a sermon series that's gone on for 17 Sundays now, in the letter to the Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesian church. And so we are in chapter 6 beginning with verse 10. We're gonna be all over, the letter to the Ephesians this morning. And so if you wanna go ahead and get a get an actual bible out or on, whichever, we're gonna be all over the place. It's also in your worship guide.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul's been writing this letter to this church. He's gone through a lot of different topics. He said a lot of different things. And now he gets to this section, beginning with verse 10, and he begins with the word finally. And so let's turn our attention to God's word, and let us listen very carefully for this is God's word to us.
Jeffrey Heine:Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the 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. Stand therefore, having fastened the belt of truth, having put on the breast plate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
Jeffrey Heine:In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, 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 my words may be given to me in 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 am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in 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 sisters in love with faith.
Jeffrey Heine:From God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you all, who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. This is the word of the Lord. It is to you. Let's pray.
Jeffrey Heine:God, you know us better than we know ourselves, and yet you love us. You love us whether we believe that's even possible or not. You love us. And we know that, the reason we know that is not because our lives are easy, or because we have everything that we want. We know your love for us, because we look at the cross of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:So help us, Spirit, to do that in this time together. May we look and see Jesus. So speak, Lord. Your servants are listening. We pray these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:Amen. The letter to the Ephesian church can be understood as instruction, a lesson, on the topic of adoption, specifically spiritual adoption. At the start of this letter, Paul begins by praying that the holy spirit would bring the hearers, those first hearers in Ephesus and us today, that the Lord would bring divine wisdom, spiritual revelation concerning God the father, and the greatness and graciousness that that we find in Christ the son. And then Paul walks the listener chapter by chapter, step by step, through what this spiritual adoption means for us. He tells us what we were adopted out of, how we were adopted, what we were adopted into, and finally, how we are to live within this new family where God is our Father, and we're called to live in unity and power and love.
Jeffrey Heine:So to recap that, it's it's what you were adopted out of, how you were adopted, what you were adopted into, and how we are to live in this new family of God. So as we close this letter and this sermon series, which if you haven't been around for it, they're all online, rccbermingham.org. You can find all of these, sermons, packaged together. And I'd encourage you to go back and listen. But as we come to this final section, I want us to trace the thread of adoption from chapter 1 all the way to the close of chapter 6.
Jeffrey Heine:And then I want us to consider why it is that Paul closes the letter in the way that he does with this picture, this picture of a soldier in armor. And for us to ask, what does this have to do with us today? So, if you'll turn with me to chapter 1, and the letter to the Ephesians, we'll be moving rather quickly. But as you are getting set there, I wanna, to read you a quote from one of my favorite modern philosophers. His name is Meryll Westfall.
Jeffrey Heine:If my wife, Jess and I, we have 2 girls. If we had had a boy, it would have been Meryl Heine, because that just sounds right, doesn't it? Sounds like a hedge fund. Okay. But Merrild Westfall said this, it is sometimes said that one is not prepared to read any serious philosophical text until one has already read it at least once, end quote.
Jeffrey Heine:What he's saying is that you can't really dig into this and understand where all of this is going until you've spent time in it. You can't really read it for the first time unless you've read it 2, 3, 4, 5 times. As a recovering philosophy major, I sometimes had to read 15, 20, or more than likely 0 times. But I think that this principle also applies to how we engage the scriptures. Sometimes it's not until we've made it all the way to the end of the book of the Bible that we can go back prepared to read it as though for the first time.
Jeffrey Heine:We see this in the gospels in particular. Each of the gospel writers in their own kind of unique way and unique voice, they want you to know the ending as you start in those first few chapters. In a sense, we're actually supposed to read the gospels backwards. As we enter into the birth narrative of Jesus that we see in Luke, we are to know that the cross and the resurrection, those things are coming. This isn't just the story of a little baby.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a story of a king who conquers the grave. We see this in Paul's letters throughout the new testament, that that he has a direction where he is heading from the very beginning. Oftentimes, he's writing to a church, a congregation that has specific needs and questions and concerns, and he doesn't just write back to them with bullet point answers. No, he, he writes to them in very descriptive, often illustrious language. And so now that we are at the end of this letter, let's go back to the start, prepared to read it, and to find and follow this thread of adoption throughout the letter.
Jeffrey Heine:So chapter 1, chapter 1 verse 4, in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved, that means Jesus. In him, Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, and forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. Too often and too easily, we we kind of trip on the word predestination, and we miss the beautiful reality that Paul is introducing here. This predestination, this calling out is for adoption. And the predestination occurs not at random, not with the potential of quality, like picking out the right avocado.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not that kind of choosing. No, this is divine choosing, a choosing based in his love. A love that generates, that causes, that is set on obtaining your adoption. And it's a divine love which determines our adoption to God himself, according to the will of God. John writes about this in his gospel, in chapter 1, saying, but to all who did receive Christ, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but the will of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul introduces adoption in these first verses here in chapter 1. And he prays that the spirit would help these hearers, both in in Ephesus and in Birmingham, that we would understand what this adoption means, both in the here and now and in eternity. Chapter 1, Paul starts off by telling us that we were predestined by God for adoption by God, by the love and will of God. Chapter 2. I said we'd move quick.
Jeffrey Heine:Chapter 2. Paul will tell us what we were adopted out of. He's going to describe for us the children we all once were. So chapter 2 verse 3, we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Paul says that we were children, but not of God, of wrath.
Jeffrey Heine:We hear public figures pretty regularly. It's often a politician in some kind of, maybe like a banquet, or something like that, invoking this kind of language, talking about a vague notion of God, a vague kind of nondescript almighty that anyone who believes in a deity can kind of all nod their head to. And something like this is said, we must remember that we are all children of the almighty. But is that what Paul's saying here? What he's saying here is, yes, of course, all humanity is endowed with dignity, and created in the image of God, but due to sin and the fall, we were by nature children of anger.
Jeffrey Heine:Yet, Paul has told us, in love, it was decided in God's will, and God's will alone, to adopt us out of wrath and into his grace. Further, in chapter 2, verse 4, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved, and raised up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Paul's writing about what we were adopted out of, and why we needed that adoption in the first place.
Jeffrey Heine:The children of wrath needed to be rescued, needed to be redeemed, and we could not rescue ourselves. We could not adopt ourselves out of this judgment. There had to be someone to adopt us. Paul goes on, you know, from the wrath that we were adopted out of, and how we were adopted, and then he says it's by grace, grace through the person Jesus. That is how we were adopted.
Jeffrey Heine:And I know that there are and I wanna just speak to a few of you in the room. I know that there are some of you that are in the process of adopting right now. And I praise God for your calling and for your faithfulness. And the struggle of that process, form after form after form, stacks of paperwork, background checks, payment after payment after payment. And I know from listening to you, that that work, that hard work pales in comparison to the mental and emotional and spiritual cost that you are paying right now.
Jeffrey Heine:Because the cost of every adoption is great, and Jesus is the cost of our adoption. He's the righteous for the unrighteous. He's the guiltless for the guilty. He takes the wrath and secures for us our adoption as sons and daughters of the Father. Paul's told us why we needed this adoption, what we were adopted out of, and then he turns his attention to what we are adopted into.
Jeffrey Heine:Chapter 3, verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named. And according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with the power through his spirit in your inner being, so 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. We're adopted into a new family, a family with God as the Father, a family that God is establishing through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, a family that is bound together, held together by the Holy Spirit, called into this perfect unity. Brothers and sisters from every race, every tribe, every tongue are called out to lay down any cultural hostility and to live in the divinely given love for one another.
Jeffrey Heine:Think about this. This family, this family of God is so unusual, so different that it requires supernatural strengthening to exist, and that supernatural strengthening is given to us by God himself. Paul says that we are adopted by the Father into a new family, which exists both on earth and in heaven. It extends from now into eternity. It's a forever family established in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, and the unity given to us in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:And as adopted children, we are called to grow up. Like any child, we are to grow up. Paul uses language of becoming a grown adult, a grown person. Chapter 4 verse 15. See why I got the numbers confused earlier?
Jeffrey Heine:We got a lot them. All right. So chapter 4, verse 15. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way, into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, When each part is working properly, makes the body grow, so that it builds itself up in love. So this adopted family is full of people who do not look like one another, who do not act like one another, who at times do not like one another.
Jeffrey Heine:Have you been in the church for very long? This is what happens. It is a messy and complicated life within the family of God. Too often, we have this picture in mind of our adoption kind of being like Annie. You know, the movie Annie?
Jeffrey Heine:So, Little Orphan Annie, she's adopted out of the orphanage by Daddy Warbucks, and taken to this great big mansion where there's tennis court and a swimming pool, and a tennis instructor, if she doesn't know how to play tennis, and every food that she could want, and the fireworks spell out her name in the sky. And when we think about that adoption, but it's not like that. In fact, it's a little bit more like the orphanage at the beginning of the movie. Right? With the lady, what was the who?
Jeffrey Heine:Miss Hannigan. I'm sorry? Miss Hannigan. Miss Hannigan. 10 points to Gryffindor.
Jeffrey Heine:So miss Hannigan miss Hannigan oversaw this orphanage. And it was just wild and crazy, and everyone running everyone, and and as they're trying to clean up, and they fight, and there are arguments, and all these things are going on. And that seems a little bit more like the church that I know, and that I've been in my entire life, as I've seen relationships get strained and stressful, and these back and forths and these arguments over silly things that no one should really argue about. And then to have to deal with things that are big and complicated, where people in church are gonna care about things that no one else feels like they have the time to care about. And we're gonna dig in, and we're gonna live this life together, rooted and grounded in the love of God.
Jeffrey Heine:And Paul's told us what we are adopted out of, and what we are adopted into. And then he speaks to this life, this life together in the new family of God. He says, live. He says, walk as the children of light. Chapter 5.
Jeffrey Heine:Chapter 5, beginning in verse 1, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, down to verse 6. Let no one deceive you with empty words, For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not become partakers with them. For at one time, you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.
Jeffrey Heine:Living in the light of the Lord is extraordinary. It's a light that strives for righteousness, not simply for the sake of moral behavior. God is the good father, and he knows that the sins of greed, sexual immorality, stealing, unkind talking, talk that tears down. These sins listed out in chapter 5, they pull in other people. These are not sins of solitude.
Jeffrey Heine:These are sins within the family of God where we pull other people into disobedience and away from obedience to the Father. This family is to be presented to God, Paul writes in chapter 1, presented to God the father, holy and blameless before him. This is why he cares about our righteousness, not just that we would act better, but that he would make us blameless and holy in Christ. We are called to be imitators of God, imitators of our father as beloved children, to walk in that love. In chapter 5, Paul describes the love, the love the family of God is given.
Jeffrey Heine:It's love that sacrifices and submits, just like Jesus did in accomplishing our adoption, Which was harder for Jesus, the submission or the sacrifice? Both. Which required war strength, sacrifice or submission? Both. Which one displayed his love for the father, his sacrifice, or his submission?
Jeffrey Heine:Both. And we are called to act like him. We image his sacrifice. We image his submission in the way that we live as husbands and wives, as parents, as children, as bosses and employees, this adoption is to affect every aspect of our lives. We are to have this identity, child of God, and it transforms us.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul says that at one time, you were darkness, but now you are light. You are a child of light, and this spiritual adoption is not simply about where we go when we die. It's about who you are right now, a child of the living God. Because God, in his great love, set out to choose and set his love on a people he has adopted and made a new family, which brings us to chapter 6. Paul calls his brothers and sisters to be strong, And the call is not to be strong out of our own might, our own grit, rather he calls the children of God to live in the strength of their father.
Jeffrey Heine:And we need his strength if we are going to withstand the attacks and the schemes of the enemy. So chapter 6 verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand 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 the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Jeffrey Heine:Just as our new family in Jesus is a spiritual family, the forces against the church are not merely flesh and blood. They're spiritual. And I know that this can be challenging. It can be difficult for some of us to talk about this in an increasingly secularized culture. We live in a culture that readily dismisses the notion, the very idea of the transcendent.
Jeffrey Heine:What I mean by that transcendence is what is beyond the ordinary? What is supreme? What is what we often call spiritual? I mean, think about this, the the contrarian, the opposite view of Christianity for much of Picture the Beatles meeting with Hindu gurus. Okay?
Jeffrey Heine:Picture the Beatles meeting with Hindu gurus. Okay? Spirituality was celebrated. It was fashionable. Religion was bad.
Jeffrey Heine:There was a mistrust with organized religion, but spirituality, and that could be cool. And statements like, I'm spiritual, but not religious, it was rebellious, but it was still rooted in a belief, a fundamental belief in the transcendent, in the spiritual realm. That there is something beyond the ordinary, something supreme. And it should be very startling to us that things have shifted so far so quickly. Spirituality, the belief in the unseen, the active forces in our world, it's viewed as bizarre or uneducated, naive.
Jeffrey Heine:And we should be honest, those of us in the church, that that there have been times in church history where there have been people who distorted the Bible's teaching on what is spiritual and the supernatural, but that does not mean these errors do not mean that the spiritual realm isn't real and significant. I would argue that many of us, maybe even most of us here today, underemphasize and under recognize the spiritual aspects of our daily lives. There's a serious danger. There are many dangers when we neglect the spiritual. And I I wanna note just one.
Jeffrey Heine:If we ignore the spiritual realities, and and the idea that there is a present darkness of evil, then we will seek solutions to our problems. The problems that we experience, both personally and in our culture, we will if we think that there is not a spiritual aspect, then we will only look for flesh and blood answers. We will begin to believe that all we need are just the right laws, or the right politicians, the right people with power, and then everything will just get better. If we just get the right technology, the right research, the right education, then we can right every wrong. But the headlines that we see today, they display this danger for us.
Jeffrey Heine:Over the last few months, there's been a movement, mostly of women, speaking out against abuse and assault that they have experienced. And are these things only issues of a misguided, uneducated culture, or is it more profound than that? Is this not rooted in evil? And we see it too when the value of a life, particularly the unborn, is met with indifference, is that not rooted in evil? Or when the value of a life, in particular the life of a person of color, is met with hatred, is that not an evidence of evil in our culture?
Jeffrey Heine:And just 2 weeks ago, in my hometown where I grew up in west western Kentucky, there was a school shooting. It's the second one that we've had to endure as a community. The first one was when I was a freshman, and this time, 2 freshmen were dead and many more wounded. Are we gonna pretend that there's not evil there? The loss of recognizing the spiritual reality of our world sets us up to never really find the source of injustice in our time.
Jeffrey Heine:There is a present darkness, but we are not left defenseless. Paul gives us this image of a soldier dressed in spiritual armor, the armor of God, he says. Verse 13, 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. The Christian is suiting up with a spiritual armor to stand firm against the present evil, the belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness given by a gospel of peace, the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Why does he do this?
Jeffrey Heine:Why does he describe it this way? Well, he says it's because he wants us to be able to withstand, to endure the evil in our time. Christ wins the victory over evil. We are called to endure it until he comes again. And these things work.
Jeffrey Heine:This faith, peace, truth, righteousness, these things fight back against the darkness. Jesus did not leave us with a knife for a gunfight. These pieces of armor that Paul lists out, We're told in numerous places throughout the scriptures, the armor is Jesus himself. The belt of truth, John 14. Jesus says, I'm the way and the truth and the life.
Jeffrey Heine:The breastplate of righteousness, 1st Corinthians 13. And because of Jesus, you who are in Christ, who have become he has become to us the wisdom of God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The shoes of readiness from the gospel of peace. Earlier in this letter to the Ephesians, Paul says, for Jesus himself is our peace. The shield of faith, Hebrews 12, Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith.
Jeffrey Heine:The helmet of salvation, Psalm 18, the Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, John 1, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as only of the son from the father, full of grace and truth. What Paul is describing here with this armor of God is what he told the Romans. In Romans 13, clothe yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:He told the Ephesians before this, put on the new self, which is created in the image of God. Put on Jesus. If you will endure the enemy in our time, you must put on Christ. In Paul's words to the Ephesians in chapter 6, it's not the first time in the scriptures that we have seen this image of the armor of God. In fact, it was read at the beginning of our service as our opening scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, I'll just read 2 verses of it. Isaiah 59. He, the Lord, saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head.
Jeffrey Heine:He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. It is God who comes to intercede. It's God who brings us salvation. That is the meaning of our adoption. In love, we were adopted out of wrath and into the family of God, to live as the children of light in unity and holiness.
Jeffrey Heine:And now to endure this present darkness until our Father comes with the fullness of the kingdom of Jesus. We are to be dressed in our father's armor. He's making us look like him. And this is why Paul uses the image of the soldier. We are being made to look like our Father, who first put on that righteousness as a breastplate, who first put on the helmet of salvation, who rent the heavens and came down to rescue us when there was no one else to intercede.
Jeffrey Heine:That is the God who adopted you and has called you to trust him and obey him today. Paul concludes the letter asking for prayer. He instructs them, 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 in 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.
Jeffrey Heine:Even in chains, even in prison, Paul's focus was on the mystery of Christ's gospel. He didn't ask them to pray for his release, for him to be vindicated, for his conditions to improve. No, he asked them to pray that he would proclaim Christ, Christ and his gospel boldly. And then Paul closes his letter with these words of prayer for the Ephesian congregation, prayers for peace and love and faith and grace. So how did they respond, these saints in Ephesus?
Jeffrey Heine:They heard this word declared. It went to them. It was declared. Tychicus was there to field any questions that they might have to where they would understand it. So they hardly declared they understood it, and then they were called to respond, because that's what the word of God calls for us.
Jeffrey Heine:It's to be proclaimed, it's to be explained, and it's to be responded to. And so these saints in Ephesus, how did they do? Well, 3 touch points that we have in the scriptures. 1 in, in acts 20, we see that Paul calls the Ephesian elders and wants to talk with them, and meet with them. And in meeting with them, he warns them that there are gonna be people leaders coming into the community to lead the people astray.
Jeffrey Heine:And he charges them to lead well. He charges them saying, you have to shepherd this flock because these people in your congregation were bought with the blood of God. It's one of the firmest ways that he talks about this as he charges these elders about a threat within the community. Then another place, Paul writes to Timothy who is in Ephesus. And in that letter, that's where we get the description of the qualifications for an elder.
Jeffrey Heine:We get Paul talking to Timothy saying, there are wolves in that community. Again, calling back these images of of the flock, shepherding the flock of God that we see in Acts 20. And then finally, we see in Revelation chapter 2. In John's revelation, we hear the Lord Jesus speaking and addressing the Ephesian congregation. And he says, he gives words of affirmation.
Jeffrey Heine:He commends them, you are standing firm. You're rooting out those false apostles. You're testing them. You're defending the congregation, but I have this against you. You have forgotten the love that you had at first.
Jeffrey Heine:And this is about 30 years later. And so with life expectancy, there would have been some transition in who that congregation was, and some of the leadership. But Jesus speaking to that congregation saying, if we pull back and we think about all that Paul has said to this congregation about love, he's talked about God's love for them, and then their love for the brothers and sisters around them. That's what he's majored on. And so if we read that into Jesus' words in Revelation chapter 2, then what we can read into that is they are doing a good job holding the line.
Jeffrey Heine:But as brothers and sisters, as the family of God, as a household of faith, they've stopped loving one another. And that, Jesus says, I will remove the lampstand, your influence. I will take that influence away if you do not repent. If you don't remember, repent, and return to that love. I'm gonna take that influence away, because a church that's great with doctrine, and defending, and holding the line, that's good.
Jeffrey Heine:But a church that does not love one another should have no influence, because that church should not be imitated. So he calls them to remember that love and repent of their sin and return to that love for one another. That's our best glimpse as to what happened afterwards. But we should remember, so this letter to the Ephesians church, the church in Ephesus, this letter circulated a lot. It went around and around to lots of different cities and communities.
Jeffrey Heine:And most of the copies of this that we have that are still in existence, the papyrus, these papers of this letter, most of the copies don't say to the saints in Ephesus. It leaves out Ephesus, and that's not to cast suspicion on whether this was written to the Ephesian church. It's it's actually because it got circulated so much because it was applicable to every household of faith, that God, through his sovereign will, meant for this letter to go out from Ephesus and go around to the surrounding communities, and to address the things that we have spent the last 17 Sundays talking about. And so this letter was meant just as much for the saints in Birmingham as it was for the saints in Ephesus. So the question then comes to us.
Jeffrey Heine:What will we do? How will we we respond to the word of God, declared, explained. Now we must respond. And as we think about our own adoption, as we think about who God has called us to be in Christ, we should take inventory of our own selves. Inventory on, are we taking up this armor of God, of truth, of salvation, of righteousness?
Jeffrey Heine:Are we looking out for the needs of others in our community? Thinking back to chapters 2 and 3, are we looking to put to death the hostility that Christ has killed amongst the brothers and sisters in the body of Christ? Are we looking to that submission and that sacrifice that we might declare the greatness of Jesus who submitted and sacrificed for your adoption? We take inventory of these things in our own lives and within our own community. Are we living strong in the strength of his might?
Jeffrey Heine:Are we wearing our father's clothing, dressed up like him, enduring until he comes for us in the fullness of the kingdom of Jesus. How will we respond? Let us pray that we would respond with faith, with repentance, to live into the grace he has for us as brothers and sisters in Christ. So let's go to him in prayer. God, will you give us the grace to respond, to respond in repentance and belief, to respond to you as a loving father, where we do not fear punishment anymore, because your perfect love has cast out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and that was carried out on the cross of our Lord Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:And so we stand not afraid of punishment. We stand in your grace. Help us to believe today, and in our believing, help us to love you and trust you and obey you. Lord, help each and every one of us here this morning to think honestly about our lives and the great adoption you have brought to us in Jesus. Spirit, meet with us, challenge, comfort, and transform us to be more and more like our savior Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray these things in his name.