If I get any more high tech,
I'm going to have to start getting ready about five minutes ahead
of time so I can get everything turned on. Let's turn to Ephesians
chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to read verses 23
and verse 24. Ephesians 6, 23 and 24. Peace be to the brethren and
love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. Now this will be our last
message from our Ephesian series. And we're going to look here
now at Paul's benediction, his closing remarks here. Now, when
we read a benediction in the epistles, it's not just a mere
wish by the apostles. This is what the believer, the
true believer, always has from God. And it's what the apostles
asked God to increase in the believers. This is what we have
and what He asked us to increase. Now, here Paul speaks about peace,
love, faith, and grace. Every true believer is given
peace, love, faith, and grace. We want the best things for those
that we love. Well, there's nothing that can
top these things right here. This is the top. I mean, this
is the best. If you could want anything for
your children, want anything for your loved ones, want anything
for lost brethren or believing brethren, this is it right here. Love, faith, and grace. Let's take this a phrase at a
time, and let's begin with the first phrase, verse 23. Peace
be to the brethren. Now every true believer that's
filled with God's Spirit has peace. We have peace with God,
peace between us and God. We have peace in our conscience.
Our conscience has been purged by the blood of Christ. We have
peace in our conscience. We have peace between brethren,
and we seek to maintain peace with brethren. And when we don't
have peace with brethren, it troubles us. We want to be reconciled. And we try our best to be at
peace with all men in this world, even those that aren't believers.
And that troubles us when we're not at peace with other men.
You know, when the Lord, even when He took what He would send
His people into captivity, while they were in Israel. He said
this, he said, Seek the peace of the city, whether I have caused
you to be carried away captives. Seek the peace of that city,
he said, and pray unto the Lord for it, because in the peace
of that city shall you have peace. So even when we're amongst the
enemies of the gospel, we still seek peace. God's people are
peaceable people. And the reason is, is our Lord
and Savior is our peace, and He is the great peacemaker. Christ
is the great peacemaker. We have peace that only Christ
gives. Listen to, well, let's look at
it. John 14, verse 27. John 14, 27. The Lord's speaking
here. He's about to go to the cross.
And listen to what He says to His disciples. John 14, 27. Peace I leave with
you. Peace I leave with you. My peace. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give
I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. What is this peace that he's
given to his people? Well, the covenant by which we're
saved from eternity is called the covenant of peace. He gave
us the covenant of peace. That's great, great peace for
a believer. Moreover, I'll make a covenant
of peace with them, he said. Listen to this, it shall be an
everlasting covenant. We don't have to worry about
God changing. God doesn't change. I was just reading in Proverbs
in that passage where Solomon is speaking, warning his son
to stay away from the strange woman. And he said, you may ponder
the paths of your feet. You may try to try to ponder
the paths of the way of life. He said, but be warned because
her paths change. turns our paths this way and
that way, and that's how this world is. That's how politics
is, that's how religion is, that's how business is, that's how everything,
a car doesn't stay, it doesn't last, it changes. Everything
changes, constantly changing. The gospel never changes. God
says Christ Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
When you get tired of all the changes, and get tired of being
cheated and all the things that happen in this world. You will
like to find somebody that you can count on that doesn't change.
God says, this covenant I make with you, this covenant of peace
is an everlasting covenant. And He says, I will place you
and I'll multiply you and I'll set my sanctuary in the midst
of them forevermore. And then Christ the mediator,
What's a mediator? That's a maker of peace. A mediator
came to make this peace between God and His people. He's the
go-between between God and His people. He's God and He's man. And He can bring the two together. By His blood, every believer
has fully established the law of God through faith. So God
has no reason to be angry with us because of breaking His law. We fulfilled it. We've established
the law perfectly. By His blood, through faith in
Him, we've been made the righteousness of God. We've attained to the
righteousness of God. and our conscience is purged
by his blood. So that now we see we're not
enemies in our minds anymore. By wicked works we see that God's
not our enemy. So we're made one with God. And
now we have peace with God. Look at Romans 5 in verse 8.
Romans chapter 5. Now, if that's the case, God
did all that for us. He sent Christ. He sent the Mediator. If He did that for us when we
were enemies in our minds toward God, rebelling against God, thinking
we were too smart to listen to anything about God, what now,
since we've been reconciled to God? Look here, Romans 5, 8.
God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. We don't enter into even half
of what that means to these sinners. And yet God sent His Son into
the world. Now watch this. Much more than
being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from what? From wrath through Him. God's
not angry with His people. He's not going to pour out wrath
on His people. We're going to be saved from wrath through Christ.
For if when we were enemies, We were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son. If when we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son. We're still dead
in our trespasses and sins and yet we were reconciled to God
by the death of His Son. Much more than being reconciled. We shall be saved by His life. By His life. All right? The chief
way that Christ makes us peacemakers is that he gives us this thing
called the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace. Now, when
we go forth preaching the gospel of peace, he said, don't think
that I came to send peace in the world. I didn't come to do
that. You're not going to have peace in the world with everybody
you come in contact with. He said, but I came to set a
man at variance, at odds with one another. so that a man's
foes will be in his household. But whenever he works grace in
the heart, he unites his people and makes peace and brings his
people together. He says, he calls it the unity
of the spirit in the bond of peace, because when he enters
in the heart, it's the same spirit, one spirit, and all his people
are born up. You imagine if everybody in here
was born of the same father, physical father you'd you'd have
some traits alike you'd have you'd have some some some things
that are like and some little things that are different but
you'd all be you'd be at the same family well this believer
we're of the same family we're born of the same spirit born
of the same heavenly father and we're we have this bond in the
unity of the spirit And then Christ says through the psalmist,
so he says, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. That's us, that's
the church. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
They shall prosper that love thee. Those that love God's people
shall prosper. And he says, peace be within
thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren
and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. You know what happens when God
says peace? When Christ says peace? Remember when the sea
was raging? Christ said, Peace be still. And it just was a calm. And that's what He said. For
my brethren and for my companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace
be within thee. And there's peace. There's peace. Alright, here's the second word.
Love and faith. Now look here. Let's read this
together. Ephesians 6, 23. He says, and
love with faith. Now I almost separated these,
but they need to go together here. Love with faith. Believers have love and believers
have faith. This is the fruit of God's grace.
We have love and faith. We saw that last time. But here
he's asking that they might be given an increase in love accompanied
with their faith. In other words, not just to grow
in faith alone, but to grow in love right along with that faith.
You go through Ephesians. We saw, as we went through here,
how many times Paul spoke about love all through Ephesians. And
you remember the problem when the Lord spoke to Ephesians over
in Revelations. When the Lord spoke to the church
at Ephesus, the problem was they were zealous for doctrine. They
had the faith, but they had lost their first love. They had left
their first love. All right, now look. Galatians
5, 6. You don't have to turn there.
You know this. Let me read it to you. He said, In Jesus Christ
circumcision doesn't matter. It's not to be under the law
or whatever your brand of works is. It's not to be that. And
uncircumcision doesn't matter. It's not that a man can make
a law out of being not under the law. It's not being out from
under the law that matters. What matters is, he said, is
faith which works by love. This is our law, faith which
works by love. So wherever God gives faith in
Christ, And where He gives that gift of faith in Christ, God
gives love for Christ. And He gives love for brethren.
Now I do want you to turn here, 1 John 5. 1 John chapter 5. Now look here, 1 John 5 and look
at verse 1. Now whosoever believeth, we're
talking about faith. Remember faith? Whosoever believeth
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. That's how he got faith. That's how he believed. He was
born of God. Alright? And everyone that loveth
him that begat. He says we were born of God.
And everyone that loves God that made us to be born again. Everyone
that loves him that begat. loveth him also that's begotten
of him. All right? Take the family for
instance. When you love your father that begot you, you love
the other children in the family that he begot. They're your brothers
and sisters. You love them too. Well, that's
the same in God's family. He that loves Him that begat
us, He that loves the Father that made us to be born again
also loves those other children that the Father made to be born
again. Look at 1 John 4 and look at verse 21. And this commandment
have we from Him that he who loveth God loveth his brother
also. You see that? So by God's grace,
here's what happens. He increases faith in his child. And as he increases faith, he
increases love. Listen to Paul. He's told the
Thessalonians, We're bound to thank God always for you, brethren,
as it is meat. It's fit for us to do this because
that your faith groweth exceedingly. Your faith grows exceedingly.
And the charity of every one of you all toward each other
abounded. As they increased in faith, they
increased in love. And then the more God helps our
unbelief, the more He gives us faith to enter into the great
love wherewith God loved us. That's what increasing in faith
is, is to make us behold what God has done for us freely, what
Christ has done for us freely. And the more he increases our
faith to behold what he's done for us and all that he's suffered
for us, the more we'll be constrained by the love of Christ for us. And that makes faith work by
love. Faith worketh by love. You don't
have to be told what to do. You don't have to be corralled
in what to do. You do it because you want to,
because you see, by faith, the love of Christ for you. And it
makes you want to serve Him. And the more affectionately Christ
works in us to increase our faith, the more affectionately He works
to increase our faith, the more He increases our love. The kind
of growth that we're talking about here, it's not what the
self-righteous world talks about when they talk about growth.
The self-righteous world talks about growth like this. They're
growing better and better, less sinful and less sinful, and they
call it being more holy and more holy, and it's just getting more
proud and more proud and more proud, more self-sufficient and
more self-sufficient, more self-sufficient. The more effectually Christ works
in His child, the more we acknowledge that all good gifts come from
God alone. And the more we see that the
gifts come from Him alone at the same time, the more we acknowledge
our utter nothingness apart from Him. And the more effectually
Christ makes faith behold how He served God for us, The more
you behold how He served God for us, the more His love for
us makes us want to serve Him by serving one another. By serving
one another. Simply because of this. We see
it's just our reasonable service. You know, men will do something
and they'll expect some kind of reward for it. If we could
do everything God commanded, If we could do everything in
the whole law perfectly as the Lord Jesus Christ did when He
walked this earth, we're not owed anything for that. That's
just what we should have done. And when He says now, in behalf
of what Christ has done for you and how He suffered for you,
anything that He calls on you to do is reasonable. Isn't it? He's reasonable. That's what
he makes us to see. Look over at Philemon. Paul,
writing to Philemon, said something very much like what I just said
to you. I want you to see this. Philemon... Alright, look at this. Verse
4. He says, I thank my God, making
mention of you always in my prayers. Are you there yet, Philemon?
Verse 4. Alright, he says verse 4. I thank
God, my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing
of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus and
toward all saints. that the communication of your
faith. Now what's that mean, the communication
of your faith? It means good things, good things
that they do in love with a view toward the Lord Jesus Christ
and helping their brethren. That's how you communicate your
faith. You can't give faith to somebody. That's not what he's
talking about. Only God can give faith. He's talking about having
faith that Communicates itself to somebody else in things you
do for him. That's what he's talking about
And he says you commute them the communication of your faith.
He says I'm praying that it may become effectual That it may
increase to Christ's glory and to Christ's honor By I watch
this by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in
you in Christ Jesus He said, I want to see these works you're
doing, the communication of your faith, to become effectual. I
want to see it grow effectually. And the way that that's going
to grow effectually, he says, is by acknowledging that every
good thing that you see your brother do, because we're not
looking at ourselves and going, oh boy, I'm really cutting it
up now. We're looking at our brethren,
though, and you say, I see something in him. And he says, when you
acknowledge that every good thing that you see in your brother is Christ working in him. It's
him being in Christ and it's Christ working in him, strengthening
him, doing his will and his good pleasure in him. Now, let me
give you an example. The other day I heard somebody
that I've been preaching to for a long time. I heard somebody
answer another person who was objecting to the gospel and they
answered very well. I mean it was an excellent answer
and it was something that we had looked at not very long before
that in the scriptures. It was an excellent answer and
I saw that in them and I know that they couldn't do that unless
Christ gave that. unless Christ was working in
them to do that. And I saw that, and it made me
thank God. It made me thank the Lord that
He worked that in them. When you're preaching, you know,
you're preaching and thinking, I hope somebody's hearing this.
I hope this is I hope the Lord's working. And you pray and pray,
Lord. And then you see something like
that and you say, Lord, thank you. Thank you. Because you see
he's working. And this is how Christ increases
love for him together with faith and at the same time humbles
his people. See, the more faith is made to see that every good
thing that my brother does, more faith sees that every good thing
my brother does is Christ working in him. And the more Christ brings
us to glorify him for his grace, to thank God and glorify him
for his grace, and the more we acknowledge our own weakness.
You know, when false religion, when self-made religionists see
their works, it puffs them up. When God's people see brethren
doing a good work, it humbles them. Doesn't it? How many times you see somebody,
one of your brethren do something, and you think, man, I don't ever
do anything like that. I don't do anything like that. And your brother's looking at
you going, man, I don't ever do anything like they do. That's
what I'm talking about. That's how real grace works and
grows these people. And that's what Paul's praying
for more and more here. All right, now let's go back
to our text and look thirdly. Here's the fountain. Here's the
fountain. Galatians, I mean, Ephesians
6, verse 23. All of this, he's saying, is
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the simple
question we have to come back to and ask ourselves over and
over. Who maketh thee to differ? What do you have that you didn't
receive? What do you have that you did
not receive? Life? Faith? Righteousness? Holiness? Acceptance with God? Ability
to sing. Ability to play the guitar. Ability to pray. Ability to preach. Ability to study. Ability to feed your dog on time. Whatever
it is. Temporal or spiritual. What do
you have that you didn't receive from God? The ability to blink
your eye just then. What do you have that you didn't
receive from God? Now, if you did receive it, why
glory as if you didn't receive it? We just don't have any room
to glory, do we? God's going to just take our
breath from us one day. You know what's going to happen?
We're not going to reject it. Oh, He's cheated death. No, He
didn't. I'd like to strike that one from
the vocabulary, too. And nobody's ever cheated death.
Nobody's ever died early. Nobody's ever died late. Nobody's
ever beat cancer. None of that matters. God either
spares you or He takes you. Everything you got, you received
it from God. All right, lastly, here we see verse 24. See, Ephesians
6, 24. He says, With all them, grace be with
all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. You know
there's only two kinds of people in the world. Paul says here,
grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. There's only two kinds of people
in this world. Those who love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity. and those who are enmity against
Him. That's it. There's those who
are saved by His grace, and there's those who are lost in rebellion.
There's those born of His Spirit, and there's those dead in sin.
Those who are sincere, and everybody else are hypocrites. Everybody
else is hypocrite. Folks that are outside of religion
love to call religious folks hypocrites. And a great deal
of that's warranted. I mean, a great deal of that
is true. But the truth of the matter is, either God's purified
your heart and made you sincere and a true believer, or you're
just a flat-out hypocrite. There's no middle ground. No
middle ground. Now, to those who are enmity
against him, look over at 1 Corinthians. I think I wrote this down. Let
me check it here real quick. Yeah, 1 Corinthians 16. 1 Corinthians
16. Look at verse 22. This is what
he says to those who are enmity against God, who hate God. He
says, If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
anathema maranatha. What does that mean? You have
a marginal reference? Let him be accursed. Let him
be accursed. That's pretty strong, isn't it?
Any man? Any man that doesn't love God?
Look, now, in our text, though, he says, Grace be with all them
that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Paul don't mince
words, does he? He just says it straight out.
See, here's the fact of it is, if you leave this world and meet
God outside of Christ, you're going to be cursed. You're under
the curse now, and you're going to meet God under the curse,
and you're going to be cursed forever. And in that day, the
Scripture speaks about when the judgment of God is poured out
on the rebels, that the whole host of heaven is going to shout
with joy and praise God for His justice. That's because we're
going to know what real justice and righteousness is. And we're
going to really love it in that day. Love it. So that you praise
God even for His justice. Hell is a monument to the praise
of God's justice. That's what you, that's what
Christ, that's what you see on the cross is a monument to his
justice. And what you see on the cross
is hell. You see God forsaken Christ. You see God turning the devil
and all his army against him and letting them have their way.
That's hell. All men gnashing on him with
their teeth and doing whatever comes to mind to it. That's hell.
And there you see a monument to God's justice. He would by
no means clear the guilty. He wouldn't even spare His only
begotten Son. But because of that work He did,
now we have grace from Him. The point I'm making to you is,
I want you to pay attention. I want you to come and hear the
Word and go and search to see if these things be true. And
plead, ask God to give you mercy. All of these things I say, God's
got to give you grace to do all these things. You can't even
do any of these things on your own. But I'm sent to tell you,
hey dead man, do some living things. And I'm just going to pray to
God to give you the Spirit so that you can be alive to do only
things that living men can do. He went up to that man that had
the withered hand and he said, stretch forth your hand. That
man couldn't stretch forth his hand. He was impotent. He couldn't
do anything. But when he said, stretch it
forth, he gave him the power to stretch it forth. And when
he says, go home and study the Word, if you go home and study
the Word, it's going to be because he gave you grace to do it. If
you don't, it's going to be your own fault. That's just how it
is. If He gives you grace to crawl
flat on your face and beg Him for mercy, He gives the praise
and the glory for that. If you won't do it, if you say,
no, I'm going to not do it, I'm going to stiffen up my neck,
I'm not going to bow before Him, nobody to blame but yourself. But I'm calling on dead men saying,
do some things that only living men can do. And I'm trusting
Christ to make you do them. I pray. I pray there'll be a
shaking of the bones, a rattling of the bones, and bonjo in the
bone, and sinew upon sinew, and the Spirit of God breathe, and
life enter in, and stand up on your feet for the first time
in your life, and believe God. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't
that be something? I pray God will bless. Now, one
more thing. We can't stop. We got this very important. One
more word. One more word. Alright? The last
word in Ephesians 6 is Amen. Amen. What does that mean? Look
over at Revelation 3. Revelation 3. Paul prays in his closing remarks
there. He prays and he just leaves it
with Amen. Well, Paul, don't you know you're
supposed to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Look
here, Revelation 3 verse 14. Unto the angel of the church
of the Laodiceans write, These things saith the Amen. Who's that? The faithful and
true witness. That's what we're saying when
we say Amen. Faithful and true. As a faithful and true witness.
That's who Christ is. He's the Amen. The faithful and
true witness. Whatever He says, you can bank
on it. It's faithful and it's true.
The Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for your word. Thank you for giving us so many
instructive words and comforting words pointing us to Christ throughout
this Ephesian study that we've been in and showing us your people
chosen before the foundation of the world. Show how that you
keep us and bring us together and make us one and forgive us
of our sins. Send forth your preachers and
the work you do in your church. All the instruction on a husband
and a wife and a son and a father and an employee and an employer. All of these things, Lord, in
every aspect of our lives. You're showing us glimpses of
Christ in every bit of these scriptures. Even these things
that are just an everyday thing. Show us glimpses of Christ in
them. Show us how Christ is honored in them. Show us how that we
failed so much in these. We can't dare come to you in
any righteousness of our own. And we thank you, Lord. You've
given us that understanding. You've given us that knowledge
and that faith and that love and that peace and that grace
to know these things. We thank you, Father. Thank you
that you did it glorifying yourself in Christ Jesus. Lord, we pray
that you take these studies now and these sermons and you would
give somebody a heart to go on the website and look up and listen
to them again and study the sermon notes and that you might truly
draw them to your feet. You've said that you're going
to draw your people. You said that you'll work your will and
none will be lost. And you've told us that you'll
be inquired of for these things. And so we inquire, Lord. We ask
you. Lord, have mercy. Have mercy. Shed your grace forth in abundance.
We ask it so that you'll be honored in the saving of your people.
In Christ Jesus, our great Amen, the faithful and true, we pray. Amen.