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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/bruce-rodgers/ephesians-in-love/
Let's look together in Ephesians chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 1. Now last week I spoke a little bit on the idea of being filled and fullness, filled with the Spirit, fullness of the Spirit. And I never really got to Ephesians chapter 5 where that verse is quoted, and I possibly won't get to it today either.
But I want to pick up a phrase that is given to us in the book of Ephesians five times. And it's a very simple little phrase, it's just a little phrase, in love, in love. So Ephesians chapter 1, let's start reading at verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children.
Now if you just use the word sonship for that phrase, adoption of children, it would probably give us a better understanding of it, but I'll explain that a little bit more. Having predestined us to sonship by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved.
Now I'm just going to, for a few minutes, explain a little bit of what we have here, and then we're going to turn a little further into the epistle. Now one of the things that I have found in studying the book of Ephesians, and this goes back to very early in my ministry in the full-time service of God, when we, Murray Pratt and I, went to Capuscasing and saw a new assembly start, all the people that were saved there basically were just out of the world.
They had no Bible background, at least very little. And a lot of them were fairly young, like we were. I was in my late 20s, and Murray was the ripe old age of 30 when the assembly was started. So we were a young group, and a lot of the ones that were saved were about our age, from teenage, late teens, up to 40, and there was a really old couple there in their 50s.
So there was a lot of work to do in marriages, because they'd already experienced a lot of brokenness. Some of them were on second relationships, and so on. Some of them were just living together. There's all kinds of mixed-up situations.
And I began to wonder, what's my equipment for helping people in so many confused and difficult relationships? And I began to realize that the Epistle of Ephesians is particularly suited for marriage counseling, because there's an exact parallel between Christian relationships in the body of Christ and marriage relationships and responsibilities.
And so I'm going to use this phrase with a little bit of irony, because I want you to think about it as we normally think of the term in love. What context do you usually think of when you think of a young couple in love?
Do you ever think of an old couple in love? You should. Let me tell you something. If you're not in love, if you're in a marriage relationship here today, if you're not in love in that relationship, you're in trouble.
It's the very core of relationship, the very core of what makes us want to treat each other well, to care about each other, to be sensitive to each other. It all hinges upon that relationship being strong in love.
But there's a phrase that is coming up, and I hear it a lot today, and we're adopting it too, and if you happen to use it, I'm not going to knock you over the head. We hear this term unconditional love, and it's being expressed today as being the supreme love, the greatest love, unconditional love.
Now, maybe I'm just a little bit block-headed, and I don't understand what it means, but I have a bit of a problem with using it too freely. And I want you to see in this section of Ephesians, we have what we could call accepting love.
But if you let yourself get caught in the psychological jargon of unconditional love, you could end up a long ways from biblical understanding of God's love. Because a lot of people think in their concept of unconditional love is that it doesn't matter how you behave.
It's irrelevant to the relationship, that God just keeps on loving you anyway. And people want unconditional love because they don't want to have to change. Well, it's an amazing reality that God has loved us in such a way that it appears to have no conditions.
But it's actually because Christ has fulfilled all the conditions for his love to be continued to us forever. Now, let's just notice what it says here. It says he has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings that exist in Christ.
And then it says, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Now, what does that mean? Well, you notice the phrase, before him.
You could say, in his sight, or how he sees us. Now, for those of you who have gone through the stages of life of falling in love with somebody, and they talk about blind love, you know, when you can't see anything wrong with this wonderful person that you've just fallen in love with.
Others call it the temporary insanity stage and all those kinds of things, where you don't see anything wrong in this other person. And then the cold reality begins to seep in after you get married, and you find out that this person can be maybe critical, maybe proud, maybe whatever, whatever, whatever they actually are.
The challenge is, can you carry with you, through all the phases of relationship, can you carry an attitude towards that person of accepting them? Because God has done that with us. And so we usually use the language that this is a positional truth.
And what do we mean by that? Well, we mean that this is something that God has brought us into, that is not dependent upon us and upon our behavior, but upon something which he has done or made us into.
And that's accurate as far as it goes for the moment. But you notice what it says here, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. And then verse 5 is very closely connected with this, and you will find some translations will actually put in love with verse 5, and they will say, in love having predestined us to sonship.
And that may be accurate as well. God has brought you into a relationship with himself through the Lord Jesus. A relationship in which his love, his grace, determines the boundaries of the relationship, and not your performance.
I even hate to hear that word. It seems like we go in little tangents. We go in tangents in our understanding, in our appreciation of truth, and so we go off on these little tangents. We always have to keep bringing ourselves back to what God has said.
I don't know if you're like this, but I can go on tangents too. And I've had to learn that about myself, that I need the balancing of other believers, of other understanding of God and of his truth. It's always a dangerous thing when we can't listen to anyone else.
We can't be helped by anyone else. But as we look at a wonderful passage like this, we're looking at this which seems like a contradiction, because you know and I know that we're not holy and without blame in ourselves.
And so we kind of, in a sense, jump around in our imagination about how does God do this. Is he just pretending? No, he isn't pretending, not in any sense. But what God has done is he has accepted us initially on the basis of his Son.
And so we have this expression, verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved. Now, this word, made us accepted, really has the idea of grace in it. And you could translate it, he has graced us in union with the Beloved One.
Now, grace is favor being shown. I'm very grateful that as God considers me today, he doesn't see me separate from his Son. He sees me associated with his Son, identified with his Son. And he sees me as one that his Son has died for.
And upon the basis of the death of his Son, God has graciously forgiven me all sin. And I have the blessing today, as Romans chapter 4, 6 -8 says, I'm one of those that God will never charge with sin again.
That's being highly favored in the Beloved, accepted on a basis outside of myself. So that's very important for us to appreciate and to enjoy. But I also want to suggest to you that when it says that we are chosen in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, that this is not only looking at the immediate present, but it's also looking at the future.
And God has this wonderful capacity as being eternal, in that he can see us in the future tense. He is seeing us as we will be. Not with the limitation, the failing, the shortcoming that we presently have, but as we will be in his glorious presence.
So there is a day coming when I will be able to be in that presence of infinite holiness and purity. And God will be able to look upon me with the same rest and joy and delight as he is in his son today.
Holy, without blame, before him in love. Now that's a tremendous security. This is his accepting love. And his grace enables him, because his grace is going to bring me to that final perfection where I will be in his sight, blameless, holy, pure, within and without.
And so one of the big challenges we have today, and this is where the latter part of Ephesians is so practical, is that the Apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, is trying to get us to get into, you might say, not in God's shoes, you can't say that, but to kind of stand alongside God himself.
And to not only see ourselves as he sees us, but to see one another as he sees his people. Now, last Lord's Day I was looking at chapter 3, and I'll just remind you of that, because this isn't going to happen without the strengthening of the Holy Spirit within our lives.
And so chapter 3 and verse 16 says that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
So that you, being rooted and grounded in love. So here we come to our second in love phrases in the epistle. There's actually five of them. And at the rate I'm going, I'm not sure that I'll get to them all.
But this is a very thrilling, it's a section of scripture that we need to meditate in. We need to saturate our minds, our hearts with this. God is pleased by the power of his Spirit to strengthen the spiritual life that he has created within us, so that we might be able to overcome all the hindrances, all the obstacles that would prevent this from being enjoyed.
Christ at home in my heart. Christ enthroned in my heart. And as a result, I am rooted and grounded in love. Now this is a whole subject in itself. I have come to appreciate that love is the true essence of life itself.
Everything is built upon love. Everything works based upon love and the character of love. Galatians chapter 5 has this little phrase, faith which works by love. Now that's just a simple little statement, and yet it really explains everything.
It explains natural life. It explains what makes a happy family. If you want a happy family, live in the element of love. And each person in that relationship will grow in confidence, in trust, so that there can be this trustful, faithful, caring relationship.
Love is the foundation of all normal, healthy life. This is one of the incidental proofs, not only that God is love, but that God's love is the very foundation of life for all creation. And faith or trust is based upon it, built upon it.
And you know as well as I do, that whenever trust is broken down, it's because of sin of some kind. Sin destroys trust. And so, what's the most important element of my marriage? Ephesians 3 would tell me, it's my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the most important part of my marriage. What's the most important part of my Christian life and my relationships with you as fellow believers? My relationship with the Lord Jesus. Because if I am close to Him, and enjoying His love, developing in His love, His love is going to begin to develop in me, and I am going to begin to display the outflow of divine love.
And so this is the, you might say, the very heart, very core of all that's here, rooted and grounded in love. So chapter 4, after bringing us to this wonderful pinnacle of the glory of God for all eternity, is going to be displayed in Christ and the Church, in this love relationship.
Then he says in chapter 4 in verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk or live worthily of the vocation, the calling, wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And then he speaks about a sevenfold unity, a sevenfold oneness, that each one of us who are saved, we share in common with each other. We are part of one body. We share life together by the Spirit in the body of Christ.
There's one Spirit who supplies life to each one of us. We are called in one hope of your calling. In other words, I've got the same future you have. You have the same future that I have. We're going to share that future together.
We have one Lord. There is one faith, one faith that we hold in common, one baptism, one God and Father of all, and so on. A comprehensive oneness that we all share together equally. And so what is he getting at then in verses two and three?
He's saying this is what it takes for this oneness to be enjoyed and experienced and the blessing of it to be able to benefit us all. What is it? Well, he says with all lowliness and meekness. Lowliness and meekness.
Now what are these qualities? Well, I'm going to put it in a negative sense. And maybe, I don't know if this will help you or not, but I link together these two words and just express it this way. In lowliness and meekness, there's an absence, an absence of self-promotion.
One of the things that affects us is we get thinking selfishly, self-centeredly. And as soon as I want to be noticed, I want to be given credit, I want to have honor, or I want to be first. As soon as I am promoting myself, I'm actually subverting.
I'm subverting what God has blessed me with. And that's really the issue of pride. You know that pride was the origin of sin. And so pride is an element underlying most sin. If we didn't worry about ourselves, a lot of our problems would dissolve.
It's hard to get over ourselves, whether it's in our marriage, whether it's in our family, whether it's in the assembly, our Christian relationships. Lowliness is not thinking you're no good for anything.
It is putting somebody else first, being lowly. The Lord Jesus said, I am meek and lowly in heart. I find it fascinating that when you come down further in the chapter, it talks about, you have not so learned Christ.
Ephesians chapter 4 is actually an expanded exposition of Matthew 11, 28 and 29. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Learn of me. Learn of me. Learn from me. And so God wants us to learn from the Lord Jesus Christ.
He says, you shall find rest to your souls, rest in your souls. And so lowliness and meekness, meekness is towards God, submissiveness. But in relationship to other people, meekness is gentleness. So sometimes you'll see the same word translated as gentleness in the way we handle other people.
Now, would everybody else here consider you to be a gentle person? Someone that they wouldn't be afraid to approach if there was a problem. Because you would respond with gentleness towards them. Or are we in such a hurry to put that other person in their place, to crush them, to make sure they don't ever challenge you again, that you are harsh?
Lack of gentleness. And so lowliness and meekness are twins together with an absence of self-promotion. Now, if that's a hard challenge, the next two are even more difficult in the everyday experiences of life.
Because it says here, with long-suffering, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. If the first two are an absence of self-promotion, you could twin these two together as an absence of self-protection.
Now, I have a lot of sympathy for people, for Christians, who have been hurt, who have been harmed, who haven't been able to overcome it. Some who are very close to me personally, their lives have been disabled in the spiritual realm because somebody has harmed them.
Somebody has hurt them. And they haven't been able to get out from under all that that has caused within themselves. But the reality is, if I am going to be useful for God, I'm going to have to be willing to be hurt.
So long-suffering is not retaliating quickly, but bearing the grief, the suffering, the hurt that somebody else inflicts upon me with long-suffering. And then it says, forbearing one another in love.
Now, forbearing may not be so much what somebody does against me, although it can be. It can be just putting up with somebody. And in the context of this chapter, I have phrased it this way, waiting for somebody to grow up.
There's a lot of growing up needed among us. We need to grow up in Him. That's a little further down the chapter. But we're here. We're here with one another. And the Spirit of God, in the grace of God, indwells every one of us.
And the Spirit of God is longing that we would have this love of acceptance so that we accept one another despite the limitations we see. Forbearing. We can get very bitter towards one another. People can fail us.
People can disappoint us. We have to come to terms with it and not be overcome or destroyed by it. Forbearing one another in love. Why? Because we're endeavoring, we're being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The older I get, the more I appreciate peace among God's people. Now, one problem it does bake, it makes it very difficult to deal with issues. Because it's hard to deal with issues and not create lasting enmity and friction.
That's where the humility, the lowliness, the meekness is also so essential. Anybody should be able to approach me and point out something wrong that I'm doing. I should be able to accept that. I should be willing to accept that.
And that's the emphasis a little further down the chapter. But I just want you to see these very vital principles. And all of this comes out from, it's derived from love itself. It's love that is lowly.
It is love that is self-sacrificing, that puts another person ahead of myself in interest. It's love that will be gentle towards another person and not want to hurt them, harm them in any way. It is love that will be long-suffering, that will endure what somebody else in their selfishness or their anger of the moment may lash out and say things or do things that are hurtful.
It is love that will be long-suffering, that will still care about that person and seek to cultivate the relationship. So as I said, these are powerful principles, both for our marriages and for our relationships with one another as Christians.
Endeavoring. The word endeavoring here is giving diligence, making this your aim, your ambition, to guard the unity of the Spirit. Just like in our marriage, we have to value the relationship. It has to be precious to us.
In the bond, and the word bond actually has the idea of unity in it itself, the uniting bond of peace. Because peace and righteousness flow together. When we aren't acting rightly with each other, peace is destroyed.
And so if we're going to have peace, we have to have respect for boundaries, respect for each other, and care for righteousness. And so this is all part of what belongs and what's needed in relationship to one another.
Now, the next section, and really there's not much point in me even trying to get into it, but in the next section, it goes from what we share in common to what God has entrusted each one of us with individually.
And that's the subject of spiritual gifts. Now, in this relationship one with another, in the body of Christ, he says, Christ has gifted us. He has bestowed upon us individual gifts. And I would insist on this, that every member of the body has something to do.
Whether a brother or a sister, male or female, we are in the body of Christ. We have a role. We have a function. We have a ministry to fulfill. Now, included in that idea, it mentions in verse 10, He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
Now, last Sunday I touched on this. The idea of filling all things is that his character and what he is is going to permeate everything. And I'm looking forward to a world where everything is in harmony with what Christ is.
When it will reflect what he is in its character of goodness, of purity, of love, of faithfulness, and all these characteristics. The world is not embracing this. The world is not benefiting from this.
But we who have the Spirit of God, we are intended to be benefiting from it. But here's the point of this section. We all contribute to each other. We are all needed for each other. I need you. And you need me.
And so he has given particular spiritual gift or enabling to each individual Christian. And so this also should help us to see each other the way he wants us to see each other. You should look at each other as gifted individuals.
Those who have something to give, something to contribute, something to be a benefit to the body of Christ. And so it's important for us, and it's a very important subject for us to consider ourselves.
What has God given to me? What has he entrusted me with? But what's interesting in Ephesians 4 is that he doesn't so much get into the individual spiritual gifts that all the believers have. He touches on three foundational ones.
There are two, there are five here, but apostles and prophets are foundational to the work of the church in total. And then it says in some evangelists and some pastors and teachers or shepherds and teachers.
Now I would suggest that he's not saying here that only the evangelists, only the shepherd teachers have a spiritual gift and are supposed to function in a church, but rather that the role of the evangelist, then of the shepherd, of the teacher, is to prepare and equip all the others, enabling the others to be fitted to fulfill their ministry.
So that's the language that is used here. Pastors and teachers for, with a view to the perfecting of the saints. Now the word perfecting can be used in a number of different ways. I would just suggest here that it's in the sense of equipping or fitting.
And so as the saints, all the believers, are fitted or equipped, then they can fulfill the work of ministry. And so this is one of the reasons why we don't believe in the one pastor system of church functioning.
Because he has entrusted spiritual gifts to a variety of believers in the local assembly, and he intends for that to be fulfilled in the functioning of the assembly. For the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
And so whatever God has given to you is not for your glory. It's for the blessing of God's people. For the blessing of those who are not saved, that they may be brought into salvation. Now, my time is gone, so let me just remind you of verse, there's two times we have the word in love again spoken here.
Verse 15, in contrast to false teachers and their detrimental influence, he says, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, compacted by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying or building up of itself in love.
Now if you and I will appreciate the emphasis of this little section, we're all needed to build up, to be part of the ministry. And sometimes I'm not doing so well individually, by myself. And the Lord has to get through to me by somebody else.
By somebody else's encouragement, or somebody else's reproof, somebody else's instruction, and so on. And so, through not only his direct instruction and the work of the Spirit directly upon my conscience and within me, but through one another, we are being built up to the development, to likeness to him.
Now our time is gone. Let's commit ourselves to the Lord. Our Father, we bow in thy presence. We are grateful that we have been given this tremendous blessing of thy Spirit indwelling us. We pray that we might become more sensitive to the desire, the yearning, and the enabling of the Spirit of God.
That we may not quench or grieve thy gracious Spirit. That we might be vessels in which thy love, thy truth, might be able to flow in life-giving blessing to one another and to those who are not saved.
And so we ask thee to be with us, to strengthen us, to empower us. Help us to overcome every obstacle, every hindrance, to walk before thee and to please thee. In our Savior's precious name. Amen.