Thank you for that great message and song that really transitions quite nicely to the first word in our section this morning in Ephesians chapter 6, with the first word being peace. You would find your place in Ephesians 6, verse 23, if you have a Bible with you. If not, you can follow along with the PowerPoints this morning. I'd like to pray for peace for each of you and some of you specifically. This week, Don Stroup lost his brother. So if you would pray for him, the funeral is Tuesday. Many of us have experienced the loss of a mom or a dad or a grandparent, but to lose a sibling will be very, very difficult. So let's pray for the troops and Don in particular. This past Thursday night, the Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, and I'm thinking of the Robbins family hosted a special memorial birthday party for Jonathan. Oliver, who I believe is 16, celebrated it on the other side of the veil in heaven. They had a really neat, neat birthday party for Jonathan, who died just a couple of years ago. His favorite color was green, and we wrote notes on balloons and launched those balloons. You might have seen them. They're still probably orbiting this planet. There was a lot of them that went up. And we had a great, great baseball game. I can brag, I hit a home run. I've not hit a home run since Little League, so it was really exciting to hit a home run in that game. But I'd like to pray for you, Carrie, and your family, especially this memory of your son. I can't imagine losing a son or a daughter, but the Lord can give us that peace which passes all understanding. I'd like to pray for Sarah Spencer this morning. Her husband's in Africa right now in a very challenging, unique place of ministry. So let's pray for her. for Sarah. All the riches are going through an incredible transition, moving out very shortly, within the next week and a half. A lot has to happen between now and then. Let's pray for peace for them. And I just look around the whole auditorium and I'm aware of many of the things that you're going through. And we really need the taste of the grace of God and the peace that he gives us. And so let's pray here and we'll look at our message. Our Father, thank you for this time that we can be still, we can pray. And you told us not to be anxious over anything, but to let our request be made known unto you and to do it in the manner of gratitude and thanksgiving, knowing that you're a great God and that nothing's too difficult, nothing's too hard for you. And as we make a request made known unto you, you've promised us that the peace of God, which passes all understanding, She'll keep her hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. So, Lord, I pray for this unique peace where externally everything may be haywire, but we can enjoy a peace within our heart with you and as we strive together here with one another. Lord, I pray for Steve Spencer in Africa, that you would prosper this week of ministry as he does a survey trip in Tanzania. We pray for him. We pray for the riches, Lord, that you would give grace to them, that their house would sell, help them with all the packing and the transition. the many miles to transport a family and goods across this country. We pray for the church there that they would be ready on the other side to receive them with love. You do a great work there. We pray for Carrie. We pray, Lord, for Rusty here, just lost his son. We think of Don, the loss of his brother. We just pray for each of these many, many needs in our church and each of these that you would give peace to each. And we thank you for passages that we're going to look at. to give us a template that we can pray for one another and that we would experience the peace of God and enjoy a lack of hostility in our relationships as well. So Lord, do a great work this morning. We pray in Jesus name. Amen and amen. It's hard to believe we are finishing the book of Ephesians. I've not totaled up all of my messages yet, but I feel like we've been in it for some time. We will look at the theology of Ephesians on another occasion. But these last two verses do complete our verse by verse study. My goal is to preach through all the Bible verse by verse. and then to write a commentary on each book of the Bible. I do have available in the lobby this morning, Languishing in Lamentations. If you'd like to secure that for your library, it is available. The book on Ephesians will not be out next week. It does take a little bit of time to go through the editing process and get those ramped up and available to you. But do pray that The Lord's Word would indeed have its effect on us. And we'll be transitioning to the Gospel of John in just a couple of weeks. And I look forward to preaching through the fourth gospel. This morning, we're looking at what is called a benediction. Not all of us grew up in church. Not all of us grew up knowing all the lingo. For me, it was really confusing, as a college student even, to know what church to go to if you ever went to church. I made it my pattern to go to St. Mattress above Holy Springs. It's pretty much where I attended quite frequently on Saturday and Sundays. But it's very confusing. A colleague invites you to go to their church. Well, what kind of church? And you have all these different names of churches. And that's quite confusing. You might enter whatever church it might be, and you don't even know what to call people. You don't know, is that the father? Is that the reverend? Is that the bishop? Is that the cardinal? Is that the New York Met? You don't know what to call half the people in a church other than brother and sister. And so we've complicated the titles. We've complicated all the offices of the local church. And then we have all these words like benediction. I don't know what a benediction was. I thought it was something you went with lasagna. You know, I have no idea what a benediction was. What in the world is a benediction? This may humor you, but I didn't know what a pew was. So going to church, you know, you're talking about pews. You know, we lived in farm country, actually pew town pretty close by. So I knew what pew meant, but I didn't know what pew meant, you know. And I knew a guy, you know, every church wants to fill the pew. in their church, but I don't know what a few was. I don't know what a narthex was, an altar was. Just absolutely nerve-wracking to go to church. Who would want to go to church? You don't know what the titles mean. You don't know what to call anyone. You hear words you don't hear during the week, and then they tell you to turn to Old or New Testament, and you don't know what translation they're talking about or using. And then they use all these big theological terms and you leave saying, what was that all about? And you conclude, I don't need to go there ever again. That was purgatory, whatever that means. So this morning we'll try to keep it real simple. A benediction is a prayer wish. That's all it is. So occasionally I'm asked, will you do the benediction at whatever the graduation service, all they're asking is for me to pray and I really wish God's best upon upon the audience, the subjects in particular ways. And so we're coming to the end of Ephesians and we're going to look at this benediction. I wish I was quite clever to tell you a joke about three wishes. You know, the proverbial, if you rub the genie, whatever the genie bottle thing, whatever, and you were given three wishes, what would you wish for? I'm not so clever to give you such a joke this morning. This isn't really a joking matter. But as your pastor, I would like to adopt this benediction and pray in this manner for you. Paul's going to have four wishes. for prayer wishes as he works through what we'll call the benediction to the book of Ephesians. Let's begin here in the 23rd verse of the sixth chapter. The first prayer which ties in with what we just prayed, praying for peace. And you're going to see here in verse 23, it says, peace, peace be to the brethren. And some of you grew up in the 60s. I was in the 60s and peace, baby. You know, it was kind of we just said that to be cool all the time. Groovy. That's really seems really outdated to call anything groovy. That really sounds horrible. But peace. I used to wear a necklace with a peace sign. Okay. Peace on man. How stupid was that? But that was just a time period. Very, very embarrassing. But peace be. Peace be here to the brethren. And so we're going to talk about the primary application of the benediction here. It relates to believers, to brothers, to sisters, to the brethren, to the family of God. Typically, when you think of the word peace, it involves the lack of hostility, the lack of conflict. It reinforces the biblical truth, the biblical unity and harmony. And so that really is at the heart of this benediction, the absence of conflict amongst brethren. This morning, I am wearing a Civil War tie, or a tie, a War Between States tie. And this is a particular battle you can see at Antietam, is the conflict, very bloody, bloody, horrible, horrible battle. During our history as a country in the 1860s, you had a horrible, horrible war. between the states, between our families, between our people. There's a lot of conflict, a lot of hostility before, during, and tragically, even after. When we were in the South for 20 years, occasionally we would lead historic tours with our church family. And one of the tours was called the Surrender. And we followed the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. kind of bringing the American Revolutionary War to a lack of conflict in some regards. And then from there, we studied Lee's trek from Petersburg South, from Petersburg over from Farmville over to Appomattox Courthouse. And so the picture here, I got my clicker, but the picture here on the top, that's Appomattox Courthouse and that's McLean's house. And that's where Lee would have sat on the left on the more elaborate chair and desk. And Grant is there on the right. Grant's a little sloppy. Lee is meticulously clean. And there was the surrender there at that courthouse. I remember taking our Southern friends to this site right there, that very room. And being a jokester, I was saying something funny and no one laughed. It was an absolute funeral setting. For them to digest, this is where the surrender took place and the hostility technically ended from a war declaration statement. The irony of this particular room in the house is you have a fellow by the name of McLean who lived in Virginia. He lived in a place called Manassas. And if you're familiar with the Civil War, Lincoln kind of manipulated the South to respond at Fort Sumter to kind of get it started. But the first land battle was in Manassas and it began in the front yard of the McLean family. And McLean said, I hate war. We're not hunting. We're going to pack up our goods and we're going to leave Manassas full run, depending on your vantage point. And we're going to leave here because I hate war. I hate conflict. All I want is peace. So we're going to move 120 miles south. I found the perfect little farm. It's in the town of Appomattox Courthouse. The Civil War began in the front yard of the McLean family in Manassas, and it ended in the front parlor of his house, and did not have really the consequences he was hoping for. That was peace. We all seek peace, but the really true peace, the only peace we can ever really have, is with God. And we'll talk about that. But peace is the absence of conflict. In a very similar, ironical way, There was a couple in the 1970s who were very fearful of nuclear war. And so this couple said, you know what, honey, let's study it out. We have enough money. We can go anywhere we want. Let's do our research and let's pick a place on this globe that we can move to where we can be guaranteed peace, there won't be any conflict, there won't be any hostility, and there won't be any war. And they studied it, and they studied it, and studied it. And in 1981, they moved to the Falkland Islands. 1982, on Friday, April the 2nd, The Argentinians invaded the Falkland Islands, a British territory. And for 74 days, this family, which had just moved there because it was the best place on the earth to find peace, was in the middle of a terrible conflict until there was a surrender at the end of the 74 days. The point is this, we can strategize, we can work hard, we can try to have peace on earth, we can try to have peace in our soul. But apart from God, there is no lasting peace. So in this particular text, there's a benediction and the primary application is peace among ourselves as brethren, as family. But you can't have really that kind of horizontal relationship of peace until you first have peace with God. And so I love this passage here in Romans chapter 5 verse 1. It says, Therefore, being justified, how? By faith. By faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So the only way we can have peace with God is through faith in what Jesus Christ has done for us. And what did He do for us? He died for us on the cross. He paid all the sin debt by His death and by the shedding of His precious blood. He was buried, which made it very clear that he had died. And then he rose from the grave the third day, a conqueror over death. And any sinner who turns from sin and places his or her faith in Jesus Christ at that moment of crying out to him in faith, he or she will have peace with God. And every one of us should be able to say, I have peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ finished work. And we should be able to, at least in a general sense, say this is when the transaction took place, where there was no more hostility. There was no more disharmony. There was no more lack of peace. But this is when the transaction took place, when I was justified, declared righteous by the grace of God through faith. For me, it was in the fall of 1979 is when I finally had peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. And it would be wonderful to go around the auditorium this morning and say, when did you experience peace with God through faith in Christ? And if time would permit, I would say the large majority of you could slip your head up and you could say, I have peace with God and I can tell you when, when the old account was settled long ago. So peace with God. When you work for the book of Ephesians, you have Christ as our peace. He's the one who makes peace between us and God the Father. So He's that mediator. He is our peace. You cannot have peace with the Father until you come through Christ. So in that sense, He is our peace. And then He, the Lord, wants to create peace, make peace, establish peace between ourselves. That's just some of the dynamics of the gospel of peace. We have first peace with God. When we have peace with God, then we're put in a position to have peace with the brethren. And that's what our text is talking about here. Peace be to the brethren. Let's look at this for just a few moments. In the book of Ephesians, Paul is stating this is very hard to do. You need to have peace with God, and then you've got to endeavor. You've got to work at it. You've got to strive. You've got to make it your goal to sustain peace with one another. This is not easy. This is hard work. Why is it so hard? It's because we have a sin nature that still is in us and still wars against God. And when we yield to that sin nature into our flesh, then we have problems. Then we have a lack of peace relationally. So we have to endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Paul writes to the first Thessalonians and states that we are to be at peace among ourselves. And the context there is between pastures and the flock and the flock and the pasture and the sheep amongst the sheep. We need to be at peace among ourselves. The psalmist says when you have peace among yourselves, there is a biblical unity that's really blessed. There's a great spirit. You can come into a church and you can pretty much, if you have any antennas up, you can tell pretty quickly that there's a good spirit or there's a foul spirit. And I would like to say that we've enjoyed a lot of peace here, not perfect. But we've enjoyed a lot of peace, a lot of harmony. And I believe the reason is because of the grace of God working in the hearts of believers who are endeavoring to work at maintaining good relationships. And that takes work. I like what the author of Hebrews says here in Hebrews 12, verse 14. He says, follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. So he says, follow peace, and he uses a hunting term here. To hunt down peace. Take the initiative. Pursue it. Follow it. Endeavor. Work at it. And while you're following and hunting down peace with all men, be on the guard. Be on the alert. Look diligently. The next verse says, Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up trouble you and potentially defile others. So here's the context of Hebrews. You've got to hunt, hunt it down. My parents have a horse farm in Western New York, and they're fox hunters. And they do not kill the fox, so if that bothers you, don't envision them killing the fox and whatever. They chase the fox, and then they release the fox. If they treat it, they pull the dogs off and whatever. So they chase that fox. Now, in the western part of New York, you have what is called the Finger Lakes. Beautiful, beautiful lakes. Some of them very, very deep. Some go all the way to China. They're that deep. I mean, really, really deep. So these foxhounds, when the hounds start baying, and they all chime in together, okay, it's really quite a sound. You can hear it for miles. And when they start doing that stuff, they're on to something. They may be on a deer, they may be on a fox, maybe on your cat, whatever it is, but they're on something. If it's a fox, the fox can be foxy. And a fox is just whatever, 15, 20 pounds. They're not really heavy. And a good foxhound, you get a big old boy, he's 90, 100 pounds. So my parents have had to watch their dogs as they hunt down the fox because occasionally the fox will go over thin ice on those lakes and ponds and waterways on purpose. Their little bodies can get over the ice. Whereas, when he hits that ice, we'll go down into the water, right? And the fox goes on the other side of the river, just kind of smiles back. So the author of Hebrews is saying, you hunt down peace of all men, but while you're hunting it down, you know, there's a lot of pitfalls. There's a lot of thin ice. So be careful. Look diligently, because when you're working on relational issues, if you're not guarded, you'll get angry to a point where you get bitter. And that's the whole point here of this hunting metaphor. You're trying to work as much as life in you to live peaceably of all men. But as you're hunting it down, there are some things you better look out for. And if you don't guard your heart of all diligence, you can get really bitter because someone has hurt you and there's hostility. So look diligently, be careful you don't get tripped up and fail the grace of God, not lose your salvation, just fail from tapping into what you need, the grace of God. So what we have here in this first aspect of this prayer wish is he's praying in this benediction that we would have this peace to all the brethren, that there would be this harmonious relationship. This is something we should pray for our church family. This is something you should pray for your own family. This is something very critically important to have this prayer wish for peace. Secondly, of the four petition prayer wishes in this passage is found here still in verse twenty three. The second prayer, which is for love. And that sounds rather trite. What a potent statement here. Peace be to the brethren and love. So contextually, it's the love for the brethren. And if you are lacking peace in relationships, it's often because there's a lack of love. There's a progression of thought here. So let's say right now you have hostility towards another brother. You're at odds with a sister. You're not on talking terms with another church member. You're avoiding someone in the lobby. You hate to see this person at church. There's a lack of peace in your relationship. There's typically pride involved and there's typically a lack of love. So he says, peace be to the brethren and love. Now, let's talk about love for a moment. Again, there's a relationship here. These are inseparable. If we don't understand the love of God and his love for us, how then can we love anyone the way Christ loves us? It's an inseparable link. So if we look at this second prayer wish for love, we must start at its source, its fountainhead. I love these passages. We love him. Why do you love God? Where did it all begin? Because he first loved us. Great theology is in the beginning God. Just stay with that. In the beginning God. Notice in Ephesians, again, this whole theme of love. But God who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us. Ephesians 5, 2, and walk in love as Christ also loved us. Over and over and over we see this truth in Scripture. For God so loved you, the world. I love the passage. In Romans 5, 5, where the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. And so what we need to understand, if we're going to love properly, we must understand how we are loved by God himself. And I think a lot of Christians do not have the right view of God. God is love. He gives, he sacrifices, he puts it all on the line. He's a wonderful, gracious, merciful, loving God. And if there's ever a need for a benediction like this, it's today for Christians to have peace among themselves with love. And that peace begins with the peace with God, and it begins knowing that God first loved us. So our love for God should respond then to his love for us. I love these passages here. In fact, this is the church, Tri-Cities, Theme verse, Matthew chapter 25, verses 37 to 39. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So at the heart of biblical Christianity, if you want to just summarize true Bible Christianity, the main verb of it all is love. At the very heart of it all, the core substance to this is relational, where God loves us. And as a result of that, his love for us, we should love him with all of our heart. And then we should love our neighbors and our brethren, especially as ourselves. So very powerful. God loves us. We need to understand that. We need to have a love for God. We've taken that particular theme. For our values, in fact, two weeks, we'll talk about our in a combined Sunday school class or ABF, we'll talk about our fall goals and mission and our values. We reinforce them over and over and over again. We are hoping to honor the Lord and to handle his word properly, both from a pulpit and in the home and have affection for one another. And the goals of reach the world, the gospel, because of the love of God, to train the church to do just that. So what we have here is God's love for us. We're to love God because he first loved us. But the context of this benediction is for us to have a love for one another, to love the brethren. Now, there are some people that are easy to love. And I could ask you, can you list the people who are easy to love in our church? And you'd have your little list and I'd have my little list and you over here would have your list. And then if I ask you, is there anyone that you're having difficulty loving? Who are the harder people to love? And then that list gets really voluminous, right? I mean, it just gets really, really, gets a little longer. Is that true? Maybe it's the other way around. Okay. Okay. Well, that's encouraging to hear. What we see in these particular passages is we are to love one another. Paul starts the epistle praising them for their love unto all the saints, Ephesians 1.15. Then he talks about the body, the church, how it's designed by God to work together as members, hitting on all eight cylinders and edifying this body in this sphere, in this realm of love. And then again, as we build the body, there are elements in each of our lives that just tick us off, frustrate us, are annoying. And that's where Paul says, with all the lowliness and meekness of long-suffering, Forbearing one another in love. What's forbearing mean? It means just putting up with one another. Putting up with our personalities, putting up with our idiosyncrasies, putting up with our quirks, just being gracious people, merciful people, forbearing people. And it's supposed to be done in love. And that's the benediction here. Paul is praying this prayer wish that they would have peace among themselves. And he prayed that this peace would be with love. If you lack peace, it's typically because you lack love. Now, let's look at the third petition here. The third prayer wish in the benediction. Notice what it says here. Peace be to the brethren and love with faith. with faith. So the metaphor picture here is love is holding hands with her sister faith. So you have love and you've got faith. They're just holding hands. One is not superior to the other. They're sisters and they go together. It's very interesting, this petition, this prayer wish for faith. Let's say you're having problems of loving someone. If that's the case, there's a lack of peace. So how do you resolve that? What do you need? You really need to trust the Lord, rely upon him to give to you what you need to minister to others. A number of years ago, we were in the foster care program, caring for kids at a children's home. It was really easy to love them when we had some of the boys with us for an afternoon. That was, you know, tough, but you know they went home at the end of the day. And then as a foster parent, Lisa and I, we would occasionally have some kids a little longer than that. And our kids and ourselves, we would work with that and it was, we could do maybe a short stint. Give the house parents a little reprieve in one way or another. We could do that. And then we moved two boys into the home indefinitely. Teenage, young teenage boys. And during that time, during that time, we had, we thought a bounty of love for these boys. And over the days and the weeks and the months, my love account, my love bank was not even a zero. Okay. I'm getting notices from the Holy Spirit that you just bounced a check. You just bounced it. And we went from this love here to a zero or negative. And I can remember crying out to God saying, God, this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right. These kids, they need your love and they need to see it in us. And Lord, I need to love these two boys. And right now, I don't have anything. I'm out. I'm empty. I am dried up. And all I could think of in my mind that God is love. Here's this ocean of love. This infinite ocean of love. An incredible resource. And I'm saying, you have all this love. And if I look in my heart right now, I have zero. So I'm saying, Lord, how can I love these kids so I don't kill them or myself? How do I get to loving these kids again? Because I don't have any love. And I remember the least time we just were begging God, praying to God and saying, Lord, by faith, please open up a little hole in this notion and channel that love into my heart, shed it abroad in my heart again, because I don't have it. I need this love. Now, how do I get it? By trusting God for it, appropriating it by faith, saying, Lord, I want to have this love so I can love these kids and hopefully we can have a more harmonious relationship in our house. And so faith really plays into love. God is love. We're just the opposite. Our nature is not loving. Our nature is selfish. So by faith, I'm going to ask God for the love. So what do we really need in this benediction? We need peace. We do need love, but we need faith. And ultimately, what do we really need as a church family? And what do you really need? comes down to the next concept, because everything's going to flow from this last concept. And we'll get to it in just a minute. But notice in this phrase, the source here. Peace be to the brethren and love with faith. From who? Who is the source? Who provides these attributes, these characteristics? It's from God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And so He's the source and God is love. There's an ocean of love to give. And He has peace to give. Jesus constantly was saying, Peace be unto you. I'd like to give you my peace. He wants to help us. That's the heart of God. And yet we're in hostility and at war against Him because of our unbelief. So here's the source of the peace. Here's the source of the love. Here's the source of the faith. It's from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Which leads us to our last point. The last petition here, last prayer wish in the benediction is for grace, is for grace. Now, what is grace? It's God's unmerited favors, the clever coinage for it. It's receiving something we don't deserve. Mercy is its corollary or complementary truth where mercy is withholding judgment from someone who really deserves it. There's someone who did you wrong. It'd be justice to hammer them, to press the law to its furthest points and limits. That's justice. To withhold the judgment is called mercy. So God is that to us. We're saved by his mercy, Titus says. He withholds judgment from us. We all deserve hell. If we don't receive hell, it's because God's nature is loving and merciful. And then God's nature is gracious. He wants to give us something we cannot earn, something we do not deserve. For by grace are you saved. Salvation is the gift of God. We don't earn it. We don't deserve it. It is given to us because God's nature is that way. It's his undeserved favor that he grants to us. So here's how this works. The sequencing is very, very interesting in these passages because At the grassroots, you want peace. You want peace. If you're lacking peace, what typically is missing? Someone's not loving. Why isn't someone loving? They're not walking with the God of love. There's a lack of faith, appropriation. What does that person need? That person needs grace. So grace pours out the love. That grace pours out the faith. That grace pours out peace. So the fountainhead of all these attributes is the grace of God. I love the book of Zechariah, where they're going through this difficult building project. And finally, they get the thing built, not like the former Solomonic temple, but they made tremendous headway. And now they can worship again through the Jewish Old Testament system. And in Zechariah, there's a passage there that basically says, grace, grace unto it. where they all are recognizing that a major accomplishment just took place and it was because of the grace of God. It's the grace of God. And right now you want to have relational peace. You need the grace of God. You need to love someone the way you ought to love someone. You need the grace of God. You're struggling with doubt and unbelief. What do you need? You need the grace of God. What you really need is God. And he gives all these things through grace. So look at this wonderful text here. Grace be with all them. Very, very powerful statement. So in the benediction, four prayer wishes for peace, for love, for faith and for grace. Now, let's finish it. In the benediction, he says, Grace be with all them. Notice the subjects of this benediction. Notice how this book ends. At the very bottom there is called a subscription, sub, under, underwriting. So what you have most likely is a bishop, 5th century, Euthalius is the name of the fellow, who just writes something there at the bottom to the Ephesians written from Rome by Tychicus. So if you look at all the Greek manuscripts, that's not in your manuscripts, it's just a subscription. Someone's adding and giving some insight from a historic viewpoint. The book's going to end with this phrase, that love our Lord Jesus Christ, the full name, Lord, human name, Jesus, Messianic title there, Christ, in, and then it's not insincerely, but in sincerity. Amen. So the subjects of this benediction The people Paul's praying to have peace and love and faith and grace, the people he's praying for are people who love the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you're looking for peace and you're looking for faith and you're looking for love and you're looking for grace, you need to love the Lord. You need to be in this position of knowing the Lord. You need to be in this position of knowing the Lord. So he's writing to this audience that love the Lord. Now, let's finish with that last word before Amen. I love this word. This is amazing how the book ends with this rhetorical flair. This is like the capstone. This is the crown of the book. That little word's sincerity. Sincerity. When you read that word, what comes to your mind? Sincerity. You think of someone who's without wax is kind of Latin. Someone who's genuine. Someone who's real. Someone who's authentic. And to love someone in that manner would be really good. Well, let me tell you what the word sincerity means. The interpretive question that we have to conclude our study on is this word sincerity. What does it mean? And what is it describing? What is the relationship of the word sincerity? What does it relate back to? What's the connecting point? We call that syntax, relationship between a word and other words or phrases. So what we have here is the word sincerity. In other places in the New Testament, it's translated this way. The word sincerity in Romans 5 is translated immortality. Immortality. In another one of Pauline's writings, it is talked about incorruptibility. He uses this word sincerity to define the resurrected life, a life that's immortal, a life that isn't perishing, a life that is not decomposing. That's the word. It's dealing with the quality of being imperishable, incorruptible, immortal. That's what the word means. You can translate it sincerity as well. But with the other references, you're getting the meaning of something undying, undying, unfading, imperishable. So it talks to those that love our Lord Jesus Christ in this manner. In what manner? What is the word sincerity referring back to? And there's three options, folks, we'll throw out at you. Talk about how Jesus is immortal, imperishable, undying and unfading. And that's true about Him. Some go all the way back to the word grace, that God's grace is immortal and perishing, undying. But the grammatical relationship goes back to the believer's love. So it's talking about the believers who love the Lord with an undying, unfading love. And this is how the book ends. The whole book is driving towards this response from God's people. That because of Christ being our peace and Christ who has died for us, that we will just love him with all of our heart, with an undying, unfading love. That's how the book ends, isn't that powerful? And that's where God wants us to end in our spiritual life, is where we love him with every part of our being. And that this love would be an undying, imperishable, unfading love. And so I've got to ask the question as we look at that little phrase, is that indeed Indeed, the case with us. Do we love him in that manner? In sincerity with an unfading love. Now, let's just spin the clock forward for a moment, not the lunchtime. I'm still six minutes under my given allotment, which I never stop at. And, you know, spin the clock about 30 years forward from this letter. Put yourself on an island. This is not a cruise and not a vacation. You're at the ancient Alcatraz of the Mediterranean Sea called Patmos. You're on an island. There's not a tree left on the island. Every tree's been cut down. And you're in chains and you're doing manual labor and all of your loved ones and all your friends are on the other side of the body of water that you stare at every day. And there on that island is a fellow by the name of John, John the Apostle. And John is given information from God himself, from Christ, to write seven letters to seven churches across that body of water there in Asia Minor, Turkey. And the first letter he's going to write is to what church? Thirty years later, he writes to the church at Ephesus. Now, fortunately, John can be released from this island. The only apostle to die a natural death, he will go to Ephesus and up on the hill, he'll be buried in Ephesus. You can see his tomb today. But John on that island writes a letter to the church at Ephesus. Now, 30 years before this letter was sent out by John, this church had in its possession a document from God, and it ended with loving Jesus Christ with an undying love. And when you come to Revelation chapter 2, what's the message to this church? Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou has left what? Your first love. Boy, that's ironic. That that book of Ephesians ended on such a high note that they're there to love Jesus with undying love. And then later, he says, you've left your first love. I think that involves Christ and the things that are dear to his heart. There was a love problem. So I see something here for us. I see we can love Him today the way we should, but we better take heed lest we fall. We better take heed. We better ask the Lord to guard our hearts, because out of these hearts come the issues of life. And we need to be in prayer. We need to be asking for God's best. And His best involves His peace, His love, the faith that we need. and the grace of God. So as I conclude the book of Ephesians, this would be my benediction from this text for you. There's six things I would like to pray for you as I conclude the series of Ephesians. I would like to pray that you each would have peace with God, meaning that you know Christ as your Savior. That's how I'm going to pray in just a moment. I'm going to pray in this benediction in a moment that each of you who have peace with God, that you'll have peace amongst yourselves. That you'd have harmony, there'd be a lack of conflict relationally, that there'd be peace amongst ourselves. I'm going to pray that benediction. I'm going to pray that we, if we're lacking that peace, comes back to love. We're not loving the way we should. I'm going to pray that God will give us the love we need. For God is love. He's the source of it all. And some of you are really struggling. You're lacking peace. You're struggling with loving someone. And you've got to get along with God. And you really have to pray. And you have to trust Him. And you by faith say, Lord, forgive me for bitterness. Forgive me for not looking diligently. I'm failing of Your grace. Please forgive me. Help me to love this person. Help me hunt peace down with this person. Help me take initiative in this relationship. As much as life in me, I'm going to do what I can to live peaceably with all men. And so, Lord, help me increase my faith. It's amazing when the disciples were told to forgive 70 times seven. They kind of were stunned by that. And the next thing the Lord, you know, they say is increase our faith, increase our faith to trust you and to obey what you've just said, increase our faith. And finally, we all want to pray for for God's grace, that God will give you the grace. Some of you are going through very difficult times relationally. Some of you are going through health issues that are unbelievable. Some of you are in between jobs. Some of you are struggling in other areas. And you need God. You need his grace. He desires to give grace. His grace, the Bible says, is sufficient to those who trust him. And that grace can be given to you to love people, to have harmonious relationships with others. So let's close in prayer this morning. I'll close with Amen. Let it be so in just a moment. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed just for this minute. Can I ask you a question with heads bowed? Do you have peace with God? Do you have peace with God? Can I see your hands? Do you have peace with God? If not, you're still at war with Him. The Bible says that we're justified by faith. Not by your works, not by your religion, not by your ordinances, but by faith. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. If there's someone who would slip their hand up and say, would you pray for me, preacher or pastor? I don't think I have peace with God. I don't think I've been forgiven. I don't understand this. I don't know if I have salvation. I'm not certain heaven's my home. Would you pray for me that I would have peace with God? If I pray for you this morning, could I see your hand for just a moment? I will not embarrass you. I will not embarrass you. If you don't have peace with God, I'm not certain, I may encourage you. The Bible says that you can know that you have eternal life. This is something very important. You can know that you have eternal life. Is there someone I could pray for this morning? You should weigh that question out as a believer this morning. You lift your hand up. You have peace with God. Do you have peace with other brothers? Do you have peace with other brothers? Would you say this morning, I don't have peace with someone. Would you pray for me? If that's the case, could I see your hand? You have a brother, sister. in the Lord that you're struggling with. Can I see your hands? Many, many hands. And I can raise my hand, too. Now, the difference is, we all raise our hands with these problems. The difference is, have you hunted it down? Have you tried to make it right? Have you tried as much as lies in you? That means there's a breaking point. God knows you have a limitation. But by His grace, you've gone as far as you can. And maybe the problem's not resolved, but it may be in their court. It's in their court. If that's the case, just pray for that person. And commit the issue to him who judges righteously. Commit it to the Lord. Don't get bitter over this. Don't get bitter over it. Keep praying for him. As Job prayed for his insensitive friends, God really set him free in his spirit. So pray for that person that you have a strained relationship with. I've got mine. You've got yours. The question is, have you hunted it down? Have you tried? By the grace of God, have you sought him in prayer? Are you exercising his wisdom to make it right? If they don't want to deal with it, that's their choice right now. Is there someone here this morning that you really are having a hard time loving and forbearing and putting up with? Do you have someone like that on your list this morning? I think a number of us do. A number of us do. What you need is faith to tap into that love, the ocean of God's love. And this morning as we close in prayer in a moment, I would encourage you, I would encourage you, Lord, give me the faith to trust you. Give me the grace I need to love this person. Help me, Lord, I need it. And apart from your love, it's not going to happen. What every believer and child of God needs here is grace. God's enabling grace, his sufficient grace, his grace, which is greater than any problem we have. That's what we all need. We need God. We need his grace. If there's someone here this morning, as a believer, you would say, Preacher, pray especially for me, for grace. I'm going through a terrible situation. Would you just pray for me? Can I pray for you this morning? Yes. Yes. A number of hands. A number of hands. I'm going to pray a prayer of benediction. And then if you desire, I would encourage you to continue to pray for your personal needs. If you do not have peace with God, I invite you to trust Christ as your Savior. What a friend we have in Christ. Let me pray. Lord, thank you for this model of benediction that you've given to us and to give to those who love you. Lord, there's a number of people here that profess that peace with you, and we're so thankful for that. And now, Lord, I pray for them. that they would make the request made known unto you, that they wouldn't hold on to whatever they're holding on to with anxiety and fear. They would cast all their cares upon you. They would make the request known unto you, and that they would experience the peace of God which passes all understanding. Lord, for any of these strained relationships, we know we're in a battle. We know at times people say things and do things that grieve us, and I'm sure we do the same. So give us the wisdom to hunt peace down, to pursue peace of all men, as much as lies in us, that we would try to live peaceably with everyone. Lord, you've told us that in your word, blessed are the peacemakers. We know that that involves winning people to you as evangelists, as soul winners. but also people who are very keenly interested in seeing relationships right, that blessed are the peacemakers. May we be such people who help restore relationships and not add to the problems. Lord, I know if we're lacking a relationship with harmony that sometimes it's because we don't have the love we should for that person. And Lord, there are times that we just have nothing left to give. And we just are so empty. And we need to, by faith, ask you for love. So Lord, give these folks love for one another. Give me the love I need for our church family. Give us the love we need, Lord, to care and to have the right relationships. And Lord, to accomplish these things, Lord, we need your grace. And so especially, Father, may we say grace, grace unto the victories. May we see your grace sufficient. Lord, thank you for this time that we've had this morning in your word. Thank you for the study here on the book of Ephesians. May we love you with sincerity, with an undying love, an imperishable love. And Lord, if we have lost that love in some regard, I pray that we would repent, return to the first things and especially to you. Lord, help us not to be a church that is orthodox, yet without love. So Lord, help us be true to your word, but help us be loving people and so fulfill the law of love. Lord, thank you for this morning, for your grace. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.