This is one of those mornings that as a nation we are in specific prayer for our nation and praying for those who especially were impacted by the attempted assassination yesterday and for the families that are hurting right now. We do pray for Drake and for Barb as they're away and we pray for just a restful time and a safe return. You may have noticed in your bulletins, if you look at those things, that I've given the title this morning, well, really a spiritual title, How to Begin a Letter. Well, it may not be that spiritual, but the text this morning is the beginning of the letter. It's the salutation, the greeting of Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus. So it's Ephesians 1, 1-2, and if you would open your Bibles to Ephesians 1, 1-2. Let me just say quickly as you're doing that, as you know, I mean, Paul has opened, or he writes all his letters with a little salutation at the beginning, right? A little greeting to the people he's writing to. You know, I think there's something a little bit unfortunate about these salutations, though, these greetings, and that is the way we handle them sometimes. I think we sort of view them as sort of like, I don't know, Passover flyover verses. We kind of fly over them real quickly because, well, to us, they're introductory, right? Just kind of setting the stage for the letter. It's just Paul saying hi, basically, right? But then we jump into our exposition in the verse following the salutation. I think that would be a little bit unfortunate, because first of all, we miss a lot of exegetical gems. These salutations are rich in theology. But also, more importantly, I guess, is because all of scripture is inspired by God, right? And therefore profitable. And that includes these inconspicuous greetings here, right? So this morning what we're going to do is we're going to consider how this particular God-inspired salutation or greeting might teach us, might reprove us, correct us, train us in righteousness. But also we're going to see how this particular salutation reveals the glory of God, the greatness, and the grace of God. You know, I think if we miss that, we kind of miss the whole point, right? So that's what the salutation is all about. So here's Paul's salutation from Ephesians 1, 1 to 2. an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Question for you. What do we learn about the genre of Ephesians from that opening statement in verse one? Well, we learned what we just said, right? It's a letter. It says Paul, and it says to, so it's a letter, right? You might think that's not very significant, not a very profound exegetical comment, right? But think about it for just a minute. It does tell us something. It tells us something about how we are to understand the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. and how we are to interpret what Paul says here. We'll talk about two of those things this morning a little bit, but think about it for a minute. A letter is gonna have, for the most part, a literal meaning, right? All the words in the letter is not gonna have hidden meanings, not gonna have some kind of meaning you gotta dig and find out. It's not poetry, it's just prose. And so, it's non-fiction, most letters are, unless you're C.S. Lewis, if you think about the screw-type letters, you know. Now, a letter, by definition, always has at least two things, right? It's got to have an author, the one who wrote it, and it's got to have a recipient, the one who's going to read the letter. Look back at verse one, putting God and Christ Jesus aside for a moment. Wait a minute, I better not say it that way. It sounds a little heretical, right? We don't put God aside even for a moment, but aside from God and Christ Jesus, who does Paul mention? What are the people? that Paul mentions. Well, he mentions what? Paul himself as the author, right? And then the Ephesian believers as the recipient of the letter. That doesn't sound very profound either, does it? So let's consider these people, though, for just a minute. The people of the salutation. And we'll begin with the author, Paul. And there are three things about the author that I think Paul reveals here. First of all, the man, Paul. He is the author of Ephesians. He begins with his name. Now I want you to think back for a minute. We're gonna think about this for a minute. I think we mentioned this in Sunday school once, right? Think a long time ago, back in the dark ages, when you and I used to write letters, right, with paper and pen. I mean, how would you begin your letter? Probably, maybe, dear, and then the person's name you were writing to, right? Dear John, maybe. Dear Abby. Well, I hope not, but deer, something like that, right? You may have left off deer, but you put the guy's name or the person's name that you were writing at the top of the letter. Now, obviously, Paul doesn't start his letter that way, does he? He begins his letter with whose name? His, the author's name. That tells us something. Either Paul was a very odd fellow, he doesn't write things like we do, right? Or he was following the culture and the forms of his day, right? Which is obviously the case here. He was writing as someone in his day would write and in his culture would write. Now that tells us something, informs us a little bit about the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. Think about it for a minute. This tells us, and a lot of other elements in scripture are the same thing, that God did not just dictate his word to stenographers. He breathed it out in such a way that allowed the human authors to use their own styles, their own peculiar vocabulary, and their cultural forms. To me, that is more amazing than just dictation. Think about it. He used infallible men. to communicate scripture within their own style, using their own vocabulary and all of that. And yet, what did he produce? An infallible book that communicated exactly what God intended, no more, no less. That, to me, is an awe-inspiring feat by an awe-inspiring God, a sovereign, providential God that can work all of that out and allow men to write in their own style. You know, if we're not amazed by that, when we read a salutation like this, we might be sleeping while we're reading the text because that is an amazing feat by a sovereign God. So that's the first thing we notice in the salutation, the man. The second thing is what I call the moniker. It's what Paul calls himself. He is a what? An apostle of Christ Jesus. An apostle. Now you and I, let's review the word real quickly. We know what an apostle is, right? In scripture, it can be used in a very generic sense, just one who's sent out to communicate a message or do something for someone. But Paul is using this in a little bit more specific sense, isn't he? In the office of apostle. An office that was a position in the church, they had a specific role, and they had specific qualifications, didn't they? And by the way, there were three qualifications. No one can meet those today, so there are no apostles in that sense in the church today. But I want you to think about this this morning. Paul, an apostle. You think how remarkable that is? An apostle of Christ Jesus. You and I, we know who Paul was, right? Before Acts 9, before his conversion. What was he? He was a self-righteous Pharisee. He was a hater of God's only son, Christ Jesus. He was a hater of the church that Christ founded. How inscrutable are the ways of God, unfathomable that he would take and go after even such a vile, self-righteous, murderous hater of his only son and make him an apostle, a leader of the church. I think that that moniker, an apostle, when it's applied to Paul, should, for us, it should stand as a monument for God's gracious, merciful ways, as well as his inscrutable ways. We don't quite fathom what God does sometimes, right? And I think that it really, when we read that apostle, Paul, an apostle of Christ, it takes us to the very heart of God. He is merciful, he is gracious, and he is sovereign. But also, I think it also ought to give us immense encouragement. I mean, if God can show this kind of grace to go after a guy that was so vile, self-righteous, hating his own son, God's own son, don't you think that he would also extend grace to us when we need it? I don't know what everyone's going through, but maybe when we're devastated, when we're hurting, confused, maybe even when we're rebelling a little bit like Paul was, absolutely he would extend that grace to us. But he doesn't just extend grace to us. As Paul says in Ephesians 1, 8, he lavished grace on us. That's the kind of God we serve. The grace that he's shown us is lavished on us. never promises us in scripture that he's going to shield us from all harm, right? He never promises that we won't go through some pretty tough times in life. In fact, he kind of says we will, right, if we're following him. But he does promise that his grace would be sufficient. It would be enough. Our responsibility is to just trust the sovereign grace. And by the way, trusting God's grace and His sovereignty, it doesn't mean that you have to be confident that God is going to keep you from failing in life. He never promised that. But it does mean at least three things. It means, first of all, that you'll be confident that He is sovereign and He is good, even if you do fail. It also means that you will be confident that whatever he chooses to do or maybe not to do for you, he's still good, and it's for your good and his glory. And I think thirdly, it also means that you continue in obedience, in faithfulness. You know, that really is the crux of trusting his sovereignty, is continuing in faithfulness and obedience no matter what's going on, whether it looks like he's doing anything or not, right? Now that was the second thing, the moniker. The third thing about the author has to do with the means of his apostleship. What does Paul say? He says, it was by what? The will of God. I want you to think about this for a minute. He said it was by means of the will of God, not according to the will of God. By means of. In other words, he's emphasizing the dynamic active will of God that was put into practice on his behalf. He's not saying simply it's God's static desire that I be an apostle, but he actually put that desire into effect and now I am an apostle. Of course, the two go together, right? God's desire, God's active will, but he's just emphasizing something here. And that tells us something about Paul too because he says that something like this in most of his letters. Paul was profoundly aware of, that's the first part, and deliberately declarative of God's sovereign work in his life, making him an apostle. Galatians 1.1, Paul makes it extremely clear. Paul, he says, an apostle, not by men, not by human agency, but by Christ and God the Father. I think we need to stop and just think a minute here. Can you just imagine Paul's wonder? The wonder that must have filled his heart every time he thought about that. Every time he wrote this, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God. I mean, for Paul to put Jesus and Christ together, that was remarkable, wasn't it? Acknowledgement that this Jesus of Nazareth that he hated, by the way, at one time, is indeed the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one. He once thought it was God's will to stamp out the church. Now it is by God's will that he has become an apostle of that very same church he hated. I don't know about you, but I think Paul must have been in awestruck wonder every time he wrote this, every time he even thought about it. an apostle of Christ Jesus, Jesus the Christ. And that's not just what I think, it's actually all the way through his letters, if you read them carefully, right? It's quite clear that Paul was profoundly in awe and wonder of all of it. In this letter alone, Ephesians, he uses grace 11 times in a short letter like this. But it's not just the use of grace. Have you ever noticed Paul has these, what I might call, intense interruptions? He's going along and he's, you know, this big long sentence like Paul likes to write, and all of a sudden he just interrupts himself. He just blurts something out. And then he goes back to what he was saying. Usually those interruptions are expressions of wonder and awe. Think about chapter two of Ephesians here. So he's talking about what we were before Christ. We were dead in our transgressions and sins. And then he gets to verse four, that famous verse, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. Now he intends on and does in a minute, go on to say, and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenlies. But he can't just go on with that thought. He just has to interrupt himself, blurt out, by grace you're saved. And then he goes on and continues his sentence. Paul does that. Why? Because he was in awe and wonder of the grace of God and the sovereignty of God that made him an apostle. That wonder and that awe, it didn't wear off over time. He didn't get over it. He never did. And you know what, looking at Paul's life, I think it actually determined everything about him, didn't it? That awe and that wonder of God's grace and sovereignty, how he would respond to suffering, how he would respond to injustice and unfairness and endured struggles with joy, with praise, and with obedience. And even it affected how he began a letter here. So Paul, the point is, he went about faithfully fulfilling his calling as an apostle because he was in awe and wonder that God had actually made him an apostle by his grace, by his sovereignty. So the question for us is, are we still in awe, really in awe and wonder over God's calling and choosing of us? Or perhaps that election, that calling, that redemption, all of that that we read about in Ephesians 1, actually, has become sort of like an old pair of jeans, you know, just kind of comfortable, used to it, but they just don't sparkle anymore, just not very remarkable. I think there are times in life when we just get used to the way things are, you know. We sort of settle in. Never realizing that, well, perhaps we have, over time, drifted away from that wonder and awe of God's grace and mercy and sovereignty in calling us, choosing us, saving us. We too quickly get over it. But obviously, that awe and wonder should be there, and it should determine everything in us, right? Everything we're about, just as it did in Paul's life. And I think we like to think that it would and we think that it does, but the question is, does it really? I mean, everything? Does our wonder and awe of who God is and what he has done for us determine everything? Everything we're about. Let's move on to the recipient. So we've dealt with the author, now the recipients. And Paul uses four qualifiers. I want you to see this here for the recipients. Three of them are designations for these recipients, and one of them has to do with the destination of the letter. Let's just deal with the destination real quickly and then get on to the designations. Paul says that these were the saints where? In Ephesus, right? Now some of your translations will have in Ephesus or at Ephesus, in brackets. That's because the earliest manuscripts, which scholars tend to think are the most reliable, don't have it. But that's pretty easily understood, isn't it, when we understand that Ephesians was probably a circular letter. Those were very, very common in those days. Paul would have written the letter without putting the destination in. He would have sent that to Ephesus. They would copy the letter and write in Ephesus, and then send on the original to probably Laodicea would be next, and they would put in their destination. So it's not that difficult to understand why it might not be in some of the early manuscripts. That's all I want to say about the destination at this point, because I want us to deal with Ephesus when we start talking about the designations and what Paul calls the recipients. So look at the text again. What are the three designations that Paul uses for the recipients of this letter? He calls them what? Saints, he says they are faithful or the faithful ones, and he says they are in Christ Jesus. If you stop and think about that, two of the designations have to do with their position and one has to do with their practice. Let's talk about the position ones first. And just to confuse things a little bit, we're gonna go to the last one first, in Christ. In Christ. This was a key term for Paul, wasn't it? In fact, he uses this in Christ, I believe it was 16 times in Ephesians. It's all throughout there. And all he really is saying in this term, though, is they have a union with Christ based on their faith in what Christ has done for them in the cross, right? In other words, the recipients are believers. They are true believers. Sometimes that observation plays a key role in how we understand the text, right? I mean, 1 John is one of those cases. Depending on who you think the readers are, saved or unsaved, kind of helps you determine how you want to interpret the scripture, how you should not want to. But Paul says, they are in Christ. And then the text says what? The second, we'll go back to the first designation now. He calls them, or the text says, the saints, right? Right? Okay, that was a trick question. No, the text does not say that. The word saints is not in the text. It's in your English text. But it is not in the Greek text. In fact, saints is a post-biblical era invention, probably of the 12th century AD, somewhere around there. Paul did not say saints. You know what he said, really, right? I know you do. Holy ones, the holy ones. And I tell you, I don't know, this is my personal opinion. I think it's unfortunate that our translations continue to put the word saints in there for two reasons. One is it conceals the essential nature of what Paul's saying here. I mean, it actually tends to remove the main idea. The main idea is imputed holiness. God has made you holy. Where is that in the word saints? I don't see it. Second reason I think it's unfortunate is because saints has been misused throughout church history, hasn't it? Most notably in Roman Catholicism. I mean, to designate a special class of Christians, one who has met three criteria in the Roman Catholic, but also in some evangelical Protestant churches or factions, there's sort of this, what I call neo-gnostic sort of flavor to all of this, that they have maybe a second anointing, you know, or maybe they have a special knowledge. All of that is kind of all about the same thing, and it's all unbiblical. Sainthood, if you need to use the word, is simply not something we attain. It's not something we achieve by meeting three criteria. It is what we are, our position in Christ based on our faith in Him. So if God has granted you faith in Jesus, you are a saint. You are a holy one. I prefer to use that. Now, you may not feel very holy, right? And some of us scoundrels this morning don't act very holy, do we? In fact, some of you may have not acted very holy even on the way to church this morning, on a Sunday morning. Imagine that. I don't know. Some of you may seriously feel very unworthy to be called holy. You know your past. You know your life. You know if you feel that way, you're in a good place because you are unworthy. I'm unworthy. has nothing to do with our practice. God called us holy because he imputed his holiness to us. He sees us as holy, we are holy ones. And I think when we get a glimpse of God's perfect holiness alongside of our unholiness and unworthiness to even be called holy, see, I think that's when we begin to get a glimpse of the wonder of God's grace, right? In bestowing on us his own holiness. I mean, Paul marveled at it. Shouldn't we? Absolutely. That God so lavished grace on us? to call us who are so unholy, really, holy ones. Now, Paul uses one more designation for the recipients. He calls them what? Faithful, right? Faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, some of the translations, it almost appears as if he's distinguishing between two groups here, the holy ones and the faithful ones. That's not what he's saying. He's putting them together. It's the same group. The holy ones and these have been faithful. But can you imagine Paul's joy in being able to say that? He had spent two to three years, depending on how you count time, in Ephesus. evangelizing them, building them up in the faith, right, discipling them, and now he can look back and has heard that they're being faithful. What joy he might have had. Have you ever wondered, though, what faithfulness might have looked like to an Ephesian believer in their culture and in their day? Well, you don't have to wonder too long because Ephesians 115, Paul kind of gives us a couple of marks of faithfulness. 115 says, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. There's two marks of faithfulness right there, isn't it? Your faith in the Lord Jesus. You see, He looks back now and they've continued in the faith. They've not given up. They've not given in. And that is pretty remarkable given the society and the culture in which they live. We'll get to that in just a minute. But the other thing was your love for all the saints. Love, you know, that's a little bit ironic. You think about it, AD 60 or so, Paul was writing this letter and commending them for their love. Only 35 years or so later, when John wrote Revelation, what was the one thing that Christ condemned them for, indicted them for? Their lack of love, right? Or their having left their first love. Paul's talking about, of course, love for believers here as an essential mark of faithfulness to Christ. It always is, it always has been throughout scripture. 1 John talks about this so clearly, doesn't it? 1 John 2.10 says, the one who loves his fellow Christian is the one who resides in the light. 1 John 3.10, the one who does not love his fellow Christian, listen to this, is not of God. That's pretty strong language. And one more, 1 John 3, 14, he says, we know that we have crossed over from death to life. In other words, we have been regenerated. We are true Christians, and we know this because, here's the evidence, we love our fellow Christians. The one who does not love the fellow Christians remains in death. In other words, is not even a believer. Scripture, I think, clearly presents love for fellow believers as two things. One, evidence of genuine faith in Christ, and two, as a hallmark of Christian faithfulness, being faithful to Christ. Now, I really want you to think a little carefully about how remarkable it would have been for these Ephesian believers to be found faithful to Christ. We know quite a bit about Ephesus from Acts chapter 19, where Paul talks about Paul's time there in Ephesus, and we also know from historical records. Think about Ephesus for just a minute. Ephesus was a very dark city. Widespread demon possession, this is Acts 19. prolific practice of satanic magic, and what were they known for? They were the center of the pagan worship of the goddess Artemis. In fact, that worship was intertwined with the social and economic fabric of Ephesus. It was so crucial to their cultural identity, they even had it stamped on their coinage, on their coins, it said, the servant of the goddess Artemis. It was a dark city. And you, I'm sure, remember the story of the silversmith that, you know, he made those little idols to Artemis. And when Christians, when people became Christians and followed Christ, they had to, you know, stop buying those things, obviously. So he began to lose money. And he fomented a riot against Paul. It was a dark city. And we also know from the silversmith, we'll get to in a minute, a couple of other things, but it was also a depraved city. Gross immorality was embedded in the fabric of the culture. Cultic immorality was really an essential part of their worship, of their pagan worship. Cultic prostitution and all of that. It was a very depraved city, it was a very dark city, but all this magic and satanic stuff doesn't mean that Ephesus was a backwards city. It was a rather developed city. It was affluent, very wealthy. Excavations of Ephesus have proven that they've had, they had, I don't know why anybody would want to have one of these, but they had luxurious public baths, public toilets and all that stuff, made of marble and all, it's very wealthy. They had an enormous library and they had the then largest amphitheater in the world. I think it sat 50,000 people or something like that. So their wealth was wrapped up in their paganism though. And you see that from the silversmith who got so angry because now he's losing income based on his worship of a pagan goddess. And we also see from that silversmith that Ephesus was becoming a dangerous city for believers. Clearly, Ephesus would not have been a hospitable city to Christianity. So, think about this for just a minute. Living within that cesspool of immorality, paganism, materialism, in a culture that was increasingly hostile to biblical Christianity, these Ephesian believers, who, by the way, were pretty new in their faith, right, were found faithful to Christ. That was the culture in Ephesus. Sound familiar? Fundamentally, I don't really think it was that much different than ours today, is it? We are a dark, we are becoming a dark culture. We saw some of that yesterday, didn't we? Someone mentioned this morning a six-year-old killing someone with a gun. I forget who mentioned that now, but that's dark. We've been a depraved culture, engrossed in immorality for decades. We have a hooking up culture. We have a culture in which people, many people now, vehemently clamor for the right to express their most degraded, deplorable, Behavior, transgenderism, polyamory, even pedophilia, clamoring for the right for this type of behavior. We have a very depraved culture. We also have a very developed culture. We are so affluent compared to the rest of the world. Wealth, and wealth is a high priority in America, is it not? Some people, of course, will do whatever it takes to get it and to keep it. And I think that, just following there along with Ephesus there, we are becoming a more increasingly dangerous culture for Christians. Increasingly hostile, I think, to those who would stand in the way. of our culture's pursuit of pleasure or treasure, whatever it might be. You know, Drake was mentioning, I think it was on a Wednesday night a while back, or it might have been Sunday, just the idea that the ever-widening disparity between biblical morality and our culture's morality is really developing an increasing, intensifying conflict, isn't it? A conflict in which those whose morality collides with biblical morality view those who hold a biblical morality as haters. I hope you caught all that because I don't think I can say all that again. There's too many moralities in there. As haters. You know, this style, this same sort of hatred for Christians, I mean, it's been seen for centuries and all over the world, hasn't it? But I think the point here is that it's becoming increasingly popular, if you will, in a city near you, right, in our beloved America. The leftist, amazingly, the leftist magazine Newsweek acknowledged this very thing when they published an article by Sean Carney. Last year, actually, Sean Carney is the CEO and president of 40 Days of Life. I believe that's the largest pro-life organization in the world. Anyway, here's the leftist magazine Newsweek publishing this article from Sean Carney, who said in his article, the alarming escalation of animosity toward Christians in America can no longer be ignored. As radical leftists, Newsweek, advance their secular agenda, intolerance for those who hold true to Christian values has become increasingly palpable. Now he goes on to talk a little bit about that shooting at the Christian school in Nashville, which was done by a transgender who was upset that they had a stance against homosexuality, right? And he says this, following the tragic events in Nashville, and you know this, This was true. Left-wing journalists, columnists, entertainers, and activists directed their ire toward Christians and conservatives, rather than mourning the victims and condemning the violence. Instead of offering sympathy and support, they made callous remarks that not only mocked the Christian faith, but also blamed the victims themselves. And he concludes with this, this cold-hearted response exemplifies the escalating hostility toward Christians in which an ideological battle eclipses empathy and compassion. I would add to that it's a morality battle, not just ideological. This hate toward Christians based on conflict, the conflict between two very disparate moralities certainly is heating up in our nation. But it's because our culture is becoming more deplorable, more wicked, more depraved. So we live in a modern version of Ephesus, don't we, if we want to put it that way. But the probing question then is this, are we being found faithful? Are we being found faithful? The Church of Christ in America. To be brutally honest, I think that as a general commentary on the church, we would have to say no. Absolutely not. We've been unfaithful church in America in a multitude of ways. We've been unfaithful in doctrine, doctoral integrity. You know, every year Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research, they team up to do a little survey of evangelical church members. That's important, not liberal, evangelical church members. And in 2022, that's the latest I've got the facts from, but they found that 43% of evangelical church members don't believe Jesus was God. 43%. 53% believe that the Bible was helpful, but not literally true. 56% denied the exclusivity of Christ as the only way to God. How can they call themselves an evangelical? 48% said the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality doesn't apply to today. And 42% agreed that gender identity is a matter of choice. What we have here is about 50%, half of all evangelical church members, have jettisoned the Bible as their authority and in its place where they put culture, right? Cultural thinking. We have to acknowledge that our unsaved culture is naturally and really unavoidably a reflection of the mind of Satan, not Christ. Well, we've also been unfaithful in disciple making. What is the one directive that Christ gave us before he left? Make disciples, right? Make disciples. According to Barniff, two of every five believers are not engaged in any form of discipleship. You know, our Sunday school class, that is a form of discipleship. Only 28% are actively involved in discipleship community, and yet that's the thing we were left here to do. The church has been unfaithful to discipleship. Also, largely unfaithful to the very definition of church, what we're, simply what we're supposed to be about, who we are as a church, right? Rather than the body of Christ coming together to equip the saints through sound biblical teaching, which I'm so thankful we do that here, and to worship the greatness and glory of God, the church has become an entertainment venue. A place of weekly productions and performances and really a public relations agency marketing our programs and our productions. We get those flyers all the time. We get those postcards, you know, our church is going to drop 50,000 Easter eggs from a helicopter this Sunday. Come. Evidently, it's no longer the gospel that brings people into the church, right? But rather our ingenuity and our entertainment value. The one who is lifted up is not so much Christ anymore. It's the one who is the gifted speaker. He's the pastor. He's the published author. He's the sought-after conference speaker, you know. What are we doing in America as a church, as the Church of Christ? I mean, Paul looks back at Ephesus and he could call him faithful. But what'd he say about the church in America? I guess the better question is, what is Christ saying about his church right now in America? Well, let's move on. quickly to the proclamation of the salutation, and then we'll wrap up with the purpose. So Paul, in verse 2, he blesses his readers with this proclamation. He says, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his proclamation. I want you to observe quickly just three things about that. First of all, this is his signature salutation. You see something like this in all of his letters. And actually, it was sort of a Christianized version of the Greek and Hebrew greetings of his day, so he's still using the cultural forms of his day. And in it, he is simply expressing his desire that they would experience the grace and the peace that only come from God. So as opposed to the secular greetings, the Hebrew and the Greek in those days, Paul's actually had some depth to it. Because this was not positive thinking or sending out vibes or sending out thoughts. I hear that all the time. I'm sending my thoughts towards you. What are your thoughts going to do for me? I don't know. But this blessing had substance because what? It was based on the very nature of God. And it was based on what God's perfect heart gives out freely, grace and peace, not what on man's depraved mind might want to send out. The second thing is the central themes, grace and peace. Those are the two central themes of the salutation. In fact, he mentions them here and then he goes on throughout the letter to develop those two themes. So this is sort of like a foretaste of what the rest of the letter is going to be. Grace and peace. The third thing I want you to observe is the centrality of Christ. And we're going to focus on this as we come to a conclusion here. You see, in the first two verses, Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ, this couplet mentioned three times in these two little verses, right? That's like 20% of the of the salutation. If you go through the entire letter of Ephesians, Paul is mentioning Christ constantly. He hardly ever stops saying Christ throughout the letter. Christ was the connection between the author, the reader, and the message, the centrality of Christ. I just want to think about that for a minute as we sort of segue into a closing here, into the purpose of this salutation. The salutation, well, it serves to introduce the people and all of that, and the two themes, but it also serves to demonstrate how the centrality of Jesus Christ defines the Christian life. It certainly did for Paul. Even in the mundane things of just writing a salutation. I mean, he's so focused on Christ, isn't he? Just in that greeting. You know his motto, Philippians 121. We almost got to that in the Sunday school class this morning. We just stopped just short of that verse, didn't we? To me, living is Christ. That was his motto and dying is gain. So Paul evidenced centrality of Christ in his life. I guess that's the question for us. Is Christ central to all that comprises who we are, what we do? I was kind of looking at the various ways Paul demonstrated this, evidenced the centrality of Christ in his life. And as I was doing that, I came across something that was really fascinating, but it was also extremely convicting. Don't you hate it when you're just enjoying your Bible study, rocking along there, and then all of a sudden the Bible just has to convict you about something, right? And I'm reading this, and I found this actually in that Philippians 1 passage. Paul talks about what his, the centrality of Christ, and then he gives an evidence of it. I want you to just, I'm just gonna read that real quickly to you. Philippians 1, 21, beginning with 21, Paul says this, now, He says, for to me, in other words, in my opinion, living is Christ. It's all about Christ. And dying is gain. Now, if I am to go on living in the body, this will mean productive work for me. Yet I don't really know which I prefer. I feel torn between the two because I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, he says. but it is more vital for your sake that I remain in the body. And since I am sure of that, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you, listen to this, for the sake of your progress and joy in the faith. So Paul was sitting in a prison, communicating a dilemma he was going through. Two options, depart and be with Christ, and boy, that'd be much better for him, wouldn't it? Or to remain on and continue doing what he's doing. He resolves that dilemma, did you hear that? By saying this, it is more vital for your sake that I remain in the body. And then he concludes by saying, I definitely will remain. Why? Or for what purpose? For the sake of your progress and joy in the faith. Do you notice what Paul's doing here? Walk through this with me. Paul says, for me, living is Christ. In other words, Christ is everything. All my life is about Christ. And then he goes on to say that his continuing on living, which is all about Christ, is for the progress of the Philippian believers in their faith. So when Paul makes the specific claim that Christ is central to his life, he then ties that claim to one thing, one piece of evidence that proves Christ is central to his life. And that is the progress of someone else's faith. And that is discipleship. The one thing God left us here to do, Christ left us here to do. So making his life all about someone else's progress in the faith, well, that's a commitment to discipleship, isn't it? And that commitment to discipleship was that one key that Paul demonstrated, evidenced that Christ truly was central to his life. I mean, it only makes sense, doesn't it? If that's what Jesus left us here to do, can we legitimately claim that Christ is central to all of life for us if we're not carrying out the one task he gave us before he left? Now, I know that Paul had a different life than us. He was a full-time missionary, right? Wait a minute, he did have a career, didn't he? He did that as well, right? And you and I have the same commission to make disciples. We have the same ministry, the ministry of reconciliation, which has been extended to all those who are in Christ. And discipleship takes so many different forms, doesn't it? So many different contexts, the family, perhaps the primary, right, context for discipleship. And I'm pretty confident that most of you, or if not all of you, taught your children about Christ, taught your children the Word of God. That's discipleship. But I also know that there is a world around us that still needs discipling, isn't there? Plenty of them. You know, it's not easy to go about investing in people's lives for their sake, for the sake of the progress of the gospel in their lives or their faith. It takes self-sacrifice. It really does. Time, energy, whatever it might be. But it's a necessary sacrifice in order to be a disciple whose life is truly centered on Christ. So just kind of leave you with this. What can you do this week to invest in someone's life for the progress of the gospel? Maybe it's something simple. Maybe it's a comment. Maybe it's a, I want to sit down and have lunch with you today. Maybe it's just something that you feel like you need to tell them that just to kind of spur them on a little bit. And I want to end with a Spurgeon quote. I think Drake would want me to do this right in honor of Drake. Spurgeon acknowledged that it was very hard to be a disciple, a true disciple of Christ. He knew it. And which what we're saying here would mean being involved in discipleship. He didn't put it this way, but that's what we're saying this morning. So describing this cost of discipleship and speaking as if it were Christ speaking, Spurgeon warns, as if Christ is saying this, you will have to deny yourselves. and to undergo self-sacrifice, for otherwise, if you will not do this, it is no use for you to pretend to be my servants." As only Spurgeon could say, right? Perhaps we should give careful consideration to maybe what sacrifices we could possibly make this week, even, to carry out our Lord's single, single parting directive, make disciples, as evidence that Christ truly is central to all that we are, all that we want and hope to be. You know, there are some who may be listening, I don't know, that not really considering disciple-making because not really all that sure what a disciple is exactly. A disciple of Jesus Christ is simply one who has understood that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, who came and lived a perfect life, and whose death on the cross was the only payment God would accept for our sin. and has placed their faith in Christ. That's all that a disciple is, one who follows Christ, obeys Christ with his life. That's a holy one, a saint. So if you have not understood that, that would be the first step for you, is to become a disciple of Christ. Place your faith in Jesus Christ alone, because he is our only hope. Let's pray together as we close. Lord, I just do want to thank you for your word, and thank you for this body of believers here, Lord, that you have grown and put together. I do ask, Father, that you would show us how we could be all about Christ, that our lives would center on you totally and completely, Lord. We get so used to just going through life, doing our thing, and getting busy. Lord, help us to know how we could go about living in such a way that would be the progress of someone else's faith, how we can be disciple-makers, Lord. Lord, help us to honor You and be in wonder of who You are and wonder of Your grace and Your mercy and Your love of us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.