Back towards the end of May last year we started going through the book of Ephesians. Today we come to the end. And we'll start a new adventure, Lord willing, in a couple weeks with the prophet Habakkuk, which I think will be very, very interesting. So we're just going to look at the last four verses of Ephesians 6, verses 21 to 24. If you would please stand in honor of the reading of God's word, and we will finish our time with the Apostle Paul here in his letter to the Ephesians. This is Paul's letter to the church. It is also God's very living word to us. Ephesians 6, 21. So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but God's word endures forever. Please be seated, and as we come before this word, let me pray for us. Our Father in heaven, this is your word. You have made promises about Your Word, in particular, that when it goes out, it does not return to You empty, but goes out and accomplishes everything that You purposed for it, and is successful in the things for which You have sent it. Lord, may that be true here this morning as Your Word goes out. We ask that You would open our ears and open our eyes to hear and see all that You would have us learn from Your Word, and in so doing make it a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. We do want to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, and we know we need your word to do that. So bless us, O Lord, we ask in Christ's name, amen. Ephesians chapter one, verses one and two. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Does that sound a little familiar? It seems like we're returning to the beginning here at the end of this letter, and indeed we are. Those opening verses, as we talked about when we began this series, tells us who Paul is writing to. He's writing to saints. But not just any saints. He's writing to saints who are faithful saints. And again, we talked about how this greeting at the beginning of the letter sets the stage for the whole book. The first three chapters cover what a saint is. what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and what he's done for us to make us saints, his people. And then the last three chapters talk about how we're to live as saints, as faithful saints, what it is to be faithful, what it means to walk in a manner worthy of our calling as saints, to be imitators of God. So again, this is a letter to saints, in particular to saints who are faithful. And there at the beginning of the letter, Paul prays a blessing on them. It's a good word. It's a kind of benediction, of greeting. May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Now as saints, as those saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, We already have grace and peace in that saving work won for us. Paul's prayer, therefore, is not that we would have it new, but that it would continue in us as we continue in our Christian walk. Later in the letter he explains how this grace is lavished immeasurably on us, and how in it God brings peace. It's grace that saved us. God the Father chose us before the foundation of time to be His. He did this while we were dead in our trespasses. And He raised us to new life in Christ Jesus. He saved us by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. All of this a gift from God, none of it our own doing so that none of us can boast. Now we have peace with God where there used to be hatred, enmity. Now we have peace among men. Again, one new man, one new body built out of many. One household, one citizenship, one living temple founded on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, Christ Jesus himself, the chief cornerstone. He's shown us all these things and more in this letter, what I call and hope you would remember as a wonderful little splendid handbook of Christianity. In pithy, short words that are nonetheless very profound and deep, Paul tells us so many things about our faith. This is a little handbook, if you would, that you can carry around with you. Now he closes the letter in a way that recalls how he opened it, recalls what he's taught, and now offers again a benediction, a good word, again of peace and of grace, and sends it via a faithful saint, Tychicus. The four verses divide neatly in two. Verses 21 and 22, Paul tells about this young man, Tychicus, and describes him as a faithful fellow-servant. We'll look at that. And then we'll look at verses 23 and 24. Paul's concluding blessing, or benediction, and it's really a double benediction, a double blessing. So in verses 21 and 22, Paul has sent Tychicus or Tychicus to the Ephesians. Why? Well, there's a practical reason to deliver this letter to the church. We also believe he was taking along the letter to the Colossian church, and some think also he was carrying the letter to Philemon. But there's also some personal reasons why Paul sent this young man to the Ephesian church. He tells us so that the church would know how Paul is doing. Also to tell the church everything that's going on, so that you might know, he says, how we are. And also that he might encourage the Philippian church. Beautiful way that Paul puts it, that he, Tychicus, may encourage your hearts. In other words, Paul is sending this man to the church, for the church, for their benefit. The news he sends about himself isn't to boast about himself, or to promote himself, or to be self-centered. Look what I, Paul, am doing. He's already got a close relationship with the Ephesian church. Remember Acts 20, when he met with the elders as they came down to meet him on his way to Jerusalem, and they cried over one another with tears, and they urged him strongly not to go to Jerusalem because of the prophecy about his impending arrest and death. You might imagine the church now as he's sitting in prison in Rome. What were they thinking? Look what happened. Arrested, shipwrecked, now in prison in Rome, just sitting there, waiting and waiting. You can almost hear the elders and the congregation of the church in Ephesus, and maybe other churches as well. We told him not to go. We knew this would happen. And Paul is sent to let them know that everything is okay. Yeah, I'm in prison. But if you look back at verses 19 and 20, he's just asked them to pray for him. That he might be bold while he's in his change. Bold in proclaiming the gospel and the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book of Acts tells us that Paul ended up in Rome for two whole years. during which time he was able to proclaim the kingdom of God and teach about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. Verses 30 and 31 of Acts 28. So now Paul has sent Tychicus to relate this news to the Ephesians. It's good news. It's encouraging news. Yes, I'm in change. Yes, I'm a prisoner. But I'm speaking to Jew and Gentile alike, even some of Caesar's own household. They're hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. So he's hoping to ease their concerns, their fears, to encourage them. All is well. God is in control. And God is with the work here in Rome. He's here with me, Paul. His concern in this is not for himself. His concern is for them. So he doesn't send just anyone. Tychicus is not one of the more familiar names we have from the New Testament, and yet he's a key player in Paul's ministry. He's a beloved brother. He's a faithful minister, Paul describes him as. He's a fellow shepherd, a beloved brother. He's a saint, again. But he's a minister as well. He's a faithful minister. So along with a letter that's telling them what it means to be a saint and how to behave like a faithful saint, what is Paul sending them? A saint who's a faithful saint. Here's someone who embodies what I'm telling you in this letter. Here's someone who can teach you these things and instruct you in them, help you learn how to be faithful saints and what that means. Paul's care for the Ephesians while he's in prison is striking. It's wonderful. But that's what a heart for Christ does. A heart changed by Christ cares for others more than it cares for itself. Loves others more than self. We talked about this a year ago when we went through 1 Corinthians 13. We're concerned about others more than we are about ourselves. We have that love for God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that leads to love of our neighbor. That's a good test for us as believers. How many of us are more concerned about others than we are about ourselves? How many of us worry more about our own struggles and pains, the irritations of life, the various trials, the fatigue that comes, suffering and problems and worries? We stress about these things, don't we? And we forget about others. We really ought to be the reverse. A little about Tychicus, he does appear several times in the New Testament. In Colossians 4, verse 7, Paul names him again as a bearer of that letter. In fact, the language in verses 7 and 8, I think it is, Colossians, is very similar to verses 21 and 22 here. He is described in Acts 20, chapter 4, as a companion of Paul. So in that Acts 20 meeting, he's met the Ephesians, he knows them, and they know him already. In Paul's letter to Timothy, the second letter, chapter 4 verse 12, Paul says he sent Tychicus to Ephesus. And in Titus chapter 3 verse 12, we understand that Tychicus was sent to Titus to help facilitate the work that was going on. But what's more interesting about this man, perhaps, is his name, Tychicus. That means nothing to most of us in this room, maybe all of us. It means fortunate one, or we might say simply lucky. Here's lucky. I'm sending you lucky. This is an example of the Bible's irony, isn't it? His parents probably meant it to mean, you know, hoping that fate or fortune would smile on him. But here's the deal, as a faithful saint, as a minister of the gospel, now he is truly fortunate. A fortunate one. Because now he's blessed. Because now God looks down on him with favor. Because of who he is in Christ Jesus. He has peace with God. He has peace with his Christian family. He's a recipient of God's grace. His parents might have meant it one way, God meant it another way. He is a fortunate one. Well now this double benediction at the end of chapter six. Peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. What Tychicus has from God, what his name ironically says, is what Paul is praying for, for the Ephesian church, and ultimately for you and for me as well. Like the opening benediction or blessing here, he's praying for grace and for peace. Opposite order here, peace first and then grace in verse 24. But really again, there's two blessings here, there's two benedictions. Verse 23, he prays for peace, love, and faith. In particular, love with faith. Again, he's not praying that they would receive these as if they didn't have them already. They're already theirs, they're already ours in Christ Jesus. We have them as His beloved people. So like the beginning of the letter, the prayer here is that they would continue in these things. Would you continue to experience the peace of God, and to know the peace of God. To know His love. To know love with faith. Now these are all themes in this letter, as we've seen as we've gone through it. Peace, over and over in Ephesians. Peace with God. No more wrath, no more judgment, no more anger for our sin. No more hatred or enmity between God and us. Paul talks about how we were once far off, but now we've been brought near in Christ Jesus. We're no longer walking in darkness. We're no longer sons of disobedience. Instead, there is peace with God. Now we're seated with Christ himself in the heavenly places, right there with God. We have the privilege to boldly come near to him in the Spirit, in prayer. We receive His full armor so that we might stand in Him and in the power of His strength. We have peace with God. And again we have peace with each other, Gentile and Jew, husband and wife as we saw chapters 5 and 6, slave and master, parent and child, peace, harmony, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one people, one family, one body of Christ, one temple in which God himself dwells. We have peace with God and with each other. But as we talked about in Sunday School here recently when we were going through benedictions, peace isn't just lack of conflict. When the Bible talks about peace, it's a broad understanding of all the benefits and blessings that God gives us in life. encompassed in that little word in Hebrew, shalom. A fullness of life, a fullness of blessing, an abundance of God's blessing and peace. And then he talks about love along with faith. The two go together. They're distinct, they're different, but they go together. Faith, as we're told in chapter 2, is a gift from God himself. It saves us as it turns our hearts and minds in repentance and faith to Christ Jesus. It enables us to receive that gift of salvation. Faith is resting on that gift and on nothing else. Not our works, not our boasting, not that we purchased it, not that we earned it. We just receive it. We just rest on it. We rest, we stop our striving, we stop our efforts. That's peace as well, is it not? Faith is always accompanied by love. Again, chapter two talks about how good works were prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, that we should do them. God has already prepared good works for you to do. Faith and love go together. We're to walk in love. We're to love one another. We're to speak the truth in love. We're to pray for all the saints. All these relationships that we talked about, submitting to one another in Christ and in love in chapters five and six. You can't do that without faith, but you can't do it without love either. Verse 24 he talks about grace. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. It's repeated from verse 23. He prays for grace to be given to us so that we would love Jesus Christ and that grace would be given to all who do love Jesus Christ. Now again, grace is a gift from God. There's nothing we can do to get it or buy it or earn it, deserve it. In fact, grace comes when we deserve just the opposite. That's why I prefer a little bit of a technical term. You might hear grace described often as unmerited favor. It's more than that. It's demerited. We've earned wrath. We've earned punishment. You've heard of merits and demerit systems? We're infinitely down in the demerit area. Grace comes not when we haven't merited it, but when we've merited just the opposite. Grace is a gift. Without grace showered upon us from God, we can't love as God calls us to love. But again, we have grace in Christ Jesus. So the prayer is for, again, a continuation of God's favor upon us, a continuance of that grace, for all who love Jesus Christ. Now that's an interesting phrase from Paul. What's he saying? And how does he describe that love? Love incorruptible, he calls it. What does he mean? Is he saying here that continuing in God's grace is dependent upon our continuing in a sort of incorruptible love for Jesus? Well, no, that's not what he's saying. This is an interesting word that Paul uses here. It's used frequently, five times in 1 Corinthians 15, to talk about that which is imperishable, that which cannot die. That which can't be corrupted. And we're not talking about moral corruption here, but the decay of something physical. Love cannot decay. A love that can't rot away is how Paul is saying it. Something that's eternal and never goes away. 1 Corinthians 15, you might remember, is the famous chapter at the end of that first letter to the church in Corinth where Paul talks about the gospel. He describes it in glorious terms. He goes on and on and on. talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And here's where this passage ties us to today. Because this is about resurrection. This is about new life. Paul connects the reality of Christ's resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 to the reality of our future resurrection. And he talks about how these corruptible, perishable bodies, in other words, they rot and they decay after death. are sown in the ground like a seed, but at the last trumpet they rise incorruptible, imperishable. The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." That same word is what he's using here to describe love. Love that's incorruptible. Just as with the resurrection, where these perishable bodies must die like a seed in the ground, and at the resurrection be transformed into resurrected bodies that are eternal and imperishable and incorruptible. What he's saying here in Ephesians is that our love has to be transformed from the perishable, corruptible, the kind of love that would decay on its own, to a love that's imperishable and incorruptible. It's incorruptible love in at least a couple ways. Death, first of all, to the old, perishable, corruptible love, but life to new love. But it's also incorruptible because the object of our love is incorruptible, is imperishable. Back in chapter 4, Paul talked about putting off the old self, our former way of living, putting on the new self created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. This putting on is an ongoing activity. Again, Paul's talking about things that don't just happen once, but happen throughout our lives. We continue to put on this new self, and as we do, the focus of our love changes from that corruptible, rotten, selfish love that we used to have, to an incorruptible, imperishable love of Christ and His people and our neighbors. an other-focused love. That old love has to die, and it has to be replaced by an incorruptible love. Think about it this way. Whatever you love more than Jesus, whatever you love more than Jesus Christ must be put to death, has to die. Think of those maybe as idols in your heart that you cherish more than you cherish Jesus. They must be buried and put to death. Well, how do you know if you have an idol that needs to be killed? Well, what do you get angry about? What do you get sad about? What makes you disconsolate if it's taken away from you? Think about something that if you didn't have it, it would make you angry or sad. Maybe you fear something that might be taken away from you. A job, a home, a family, money, whatever it might be. What things would depress you if you didn't have them, would make you angry, would make you sullen, bitter. Is it health? Safety? Money? Your reputation? Family? A certain structure and order in life? You want to get rid of all those difficult, irritating people? Especially the ones on the freeway? Maybe you can't give up entertainment. Maybe you'd be upset if you lost your house, didn't have clothes or other possessions. All of those could be a clue. I've got an idol that needs to be put to death. I've got a rotten, corruptible love for something that's far less valuable than Jesus Christ. But again, that's who we look to, because He Himself is incorruptible. We can have an incorruptible love because the object of our love Himself is incorruptible. I think Paul is deliberately alluding to 1 Corinthians 15 in this final benediction, helping us to recall 1 Corinthians 15 in the language that he's using. He's reminding us of Jesus who rose from the dead three days after being crucified. A corruptible body went into that tomb, went into that grave. An incorruptible one rose from it, never to die again. In this letter, woven in and out of the letter to the Ephesians, is this incredible truth that God deeply loves us, deeply loves his people. He tells us that God saved us with a great love, that he lavishes upon us, lavishes immeasurable grace. The Father's love for us in Christ the Son knows no bounds, from chapter 3, no height, no depth, no width, no length. We cannot comprehend it. Now, of course, God loves His people because God Himself is love. And Jesus is love incarnate. And that love is imperishable, it's divine. It's incorruptible. It's undying because it's eternal. And it will never go away because on that first day of the week, love incarnate rose from the grave. Incorruptible. Imperishable. Undying. Eternal. Jesus himself is the greatest love that eclipses all other loves. How do we kill other loves that might be idols in our hearts? Keep our attention focused on Jesus Christ. Consider Jesus as the author to the Hebrew says. Consider Jesus in that wonderful letter. Look at what he's done. Look at who he is. As the old hymn says, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. And then ironically, this is part of the shalom, this is part of the peace of God, this is part of God's love for us. Now the things of earth family and home and job and all these other things. Now they can be loved in a manner that's healthy and good and not corruptible. Changed from idols to cherished gifts that God has given to us. Every good and perfect gift comes from our Father in heaven. And we recognize that and we can appreciate it most deeply when Jesus occupies the first place in our hearts. So thanks be to God this morning. Thanks be to God for His Son, Jesus Christ, for the work of His Spirit that does put to death our old self with all of its passions, with all of its desires, and raises up for us a new life in Christ Jesus and a new love in Christ Jesus that is love incorruptible. My friends, today, tomorrow, every day, may you have peace. Today and tomorrow and every day, may you love with faith. May you know and experience the lavish, immeasurable grace of God. May you yourself love and grow in your love for Christ Jesus, and may that love reflect its object. May it be incorruptible, imperishable, and eternal. This blessing from God through Paul, the apostle to us, this blessing, this gift is yours because of the one who died. but who lives again. My friends, he is risen. Amen. Let's pray. Dear God, our Lord and our Father, we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ. We thank you for the gift and the reality of his imperishable love for us. and that He can be our incorruptible, imperishable love. Would you work that love in us? Help us, O Lord, to celebrate, not just today, once a year, but every day, and especially every Lord's Day, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. And so live and love as you would have us live and love. We cannot do it in our own strength, so give us the gift and the power and the strength of your Holy Spirit to do all that you've called us to do. Lord God, we ask it in the precious and matchless name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.