Undying Love

Well, I want to say good morning again. If this is your first time with us, thank you so much for being here. You know, we have been here, by God’s grace, since 1841, coming up on 200 years. And we are excited to see whatever the Lord has planned for us into the next 200 years, but we know that it’s going to be just as much of an adventure as what He’s already brought us through.

We dedicate a portion of our service every Sunday morning to praying because we believe that when we knock our heads together, we get the best that people can create. But whenever we pray and ask God to speak, we get what He can do. So we want to dedicate a portion of our time every Sunday morning just to pray. So if praying out loud is a little weird for you, that’s okay. Let’s just be weird for a minute. All right? And if it’s normal for you, then cool. I’ll ask you to lead those around you.

So this morning, we’re going to continue to pray for our adult discipleship, which is about to kick off in September. If you have not yet signed up or committed to being part of either the men’s or the women’s groups, we will find space for you. If you are recognizing now is the time for you to plug in, there is a spot for you. Let us figure out all the arithmetic of getting you placed, but you just come on.

This morning we are going to pray for church vitality through adult discipleship, recognizing that as we are making disciples, that is how our church will continue to grow in all the holistic ways that we need. So my invitation to you: grab a neighbor and pray that God would use our adult discipleship ministries to continue to give our church more and more vitality. Y’all take it away, and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Thank y’all.

Lord, I want to say thank you for bringing us here today. God, it is by your mercy and your grace that we do anything. It’s because of you that we got out of bed this morning. It’s because of you that we got dressed, that we got here. It’s because of you that we’re able to sing. It’s because of you that we’re able to take up our Bibles and study it. It’s because of you that we have breath in our lungs. It’s because of you that we have victory in your Son through what He has done for us. And it’s to you and it is to your glory that we are here. It’s not to us.

There’s lots of ways we could spend our time as a church. Prioritizing disciples, though, is what you’ve told us to do. God, I pray for the women’s ministry. Lord, I pray there’d be a lot of women that come and that they maybe even for the very first time see that their identity is rooted squarely in the work of Jesus Christ for us. Who God has made them to be can only become true in its fullest sense as they submit to the lordship of Jesus. Let them see that. Help them to take up that identity and to stand in it with all of their beautiful and strong femininity, please.

And I pray for the men, God, as 30-plus men have signed up to join the seven of us leaders in a journey of growing to experience you. God, we look at your word and we look at like the Gospels or the book of Acts or even parts of the Old Testament. We say, “God, I want to experience you like that. I want to have a relationship with you like that where you speak and I hear it and we do it and you do miracles and you perform things.” God, we can still have that. We can still live in the book of Acts today if only we would listen to you and open our hearts to experience you.

God, I pray for the men that have signed up that you would give them willing hearts to suspend some of their doubts. You would give them a passion to fight their sin and anything that would make it hard for them to experience you. And through the men’s and the women’s ministries, you will continue to infuse more life and vitality into this church. Please, we need you to do it, God. Without you, we can accomplish some things, but we will not be who we are supposed to be without you. Carry us forward as a church.

And right now, Father, Holy Spirit, I’m begging that You would speak. I’m begging that You would get a hold of us, that You would grab us for a moment as we grab onto Your word, that You would make it unmistakable and undeniable You speaking to us today. Lord, we love You and it’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, if you do have your copy of the Bible, go ahead and open it up to Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, chapter 6. We’ll be looking at the last four verses this morning. If you are still learning how to navigate the road map of your personal copy of the Bible, you split it in half. You probably land somewhere in the Psalms or other funny sounding names. I want you to turn right. Eventually, you’ll get to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then you’ll get to some of the other stuff that you’ve heard about before, like Acts, and Romans. You pass the letters to First and Second Corinthians, then Romans, and then Galatians, and you’ll land in Ephesians, the last four verses of the book of Ephesians. That’s where we will be for the majority of our time today.

As you’re getting there, I just want to share this week, I’ve really been reminded of the importance of family. As some of y’all may know, there’s been a couple of folks in our broader church family that have passed away recently, and we’ve had a couple funerals here. And those funerals just have a way of kind of bringing people together. You know, funerals remind us how important it is to have somebody with you all throughout life. But not just like a biological family, people that you maybe have grown up together with, but also a spiritual family. Who we are, who we are as a church.

For some of us, our biological family is right down the road or right across the field from you. You kind of all live like together on like a compound thing that I was never aware of growing up where I grew up. For others of us, our families are up the interstate. And still for some of us in the room, your family is not even here anymore. Your family has gone to be with the Lord. Yet for any follower of Jesus, you have a family that is sitting right here in this room with you. There is a family that is gathered to worship Jesus here with you. Part of your family is gathering in secret in some basement in China tonight, hoping not to be discovered by the police. Some of your family will group up in midweek Bible studies later this week in Spain. Some of your family will have an open air evangelistic presentation somewhere down in Ecuador or Guatemala.

God’s intention when He saved you was not just to save you as an individual and secure your personal spiritual freedoms. But God’s intention was to bring you into a family. A family that’s built on a new bloodline that operates according to new ways. And this morning we will study what it means to be family. A family that has been bought and founded on God’s own undying love.

If you will, this is Ephesians chapter 6, verses 21-24. Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord. He will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. I’m sending him to you for this very reason to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts. Peace to the brothers and sisters and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you. You may be seated.

There are some immediate observations in this passage as we are just looking at it. You see them with me that this is a goodbye. This is a letter that Paul has written to a group of believers that live in a place called Ephesus. The letter began with a dear. Dear Ephesians, you see that way back in chapter 1, verses 1-2, and it ends with a love. Love, Paul. And the love of this letter matches the dear. If you were to go back, you would see that there are two critical words that Paul greets the Ephesians with. And he’s also saying goodbye to them with these two, grace and peace. If you were to look at all the letters that Paul wrote to the various churches in the New Testament, you would see grace and peace start those letters and grace and peace In those letters, Paul sees that everything in the Christian life is about the grace of God and the peace of God inside of us. And he notes a few particular people. He says Tychicus, someone we’ll look at here in a moment. And then he says something about you being the church and then me being in prison and then also we, which kind of opens the door for us as readers to understand that Paul is representing a group of people in prison. It’s not just him. It’s a whole group. Apparently, Paul had some companions in his missionary travels, even in his imprisonment. Which tells me there are some hidden heroes of the faith that we won’t meet in this time, in this life, that one day when we are in heaven, we will meet those unsung heroes of the faith. You may even become one of them as you grow to experience God yourself.

Paul sends Tychicus, this personal person. In verse 22, we see, “I am sending him to you for this very reason to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts.” Paul, even in prison, Paul, even suffering for the gospel, Paul is deeply concerned about the Ephesians. He wants them to be well. He wants them to be encouraged. That’s the whole reason he is sending Tychicus, his friend. And then if you’re paying really close attention, you would notice that one word happens three times in these four verses. Love. Tychicus, our dearly loved brother, a faithful servant in the Lord. He’ll tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. I’m sending him to you for this very reason to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brothers and sisters and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you’ve been keeping track across the last few months as we’ve been studying Ephesians, then you would already know this, and I’ll let everybody else know. The word love has been referenced 25 times in the book of Ephesians. Six chapters probably actually only take you 15 minutes to read it start to finish later this afternoon whenever you’re at home. 25 times across six chapters, Paul mentions God’s love and our love for God and our love for one another. So, it’s appropriate as Paul ends this letter, he is entrusting the Ephesians to God’s love, an entire letter that’s been about God’s amazing and nearly indescribable love. God’s love which changes us, which is transformative, which is supernatural and otherworldly. God’s love.

So, as we are ending the book of Ephesians, the one thing I really want you to take away from today is this. If you’re a notetaker, please take this down. God’s undying love changes us. God’s undying love changes us. God’s undying love changes us. There are three unique changes that happen in these verses, and you’ll see them with me. The first one is that God’s undying love changes who we are. Look at verse 23 again with me. Peace be to the brothers and sisters and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Man, you already see this. Faith, grace, peace, and love all have a common source. And it’s not us. And it’s not the nice lady down the street. Faith, grace, peace, and love all come from God. God is the only one who can create anything. And the good things that we enjoy in this life all have a common origin. God. The same is true of the faith that we hold, the saving grace we accept, the unmistakable peace that we embrace, and the life-changing love that saves us.

No matter what you have done, God loves you. I want to say that again for somebody in this room. No matter what you have done, God loves you. He does not like our sin. He does not like our mistakes. He does not like our shortcomings. But God loves you. He’s wild about you. He would move heaven and earth to have you. He wants to shower you with Himself. He wants to embrace you fully. He wants to show you just how incredible is His love for you.

My question for you this morning is where do you look for love? Where do you look for love, man? We look for love in so many places, man. Like what’s top of my mind is looking for love in romantic relationships. Anybody else been there? Like come on. Can we have some other honest folks in the room? Anybody looked for love In romantic relationships? Like you, whether it’s in for our teenagers at school or for our college folks meeting other young adults about to embrace this world or for other of others of us other adults, no matter what age we are, there’s this natural, I think, drive to try to find love in the arms of a person. That’s fine. Some of us look for love just in our little biological family: mom, dad, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandpa, grandma, whatever it is. And may you’re just whenever you’re at these family gatherings, you’re kind of like, “Hey, Poppy loves you,” and you really want the child to say it back. Anybody else experienced that? I haven’t experienced that because my kids don’t call me Poppy. But I have experienced what it’s like to try to give my kids something that I actually want back from them. “Hey, sweetheart. Daddy loves you.” Runs off with the toy. You know what I mean? Ultimately, family relationships, that’s a fine place for love, but doesn’t really sustain.

Maybe we we try to find love in things. If I make enough money, I can buy enough toys and therefore I will have all the satisfaction and kind of the warm feelgoods of that. And it’s kind of fun to spend money sometimes. You go to the car dealership, you get the new car, you go to the clothing store, you get the new outfit, whatever it is. You go to the tech store and you buy the tech thing. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but we try to find love in the things we acquire and those things break down or wear out or become obsolete. Some of us, man, where where do you look for love? There is one source of real love, one source of true love, one source of love that can hold you no matter what has you in this life. Most anywhere we look for love is actually a good thing. But when we make a good thing into the ultimate thing, that good thing mutates and distorts, becomes bad.

Here’s the deal. God loves you. Only He has the type of love that you need. The Bible talks about God’s love in this way. 1 John 3:16. This is how we have come to know love. That Jesus laid down His life for us. So we should also lay down our lives for our brothers and our sisters. We know love not because of a good person giving up a little bit for us. We know love because the ultimate person giving up everything for us, Jesus Christ laying His life down. God’s love was revealed to us in this way. First John chapter 4, that God would send His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Are you looking for love in the arms of a person? There is one person whose arms will always hold you no matter what you do to them. That is Jesus Christ. The one who has been sent by the Father for you. John 3:16. You know this, for God loved the world in this way. He gave His one and only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Are you looking for love this morning? Did you come here this morning yearning and just hoping for something real and deeper than what you’ve had so far? Are you looking for love in romance and you go on date after date or relationship after relationship or marriage after marriage and people just keep failing? Are you looking for love in your biological family and disappointments and frustrations and disagreements keep cropping up making things hard? Are you looking for love in stuff or in money and you’re never satisfied? You never have enough. There is a love that God has for you that God wants to give you. Jesus came so that we would know love. So that we could see and embrace God’s love. And when that love when you see that love for what it is, it changes you.

Look at how Paul describes these folks. Verse 23 again, peace to the brothers and the sisters. Love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love changes us. It changes who you are. It changes whoever you have become into a brother and a sister of Jesus Christ. No matter what you have done, no matter what failures, no matter what muck and mire you have dragged yourself or others through, God’s love changes you and makes you new. God’s love also changes how we treat God. Indeed, God’s undying love changes how we treat God. Look at verse 24. Grace be to all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ. I know I’m going a little bit out of order, but theologically we’re going in the right one. God loves us, and when we see that, we begin to love God in return.

Look at that word undying. That word literally means immortal, incorruptible, everlasting. It’s the same word that’s used in 1 Corinthians 15 to describe our bodies, which is so fresh in my mind with the funerals this week. That when we die, these corruptible, mortal, not very long-lasting bodies are clothed with immortality, incorruptibility, everlasting life. That love that God has for us which we then start giving back to Him is that way: immortal, incorruptible, everlasting. God never ends. His love never ends. And when we taste and see that God is good and when we start loving Him in return, that love that God gives us back for Him will never break down.

Now, your experience in God and that relationship, that will waver. That will seesaw with the circumstances because we’re weak. But the love that God gives you back for Him will never go away. As Baptists, we like to say once saved, always saved. When you come into a relationship of salvation and grace and peace with God, the love that you have for Him will always be there, even if your experience of it waxes and wanes.

Paul is addressing everybody who has this type of undying love for God. You could say it this way: that God’s love for us births our love for Him. God’s love reproduces itself, and what He shows us, we start showing Him. The greatest change that God’s love accomplishes is to turn us from our old selves into our new selves. Ephesians 2:1-3 describes who we are naturally. Paul says, “We are dead in our trespasses and sins in which we previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath, as the others were also.”

Bit of a downer, but here’s what you need to recognize: in your flesh, without God’s love, you are a child of Satan. Loved by God, but you are a follower of Satan, a follower of your flesh, a follower of this world, and only God’s love could transform you from being that into somebody that has any interest in God. That’s what God’s love does for us. It changes us on the inside so that our outside starts to look a little different.

God makes us new. So new, in fact, that Paul addresses this letter to the saints in Ephesus. That word saint means anything other than what I just read: pure ones, dedicated ones, sacred ones, ones who live lives for God’s glory. Folks that 2,000 years ago would have never heard the words we just sang, but would gladly join us in heaven one day to sing, “To God be the glory.” That is a saint. Only God’s love could transform us from enemies of God into children of God who love Him back.

Man, God’s love gets inside of you and it changes you. It holds you and it can never stop holding you. You will encounter something this week or this month or this year that will make you question this. Let me give you some truth to anchor you. This is Romans 8:35 and so forth. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him, Jesus who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, nothing, nothing, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

No matter what you experience this year, no matter what someone does to you, no matter what you do, God’s love can never be separated from you. It’s not like two boxes in the attic beside each other that you can push apart. No, God’s love is more like bread dough that once you take all the ingredients and you mix it together, you can’t separate it. It’s a different total package altogether. When God’s love gets inside of you and changes you, that’s your soul. That’s your life. Where are you looking for love? The things you do, the things you don’t do, the folks you’re related to, the place you’re from, the accomplishments you’ve made, the stuff you’ve avoided, your college football team and their success or failure. I mean, I kind of say that a little joking, but like, man, how much of us find our love and our passion in how well our team did last night? And I wasn’t just poking at Clemson fans. My team will play at three today. It’s okay.

Only God has the type of love that can actually do something for you. Because only God doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need you. He loves you. He wants you. He doesn’t need you. That’s why His love actually has an impact on you. God is undying. His love is undying. But when it gets inside of you, it changes you and it changes how you view God. But it also does this. God’s undying love changes how we treat others.

Look at verses 21 and 22 again. Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord. He will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. I’m sending him to you for this very reason, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts. You see, God’s undying love deeply transformed Paul. If you’re not aware of it, let me just refresh you. Paul did not grow up in a church. He didn’t grow up a follower of Jesus Christ. No, when he came of age, he was actively persecuting followers of Jesus. He was so happy and proud to be at the martyrdom of Stephen, collecting all the cloaks for everybody, throwing stones to kill him, the first person to ever die for the faith. Paul then would get these letters and certificates from local synagogues, local courts to go and find other Christians, take them out of their homes, drag them to prisons or even kill them. Paul loved that. He was very good at his job. Incredibly successful, incredibly fulfilled.

He’s on the road to a place called Damascus when all of a sudden the resurrected Jesus shines a light, stops him in his tracks, tells him, “Hey, you better stop doing what you’re doing. I am Lord.” Paul wisely submits and through that is saved and God deeply transforms him. The same person who used to persecute Christians now is helping others become Christians. The same guy who hated followers of Jesus now deeply loves them. And if God can do that in Paul’s life, then what can He do in our lives? God’s love, when it gets inside of you, it changes how you treat people.

God’s undying love transformed Paul. It also transformed this diverse group in Ephesus. Y’all remember from our early messages in this series, Ephesus was an incredibly diverse and multicultural city on this southern coast of Turkey. It was a harbor town much like us. It was overpopulated much like us. There’s people from all sorts of backgrounds. Yet the gospel and God’s undying love was taking all these diverse people with different preferences and different desires and bringing them together. Only God’s love can unite people from as broad of backgrounds as you see in the church. Jew and Gentile, one. Slave and free, one. Adult and child, one. Only God’s love can unite us and can unite people today into a unified body. The religious and the churched and the wayward and the rebellious, one. Northerner, southerner, one. Dare I say it, Republican, Democrat, one. Rich, poor, one. Scholarly and the simple-minded, one. Young and old, one.

God’s love changes how we treat others, especially those who are also God’s kids, our brothers and sisters. Man, God’s love makes us a family. This is how Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter 2. So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In Him, in Jesus, the whole building, that’s y’all, it’s us, we are being put together. We grow into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.

Later in chapter 4, Paul would really stress this unity thing. And he would say in the church, there is no room for anything that would crack, divide, or break up. There’s room for anybody that wants to come and worship the Lord, there’s room for anybody that wants to learn more about walking with Him. There is room for anybody who is ready to submit to Jesus as Lord and Savior. There’s not room for anyone who would divide. You see, our bonds as God’s family run deeper and hold stronger than anything else that could unite us. They are in the very life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God’s love is undying because God is undying. His love transforms us. It transforms how we view and treat God, and therefore, it transforms how we treat others. And man, it’s good to remind ourselves of that.