Salutations
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer Carey. I'm a pastor in training here with Mill City Church. We are in our final week in Ephesians. We made it. Nine months later, we are closing out Ephesians.
We're going to be in Ephesians 6, verses 18 through 24, which is on page 570. If you have a blue Bible around you, if you don't have a Bible, please take that home. That is our gift to you. Next week, we will start our Hammer and Hammock series, which is a six-week series on work and rest. But for today, we're going to close out Ephesians.
It's going to be in 6, verses 18 through 24. Something I've realized recently in parenting, I have almost three and almost one-year-old, is they're not very coordinated. They struggle with doing two things at once. Let me give you a few examples. My son, Bridgers, he just learned how to crawl a couple months ago, and he struggled. He struggled out of the gate.
We put him in the middle of the room, and we'd walk away, and we'd come back, and he would be all the way backing up into the couch. He knew he could back circles around anybody, but getting the coordination of arms and legs to go forward was a little bit difficult for him. He would finally get to the point where he'd do this standing push-up. His butt would be in the air, and then he would just sit there. He didn't know what to do. And eventually he would just faceplant into the ground, which was funny when he didn't bruise his face.
My daughter also isn't super coordinated. I think long-term she's not going to be super coordinated. She's going to be great at a lot of things. I just don't think she's going to be super coordinated. And recently, I've got this, like I rode bikes growing up. It was a big deal to me.
So I want her to learn how to ride a bike. So this weekend, I was at my parents' house, and we got a tricycle out that she typically can be pushed on. But her legs are now long enough to reach the pedals. I wanted to show her this is how it works. So I put her feet in the pedals, and I took one leg and pushed it down and showed her how that kind of moved it forward.
And I took the other leg and tried to do the motion for her. And she was just fine with that. I was like, no, no, no, you can do this. If you just push equal weight on both sides, distribute it, you're going to be going forward. And she's like, no, I'll just let you push me. Like she was completely content with that.
And I was like, we'll get there. Because eventually, I want her to get on a bike. And when she gets on a bike without training wheels, she's going to have to figure that out. Because if you want to take a bike forward, you need equal distribution weight on both sides, pushing both pedals down. Because if you do too far to the right, you're going to fall off to the end. If you're going to do too far to the left, you're going to fall off to the left.
In order to move the bike forward, she's going to have to figure out coordinating both those things together. And Paul is teaching a little bit of this as we close out Ephesians. In fact, most of his letters show two main aspects of ministry that need equal weight on both sides. He talks a lot about the mission of God, seeing the loss be reached. And he also emphasizes care for the church. That both of those, mission and care for the church, need equal weight on both sides.
Because if you're high mission, like if you have a community group and you guys are really good at reaching people, and you're inviting people in, you're getting to know neighbors, but you don't do a good job of caring for one another. You don't do a good job of addressing sin. If you don't do a good job of that, what happens is, is that you're going, going, going, and you will burn out and sin will creep up and take you down one by one. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are really good at care, if you're really good at building each other up, like maybe you have really good theological deep discussions, maybe you wade through really tough sins, which is good, you should push for that, but you're low mission.
You're never reaching people, you're never inviting people. What you turn into is a holy huddle. You don't advance the kingdom. Both need equal weight. And that's what we're going to look at this morning as we close out Ephesians 6, and we see the two main aspects for the ministry of the church. So he picks up in the middle of verse 18 where Chet left off last week.
To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I'm an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak, so that you may also know how I am doing, 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 in 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. I'll pray and we'll dive into this. Father, I thank you so much for this season of Ephesians. God, I pray that you would help us see your heart for mission and your heart for care for the church and that we might be encouraged by this and walk this out as a church. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
All right, so he starts out where Chet left off last week. He says, To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication. That's prayers. Offering up prayers for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So we pick up where we left off last week, that we are in a spiritual war.
If you didn't listen to last week's sermon, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. Because if you are called in Christ, you enter into a war against not flesh and blood, but the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness like we read last week. We are in a war. And in the midst of that war, we are called to advance the gospel. So Paul, in the midst of this, is asking for prayer because he understands the power as a weapon against the enemy.
And in high school, I played a lot of video games growing up. But when I went to college, I realized something. That if I would have taken my video game console to college, I would have not done well. I would have not made the grades. My whole life is taking an ounce of talent and maximizing it through hard work. So I knew if I went to college, this wasn't going to end well if I took my video game console.
So I left it behind. But what I realized was, is when I got to college, that if you wanted to actually hang out with other guys at some point, you're going to play video games. That's just what it was. So we, in college, tried to reach, we were part of a ministry to try to reach people. And I wanted to spend time getting to know guys in our dorm. And the one game that everybody played that came out when I was in college was Call of Duty.
Man, people loved Call of Duty. They played it. And I wasn't out when I was in high school, so I didn't really play it. And I would get roped into playing some of these games. And they would immediately regret their decision. Because I was terrible.
Like, I just, I wasn't very good. And we'd be playing. I'd be trying to figure out kind of how to move around, how to shoot. And I played some shooter games growing up, so I kind of figured out the basics. But I was terrible.
I was a drag on the team. And eventually, I would sit on weapons that I didn't know how to use. And eventually, someone pointed out, Hey, man, you know what an airstrike is? I was like, no, what's that? It's like, you know all those, every now and then we have bombs that are just being dropped and people are dying? I'm like, yeah, that sounds great.
What is that? You have one. And if you just press this button, it's like the cheat code. You're just going to do work. I was like, oh, that's a really good idea. Maybe next game that will work out.
I was like, no, not my team. And it's like, I was sitting on this powerful weapon that I had. I didn't know how to use it. I didn't even try. In the same way in the church, we sit on a powerful weapon that stands against the enemy in prayer. We've been given this air support from God that we can tap into and we choose not to use it.
Rather than cultivate a consistent pattern of prayer to push the enemy back, we remain silent. Billy Graham once said that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian. And what he was getting at was that we have this unreal power from our God to go to work through us and reaching other people to grow us into Christlikeness. And we remain silent. We were missing out on that power. Another pastor named John Piper, he said, One of the greatest uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from a lack of time.
You can insert Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever app you have on your phone. That on the last day when we are standing before our Savior, we look back at all those who could have been reached, all those who could have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, if we would have spent time praying for their boldness within us to reach them, it won't be for a lack of time. That we are called to pray. And Paul, he wanted the prayers of this church. Because he understood its power. And he understood what was at stake.
That eternity was on the line. And he understood that the pattern of prayers that God has ordained, he has chosen beforehand that prayer is the means by which he advances his kingdom and his purposes. That we get to tap into that kind of power. Let me show you what that looks like. A year ago, I'm a bivocational, I do real estate. And I was in a real estate office, a different one than I am now.
And there was a woman in my real estate office, another agent, who came up to me and said, Hey, did you know that my daughter works for one of the attorneys that we do closings at? I said, No, I didn't. She said, Yeah, her name is Kaylin. And it would be, you know, she just jumped in the workforce. She didn't go to school yet. So a lot of her friends went off to college.
And it would be great if you would connect with her and just invite her into what you're doing at your church. I said, Girl, you're a team player. Absolutely. So I went. And at the next closing, I saw her. I said, Hey, I heard that you were looking to hang out with some people.
There's some people close to your age. We have this community group from our church that meets. And it would be great if you came. And what was brilliant was what she heard. That's what I said. What she heard was, Oh, a young networking group for professionals.
Great. I'm going to come to that. And she did. And it was not a networking group. She quickly picked up on that. But she came back.
And she kept coming back. And here's something we picked up on pretty quickly. We picked up on the fact that she had been around church, but she never actually clearly heard the gospel of grace. That she heard some kind of works-based righteousness, but she actually hadn't heard about Jesus and the grace that he offers. So we started praying for her.
And we started journeying with her. And then one day she came up to us and she said, Hey, this is the last time I'm coming to group. And I was like, What's up? She's like, I'm starting night classes on Tuesdays, and I can no longer come. And I was like, This is not how this ends. So I went to a different group.
I went to the Flagstone group, which is led by Jesse and Tony Ando. And I said, Hey, we have this awesome girl in our community group. I would love to get her plugged in with you guys. And, of course, they took her in. And we kept praying as we sent her off. And I know for a fact that they kept praying too.
And over time, it finally clicked. It made sense. And this spring, she stood in this room and gave one of the most powerful testimonies I've ever heard of baptism. Because people prayed and God went to work in redeeming her. We tapped into that power. And Paul, he understood this.
That's why he asked for prayer, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. That he might have the boldness to go out and proclaim this beautiful mystery that he's been tapping into for six chapters. And Ephesians. This mystery that flipped entire cities over for the gospel. Because it ignited a flame within believers and it ignited a flame in other people. Growing up, my stepdad taught me how to build fires.
We had this fireplace in my parents' house. And he finally taught me how to build one. He set up the logs. And I looked to the right and I saw this beautiful, rugged, cast iron tool set. And I was like, I'm going to use those. I like that.
I'm going to grab this poker. I'm going to jab this thing into submission. It's going to be great. And to the right of that rugged set was this fire bellow. This antique fire bellow. Fire bellow is just this little pump.
You simply just push and it pushes out air. I was like, that's cute. I don't need that. Well, he lit the fire and he got the fire bellow out. And he started just to push down just effortlessly. And it brought out air.
And fire needs air, which I didn't really realize. And it engulfed the whole logs and fire. And I was like, oh, that's actually a pretty useful tool. And I still was stubborn. Because I was like, man, I think I can do this on my own. I would build a fire.
I'd get face to face with the flames. I'd be huffing and puffing and going for it. And there's a tool right there I just could have used effortlessly. Pumping up the air. Getting the fire going. And that's what prayer gets to be.
It stirs a fire up within us. A boldness within us. It stirs a fire up in other people. And you can strong our mission. You can get face to face with the fire. You can huff.
You can puff. You can go for it. Or you can take what God has given us in prayer. And use it. And prayerfully pray for those who need Jesus. Pray for a boldness within you to stir up.
That you might actually go and proclaim the gospel. And in order for Paul to continue in this boldness. He desired the prayers of this church. To fan those flames of boldness. And as a church we need that same prayerfulness. And how we approach mission together.
Because if we're going to be a gospel centered community on mission. We need this. Because here's the deal. We are actually really good as a church. At building relationships. At throwing parties.
At inviting people in. We crush that. And that's good. I don't want to diminish that at all. That's in our culture. That is how you reach people.
Is relationally. You can do a ton of good in doing that. So I want to uphold that. But hear this clearly. You can't friend people into the kingdom. You can't.
You can friend them into listening. But you can't friend them into the kingdom. At some point. You're going to actually have to say words. You're going to have to speak words. Because the gospel is a message.
And those words are going to take boldness. It's going to take boldness for you to declare the grace of our Lord. That we were once dead in sin. That through faith in Jesus we're alive in Christ. And that you can have that same relationship with him. Because you've been separated by sin.
It's going to take boldness. And it's going to take words to say that. And when you do that. At times. It's going to get weird. At times.
It's going to be awkward. You're going to say things. And people are going to look at you like. Nah. Like you're going to have friends that you actually share Jesus with. And they're going to say.
I don't want that. And if that's what you believe. I don't want you either. And that's going to be painful. You're going to be socially cast out in some situations. You might share with your neighbor.
And then you go out and take the trash out at the same time. And you'll look at each other. And it'll be awkward. It's going to happen. Because there is a cost to sharing words. There's a cost to being an ambassador.
Which is what Paul picks up on in verse 20. He says. For which I am an ambassador in chains. That I might declare it boldly as I ought to speak. An ambassador is simply a representative. We have those today.
And in their day it would have been a royal ambassador. Who spoke on behalf of the king. And declaring his good news. So we get to be that in Christ. That we get to be ambassadors of our kingdom. Proclaiming the good news.
But he puts a caveat on it. In chains. Noting that there will be suffering that comes with it. That you will suffer for declaring the gospel. Paul was put in prison. We'll be in social situations where we are cast out.
Where we are set aside. But here's the deal. In 10,000 years from now. Is that going to matter? Is it going to matter that you may have cost some friendships. Because you valued their eternity.
Over your friendship or your comfort with them. No. In 10,000 years you'll be thinking of the people that you risked it with. That are standing beside you. In the presence of Jesus. That's what's going to matter.
So with all of that in mind. I have a few questions for us as a church family. As we try to walk this out as a church family. Who are you currently trying to reach? We did this a little bit at our family meeting this week. Who are you trying to reach?
Have you been praying for them? I don't mean like have you prayed. I mean are you regularly praying for them? Have you invited other people in our church family. Other people in your community group. To pray for them.
Do they even know who you are trying to reach? Do you know who the other people in your community group are trying to reach? Have you been praying for those people? And at the front end of this. You're like I can't think of anybody that I'm trying to reach. Who doesn't know Jesus.
Have you prayed that God would break you. Of the apathy. Or the fear. Or the busyness. Or whatever you insert there. That keeps you from actually going out.
And seeing others be changed by the gospel. Church family. We got to grow in our missional hustle. And we do that by praying. And putting weight on that pedal. That we might drive the church forward.
And in the midst of doing that. In the midst of putting weight on that pedal. We got to evenly distribute to the other side. And caring for one another. As a church family. So Paul picks up on that.
He says in verse 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. So the other pedal that needs weight. Is caring for one another. And I feel like when I read this sometimes from Paul.
It's hard for me to actually visualize this. Because when I think of Paul. Sometimes I think of this weighty theologian. He's got thick glasses. He's got a loud voice. He got called up into the seventh heaven at some point.
He has all kinds of big things he has to say. He talks about mission. And it's hard for me to picture. That he intimately and deeply cared. For the churches that he was reaching. And for us to capture a picture of this.
In Ephesians. We have to go back to week one. Of our sermon series. As we talked about his time. In Ephesus. In the book of Acts.
In the book of Acts. He spent time with. He came. He was one of the people that helped planted. The church at Ephesus. For three years.
They labored there. They saw that city. Start to be changed by Jesus. And then he left. To go and plant other churches. And he kept ministering to them.
And then we pick up in Acts 20. This is where we really see his relationship. With the church at Ephesus. And how he cared. And at this point in Acts 20. He is traveling through.
He wants to meet with the Ephesian elders. One more time. Because at this point he realizes. He is going to Rome. And he is going to die. This is the last time he is going to see them.
And they pick up on. This is the last time they are going to see him. So in Acts 20. He gives this speech. And in this speech. He kind of gives the highlights.
Of the sufferings that they went through together. Of the people that were reached. And all the time that he spent there. And then he says this verse. He says remembering that for three years. I did not cease night or day.
To admonish. Which means correct. Everyone with tears. That for three years. He invested in these people. He corrected them.
With tears. Pouring over them. That they might grow into Christ likeness. And then he continues in this speech. To encourage them. And the final scene we see here.
Is they start hugging him. And everyone is in tears. And what we catch a glimpse of. Is how much they love him. And how much he loved them. It is like a father.
Who is being dropped off. To go off to battle. And it is a war. That he is probably not going to come back from. It is a powerful scene. And it is because they loved each other deeply.
And they cared for one another. And he was going off to die. This kind of care. This aspect of ministry. That we see in his ministry. Is because he wanted them to mature.
In Christ. He wanted them to grow. In knowing the gospel. And in the midst of that. In this letter. Back to Ephesians.
He knows. He cares for this church. And he wants them to be encouraged. So in wanting them to be encouraged. He knows it is going to be hard to capture. In this letter.
His emotional state. I mean it is hard to capture a letter nowadays. You write an email or a text message. It is hard to capture. How you were doing. I know they gave us emojis.
But I don't think they are all that helpful at times. So it is good to actually have someone who can communicate that. And he does. He sends Tychicus. Which side note. We don't really know.
There is no consensus on how to say this guy's name. I have called him Tychicus for a year. I listened to some audio bibles this week. They called him Tychicus. And I was like come on. And then I went back to the Greek.
And it literally reads as Tychicus. And I knew if I started this off by calling him Tychicus. You would not have recovered. You would not have been able to pay attention. So we will call him Tychicus.
They send Tychicus so that he might encourage them. And we do not know a whole lot about Tychicus. But here is what we can tell from this passage. He has been with Paul. He has been ministering to Paul while he is in prison. And Paul he needed that.
You see in his other letters that he cares. He wants people to come and minister to him. So he ministered to him. And he calls him a brother. He sees him as family. That this would have been a really hard thing to send him out.
Because he would be losing family for a season. And he sends him out knowing how valuable he is. Knowing that he is going to be an encouragement to this church. Because encouragement is what they needed as a church. The word for encouragement when it is read literally is call near. That is the idea.
That you be in the presence of someone and you be encouraged. And it is often translated as encouraged. Or comfort. Or built up. And the picture of what is happening here. Is like a fighter.
Who at the end of a round. Goes back to his corner. Whether you. This is boxing. I know some of you all like UFC. The picture is that he would be going back to his corner.
And what you do not see in boxing or in UFC. Is when they go back to their corner. They sit down by themselves. And they. You know. They guide themselves.
They drink some water. They take it to Owl. They wipe off some sweat. You do not see that. In boxing. What you see.
Is when you go back to your corner. That is where we get the phrase. I have people in my corner. Is you have a whole team that is waiting on you. And that team. As soon as you sit down on the stool.
Is going to start going to work. They are going to start mending wounds. They are going to take sticks. And stick them up your nose. And plug and cuts. They are going to start putting ointment on your face.
They are going to be putting ice on you. They are going to start mending wounds. And then what you see in boxing. Is you have the coach come in. And he starts coaching them up. He starts saying bro.
You got to watch out for his right hooks. He has been tearing you up. All round. With those kind of punches. You got to put up a defense. You got to change your strategy here.
So once they mend them. And they start coaching them up. Then they start building them up. You see that. Man. You are going to get this.
We are going to go in for another round. You are going to get it. You are going to get your licks in. You are going to come back. We are going to do this again. And we are going to finish this fight.
And the bell rings. And they send them back out. And that is what we get to be as the church. That as we fight sin. As we battle against this world. And the cosmic powers of this present darkness.
Over Satan. As we battle and go to work. We get to come back to our corner. You get sometimes to stagger back into your corner. And you have people in your community group. Who are there to mend wounds with the gospel.
Who are there to coach you up. Who are there to tell you. You got to watch out for right hooks. You got to watch out for what you click on the internet. You got to be mindful of the bitterness that is stirring up within you. And they coach you up.
And they start building you up in Christ. To send you back out. That is encouragement. That is the encouragement that Tychicus would have done. That is why we as a church say. That we give good news before good advice.
Because when you come in staggering into group. And often times this is me. I come staggering into group. I want someone to build me up and remind me who I am. That I am a son of the king. When you come stumbling in after a rough week.
I will remind you that you are a daughter. That you have been adopted in this family. And that when Jesus sees you. He does not see your sin. Or your suffering. Or your pain.
He sees the finished work of Christ. I want to remind you that you are part of a church family. I want to remind you that you did not save you. Some of you are struggling every week. Because you still think I have got to earn God's favor. I got to clean myself up.
And you are going to come in. I am going to say no. It wasn't you that saved you. It was Christ that saved you. You might come in weak. And just struggling.
And I am going to look at you and say no. Do you realize you have the God of the universe. The God who formed everything out of nothing. Is living inside of you. The Holy Spirit is working through you. And he is not going to let you go.
I am going to remind you how this thing ends. That at the end of it all. It is you and the presence of God forever. Because of what he has done for you. He is going to carry you home. And we are going to build you up.
We are going to encourage you in the gospel. And we are going to send you out for another round. And it might be every week. If you are going out to fight sin. And coming back and it is building you up. That is what it is going to look like every week.
Because that is what encouragement looks like in church family. And in our church family. There are people that are struggling physically with ailments. Struggling with sin. Struggling emotionally. And they are hurting.
And I get it. As a church family we walk together. And sometimes that gets tiring. Sometimes that gets hard bearing burdens. But I just want to clearly say something.
We see no place in the New Testament that says. That because it is hard we stop. That because it is hard we stop encouraging one another. There is wisdom and teaming up. And not getting burnt out. I hear that.
But we lean into. We are called to encourage. No matter if it is a season. Or if it is a lifetime. As a church family. We strive to encourage one another in the gospel.
There are others who are in here. That are struggling. And you haven't said anything. You have remained quiet. You haven't told people what you are going through. Because you feel like you need to bear this all alone.
I want you to hear this clearly. You are not meant to take the hits alone. That is not how this is supposed to be. You are not meant to take the hits alone. You have a corner of people in this church family. Who are ready to receive you.
Who are ready to build you up. You might be thinking. I don't have a corner. And that is why every week. We make a push.