Well, good morning, everyone.
I want to read a short passage, and then read another passage and some verses. But the first thing I want to read is Hebrews 10:19, because that is where we started. Remember, Kenny opened last week with Hebrews 10, right? So let us read Hebrews 10:19.
I think this passage might be the high point of the book of Hebrews. I kind of thought that, but I read a commentator who thought that too, so it must be right.
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Lord, we pray You to have mercy on us today and give us a word that would be encouraging in these last days. In Jesus’ name.
So this author says, “Therefore,” and then we are encouraged in Hebrews 10:25 not to forsake our own assembling together, but to encourage one another. Encouraging one another—that is what I wanted to talk about today.
You know, we need encouragement. We need to be encouragers, and we need to receive encouragement. So what I wanted to do was look at some encouragement from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. How did he encourage the Ephesians?
What about Ephesus? What about the Ephesians? Paul had a history with these saints. He may have spent as much as three years there. That is a long time, so he had a lot of time to know them. He knew the Ephesians.
Some commentators say that this book may actually have been a circular letter, intended to be delivered to several churches. Just change the name, you know—change the blank and write a different church in Asia Minor. But for me, that is a distinction without a difference, because as far as we know, this got to Ephesus. The copy we have went to Ephesus, so we are going to concentrate on Ephesus.
Another thing: Paul wrote this letter from prison. To me, that signifies how important it must be. If he was in prison and did not know whether he was going to get out, what did he want to say to the people he loved? Maybe this was his thought—maybe this was his last letter, his last will and testament—but he wanted these people to know this.
Isn’t that something? What would you be doing if you were in prison? More, what would you be doing?
“Lord, it’s not fair. What am I doing in here? I didn’t do anything.”
But Paul was in the heavenlies. Wonderful. This and Colossians are considered kind of the highest letters, and he wrote them from prison. Might we take encouragement from that?
Another thing for background is this: What was Ephesus like? You ever think about what Ephesus was like? I never thought much about it. I think I heard Susan Williams come back and talk about Papua New Guinea and these little villages, and I thought it was that kind of place.
But it was not there anymore—there are ruins, yes. It was a major city in Asia Minor, close to where Turkey is today. It was a major commercial city: trade routes, a port, a huge port. And it was full of idol worship and evil. It was a big city.
Let me read what I got out of a commentary, if it helps any:
Ephesus, the most important city in the Roman province of Asia, was on the west coast of what is now Asiatic Turkey. It was situated at the mouth of a river, between mountain ranges and the sea.
A magnificent road, seventy feet wide and lined with columns, ran through the city to the fine harbor, which served both as a great export center and as the end of the Asiatic caravan route, and also as a natural landing point from Rome.
The main part of the city, with its theater, baths, libraries, marble-paved streets, and other buildings, was between the river and the mountain; but the temple for which it was famed was some distance away. This site was originally sacred to the worship of an ancient fertility goddess, and then to that of Artemis, or Diana.
So it was evil. Do not read about those things if you do not want to get grossed out—but Artemis and Diana. The religious as well as commercial eminence of the city increased under Roman rule. The emperor cult was not neglected at Ephesus, and temples were built to Claudius, Hadrian, and Severus.
So this was a tough, busy, evil place. What does that remind you of today? You are supposed to say the USA first, and then Richmond.
You know why Richmond is here? Why did it end up in this spot? Geographically, it was a place where all the crops and everything ended up here, but it was on the fall line. It was hard to get crops further.
Gallego Mills down in Shockoe Bottom brought tons of flour here. They ground tons of wheat into flour and sent it on out through the canal and everything. This is pretty similar. Now it is a great central place because of the interstate. So we could say this is Richmond.
So what do we do? What can we learn from what Paul said to the Ephesians? In the midst of big business, we do not want to lose our heavenly perspective. We do not want to lose sight of the fact that we are Christians in the world and not of the world.
Heaven is our home. Christ is our life. The enemy has been defeated. And the Lord wants us to live our lives in the good of all that.
Paul was calling the saints to remember who they were and to consider how they were going to spend their lives—how they were going to invest the lives they had.
I debated whether or not to say this, but I am going to say a few things about my life.
A couple of months ago, I was visiting with Jeremiah Settle, and he had all these questions. “Now, you were in the Navy, right? Where were you in the Navy?” He wanted to know my history. I thought that was pretty interesting for a young person.
Then Sharon helped a friend clean out her parents’ house after her parents had to give up housekeeping. There was quite a bit of stuff in that house—a lot of stuff. She came home one night and said, “We are going to clean out our attic right now,” or almost like that. “I can leave anything else; our kids are not going to have to clean this out.”
So they are not going to have to clean it out, because there is nothing in it. It is all gone. She has not seen the attic of the garage, and I do not want her to go up there.
A few things came to mind in my life as I was thinking about this. The first one that came to mind was high school. I was, like probably everybody, very active in high school—studying hard so I could get into college and get a good job. That was our motivation. I was playing sports and was outside, thinking maybe I could get a scholarship for college. I was pretty consumed with all that.
Not too many years ago, we went back to Palatine, Illinois. We drove down Wood Street, and I said, “Huh. Where is the high school?” It was gone. It was a big field. They gave the high school to the park district. They left the gymnasium and auditorium, where I used to sleep during study hall and get thrown out, but that was it. The school was gone.
Then I went to the track behind the school and said, “Oh, they got a new track out here.” That track was gone. I walked around the track, and they had a new oak tree there. It had a plaque on it. I went over to that plaque, and it said, “In honor of Coach Alan Eck.”
He was my favorite coach. He really taught me a lot. That is what is left. Coach Eck got a plaque and an oak tree.
Do not waste your lives on other things. They are fleeting.
Then I went to the University of Illinois. I had gone through a couple of curriculums and ended up in the business school. They asked, “What major do you want to be?” I said, “I do not know what kind of majors you have.” Everybody told me, “Accounting. If you get accounting, you can get a job.” So I said, “Okay, I will take that.”
But you know what? I came to the end of myself in college. I came to the conclusion of all that goodness. I was going to get my degree and get the CPA certificate, and I was crushed. But God saved me in the midst of that. I came to the end of my dream, and God saved me.
Then I went in the Navy. This is what Jeremiah wanted to know. I called the draft board and said, “What is going to happen when I graduate?” They had these ladies there—I do not know how little or old they were—but I said, “What is going to happen when I get my college degree?”
She said, “Well, sonny, we are going to send you a notification to come on down for a physical.” I said, “Okay, then.” So that is when I went looking for the Navy. Vietnam was going on, and we avoided Vietnam.
My last duty station in the Navy was on the pre-commissioning crew of a nuclear-powered, guided-missile frigate—a light cruiser. My dermatologist had a plaque in his office with the same ship on it. I said, “Well, I was there then.” It turned out that he came in right after me on that ship.
That got me to go home and look up my ship and see where it was today. I shaved with it this morning.
I mean, really. I said, “This was the leading ship in the whole Navy,” and they scrapped it.
Then in my career, I worked as a financial officer for a big company. By the grace of God, I got out of it. A lot of people think I retired, but I just quit, because I could afford to and it was going to kill me. Big companies try to kill you. Jenny told us about that—the big hospital tries to kill you.
It was a very demanding time, and four years after I left the company, what happened? It went bankrupt. Gone. Gone.
My high school is gone. My ship is gone. My company is gone.
Do not invest in worldly things. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
That is not to say we should not work. We should definitely have something productive to do. Paul and Priscilla and Aquila—what did they do? They made tents. They needed some money. They did not write letters to everybody they knew and talk about their mission trip for the summer. They made tents. They had a real skill.
So, young people, you need to make tents. And we need not to be consumed by the world.
I did have a thought about the younger generation. If you read a history of somebody like me, you might say, “I am not going to do that. No way am I getting suckered into that.” Well, that is okay. I agree with you. But you need to make tents.
You also need to be very careful that, “I am not going to be my parents’ kid,” does not flow over into your spiritual life. Do not let millennial attitudes flow into the church and your spiritual life. That is not going to change. That is eternal. What I have been talking about is temporal.
Invest your lives in spiritual things. Do not reject your parents’ faith. Reject the way they spent their lives if you want to, but do not reject your parents’ faith.
Jim has talked numerous times about being Jesus people. The people in our generation, I believe, really got saved—captured, caught. So do not get uncaught. Do not let yourself not get caught.
The three things I want to talk about out of Ephesians are these:
This is number one: called. We were born into this world in a fallen state, lost and without hope. But praise God, we have been saved. We spent our whole morning talking about such a great salvation here at the table.
Ephesians 1:7 says:
In Him we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of His grace.
Born again. Redemption through His blood. Do not take it for granted. It is a great work. We say it is very basic—and it is basic—but it is super powerful. Be careful that we do not let condemnation from our sins weigh on us. We need to confess our sins, keep short accounts, and take the blood quickly under those sins.
The second thing in our calling is that we have been made alive in Christ. Ephesians 2:1-8 says:
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
But God. How many people hear me say, “But God”? I cannot get away from it. But God, being rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ. We have hope. We had no hope. It is awful, but we have been made alive.
We need to know that we have been set free from death, from that spirit of death, and live our lives by the life of Christ.
Paul says in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;
and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
We have been called to a different life, a life on a different plane. That is why Paul starts this book talking about the Spirit, the heavenly places, and living in the heavenlies.
Another point is that Paul tells them they have been called to adoption as sons. We have been called. The calling on our lives is sonship.
Jeffrey has been talking about it, and different ones have been talking about it: we have been called to maturity in Christ, to grow into full sons. Ephesians 1:5 says:
He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself,
according to the kind intention of His will.
Adoption means mature sons—really, the placing of sons. Not just adopted, but adopted as full-grown sons to be employed by God in His purpose, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times: the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth.
We have been called to be joint heirs with Jesus and part of His testimony on this earth, to take up responsibility in the summing up of all things in Christ. Sonship.
How does Paul pray for the Ephesians? I think this is a wonderful passage. Ephesians 1:15-23 says that the Father of glory would give to them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
He prayed that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened, so that they might know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
We have been saved from death. We have been saved from hell. But we have been saved for a purpose, you know? We need to see the fullness of God’s calling on our lives.
At the end of that passage, in Ephesians 1:22-23, he says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Sons—full-grown sons—are to be active parts in this church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. What a great calling. We have a great calling.
After the first three chapters, Paul moves into Ephesians 4 and starts talking about walking.
He has talked about all this heavenly calling, that they would be strengthened by His Spirit in the inward man. Then he says in Ephesians 4:1-6:
Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,
being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a worthy manner. The first thing I think of in this passage is that we are not to be born again, saved, and then stop dead in our tracks. We are to walk. We are to keep walking, keep moving spiritually, and walk with purpose.
How many people travel much on airplanes? How many people often have to go through O’Hare? Between Terminal B and C, what do you do? You go through the tunnel. It has a moving walkway and those crazy lights pushing you forward. What does that little recording say?
“Keep walking. Keep walking.”
If they say it once, they say it fifteen times in that little stretch: “Keep walking. Keep walking.” I think the Lord would say to us today, “Keep walking with purpose.”
Sometimes, as an assembly, we have been criticized for emphasizing the body of Christ—the testimony of Jesus. That is okay. We can bear that criticism. But it is a key part of Paul’s message in Ephesians and Colossians.
Ephesians 1:22-23 says:
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
That is a great calling. That is huge. We are called to be part of that.
Ephesians 2:19-22 says:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,
but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,
having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone,
in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
The body of Christ—the church, the bride—is the dwelling of God in the Spirit. Quite something. If He is the cornerstone, what are we? Stones. What kind of stones? Living stones.
The Christ life in us is given to us so that we might be part of building up His body and His testimony.
Ephesians 3:10-11 says:
So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church
to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose
which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This testimony of the church—the body of Christ, the bride of Christ—is supposed to be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Our meeting together around the Lord and this table is a testimony to those in the heavenly places. Our being together to break the Word on Friday night is a testimony. Our praying together on Wednesday night is a testimony to those in heavenly places.
Ephesians 4:15-16 says:
We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,
according to the proper working of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
What can we see from these passages? There is something in God’s heart for a practical expression, a testimony, a living spiritual instrumentality—as Sparks would say—of Jesus Christ through His church. He has gone, but we are here, and we are to express Christ.
Chapters 4 and 5 have many practical things: do this, do that, do this. If we try to go through all those passages and do all those things in ourselves, we are going to drive ourselves crazy. But what we are called to do is deny ourselves, take up the cross, and live by the life of Christ.
If we live by the life of Christ, the manifestation of the Christ life in His people will come to expression.
How do we live among the assembly? How do we live in the church? Ephesians 3:14-16 says:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.
We are supposed to live not in our natural strength, but in the Christ life in us. We build the body when we see something of His will with the eyes of our hearts. We also need to humble ourselves.
Ephesians 4:1-3 says:
Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing tolerance for one another in love,
being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Our walking in a worthy manner starts with humility and gentleness, with patience and tolerance. It is so easy to get frustrated with one another. I know none of you ever get frustrated with me. Jerry just laughed.
But we are one. We need to acknowledge that oneness and not get frustrated with each other. Each one has been purchased by the blood. We are blood-bought saints, and we need to share the life of Christ. Find the Christ in each other, not our differences.
Taking a humble place, loving one another, and caring for one another will bring forth the fruit God speaks of in Ephesians 4:13-16:
Until we all attain to the unity of the faith,
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a mature man,
to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
From whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,
according to the proper working of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
We move forward from maintaining the unity of the Spirit until we come to the unity of the faith. We are one in Christ. We need to know each other after the Spirit and take care of each other.
Keep walking. He has risen, exalted on high, but He has left us to be His body on this earth until He returns. It is a great high calling. Let us not forget our great calling.
Finally, Paul says in Ephesians 6:10-13:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God,
so that you will be able to resist in the evil day,
and having done everything, to stand firm.
Interesting. Paul is preparing to close. I often read something like that and think, “Oh yeah, postscript—one more thing.” No. This is not a postscript.
I remember from an English class—or it might have been from my father—this instruction: “Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell them, and then tell them what you told them.” In persuasive argument, they always said, “Leave your best argument to last so people will remember it.”
I do not think this is a great big wild fight against the enemy, coming out swinging our swords. It says, “Stand.” This is a defensive battle. We need to stand in the good of God’s will and not listen to the lies.
If we were to go through this book and these wonderful arguments Paul has given us, no wonder the enemy would be stirred up. If it is God’s will that He have a living testimony of Jesus Christ on this earth, we can expect to be assaulted and drawn away.
God’s will is to build up, strengthen, and encourage. The enemy’s assault is to destroy, divide, and break apart what God wants to build up. So we need encouragement to know that we are in a spiritual battle. The enemy wants to divide us and take us out.
We need to be clear that God wants to build up His people in His testimony. It seems that one of the biggest things that happens is that we get our eyes off the Lord’s calling and His purpose. If we are consumed with other things and our attention is on other things, we will naturally be taken out of the race. We will throw in the towel.
I wonder if this is not why Paul called all the saints there to remember their calling—what they were called to.
What is the first church spoken to in Revelation? Ephesus. The first church He spoke to was Ephesus. What did He have against them? They had been good people. They were doing all the right things. What was His complaint? I do not think it was a complaint; I think it was, “Wake up.” They had left their first love.
I am just wondering out loud: if the crush of this world, the huge demands put upon us from this world system, and our lust and longing for more and better stuff do not eat into our first love.
This world is bound to divide us and take our hearts—to take the guts out of it. So just think about it.
What does Paul say in this passage? Be strong in the Lord. We need spiritual strength. We need to know Christ in us. We need to be strong in the Lord.
I was praying with Brother Kong one time, and I needed prayer. He was not wild or anything, but he went like this, sitting in his chair:
“Lord, we just stand in that. We believe You are able for this, and we stand.”
Stand. Having done all, stand and withstand.
Another thing he talks about is standing against the schemes of the devil. The schemes of the devil are so subtle. What did the devil say to Eve?
“Indeed, hath God said?”
“Did God say that? Did John say that to you? He must not love you.” Whispering, you know?
We need to be careful that we do not fall into the schemes of the devil. There are some great words alternatively translated as “schemes”: wiles, stratagems, artifice, guile.
What is a wile? Sneaky, right? Somebody comes in at five o’clock, when you are washing your coffee cup out so it will be ready in the morning, and says, “I hate to ask you this, John, but can you stay another two hours and just finish this project for me?”
If that is on Wednesday night, you have to think about it. How many people get a headache on Wednesday night? How many people get extra work on Wednesdays and say, “Oh man, I am exhausted”? It is natural, but let us be careful.
Artifice looks like something that is really important, but it really is not. Fake. Guile. We need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.
Things may seem good, reasonable, and justifiable, but they could break our fellowship with the Lord, separate us from the saints, and hinder our participation in His body. We need to stop and think about it.
Our warfare is largely defensive. It is standing. God has finished. He has saved me. My sins have been forgiven. I am not going to listen to it anymore. Just turn it off, you know?
I trust the Lord. He is able. God is able. I am in this by His will, for His doing, for His time. Do not listen to all the other stuff. We need wisdom—wise as serpents and gentle as doves—and this warfare is defensive.
Remember, the enemy is out to divide us and destroy God’s work, and he will go to any extreme ends. I am not talking about demons on doorknobs. In our youth, there was a lot of teaching that demons were everything—all the bad things in your life, demons everywhere, and you needed to knock them out. That is not right.
I am talking about the enemy’s desire to separate us.
Finally—now this is my finally—given that we are together in this battle, Paul gives us an exhortation in Ephesians 6:18:
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit,
and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
For the brothers and sisters, pray for one another. If you know somebody is not doing well, how many times have you gone to someone and said, “Jerry, you are not doing well. Straighten up”? Is that doing good? Maybe. But largely, it is: pray for one another.
Humble ourselves and pray for one another, that we might all come through together in God’s will and in His way.
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit,
and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
Paul wrote this letter we call Ephesians to a church—or churches—with which he was very familiar. I believe he meant to encourage them as they lived in the middle of an evil worldly environment.
Some who were here years ago may remember DeVern Fromke. He was an early one who ministered with Brother Kong and Sparks at the Wabana conferences. At one conference, I think he said this most of the time:
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
Of course, the main thing is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. By giving our lives to Him and walking with Him, we are going to be involved in building up the body of Christ.
We need to see our heavenly calling. We were called and meant to live in the good of a heavenly calling. We are encouraged to walk a walk of faith in the Spirit, working out that calling in the context of the local assembly and becoming sons.
Finally, we are encouraged to be wise concerning the warfare that is over our calling.
Lord, we thank You for this time to be together. We thank You for this time at Your table that was so encouraging and strengthening. We say, “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.” We say, “You are alive, and this is Your house, Your assembly.”
We pray that You Yourself would come to have first place in everything. We want to give ourselves to You and live our lives for You. Seek first the kingdom of God.
We pray for a real dawning on our hearts. Like the preacher said, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” We pray that we would not invest our lives in the things of this world and be caught by this system, but that we would be caught with You unto eternity.
In Jesus’ name.