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We are finishing up a series together in the book of Ephesians, and Ephesians has been a wonderful book for us. And so what I’m going to do is kind of recap and put a nice end cap to the study that we’ve gone through in the series together. And then starting next week, we’re going to begin a series called Six Hours With Jesus, and we’re going to look at the six hours of which Christ spent with his disciples, uh, on this earth and the the impactful things he taught them. You can think when you’re coming to the end of your life, when you realize you’ve only got so many more hours to live those last few hours, you’re going to get the most that you can out of the life that you have and the time that you’ve been given. And I think Jesus says some very significant things for us as followers of him. And so we’re going to look at the last six hours of Christ’s life together through the Easter season. And I just want to encourage you as a church to during Easter, we have a tradition here as a family. We after church, we head over to Wines Park, and we throw eggs all over the park for our kids and we make hot dogs to go for everyone. You can stay as long as you want. You can leave right after your kids are done looking for eggs or stick around in fellowship.
Usually we have people there for a couple hours. Um, just just so you know, if you are interested in inviting family members to church on Easter, it’s a great opportunity to do that. We have over 1,000 eggs in Wines Park, and there’s there’s money and candy inside of that. So that is a wonderful temptation even for parents to get involved and just beat your kids to the eggs. Right now there’s there’s an age limit. Parents. I know some of you are kids at hearts, but you can’t do it. All right. And so that’s coming up on Easter for us. And so feel free to to invite. I know some people don’t like the word Easter, so use Resurrection Sunday if that makes you feel better. All right. The book of Ephesians, what it means to us, believe this or not, this morning I’m going to start with the book of Genesis. All right. And if you got if you’ve been here for any amount of time, you know, I route everything back to Genesis. Genesis, the first three chapters of Genesis, they’re my favorite in the Old Testament. And Ephesians, the book of Ephesians is my favorite in the New Testament. It’s like, this is like pastoral delight for me today to talk about both of these. But there’s a reason I want to talk about Genesis, because we’re going to talk about the entire Bible. I’m just kidding. I’m not going to do that to you.
Sit down. 66 books ready? Um, Genesis sets the tone. Through which all of the Bible communicates to us. And and if you see it communicated in Genesis, it you can look for it in the rest of Scripture. And if you’re seeing something in the New Testament that’s not really communicated in in Genesis, probability is maybe you’re erring in some of your theology because Genesis really sets the tone for what God’s focus is in creating us as human beings. And in chapter two of Genesis, he starts off explaining his purpose for man to Adam can imagine at this point in Scripture, Adam is the only human being on earth. Okay? All of a sudden he’s he’s there and he’s looking around and he’s just wondering, okay, now what? God, here. You’ve made me. Now, what in the world is it I’m supposed to do? Get some clothes on? I don’t know what. What do you want me to do? God. And God speaks to him in Genesis chapter two and verse 15, he says this. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden. I like this to work it. That’s how you got to say it and take care of it right? This will help some of you guys if if you men feel like you’re, uh, messy human beings sometimes. Interesting thing about the way God created the man and the woman.
He created man outside of the garden in the dirty, dirty world. And then put him in the garden. Right? And so and so when you come home, guys, and maybe your spouse is getting on to you for being a little messy, just be like, girl, I’m working it. You know, I wasn’t made for the garden. I was made to roam the wild and the free. You know God put me in that garden. That’s not where I started this mess. This is me. You know it’s biblical, right? That’s bad theology. Don’t do that. That’s going to start a marital fight. Um. Or was I on that? But. But God tells God. God speaks to Adam in the middle of this, and and he he tells him to work it and to care, care of it. And the interesting thing about these verses, when you when you begin to study them in the in the original language they’re written in the Hebrew text, is the way that God describes man’s duty to Adam. Is. It really communicated well for us when it translates into English and the word work, work it. Some translations have different ways of phrasing this, but the word work, it comes from a Levitical priesthood statement, and it’s the Old Testament word, an Old Testament word for worship. And what God is saying to Adam is, Adam, I’m I’m putting you in this world to care for this world. And the way that you care for this world is a symbol of your love and worship towards me.
And then after he tells Adam to worship him by working this earth, he then tells him to take care of it. And I love the beauty of the word. Take care of it, because work at it is the Levitical priesthood, word of worship. But the word take care of it is a word of shepherding. It’s really where the New Testament gets the word for pastor, and it carries this idea that a shepherd is primary duty is to tend and protect and take care of the flock. And this word actually derives from a root word from the root word of this derives from another word which the the Hebrew people would use for thorns. And the idea was when the shepherd would go to protect his flock, and they were out in the middle of the open. In the night, the shepherd would gather thorns throughout the valley, and he would. He would circle around the sheep in order to protect them from any danger that might come in this thorn fortress of protection around them. And God’s called us to this responsibility. God’s desires for you to love and worship him. And the greatest way we demonstrate that is through caring, through the things for which God has given us. And as we care for it, we’re also seeking to protect it. To shepherd over it and to look after its needs.
And from the beginning of Genesis, God has identified for us his purpose for man. And we know as Jesus comes on the scene, he tells us the greatest two commandments love the Lord your God and and to love others. And when God identifies for us the primary way through which we work this world is through our relationships. When he told Adam and Eve in the beginning that you’re to be fruitful and multiply and subdue the world, he’s telling Adam and Eve, listen, be fruitful and and create family and let your family be a blessing to this world and all of you together, collectively. Work it right and care for it. It’s God’s goal for us. You read throughout all of Scripture, and I believe God’s driving to that point through every book in which he communicates. To know and love God more and to demonstrate that love by the way we respond to this world for Him and His glory and goodness. And we call that worship. It’s not just about coming on Sunday and singing a song with all of our hearts, but it’s about walking out the door and doing for the sake of Christ in this world. And we worship. And the reason I love the book of Ephesians for us today is because I feel like the context of what the book of Ephesians is about is it takes this verse and it just expands on it for us today as people and understanding.
What does it mean to really work it? How does that look for me today? And Paul wrote this book of Ephesians as an expansion of this, and I love what he said in just the very first verse. We saw this together, the basis or the audience through which Paul is gearing this book. He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. You think about. The responsibility that God has placed on us. To see his work conducted in this world. And I want to say when I say responsibility, it’s a very light burden to bear because we simply follow him and he provides the strength and the source. He produces the fruit. We don’t work to produce the fruit. God produces the fruit. We’re just faithful to him. But a look at this verse and I consider our world today. Got what you’ve called us to do. And to worship you. And to caring for this world. You think even just the consideration of America in the last few decades? We talked to most people about the present situation of our country. The tendency is to speak more negatively than positively. You’re describe the condition of our country from where it was to where it is today. You would probably describe it in terms that is losing its identity and who God is as a country that was founded by God, no longer seeking after his face.
How do we even begin to do that? Sometimes even as a pastor, you want to as just a follower of Jesus, even you just want to be the Superman of the world and throw it all up on your shoulders and just be the next Billy Graham, right? See, all these people come to know the Lord and the world just praising and and how in the world are we ever going to do that in American society today? I think Paul points to us in this chapter in verse one, just the effects that we have on our culture through one simple idea is that we as people, to those who are at Ephesus, he says in the very last lines, who are faithful, faithful in Christ Jesus. You think about the early church and everything that they had in opposition to them? I mean, at the time Paul’s writing this letter, he’s writing this, for Pete’s sake. He’s in jail. And there is sacrifice to be made for Christ. And and people are beginning to be persecuted because of their faith in Jesus. And pretty soon Paul’s going to have his head cut off by Nero, and Christians are going to go to the Roman Coliseums and lose their lives for the sake of Christ. Coining the term for us, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The the church grew on their sacrifice.
And and if we want to have that sort of impact in our society, we may not all be Billy Graham. But the one thing that Paul recognizes for us is what God calls us to do, and that is simply just be faithful. God doesn’t call you to take the weight of the world on your shoulders. He just calls you to be faithful. You read the calling of Matthew 2819? Go on to the world and make disciples. And you then consider what that looks like as we gather on Sundays. I know for some of us as as mothers with children, just to get to church on Sunday and make it through the week is a miracle, right? Or if you’re working double jobs and just to find time to gather with God’s church and praise his name and encourage the Body of Christ, it becomes an adverse and an opposition for your life. Can I tell you as an encouragement? To parents and followers of Jesus. God doesn’t call everyone to be a Billy Graham. God doesn’t call people to be Superman. He calls us just to be faithful. You ever think about the importance of your role as a parent? Mom or dad? You. You may not be the next great Saint Patrick of Ireland. Well in your home. Your children could be. How important it is to be faithful. And if it’s not your children, what if your impact on your child is such that your child impacts someone else and that person becomes the next Saint Patrick of Ireland? Do you see the significance of just being faithful? Could think we sing be thou my vision.
The church has sung it for over 100 years, and the English language now. And the person that wrote the poem in the eighth century had no idea that there would even be an American society existing, worshiping God. But what he was was just faithful. God, this is your world. The Lord. I choose to worship you in this. God, I want to love you by responding and loving this world for your sake. And protecting it from the things that desire to harm it, that it may know you as I know you. And Paul is looking at a society today in the church of Ephesus. In a town that when you read in acts 19, Paul walks into the city and all he had was 12 people in a town of 250,000. Predominantly slaves coming to know the Lord. God, how are we even going to change the city with this? And we look at it and say that all they had was 12 people. And God looks at it and says, I have 12 people. I mean, Jesus on the earth. All he used was 12 people. And the world is turned upside down. Because. They’re driven to the idea of being faithful. From the beginning. God, you’ve called me to worship.
And together we’ve looked through this book of Ephesians. We’ve broken it down into two sections for us. Chapter one to to three. God identifies who we are in light of who he is. For the first three chapters, all Paul wants to know you to know is your position in him. What does it look like to be in Christ? Understand in chapter one your position before the King, and then he gets to verse 15 and he just prays for us. He says that you may know him. And the idea is this the more that you know God, the more you desire to bear the fruit of the Lord in your life. Christianity isn’t a solution of morality. It isn’t. We do bad. So now let’s come to church so we can do good. It’s it’s we’ve sinned. We come to God and God transforms our heart. We know him and he transforms our lives to mirror him in this world. It’s not by our working, but it’s by his. And so Paul prays for us and he brings up this interesting thought in chapter two. He says, we were dead in our sins. When we consider the the holiness of God and trying to live up to the standard, we’re we’re incapable, so incapable that the Bible describes us as literally dead before God’s presence. Then we get the famous verse of Ephesians two eight. For by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God. God is lavish and an extraordinary love in your life that has brought you back to life through faith in Christ because of what he’s done bearing your sins on the cross. And the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It’s not about what you do. It’s about what he’s done. And we as people respond in praise to the God who shown infinite love to those on this earth. And he tells us at the end of chapter two that what God desires then is to build a community. He says in verse three, this community was a mystery in the Old Testament, but today we see it as the church, and God has built this community together for him, that we’re pursuing the love of God in that. And he gets to chapter four and he says, this church, be diligent to love one another. And the idea is this to love each other doesn’t come naturally. People make it hard to love. But Paul says to work, to labor, to sweat. That’s literally what it means to diligently unite and love each other, because the community that God desires to work through is here. And so work to achieve that, that we may worship the Lord together. In chapter five he tells us to make the most of our time. He, he. He then goes on to describe the areas of our lives.
He described the church in chapter four. He then describes marriage in chapter five. He says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church sacrificially giving to her. And he even says to the men, as you love your wives in such a way she becomes more lovely, and the beauty of the love that she lavish upon her the same way. Jesus, we love him because he first loved us. And wives. Respect your husband. With the respect that allows him to lead, knowing that the accountability of your marriage rests upon his shoulders. He is responsible for your family. And God is holding that weight upon him. The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter five that we honor and serve one another in that relationship. And as we think of the health of the marriage, it then relates to the health of the family. Marriage isn’t about the children, the marriage is about the marriage. But it’s the marriage is healthy. Then the marriage can work on the kids. And so in chapter six, he tells us about being godly parents. How to encourage and love and nurture kids to be that family that God describes in the Book of Genesis to be fruitful and multiplying and subduing it, doing it God’s way and not our way. And then he talks about being employers and employees. How to work in that area. I love it. God talks about the four areas of our lives and applying Genesis chapter two.
Church and work, and marriage and family. And in case in case that didn’t touch any of your lives, you get to chapter six and verse ten and he says this just put on the whole armor of God. Put it all on. It’s God’s power. God’s words. God’s faith. God’s prayer. All of these things God has given you to make an impact in this world. Do that for the sake of Christ. And worship. God may we worship. And so Paul tells us as he wrote this book to the book of Ephesians, what kind of effect would this even have if, as we’ve allowed this word to impact our lives? Paul, as we look at this letter and you’re communicating to us the worship that we should have for God, what would this look like if we did this? I mean, what could you do with the city of Ephesus if we did this? And then he tells us in chapter 19 and verse ten of the Bible in Acts it says, all who lived in Asia, this is talking about the church of Ephesus. What they did, all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. If we take one simple thought. God has called us to be faithful, understanding these. He’s put us in this world to worship him, to to work it, and to and to care for it. If we’re just faithful to that.
The city of Ephesus not not just took over the city. Took over all of Asia. Asia at the time wasn’t the size that we know Asia today. It’s an entire continent today. But during the time that Paul wrote this letter, it was the size of Turkey. And when you read the book of Revelation, we said this before, but when you read the book of Revelation, it’s written to the seven churches. Do you know, all seven churches in the book of Revelation are found in the country of Turkey. As Paul writes this letter to the book of Ephesians, he also writes another letter to to the Colossians. You know, Paul never even went to that city. The Ephesians went to the town and started that church because of their love for Christ. And you think, God, the weight of this world, it seems so overwhelming. And the sin in this world and the effects of our country and the things that are happening. Lord, there is just no way I can wear that cape. I am not Superman. I am not Billy Graham. I am not Saint Patrick. Just to get here on Sunday. It’s an obstacle for me. God, how could you even use that? And Paul says. Guys. Just be faithful. There are seasons of your life where you find yourself more enamored in certain areas and others. But may you press to be faithful. If you desire to see your family change for the sake of Christ, don’t.
Don’t do it by your own power. Or your spouse changed. Don’t. Don’t do it by your own influence. Just be faithful. We put on the armor of God. And pray. And read the Word of God and use it to impact the hearts of the people you encounter. Just be faithful. It means when you walk out this door, you don’t have to encounter every person in the world and just spill. Jesus. You just. Just be faithful. Wherever God has put you in this world and whatever impact you’re making, whether it’s a busy mom at home or working diligently at a job in that situation. Be faithful. And the results are not just a city that’s changed for the Lord. It’s an entire region for the sake of Christ. It becomes infectious. And Paul ends this book with some thoughts for us. I’m going to talk about this guy in just a minute. I feel I feel bad for him when I read his name Tychicus. I feel like if he had trouble pronunciation as a kid, he just spit all over. My name is, you know, someone stuttered or something and he got an extra cuss on the end. So Tychicus Paul writes at the end, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord will tell you everything. I should probably say if anyone’s name Tichicus. I’m sorry. So that you also may know how I am and what I’m doing.
I’m sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that we may encourage you. Peace to the brothers and sisters in love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. I’m just going to read these last two verses together. There’s there’s just four words. I want to create just some ideas in our mind. And what Paul’s talking about here. He just all he does is in closing this verse, we do this as a church. At the very end of our service, we say, grace and peace to you. You are dismissed. The Apostle Paul closes his his section in his letters the same way he talks about grace. He talks about peace. He talks about a couple other things. But Paul is firing just these biblical images and these words for us that are expressing an entire theology. It’s important to gather this proper perspective on these words in which Paul is using for us today. He says in verse 23, peace to the brothers and sisters. We’ll talk about peace and love with faith. We’ll talk about love and faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. Think about Paul closing this letter. He’s finishing these words written to people who are about to sacrifice for the sake of the Lord, who have given up everything to pursue Jesus.
When Paul last left Ephesus, there was a massive riot that happened within that town. He can’t help but wonder about the condition of the believers he knows in these pages. He’s just called them to certain sacrifices of maybe even their lives. And so he ends this letter. And knowing that our responsibility is to worship through these these word images that just capture within our mind one final time this great God whom we serve. And the first that Paul mentions is the idea of peace. And the thought for us as believers is that just because you come to Jesus, peace isn’t everywhere. In fact, when we talk about biblical direction from Christ, when he described to us what it would mean to come to him, he says, take up your cross and follow me. I’ll put mother against daughter and father against son and brother against brother and sister against sister. Following Jesus isn’t easy. It more than anything, what it’s not producing is peace. And so when Paul talks about peace, he’s not talking about peace in every area of our lives. What he’s talking about, most importantly, is the peace that we experience in our relationship with Christ. When you choose Christ. You have peace. I like when a happy Christian encounters the world, a joyful Christian encounters the world because the world looks at that and they just see you as delusional, right? Are you kidding me? What are you excited about? How is there peace and joy in your life? Do you not look at society today? Watch the local news that makes everyone a hypochondriac.
The world is falling apart. We should be running through the streets. There’s nothing to be happy about. As Christians, we talk about peace. We aren’t delusional. We are unrealistic in understanding what the world is about. God has already told us the world is sin, and sin falls apart at the end of sin is destruction. We know that. And when we talk about biblical peace, the reason that we can celebrate and the reason that we have joy is that as we look through the pain and the suffering of society, we know the one who takes the sorrow and takes the sin and brings out victory and joy and reconciles all wrong in our lives. There is hope. And in that hope. We experience peace. And Paul’s writing to the believers. And I love the first word that he chooses here, because when he considers everything that they’re about to give for the Lord and all that it could cost them, he reminds them, guys, this place isn’t your home. You serve the King who has already won. One day he’s coming back to claim his victory, and in your life all things will be made whole. And there is peace. And in that.
You can look at your problems and just say. And this too shall pass. Thanks to the king I serve. This is gone. And the Bible creates a beautiful picture. In revelation, as Jesus returns, he says, there will be no more pain and there will be no more sorrow and no more suffering. There is peace. For eternity. And Paul goes on and he reminds the believers of the the peace that they they should have in the Lord because of all that he has accomplished for them. And he reminds us in saying this word, peace, as we’ve seen throughout Scripture, this peace, it happens in our lives because not because of anything that we’ve done, but because of everything that Jesus has done. The Bible describes our position before God as separate. Sin. It tells us in Isaiah 59 and verse two, our sin has separated us from our God, but Jesus has become flesh. God became flesh, died for your sin. And everything that Jesus has done has brought you forth peace. It’s not about morality, it’s about Jesus. It’s not about attempting to strive to get near to God. God has already come near to you. Jesus even says in Matthew chapter seven and verse 21, talking to people who think morality is the solution. They come before Jesus and they say, Lord, Lord, do we not do all of these things in your name? Do we not cast out these demons? Do we not do wonderful things for your sake? And in verse 23, Jesus says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.
I never knew you. Meaning the reason for which Jesus came to establish peace in our lives as a sacrifice for our sins. There are individuals who go in this world striving to achieve morality to please God. And God says morality isn’t the solution. It can’t please me at all. If you want peace, you come to the cross. Come where I’ve sacrificed my life for your sins. And gave yourself over to me. And in the price that Jesus has paid and that sacrifice for us, we receive reconciliation and that reconciliation. We receive peace. The Bible goes on and describes it not just peace that God has given you, but think about this word picture. It’s also love. When we talk about biblical love, it is far more profound than any love we experience in this world from what the world calls love. Because when he talks about love in Romans five eight, God tells us that God demonstrates his love towards you. And while you were yet sinners, Christ loved you, saying while you were unlovable in your most ugly, sinful state, there is someone who still loves enough about you to even give his very life for you. Jesus loves you. And if you’re going to this world and just ask people, why do you think God should love you? You know, the common solution that people often give? Well, I go to church and I obey these certain amount of rules and I’m better than my neighbor.
God in a in a sense, should love me because I’ve made myself lovable. Look how lovely and lovable this loving thing has become. My mama said so right. And then when you take that thought to the Bible. The Bible does this, this unthinkable idea for the person who sees himself as so lovely, it strips you bare. It says all. Get this, all your righteous deeds in Isaiah 64 are filthy rags. No matter how good you think that you’re doing before God, it looks as if it’s filthy rags. Bible tells us in Romans 310 that there are none righteous, none that do good. In Jeremiah 17 nine, the heart is deceitful. Meaning when the Bible paints a picture of me apart from God and the loveliness that I think I possess, it is void because the description that God gives of me apart from him is. Ugly. And so you ask the question. Well, then why would God even love me? And then there I say. That’s the answer. That’s why Paul says love in this passage. Because when there’s no explainable reason in your life for a god to do anything, there’s nothing you’re going to do for God that he can’t do for himself. There’s nothing special about what you do for God. But God chose to love you anyway, and he chose to become flesh.
And he chose to come down to your level and express himself by just dying for your sin, that ugliness that you hate. And here’s the beauty of his love. So it gives us opportunity to be honest with who we are. To know that even in our sin. We can come before God. And he still loves. And we can just be honest with that. And say, Lord, look at this. What I’ve done apart from you. The Lord. I can come to you because I know the way you have received me. It is just love. It is love and you have given me hope. And in that love you have brought forth peace. And so Paul says in this next verse or the next phrase, he says love with faith that God has given us love with faith, just the ability to even place our conviction and our hope in him. That’s literally what the Greek text says is a conviction and truth that God has prodded your heart to trust in him, and to experience that love and peace and allow God to transform your life from the inside out, making you a new creature in him and experience a a joyful relationship in him. Not delusional, but but, but joyful because you know the hope that he brings. There is faith. That we would trust him along the way. As God sees fit. As we trust in him, he provides all that we need.
And the word for that, we paint the picture of all that God has done. Verse 24, he says this. Some grace to all. Disgrace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. Grace is a way of saying that God is an unparalleled giver that cannot be matched in anything in our lives. That and yet, despite our sin and through our sin, he desires to love us because he seeks to grow within you a new creation, responding to him and living a life of Genesis chapter two where we worship and protect. God desires to reach down to you. God is gracious because he is a a peacemaker and a a lover and a and a faith giver. He looks at a world in need and does what it takes to see that world come to know him. The word grace to us says, you can walk in this world and feel like a complete failure. You can feel like you screwed up everything. But God is so gracious that he forgives. He doesn’t see who you were in your sin, but he sees who you can become in light of Christ. God doesn’t care. He wants to make the past the past so he can see the saints of tomorrow being worked in your life. And so that grace becomes powerful in the way that it changes us and who we are in our identity, in him. And Paul gathers these last thoughts, these last pictures as believers for us as his finality and the fireworks show.
You know how it goes when you gather on the 4th of July and the fireworks go off. There they are. You’re kind of paying attention talking. There they are. But all of a sudden, lo and behold, the explosion takes place. Well, this is the end, right? And Paul saying to the believers, guys, this is the end, but think of these words. These are word pictures expressed in our lives that transforms us from the very nature of who we are as people, and faith and love and grace and peace. God has given you this to see a world changed. All of these things we experience because of Christ. What can I say? All of these words we looked at, we experienced best in Christ. You haven’t truly ever experienced peace until you’ve seen the reconciliation that Jesus can bring in your life. You’ve not really ever seen love as God describes love, because most of the love that we have displayed today is a love we have to earn and prove our worth. And that’s not biblical love. In Christ. Is that love? In Christ is that grace in Christ? As you place your faith, it’s far better than any faith you place on anything else, because this faith will never disappoint. It always comes through. These pictures of our lives become important for us as inspiration in pursuing Christ, as we desire to be faithful.
And so let me leave you with this thought. At the very beginning, I skipped my my man here. I guess that’s a guy’s name, right? Oh, he calls him a brother. Tychicus. Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant of the Lord Jesus will tell you every things that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know who we are or how we are, and that he may encourage you. I tell you, as a church, it’s had a wonderful blessing. This past week, I’m going to talk about Tychicus here and being around a bunch of tychicus. Um, we had our filled council for missionaries in the state of Utah through Biblical Ministries worldwide. And some of you guys know some of you don’t. But Stacy and I technically are considered missionaries here. We’re pastor, and when we walk out of the church, we become missionaries in certain positions. And we work with biblical ministries worldwide all over the world planting churches. And there’s a there’s a lot of churches here in the state. And we got to gather together this past week in Provo with a bunch of these churches that are getting ready to start and churches that are going, and churches that have been here for years, all of us asking the same question, God, how can we live out Genesis two in our lives and all of us serving like tychicus here, just faithful servants of the Lord, some of us in positions that have just struggling and fighting and some of us over joy with things God is doing.
But we’re just being faithful to what God has called us to do. I say that because I have my boss here today to you. I’ll introduce him a minute. I want to close and have you pray for us, if that’s okay. What a joy it is. To see people like Tychicus in this world. Faithful to the Lord. And you think what tichicus gift is without Tichicus? We don’t have the book of Ephesians. Tichicus took this letter from Paul and carried it to the church, that we could even have this letter today. You think about, wow, that’s a big deal. Do you know what Tichicus ministry was? He could walk, he walked. He changed the world through his life in Christ. By walking, I mean you think about God. I feel so insignificant. And the things that you do through me. God, what in the world are you even accomplishing by? By me? Just being faithful. Well, you look at Tichicus, man. He just walked. He went from jail to Ephesus. And here we are thousands of years later. Reading this word is encouragement to our lives. And the idea is this. When you walk away from the book of Ephesians, my hope is that you take it this week and just read it every day this week.
Like God, saturate your life with it. But when you walk away from this book of Ephesians, Paul’s plan is to equip you to go out into this world in whatever area of life that you’re in and see things happen for the sake of Christ. And you don’t have to look at this world like Superman. You just look at it like tichicus. I’m just going to be faithful. And I’m going to go out throughout my day and in this world loving you and just leaving it open. God, however you direct my life and when that opportunity comes, God, I just want to be faithful. And the results of that. God is overjoyed in a people who desire to worship and protect his earth in the. And the earth is blessed through an individual who loves the Lord so much that they just walked. I just handed off a letter. And through that. Bit by bit. The world has changed. I hope for us as a church. My prayer for us as a church. So we’re looking at moving into a bar and raising more money and all that God has. So we become people of the book of Ephesians, because our hope is that we become a church like the church of Ephesus, and seeing not just our town, but our region and our world for the sake of Christ and however overwhelming that may feel, just think God, let me be like Tychicus.