Five Departing Blessings (Ephesians 6:21-24)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Please turn over in your Bibles with me to the book of Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians chapter six, we are at the final sermon of almost a one year series through the book of Ephesians. Congratulations, most of you stayed awake for most of it. Ephesians chapter six, I pray that this has been a blessing to you as we've worked through Ephesians. Ephesians chapter six, and we'll be looking this morning at verses 21 through 24. Ephesians chapter 6 beginning at verse 21, you can find that on page 1042 of your Pew Bibles. Ephesians chapter 6 beginning at verse 21, hear now the words of our God.

But that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts. peace to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. Will you please join me in prayer? Lord, we thank you so much for this day. We pray, Father, that you would bless us now as we read your word. We pray that you might teach us to follow you, and to have our hearts encouraged by your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.

The book started, Ephesians chapter one, verse one, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And here now, the book ends, peace and grace. It started with grace and peace and it ends with peace and grace. And indeed, peace and grace, grace and peace has been everything that's been in the middle of this book. How God's grace has come to us and how we have peace with God and how then we get to have grace towards one another and peace with one another.

And so as we get into this last section here in the book of Ephesians, God has five blessings for you. five final departing blessings that the Lord gives to his saints in Ephesus and by his Holy Spirit applies to us. And so the first of those five blessings is be blessed by brotherly encouragement. Be blessed by brotherly encouragement. As we look at verse 21, we see, but that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister of the Lord, will make all things known to you whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts. God sends Tychicus to the Christians in Ephesus.

Now, you know who he is, right? I mean, he's mentioned like five or six times in the Bible. We all know, no, I didn't know who this dude was, right? We know of Paul. We might know of Timothy. We might know of Titus. We might know of Luke, right? Because all of them have books of the Bible named about them. But Tychicus is actually somebody who's one of Paul's close friends. Here he calls him the beloved brother. Who is this Tychicus? Well, we find out in Acts chapter 20 that he was a man from Asia Minor himself. We find out that Tychicus was one of Paul's close friends.

He was even going to send him to Crete to go and see Titus. We find that in Titus chapter 3. We know that Paul also sent him to the saints in Colossae to care for them in Colossians chapter 4. And even as Paul was the pastor of the church in Ephesus for two years, when he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3, he also sent who? He sent Tychicus. Tychicus was a faithful brother. a beloved brother, someone who Paul could trust, someone who Paul could send and give encouragement.

Now we have to ask ourselves, why does Paul have to send him though? Well, if you remember last week, we were exhorted to pray for one another. And Paul even said, pray for me as I minister the gospel, even though I'm an ambassador in chains. Well, that's great to pray in a general sense, but sometimes you might say, okay, we get it, Paul, we're supposed to pray for you, but what are we supposed to pray about? And so he sends his dispatch, he sends Tychicus to go and to minister to them, to go and to tell them exactly what's going on. And they might ask, Paul, how is your health? Are you holding up? We know that you've been in these dingy dungeons, are you okay? Paul, how is it when you're ministering to the Roman guards? Have they been treating you well?

Paul, what is it like to be shipwrecked at sea? How are we supposed to pray? We know that you prayed that God would remove this thorn in your side, this pain that you had, whatever it was, for three years. What was that pain, Paul? We want to pray more specifically for you. Is it true, Paul, is it true that Jewish people are believing? Is it true that there are other Gentile Christians like us who are believing? How are we supposed to pray for those churches? Well, Paul can't come there himself, so what does he do?

He sends a friend, a beloved brother and faithful servant. to share with them this news, to give them this. This is one of the things I'm really excited about when every month, well, COVID kind of stopped us, but just about every month we would have a missionary come and encourage us for what's going on in countries that we can't speak while we're online, for what's going on in places like Germany, for what's going on in places like South America. This is one of the beautiful blessings that we have to hear about when Zach and Beth Smith came in the summer and to encourage our hearts for what is the gospel, but also how are they going to take the gospel to South Sudan. And so we need our hearts encouraged. We want to know what's going on in the other parts of the country. Now Tychicus here is not just a beloved brother, but what does it also say about him?

Our translation says that he's a faithful minister. Now, the word there for minister is diakonos, and that's fine. If you were to call me a minister of the gospel, that kind of removes it away from what I really am. My job is a servant of the gospel. This is what Paul calls himself, a servant of the gospel. This is what ministers are called. The word minister comes from the word for service. We have five of you in the room right now who have an official title for that as deacons. But here it's more in a general sense. He is both a beloved brother and a faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

Paul sends Tychicus because he knows that he is faithful to Jesus Christ. He knows that he can send him. He knows that he can be an encouragement. He knows that he can deliver this letter and give it in its context and give it and apply it to the people's hearts so he might encourage them. Tychicus' job as he goes to bring this letter to the Ephesians is to encourage them, to inspire their hearts. That they might not just think that the kingdom is only about what's going on in Ephesus, but know that the kingdom is spreading all throughout the world.

To inspire them that, I'm telling you, when Paul was there and he was in chains and he was in jail, do you know what he did? He went before King Agrippa and he preached the gospel to King Agrippa. And he almost believed. He was going to give these amazing stories to encourage and inspire their hearts. That they might know that people in Rome, the heart of Rome, that seed of sensuality and sin, people are believing there. Even people of Caesar's own household.

Tychicus is going to encourage their hearts. We need our hearts encouraged, don't we? Man, we live in a culture filled with negativity and putting down, and it often seeps into our own lives and how we talk to one another. But how desperately do we need Tychicus in our culture, in our family, in our churches?

You can be one of those. God blesses the church with people like that. Some of you are like that for me, where you just encourage and encourage and encourage and encourage. And it's a huge blessing to encourage one another. This is why we sing Psalm 133. It's a blessing from God when brothers and sisters get to dwell in unity. This is one of the great things.

If we ever have Presbytery here at Washington or Sharon, I would encourage you to just visit Presbytery when they're giving congregational reports at some time. Each congregation is given an allotted time just so we can hear from the ruling elders and the teaching elders in that church for what God is doing around the Midwest. And God is doing amazing things. Just think about it, when I first came into the RP Church 10 years ago, there was no RP Church in Texas. Now there are five works in Texas. God is doing remarkable things all throughout the Presbyterian. We get to hear about what the Lord is doing all throughout the world. This is why the church puts on RP International Conference once every four years. This is my plug to go to RP International Conference.

You want to hear about what the gospel is doing in Ireland? There will be Irish brothers and sisters there. You want to hear about how God is changing the world in Australia? Go to RPI and hear how your brothers or sisters You want to hear about how missionaries are challenging their cultures? Go, we need these Tychicus's in our lives. The blessing that God gives us is brotherly encouragement, encouraging one another. But there's a second blessing. Look with me at verse 23. What does he tell them that first word in 23?

Peace to the brethren. Peace. Peace to the brethren. Peace with God and peace with one another. This is Paul's wish, this is Paul's desire, this is Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus, this is my prayer for you, that your feet might be shod with the gospel of peace, that you might know in the depths of your heart that there is peace between you and God, even though you were once at enmity with God, he has reconciled you to himself. There is peace, a cosmic peace that lasts forever. That we don't have to fear God, You don't have to fear what's going to happen in your life, but that between you and God, there is a blood-purchased peace, a tranquility that can seep down to the depths of your soul, knowing that at the end of the day, everything is all right. And that peace then overflows towards one another.

See, we often think of the gospel as like, okay, here's what God has done and it's applied to me. But what we've looked at in the whole book of Ephesians is here is the gospel of God, here's how it applies to me, and here's how it overflows into everybody else around me, especially in the church. And we are called to be conduits or agents of peace in the church.

God has made you to live in one accord with your brothers and sisters. That you might not just have peace with God, but that you might have peace with one another. That we're able to forgive one another. Let bygones be bygones. Let it be washed over in the blood of Jesus Christ and have restored and peace-filled relationships. This is God's desire for the church that you might be peacemakers.

People who are filled with the gospel of peace, that you might go out and share that peace, but also that that peace might be known here in the congregation, in your family. When the gospel, when the good news of Jesus Christ is the center of your family, the center of your relationships with one another, when you know that you were once an enemy of God, but he loved you and reconciled himself to you, then that peace can then flow towards your children, towards your grandchildren, towards your great-grandchildren, towards your spouse, towards your parents, towards your siblings.

Let me ask you, do you have tension in your relationships at home? Are you going to be the agent of peace? Do you have tension with somebody here in the church? Somebody that you're just, mm, I'm just gonna put up with them, but they stay on that side of the church. Well, for you guys, maybe they stay on that side of the church. And you just walk past them, maybe give them the friendly, you know, country wave, but in the back of your mind, you're like, man, that person better not talk to me today. Will you go and actually make peace?

This is God's blessing upon us is that we have peace from him. And because of that, we have peace with one another. Isn't that the amazing thing that God says, even in the incarnation of Jesus Christ? It's not just peace with God, but it's peace with men. Goodwill towards men.

So he gives us a blessing of brotherly encouragement. He gives us a blessing of peace. He also gives you the blessing of love. He gives you the blessing of love. In Ephesians chapter two, verse five, even when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. He has poured out his love to you.

It is indeed Jesus Christ who is our love and is the demonstration of God's love. What does Romans chapter 5 tell us? That God demonstrated his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. See, this is not just some type of abstract love, but this was costly love. This was a physical man, Jesus Christ, who is truly offered up upon that cross that you might know the love of God.

Indeed, God is love and he has overwhelmed you with love. He has poured out His love on you. He has been lavish with His love on you. He has not just been a stingy God with His love, but if He has loved us so much that He would give us Jesus Christ, how will He not with Him also freely give us all things? He has loved you with an everlasting love.

He has poured out even the life of His own Son that you might have everlasting life. That doesn't just end with you though. That love is meant to then get pointed outwardly towards others in the church and others in your life. There's a whole bunch of hindrances to how you might show the love of Jesus Christ to others in your life. We went through a whole bunch of those with the old man.

The opposite of love were those selfish and sensual desires that we found in Ephesians chapter 4 and Ephesians chapter 5. If you want to be one of those who are a block to love, be filled with bitterness. Lie to one another. If you want to be somebody who opposes love and keeps people at an arm distance, tear them down with your words and steal.

Do you remember all those sayings that Paul told us to put off? Why were we to put them off? Because we were to put on love towards one another. We were to put each other's needs above our own. We were meant to give generously to one another our hearts. We were meant to make each other vulnerable towards one another.

Does that mean we might get hurt sometimes? Oh, you better believe it. You better believe it. If you serve someone, if you serve someone, if you serve someone, if you care for someone, if you care for someone, you pour out your life for them, you reach out to them, you try to get them to see how much you are trying to encourage them and love on them, and there is a stone wall. You might get discouraged.

But brothers and sisters, Jesus never stops loving us. And so as we see in the very last verse, grace be to those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. The word insincerity should be tied with the loving part with an undying love. We love because he first loved us. We love one another sacrificially because Jesus Christ has loved us. We love our children because Jesus has loved us and made us God's children. We love our spouse as Jesus loves the church. We love even our employers because Jesus commands it and Jesus loves us. We love because he first loved us.

This is the blessing that we have as Christians. to have an undying love, the undying love of God towards you that then flows out into a sacrificial undying love towards others. So we are blessed with brotherly encouragement. We are blessed with peace. We are blessed with love from God, but we are also blessed with faith from God. Look with me again at verse 23.

Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is a gift. Faith is a gift from God that he gives us that we might believe in him. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says, what is faith in Jesus Christ? Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace whereby we recognize our own sin. Now that's repentance unto life. I'm sorry, faith in Jesus Christ. I don't have it in front of me. Oh, that's embarrassing when you forget your catechism. But we have faith as a gift from God.

Faith in Jesus Christ, the object of our faith, the person whom we look to in our faith. The one who, when the days are dark, there is a shining light of hope and his name is Jesus Christ. When we are on our deathbed, and the prognosis looks grim, and you stare the grave in all reality, in all certainty that you are going to die, you can have faith in Jesus Christ, that even though you might shut your eyes, when you open them up, you will immediately be in glory. We have faith in Jesus Christ that it is he who is faithful and righteous and he is able to cleanse us from all of our sins and forgive us for all of our unrighteousness. We have faith in Jesus Christ, this hope of something that we cannot see but yet firmly expect that God will care for us and love us for eternity and that faith overflows again towards others. that faith overflows in sharing with others the good news of Jesus Christ. of bringing the gospel to our spouses day in and day out, of bringing the gospel to our children day in and day out, of praying that our loved ones might have faith, of actually shodding our feet with a gospel of hope and of peace, and going out and sharing that faith in Jesus Christ with others, that others might know Jesus Christ. See, faith is not just something that you get to hold on to, but it's something that you get to spread abroad liberally. You get to share your faith in Jesus Christ with those around you.

God has blessed us with brotherly encouragement. God has blessed you with peace. God has blessed you with love. God has blessed you with faith, but he has also blessed you with grace. Look with me at verse 24. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in all sincerity.

God has been gracious to you, Christian. Sister, God has been gracious to you. Brother, God has graciously saved you. Brothers and sisters, God has poured out his grace upon us, and even though we were once those who were dead in our trespasses and sins, he has made us alive together in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is not a result of works, lest you might boast. No. God has been gracious to you in every way. God has shown you his favor. God's face smiles upon you. God has given you something you do not deserve.

He's loved you just because he wants to love you. He elected you in His grace. He perseveres you in His grace. He gives you the strength to live in His grace. He is gracious to you every single day, every time that you battle sin, He is there with grace towards you. He has graciously given you that shield of faith to quench the fiery arrows of the devil. He has graciously given you the gospel of hope that you might have peace with God. He has graciously changed you out of the kingdom of darkness and brought you into the kingdom of his marvelous light. God is gracious to your family and enables you to show grace to those around you. Again, all of these blessings are not just consumer, not just for us to take into ourselves, but meant to then overflow in our lives towards other.

God is calling you this morning to have a grace that would go abundantly towards your family, that you might be gracious towards your wife, and sharing with her the water of the word, of making her more holy and more sanctified, showing her how to love Jesus Christ even more.

Yes, you're going to fail at it, but you get to show grace to your wife, even though you might grow weary of doing that good. God will give you the grace to do it. Wives, you are given the grace to submit to your husbands, and oh boy, if your husbands are anything like me, I am sure that is hard. Do not grow weary of doing good. God's grace will sustain you. Children, God has given you the grace of obeying your parents, and though it is difficult, it is good for you, for your life, and for your soul. Employees are given the grace of working hard for their masters, not as for eye service, but working as unto the Lord. God has given you the grace, if you are an employer, to show grace to your employees, to treat them with love and with grace.

If there's anything the church should be marked by, it should be graciousness. Because God has loved us with an undying love He has been loving and gracious to us. And so we should be able to turn around and we should be able to see that grace played out in our lives as we love him with an undying love and that spills over into graciousness with one another. Brothers and sisters, we started this book with grace and peace. Grace from God and peace with God. We end this book with five blessings for you to walk away with today.

I pray that as you walked away from this series in Ephesians, as we've looked through paragraph by paragraph, verse by verse, sentence by sentence, that you might have encouragement for your souls. That you might walk out of these stores this morning and go into 2021, coronavirus or no coronavirus, with encouragement in your soul.

I pray that as we look through the book of Ephesians, as you have soaked in God's word, that you might have marveled at the peace that God has given you and that you might have an inner peace in your heart and that he might be moving you towards being a peacemaker with those in your life and those in the church. I pray that as God has worked us through this passage and has gone through the entire book of Ephesians, that He might have blessed you with an even deeper love for Himself. I pray that as we have gone through the book of Ephesians and God's Word has been laid heavy upon you, that your heart might have been inspired, that your eyes might have been lifted up into heaven, and that you might have had your faith strengthened in the Lord. I pray that God would bless you with even more faith, even in the darkest of times.

And brothers and sisters above all, I pray that you might know and relish and live out a life of grace. That you might know that your life is marked by God's grace being given to you as a gift. And that as you live in the light of his grace, that you might then be able to go out of these doors and live your lives as an example of grace to others, as you bring the gospel of peace, as you wear your helmet of salvation, as you gird your loins with the belt of truth, as you carry your shield of faith, and as you handle the sword of the spirit well. I pray that you might know that you can only do any of those things because God has graciously brought you into his kingdom, has made you a child, that you are a beloved daughter of God, that you are a beloved son of God, and that he will love you with an undying love, and that in response to the work he's done in your heart, that from now on, from this point, and into eternity, you might love God with a sincere love.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh Lord, you are so gracious and loving to us. Holy Spirit, apply these blessings to our hearts and to our lives. Father, we pray that you would not just let these words die upon the page or not just let our ears have heard them, but Father, we pray that we might have listened to them in the depths of our souls and that you might be the light unto which we live. Father, we pray. We pray that these words would not just be prayer wishes, but would be the reality of our lives, that we might love you with an undying love, because you have loved us and have given us your son. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

And thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.