The Means of Grace and Peace
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Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will:
To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.,d
To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.
2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is God’s will that the Church (faithful Ephesians) receive the grace and peace of God (our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ) through the apostles(hip of Paul).
SAM AND STEVE FALZONE
INTRO: The book of Ephesians as a primer on the form and function of the church.
Not just historically, but also today.
“No part of the New Testament has a more contemporary relevance than the letter to the Ephesians.” (Ralph P. Martin)
Relevancy of E:
Pursuit of the Spiritual (Note: 6 spiritual blessings, beginning next week)
Ch. 1:15-19, Prayer for spiritual insight
chapter 2
Thousands of denominations. But Paul calls us to ecumenical unity—not across lines of orthodoxy, but with those who are doctrinally orthodox.
Death to life
Ch. 3 — Missional Emphasis
Ch. 4 highlights the work of the church members in light of the calling of church leaders to call all people out of the pew and into the work of Christ in the world.
Chs. 5 and 6, Paul offers theological insight and immensely practical advice for marriage, parenting, working, and just for living life in the middle of the craziness we call planet earth, where there are spiritual powers of darkness that war against the Kingdom of God and against all that is good, right, and holy in it.
In reading Ephesians, ‘it’s not difficult to see direct relevance to the Christian life today. Racial tensions still lie unresolved in local neighborhoods as well as on a giant scale in South Africa. Human beings are still menaced by fear of the unknown and uncertain future, and they find solace, in the face of life’s problems and the threat of death, in the occult and in superstition.’ (Ralph P. Martin) The book of Ephesians gives us answers, not just for daily living, but also for many of the large scale social problems Christians are called to confront.
No part of the New Testament has a more contemporary relevance than the letter to the Ephesians.
it is not difficult to see some direct relevance to the Christian pulpit in our day. Racial tensions still lie unresolved in local neighborhoods as well as on a giant scale in South Africa. Human beings are still menaced by fear of the unknown and uncertain future, and they find solace, in the face of life’s problems and the threat of death, in the occult and in superstition.
Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1991), 1.
Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1991), 2.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will:
To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
(WHAT’S TRUE)
Part of the text most people ignore…
Lots of little things, but I want to distill it all into…
ONE BIG IDEA: It is God’s will that the Church receive the grace and peace of God through those who God sends.
We will begin our discussion with…
The Will
…of God.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: (Ephesians 1:1a)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
What God wants.
What is Gods will? (2 or 3 senses)
What God wants — rarely
Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ()
Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017),
Paul didn’t choose to be an apostle because God thought it was a good idea.
What God decrees or permits (not necessarily approves) (things that don’t honor God like the fall are part of his permission) (there’s a whole discussion to be had here—not sure it’s easy to separate the two):
Paul’s missionary journey to Ephesus (, “I’ll come back to you again if God wills.”)
ILL: As I reflect back on my own history as a Christian, I see a lot of this type of God’s decree occuring in my life even when I thought it was choices I made.
More things are part of God’s decree than I think we realize when we look back through life.
Paul’s own apostleship is by God’s will, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will.”
Expression of God’s will through Paul: "To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1b-2)
Who is the church?
Saint==holy one OR one who is set apart.
Saints =~ Members of the church for all intents and purposes
Authentic saints, i.e., those who are faithful — Identifying with the church does not make you holy; faithfulness makes you holy.
(i.e. faithful saints points to the universal church not merely the local body.)
It is God’s will that the church receive…
The Gifts
…of grace and peace through the apostles.
Expression of God’s will through Paul: "To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1b-2)
There are two gifts: grace and peace.
Who get’s them?
In my statement I said the church, but here it says ‘the faithful saints.’
Who is the church?
I believe the church is the collected, faithful saints.
Saint==holy one OR one who is set apart.
Saints =~ How do we see people being set apart? They become members of local churches for all intents and purposes.
Authentic saints, i.e., those who are faithful — CAVEAT: Identifying with the church does not make you holy; faithfulness makes you holy.
(i.e. faithful saints points to the universal church not merely the local body.)
‘Going to church’ is proper for those who are faithful saints, but going to church does not make you a ‘faithful saint.’
CAUSE: Grace—Greek conceptions
CAUSE: Grace (justification or sanctification—further grace?)
Graces of justification, sanctification, glorification
J God calls you righteous (too many people stop here and don’t move on to S and thus will not receive G)
S you are becoming righteous
G you are finally righteous
Graces are free—things you cannot accomplish on your own and therefore must be graces/gifts you did not earn.
EFFECT: Peace—Jewish/Hebrew conception
shalom, peace with God or reconciliation
Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments 8. Conclusion
J. C. Laansma
Not centered on the doctrinal, ifications, but focussed on the narrative of scripture
Outline the creation (shalom), fall (breaking of shalom, decay/entropy), Jesus (promise of shalom—salt slows decay/entropy), Christian life (should be experience of shalom), eternity (realized shalom)
CAUSE AND EFFECT
Not two ways of communicating the Gospel (ex. Easterners and Westerners).
It’s Both: The Gospel is bigger than we think it is.
NT usage draws on the concept as the
Either might be a pathway to a conversation about the fulness of the Gospel.
Multiple times hearing and experiencing the Gospel before we believe.
Inseparable — CAUSE: Grace, EFFECT: Shalom
And finally…
The Means (through those God sends)
…that God uses to give grace and peace to the church are through those He sends.
English text says nothing about sending, but Paul identifies himself as an Apostle:
What does apostle mean?
Two different kinds of (a)Apostles in the NT
THE APOSTLES (BIG-A)
12 or 14
special commissioning by God
Difference between THE APOSTLES (BIG A) and other leaders (small a)...
Other leaders (small-a)...
missionaries
evangelists
church planters
special callings to ministry
special callings to ministry
often pastor/elders—not all have apostolic/sending calling/gifting
Not all pastors have apostolic gifting
Not all apostles have pastoral gifting
Apostles should be looked to for direction regarding the means of grace and peace as they are the ones who have been sent to be expressions of grace and peace in the world.
Are there apostles today?
YES! Small-a apostles, those who have been sent to accomplish God’s purposes.
God has appointed Paul an apostle, not human agency—this says something of how we ought to view authority in the church.
APP
What is God’s will?
That is the Theological contribution of :
It is God’s will that the Church receive the grace and peace of God through those who God sends.
IMPLICATIONS
If you want to receive the grace and peace of God, you do so by being faithful to Christ.
Where does faithfulness come from?
Faith motivates faithfulness.
faith in a paycheck motivates your continued employment
faith in a paycheck motivates your continued employment
even if you have a harsh master, faith that you won’t be punished or something like that might motivate you to be faithful to that master.
Analysis: (Much of this is the thinking of Jordan Peterson)
Jordan Peterson, “Do you believe in God?” (on youtube, 2 hours)
At the end of life, people don’t regret bad things they have done so much as things they didn’t do.
What we believe/want should motivate how we live and when it doesn’t we have regret
CF. (God loved the world in this way…)
Gives the impression that all I have to do is believe Jesus’s sacrifice is true (even if you don’t ever do anything with that knowledge) — at least we know we are going to heaven and that’s probably better than going to hell
James, belief/faith without works is dead.
At the end of our lives we’re willing to reconcile with the bad things we’ve done
But, our conscience bears witness to the reality that we need to be living out whatever it is that we believe and value in life.
FAITHFULNESS IS A LOYALTY TERM: You should try acting as if you, yourself, are the fundamental source of your own values without any transcendent ethical structure, some sort of god to guide you—no one can do it even for a moment.
SPLAIN: No one can live according to their own ethical structure even if they get to decide for themselves what is good and right.
EX: Make a list of your own 10 commandments (if you were God!) and see if you can live by them—you can’t
Everything you value, if it’s in conflict with your nature, must be being influenced by some kind of transcendent power—God or otherwise.
DEMONIC POWERS: (Deeper, Peterson didn’t go here) For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. .
The conflict isn’t you against God, it’s God against the cosmic powers of darkness in the world.
Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), .
This internal conflict that you have speaks to a loyalty to or alignment with the God of the universe or the enemies of God in the cosmos.
WARNING: The sinner you are before the sin is not the same as the sinner you are after the sin because the guilt of sin changes you on a fundamental level.
If you are an angry person and you’re plotting murder, that bears on your soul differently after you’ve commited the act. — And all sins are the same, pick your poison.
You can hold like 50 contradictory thoughts in your mind at a time (Luther: simultaneously sinner and saint)
Contradictory thoughts are only dealt with when they have to be dealt with at the same moment.
ILL: Different values at work, home, church — What happens when your buddy from work shows up at church?
Contradictory thoughts, if they’re not brought into the light will be played out in the world as fate. (Jungian Psychology)
TO BE CLEAR: Contradictory thoughts means that:
You have a knowledge of the goodness of God and what it means to live as good and righteous…
…but you have a fleshly nature that is defiant to God and subject to the powers of darkness in the cosmos…
…and you’re at war with yourself.
ILL: People who have a supernatural sense of grace and peace that you maybe haven’t experienced
Starts with being uncomfortable living in the tension of sinner and saint
Daily choosing of Christ (still a point of justification)
PETERSON ILL: Continuous negative experiences: It’sighly probable that your inability to work out your paradoxes is causing dissonance in your every day life (Ex. Every woman is your mother)—it’s highly probably that the problem is you.
The idea here is the paradoxical views of flesh and Spirit.
Be moving every day, intentionally, praying and working towards sainthood and away from sinner.
ILL: Every person is like a tree with roots deep in hell and branches reaching towards heaven.
It is God’s will that the Church receive the grace and peace of God through those who God sends.
Tease this out: Roots cause the branches to grow. The greater understanding you have of your deep sinful roots, the greater your desire will be for heaven and the greater your REACHING will be.
This is what it means to be the church, a faithful saint.
Sin isn’t merely corporate—you have to deal with your own stuff if you are going to be free from your guilt.
Pick up your cross
Apart from this intentional work towards sainthood, you will never receive the grace and peace of God.
war between good and evil
Religion as an opiate for the masses — hardly
Are you sacrificing everything to this transcendent being that you believe controls all thing?
APPLICATION
What is the church?
APPLICATION
Faithful Saints work to carry out God’s purposes.
Not as though obedience is the point of the Christian faith like with other world religions.
Peterson sees a metaphor in the Jacob story for the Christian life, where the point of the Christian life is to wrestle with God.
Peterson thinks it’s funny that Jacob wins because He is wrestling with God and that’s a bit ridiculous.
What Peterson misses is that we wrestle with God, but God isn’t against us; He wants us to win.
Jacob won the wrestling match against God, but God didn’t lose—Jacob went forward to carry out God’s purposes.
In the process God wrenched Jacob’s hip to keep him humble, eyes set on Christ.
Issue of faithfulness
People who stop wrestling with God
Those who give up
Those who think life is good enough now and stop trying to grow (complacent)
These miss the point
People who persevere
These get it—we wrestle with God until we die and enter into glory.
Faithful saints are active participants in the local church
NOT attendees, but participants
The faithful carry out God’s purposes by being led by those God has called to lead.
Be encouraging to each other
Pray for one another
Visit one another
Encourage, pray for, and visit your leaders.
Seek unity (not unanimity) in mission with your church.
The typical church is going to do missions and discipleship together.
(The issues in the Ephesian church were doctrinal disunity (nature of Jesus — i think) and pragmatic disunity (what to do with widows)).
I think personal mission can be an important calling for you as a Christian—I celebrate when Christians do what Christians are supposed to do. And I think there is a rare calling for people to operate missionally apart from the church.
But, the typical church is going to do missions and discipleship together.
But, you should be consistently and habitually participating in…
But, you should be consistently and habitually participating in…
a) small groups (discipleship)
b) Sunday services (worship)
c) giving to the church (give a breakdown of 4 categories of expenditures and highlight missions)
We will be having discussions about our missions efforts this fall as we approach a new fiscal year.
Justification and Shalom (grace and peace) — the source(s)
Apostles—Transmission through the preaching of those sent.