Mark Medley: Okay, so we're doing, we're having this series this summer about how the gospel changes the way we do life together, and so we're going to talk about that some more this morning.
Mark Medley: We're going to talk about how faith and love work together.
Mark Medley: Okay, and love is.
Mark Medley: Love is this word that is like so nebulous sometimes.
Mark Medley: Right, and we all know we're supposed to love, right, and we all got this little sneaking suspicion that love is kind of an answer probably to most of our problems, right, but I have a question.
Mark Medley: As I've been reading the scripture this week and preparing for this, I had a question as I've been reading the scripture this week and preparing for this.
Mark Medley: I had a personal question.
Mark Medley: It's my question that I've been asking the Lord.
Mark Medley: That really, I think, makes everything really practical.
Mark Medley: And the question is how can I love you like I'm supposed to love you?
Mark Medley: How can I love you like I'm supposed to?
Mark Medley: So I was thinking about it that love is just a predominant message in literature, in movies and in songs too.
Mark Medley: I saw this survey, which was done from top 40 songs from 1960 to 2010,.
Mark Medley: Right, so, 50 years of top 40 songs.
Mark Medley: Right, years of top 40 songs.
Mark Medley: Right, and what do you think the number one theme in top 40 songs in over 50 years was?
Mark Medley: You got any idea?
Mark Medley: You guys are so sharp.
Mark Medley: I mean it's like you're tracking.
Mark Medley: This is great.
Mark Medley: Nearly 70% of the songs had lyrics about relationships or love.
Mark Medley: Of course they did.
Mark Medley: Of course they did Because we were made to love.
Mark Medley: We were made in the image of a God who loves and we were made to love.
Mark Medley: And Jesus said that when we love God and love people, we are covering every base.
Mark Medley: We are actually fulfilling everything.
Mark Medley: The law says everything.
Mark Medley: The prophets said, if we can do those things.
Mark Medley: But love in a fallen world is complicated.
Mark Medley: Can I get a witness this morning?
Mark Medley: It's not easy.
Mark Medley: Love in the abstract is beautiful and it seems easy, but love in reality, loving real people in real situations, is real hard.
Mark Medley: Part of those songs, two of those songs that were written over that period of time, were written by the Beatles.
Mark Medley: One was All you Need Is Love and the other one was we Can Work it Out.
Mark Medley: And then they broke up.
Mark Medley: Love is complicated, it's hard.
Mark Medley: So how can I love you like I'm supposed to?
Mark Medley: That's the question, and there's an answer.
Mark Medley: There's an answer.
Mark Medley: So so far in the series we've talked about the fact that God himself is a God of community.
Mark Medley: He is a God within his very nature.
Mark Medley: There's father, son and Spirit, and he created us as communal beings.
Mark Medley: He created us in his image.
Mark Medley: So this is part of who we are is beings who are supposed to be connected to other beings, right, but the fall turned us in on ourselves and it made relationships go bad, and so we start shying away from the very things that we need to be healthy people.
Mark Medley: But in Christ, because of what Jesus has done, he has redeemed us.
Mark Medley: He's redeemed these relationships and he restores our ability to live together in healthy community, and it's in those very relationships that we have that we actually are transformed into His image.
Mark Medley: So today we're going to learn that the gospel itself is what empowers us to obey God's call to live as we ought to live, live together with one another, live valuing one another and love one another.
Mark Medley: So what does biblical community look like, or how should we interact with each other?
Mark Medley: That's the question, right, and the Bible is not vague on this topic.
Mark Medley: The Bible is very specific on this topic.
Mark Medley: You probably have heard a lot of the one another scriptures where it talks about how we're supposed to actually live together.
Mark Medley: And I was looking at these one another scriptures.
Mark Medley: Of course, the biggest one is love one another right, that's in there at least 16 times in the New Testament at least.
Mark Medley: So that's a big one.
Mark Medley: But I wanted to talk about these one another scriptures.
Mark Medley: But I wanted to turn it around and make it really personal for me.
Mark Medley: I want to talk.
Mark Medley: I'm going to read through these and just say this is how I'm supposed to love you.
Mark Medley: Okay, I'm supposed to love you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to be devoted to you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to honor you above myself, to live in harmony with you and to build you up and to accept you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to warn you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to serve you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to bear your burdens.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to forgive you and be patient with you, be kind and compassionate to you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to submit to you and look to your interests and to bear with you and to teach you and to comfort you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to encourage you and stir you up to love and good works.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to show hospitality to you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to employ the gifts that God gave to me to benefit you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to confess my faults to you.
Mark Medley: I'm supposed to pray for you that you might be healed.
Mark Medley: So how can I love you like I'm supposed to?
Mark Medley: That's tough.
Mark Medley: Well, this book that we've been going through Gospel Center Community talks about two ways you think about this, and one way is resolution and one way is resignation.
Mark Medley: Resolution is I'm going to try harder.
Mark Medley: I resolve to love you.
Mark Medley: I'm going to do it.
Mark Medley: You grit your teeth and you do it.
Mark Medley: I'm going to do it, and I think I can and I think I can, and I think I can and I think I can, but I find that I can't.
Mark Medley: I actually find that I fall short of it.
Mark Medley: Right, that's resolution.
Mark Medley: I'm going to undo it.
Mark Medley: And then the other one is resignation, which is nobody can do it.
Mark Medley: So I'm not even going to try.
Mark Medley: But what kind of world would it be if we didn't even try, if nobody even tried?
Mark Medley: That would be a tough world, right.
Mark Medley: But there is an answer and we're going to look to the Bible this morning and find the answer, and I'm going to tell you the answer we're going to find up front.
Mark Medley: Okay, this is like cherry picking this morning.
Mark Medley: This is a very easy sermon for you.
Mark Medley: I'm going to tell you the answer we're going to find right now and then we're going to find the answer.
Mark Medley: Okay, is that right?
Mark Medley: Here it is.
Mark Medley: It is my faith in the work of Jesus that makes me able to love you.
Mark Medley: It is my faith in the love of Jesus and the work of Jesus and the gospel of Jesus that works in me, that makes me able to love you.
Mark Medley: So my text today is one verse in Galatians and the entire book of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: Okay, so we're going to read Galatians first, galatians 5, 6.
Mark Medley: And it says this For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Mark Medley: And the key phrase there is faith working through love.
Mark Medley: Faith and love go together here.
Mark Medley: Okay, so Paul is talking about this thought that outward actions do not change the heart.
Mark Medley: Circumcision was a sign of the old covenant, but merely being circumcised doesn't make you right with God, any more than merely coming to church or being nice to people makes you right with God.
Mark Medley: Outward things don't change the heart, and I can try to keep the law of God and I can try to keep the law of man, and I can try to keep the traditions of my culture, and I can still be as mean as a snake to you.
Mark Medley: Why is that?
Mark Medley: And sometimes, the more legalistic, maybe all the time, the more legalistic I get, the meaner I get.
Mark Medley: Why is that?
Mark Medley: How can I love you like I'm supposed to?
Mark Medley: But here Paul is saying that faith and love work together.
Mark Medley: Okay, faith works through love.
Mark Medley: That's what we're going to talk about today.
Mark Medley: It's my faith in the work of Jesus that makes me able to love you.
Mark Medley: So we're going to explore that one verse by looking at the entire book of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: We're not going to read the entire book of Ephesians, but I do have a challenge for you.
Mark Medley: We're going to talk about three kind of positions or elements on the journey, our journey with God in the book of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: But I do have a challenge for you.
Mark Medley: If you choose to accept it, okay, I dare you, those of you who need a dare, I dare you, I dare you, I dare you to read Ephesians 1 all the way through Ephesians, chapter 2, verse 9, and ask two questions.
Mark Medley: Okay, read that passage and ask these two questions.
Mark Medley: Number one what has God done for us in Christ?
Mark Medley: And number two what does God ask us to do?
Mark Medley: What does God require me to do?
Mark Medley: What has God done already and what does he require me to do?
Mark Medley: And I just tell you, if you do that, if you read that and you think it through and you allow that to get into your heart, this is like repositioning your entire life around the truth of the gospel so that out of that you begin to live the way you're supposed to live.
Mark Medley: This is really profound.
Mark Medley: Paul starts the letter to the Ephesians in chapter 1.
Mark Medley: It's very profound.
Mark Medley: Chapter 1 and chapter 2 are the beginning, but what's in there at the beginning is at the beginning for a reason because this is the foundation of everything that's going to follow, and so what he talks about is everything that we have, we've been given by the work of Jesus.
Mark Medley: And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you what you'll find, but I'd love for you to read it this week too and do the homework.
Mark Medley: It'll help you.
Mark Medley: Okay, if you read chapter one through chapter two, verse nine, here's what you find.
Mark Medley: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Jesus Christ.
Mark Medley: He chose us, he predestined us in love, he adopted us, he accepted us, he redeemed us, he forgave us, he lavished his grace on us, he gave us wisdom and understanding, he made us know the mystery of his will, he gave us an inheritance, he included us in the beloved son, he sealed us by his spirit and he made us his own possession.
Mark Medley: That's part of it.
Mark Medley: All of this is yours in Jesus.
Mark Medley: And Paul stops right there.
Mark Medley: There's this great prayer there at the end of chapter one that maybe you've heard a lot, maybe you've prayed it.
Mark Medley: But he stops there and he prays God, would you open their eyes?
Mark Medley: He just stops.
Mark Medley: He says he stops there and he prays God, would you open their eyes, would you?
Mark Medley: He just stops.
Mark Medley: He says all this is yours in Jesus' weight.
Mark Medley: Stop, god, open their eyes, let their eyes be enlightened to see this.
Mark Medley: And the word he uses there is apocalypse.
Mark Medley: Okay, the word for open eyes, because apocalypse means an unveiling, like something is revealed, like the book of Revelation.
Mark Medley: In other translations, like in other nations, other countries languages, the book of Revelation is called the apocalypse.
Mark Medley: Right, apocalypse means you see something you didn't see before.
Mark Medley: And Paul is saying open their eyes to see something they haven't seen before.
Mark Medley: But it's not an end times thing, it's something that's happened for all time.
Mark Medley: It's not what's going to happen, it's what has already happened, what is already there, something that lasts forever, right?
Mark Medley: So it's not focusing on end times, but all time Not will happen, but what has happened?
Mark Medley: God helped them to see what's already happened.
Mark Medley: And then he continues.
Mark Medley: He keeps it going.
Mark Medley: He says he's called us to hope, he's given us an inheritance, he's given us great power, he's given us a head of the church, which is Jesus.
Mark Medley: And when we were dead in our sins, god raised us back to life, because by grace you've been saved through faith, and it's not of yourself, it's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Mark Medley: And he says in there that God has raised Jesus up and seated him in the heavenlies and given him authority over all power.
Mark Medley: And then he says that he has raised us up and seated us together with him in the heavens.
Mark Medley: This is where we start the book of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: Okay, we start with a position, and our position, the first position in your walk with God, is resting.
Mark Medley: I'm not working, I'm resting All the things that he's done for me in Jesus, not that I tried and tried and worked and earned, and maybe I can keep it, I don't know.
Mark Medley: It's what's been given to us already in Jesus, and it's actually looking back.
Mark Medley: If you think of it.
Mark Medley: This beginning of Ephesians is looking back to the beginning of creation, where God created man.
Mark Medley: And he created man.
Mark Medley: You know what day he created man on.
Mark Medley: You remember Sixth day, the evening of the sixth day.
Mark Medley: At the end of the sixth day he created man.
Mark Medley: So the first full day of man on earth was what day?
Mark Medley: It was the Sabbath day.
Mark Medley: It was the seventh day.
Mark Medley: It was rest.
Mark Medley: The first thing man did, by God's order of design and creation, was to have a day of rest.
Mark Medley: And Paul opens this letter up and he's getting ready to talk about what we do and how we live our life.
Mark Medley: But this is how you start you start sitting, you start resting and in that creation, by the way, it says, the evening and the morning were the first day.
Mark Medley: The evening and the morning were the second day.
Mark Medley: It's interesting, isn't it?
Mark Medley: Because to God in creation, scripturally, we can say that the day starts in the evening, it doesn't start in the morning.
Mark Medley: Now, I wasn't raised that way.
Mark Medley: I was raised that my day starts when I wake up.
Mark Medley: I wake up, I'm kind of groggy, I pull myself together and I work myself all day long, until I fall in bed at night.
Mark Medley: That's not the way it is, though, and even to this day, this is the way the Jews celebrate the day.
Mark Medley: When do they start the Sabbath?
Mark Medley: Neil Sundown, sundown, when they started at the end of the day.
Mark Medley: No, that is the beginning of the day, because they began with rest, and so I began to change things in my own mind, and I actually started praying this prayer as I go to sleep.
Mark Medley: Lord, I thank you that I start my day right now.
Mark Medley: It's 10 o'clock at night, but I'm starting it right now, and I thank you that I can rest in this good bed you gave me, and I thank you that I can rest in this good bed you gave me, and I thank you that I can rest in this great grace that you gave me in Jesus, and I rest, and tomorrow I will wake up from my rest and I will walk.
Mark Medley: I'll work, but we start right here.
Mark Medley: This is where we start.
Mark Medley: We are grounded in Jesus, we are adopted, we're chosen, we're included, we're sealed.
Mark Medley: We're chosen, we're included, we're sealed, we're resting.
Mark Medley: That's it we rest, okay, so first step in your walk with God is resting.
Mark Medley: And then I asked this question, this second question, that's what God has done for us in Christ.
Mark Medley: But the second question is what does God require me to do?
Mark Medley: And I looked, and I looked through that whole scripture and I only found two things.
Mark Medley: God requires two things from me.
Mark Medley: Number one is to believe what he's done and number two is to praise him for it, to the praise of his glorious grace.
Mark Medley: Paul says a couple of times in there to the praise of his glorious grace, this grace which he poured on us, he lavished on us, he dumped this grace all over us, and now we praise him for it.
Mark Medley: This is what we're required to do Believe in the work he's done already and thank him for it.
Mark Medley: That's where we start.
Mark Medley: Okay, that's the first position in your Christian life.
Mark Medley: But then Paul keeps going.
Mark Medley: In the next verse, chapter 2, verse 10, he says this for we are his workmanship.
Mark Medley: He just got finished saying it's by grace you're saved, through faith.
Mark Medley: It's not of your works, lest any man should boast, but now we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, walk in them, and then, if you keep going and you go to chapter 4, verse 1 says this I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called.
Mark Medley: Walk.
Mark Medley: So the first position in your journey with Jesus is sitting.
Mark Medley: The second, it's resting in him.
Mark Medley: The second is walking.
Mark Medley: Okay, therefore, walk, and out of this place of rest.
Mark Medley: God has already done in Jesus for us.
Mark Medley: We're enabled to live the right way.
Mark Medley: Okay, and he begins to talk about what it means to live correctly.
Mark Medley: But we need to understand this place of resting in the gospel.
Mark Medley: From that place, I'm changed.
Mark Medley: This is what Paul is referring to when he says we were dead in our sins and were raised back to life.
Mark Medley: God made us alive.
Mark Medley: It's that Old Testament prophecy, speaking about the new covenant which was to come.
Mark Medley: I will take away your heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit inside of you.
Mark Medley: And I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit inside of you and I will cause you to follow after me.
Mark Medley: So, chapters 1 and 2, that's what that is.
Mark Medley: And now he puts his spirit inside of us and he causes us to follow.
Mark Medley: So what God has done for us in the gospel enables us to walk.
Mark Medley: That's the important part.
Mark Medley: I do the works from a heart that's been changed and that's overwhelmed with thanksgiving and for the kindness of God.
Mark Medley: So he says walk worthy.
Mark Medley: Interesting Therefore.
Mark Medley: He said, therefore, referring back to chapter one and two, because of what God has done, therefore, walk worthy.
Mark Medley: And he begins to say what this new heart looks like when you live out of a new heart and you're walking.
Mark Medley: It is what it's don't lie anymore, speak the truth.
Mark Medley: It's don't steal, rather work with your hands.
Mark Medley: It's don't be controlled by substances, be controlled by the Spirit.
Mark Medley: He says be patient and gentle and humble and unified and honest.
Mark Medley: Don't be controlled by anger.
Mark Medley: Watch your mouth.
Mark Medley: He says that more than once.
Mark Medley: In fact.
Mark Medley: He says watch your mouth, don't grieve the Holy Spirit.
Mark Medley: Watch your mouth.
Mark Medley: Okay, your mouth is.
Mark Medley: Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, watch your mouth, okay, your mouth is important to not grieving the Holy Spirit.
Mark Medley: Be sexually pure, be a good, wise, spirit-led spouse and parent and child.
Mark Medley: And then he literally says be an imitator of God.
Mark Medley: Imitate God, I mean live like Jesus, be like Jesus.
Mark Medley: And he says walk worthy, walk in the light, walk in love, walk with wisdom.
Mark Medley: It's a walk, and a walk is just steps right.
Mark Medley: A walk is taking.
Mark Medley: It's taking steps one at a time, and it's making decisions every day that are consistent to my commitment to Jesus.
Mark Medley: That's what a walk is.
Mark Medley: Now, yesterday, some of us went out of town to a wedding.
Mark Medley: Some of us were in the wedding.
Mark Medley: Yesterday we saw Nate and Abby Jones get married and it was beautiful, it was great, it was terrific.
Mark Medley: But I thought about that.
Mark Medley: Okay, we had the ceremony and Tyler did a great service.
Mark Medley: It was great.
Mark Medley: So the ceremony man and wife sign the paper.
Mark Medley: It's done right.
Mark Medley: Legally they are married.
Mark Medley: They can file the taxes jointly.
Mark Medley: I don't know.
Mark Medley: They can do whatever.
Mark Medley: Legally, they can do everything.
Mark Medley: Okay, it's, they can do whatever.
Mark Medley: Legally, they can do Everything.
Mark Medley: That's they.
Mark Medley: Okay, it's legal.
Mark Medley: But I want to ask you this so they were married at that moment.
Mark Medley: They were married right, but do they really know the fullness of what oneness is at that moment?
Mark Medley: No way, no way.
Mark Medley: It takes years of walking together and beauty and struggle and conflict and decisions that are consistent with their vows, but they're married Right now, today, they're married, but they're learning.
Mark Medley: They're learning to grow into what they already are.
Mark Medley: That's it.
Mark Medley: Same thing you can think about if a couple adopted a child right and as soon as the papers are signed, the child is theirs.
Mark Medley: It's done.
Mark Medley: The child is a legal heir to all of the fortune.
Mark Medley: The child is a legal member of this family.
Mark Medley: They can count that child off on the taxes too.
Mark Medley: I don't know why I'm on taxes today, but it's in my brain.
Mark Medley: Adoption happens in a moment in time when the paper is signed right, and that child is under the care of the parents and that child has a family.
Mark Medley: That child is a legal heir, right.
Mark Medley: But at that moment of signing the child doesn't know what it truly means to have a father, to have a family, to have a safe place.
Mark Medley: It takes years.
Mark Medley: You got to walk through that right.
Mark Medley: Sonship happens over a period of time.
Mark Medley: They grow into what they already are.
Mark Medley: This is what we're talking about.
Mark Medley: We already are, we are.
Mark Medley: We're resting here, but we're growing into it by the power of the work of Jesus inside of us.
Mark Medley: We're walking in love and light and in circumspectly or wisdom right.
Mark Medley: Looking around Circumspectly means to look in all directions.
Mark Medley: Wise, thinking things through wisely.
Mark Medley: Okay, so the new heart comes from faith in Christ.
Mark Medley: We're born again in a moment of time.
Mark Medley: But then we walk, we learn to become what we already are.
Mark Medley: The ability to walk comes from a new heart and the indwelling spirit.
Mark Medley: So how can I love you like I ought to love you, because I have a heart that's been changed.
Mark Medley: And then I begin to walk it out.
Mark Medley: And then Paul moves on to another phase of spiritual growth.
Mark Medley: So in chapter 6, he says this chapter 6, verse 10, finally, finally, at the end of it all, finally, the end of the letter.
Mark Medley: Okay, finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.
Mark Medley: Put on the whole armor that you may be able to withstand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Mark Medley: Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.
Mark Medley: So the third position we rest, we walk and then we wrestle.
Mark Medley: We wrestle, but we wrestle out of a place of rest.
Mark Medley: He didn't start in chapter 6, did he?
Mark Medley: He started in chapter 1.
Mark Medley: What God has already done in Jesus Christ empowers me to wrestle, to pray, to fight, to stand, to armor up, put on your armor.
Mark Medley: And even this armor that he gives is gospel-based.
Mark Medley: It's rooted in a finished work.
Mark Medley: Right, we have a belt of truth.
Mark Medley: Truth is a person.
Mark Medley: It's Jesus we have, and it's in his finished work too.
Mark Medley: We have a breastplate of righteousness, not our own righteousness, but the righteousness that's been given to us.
Mark Medley: Imputed is Jesus's righteousness that's been given to us.
Mark Medley: We have shoes of the readiness, of the gospel, all the things that Paul has been talking about in chapter one and two.
Mark Medley: We have a shield of faith.
Mark Medley: That's not our own faith.
Mark Medley: Even we have a shield of faith.
Mark Medley: That's not our own faith.
Mark Medley: Even that faith is a gift from God.
Mark Medley: Even we have a helmet of salvation, which is a gift from God.
Mark Medley: Again, you know it's finished.
Mark Medley: It's a finished work.
Mark Medley: Okay, all this is what we fight with, but it's not of our own doing.
Mark Medley: We don't fight in our own strength.
Mark Medley: So our walk with Christ flows in this progression.
Mark Medley: First we rest in the finished work of Jesus.
Mark Medley: We rest, and then we walk.
Mark Medley: Out of that rest, we're enabled to walk, and we walk uprightly, and we walk as we should walk, with each other, and we stand, we wrestle, rest, walk.
Mark Medley: Wrestle In that order, please.
Mark Medley: That's the order.
Mark Medley: It's very important.
Mark Medley: It's very important because of this.
Mark Medley: Many people are exhausted.
Mark Medley: Many people are exhausted or hurt or disappointed or even deconstructing their faith because they haven't started right here in the rest, maybe they came into this Christian thing through the door of chapter 6, right, and they've been fighting.
Mark Medley: They're focused on the battle, they're focused on the enemy, they're focused on their own zeal to be able to fight my faith, to fight my prayer, my armor, my effort to tear down strongholds pressing in, sometimes striving in this battle.
Mark Medley: Right, I'm so zoned in on the spirit world that my spiritual life is defined by my zeal.
Mark Medley: My spiritual walk is defined by my zeal.
Mark Medley: And Paul understood this.
Mark Medley: You remember he called himself a very zealous person.
Mark Medley: He said I was zealous, even above all my peers.
Mark Medley: He knew what it meant to be zealous for something, but that zeal that he had actually caused him to fight against what God was doing.
Mark Medley: He was zealous in the law and fighting God.
Mark Medley: So zeal by itself is not a good thing, not necessarily a good thing If I'm ungrounded in grace and I focus on the spirit world in grace and I focus on the spirit world, I become flighty, unstable and just weird, squirrely, just weird.
Mark Medley: You know, you've seen some weirdness, maybe we've all had weirdness like that.
Mark Medley: Right In my own zeal, I focus on the enemy and I end up living under this weight that I wasn't meant to carry.
Mark Medley: It's my job to fight this battle and I set this frantic pace and I'm not even aware of this place of rest.
Mark Medley: I came in through the door of chapter 6, and I didn't even.
Mark Medley: Maybe I understand the gospel, maybe, like I understand, it's through Jesus I'm saved, but I don't understand the fullness of what he's done and I'm not living in that place of rest.
Mark Medley: Or maybe you came through the door of chapter four, but not the real chapter four, kind of a twisted chapter four, because chapter four is just the outworking of a heart that's been made new.
Mark Medley: It's a natural thing.
Mark Medley: But if you twist it and it becomes a list of do's and don'ts, then it's moral imperatives, it's legalistic, performance-based approach to God.
Mark Medley: It's you better do this.
Mark Medley: You better not lie.
Mark Medley: You better not steal.
Mark Medley: You better not drink.
Mark Medley: You better not lie.
Mark Medley: You better not steal.
Mark Medley: You better not drink.
Mark Medley: You better watch out, don't lose your ticket.
Mark Medley: Watch out, it's all on you.
Mark Medley: It's a list of do's and don'ts and, in my own strength, I try not to lie, not to steal, not to grieve the Spirit, not to speak badly about you.
Mark Medley: I'm focused on what not to do.
Mark Medley: I'm focused on what not to grieve the Spirit, not to speak badly about you.
Mark Medley: I'm focused on what not to do.
Mark Medley: I'm focused on what not to do, like a good Pharisee, and Paul understood it.
Mark Medley: Because, well, paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, according to the law, blameless, he said In his own understanding of it.
Mark Medley: He said I was blameless according to the law, and yet he was breathing out threatenings and murders.
Mark Medley: He had hate so deep in his heart.
Mark Medley: Man, have you noticed that when the more a person focuses on the law, the more mean they get?
Mark Medley: It's not because the law is bad.
Mark Medley: The law is good, but sin of pride is bad and it goes bad on you.
Mark Medley: So some people never get to rested and seated because they never knew this rest was even available.
Mark Medley: They came through the door of chapter six, or they've been led by leaders who lead churches through chapter 6.
Mark Medley: Or they lead churches in chapter 4.
Mark Medley: And they never have been over here.
Mark Medley: Now we're supposed to walk and we're supposed to wrestle.
Mark Medley: That's part of Christian life.
Mark Medley: Okay, you don't leave that be.
Mark Medley: This is part of it.
Mark Medley: We're supposed to do it.
Mark Medley: Living right and fighting is part of it, but you have to do it.
Mark Medley: Living right and fighting is part of it, but you have to do it out of a place of rest.
Mark Medley: It's really important when you forget the beauty of the gospel, then your wonder is gone and you become a bitter rule keeper or a zealous witch hunter.
Mark Medley: And how many wants that in your life?
Mark Medley: Ain't nobody got time for that.
Mark Medley: It's really important.
Mark Medley: It's really important and I think all of us in some way probably have a story, a testimony, of being more in chapter four and more in chapter six and less in chapters one and two.
Mark Medley: Probably.
Mark Medley: That's true, right, and I personally, I've learned that I had to just deconstruct my home faith, but not away from Jesus, but into real Christianity.
Mark Medley: And I learned that deconstructing is not very, it's not really a bad thing if what you constructed in the first place wasn't scriptural.
Mark Medley: Deconstruct it into grace, into the basis of Christianity.
Mark Medley: Flip the script right.
Mark Medley: My faith is not on my ability to have faith.
Mark Medley: My faith is not in my ability to fight against the powers.
Mark Medley: My faith is not in my ability to do what I know is right.
Mark Medley: My faith is in someone and in the faithful nature of that person and in the finished work of that person, and out of that work I'm enabled to walk and I'm empowered to fight.
Mark Medley: Now, okay, that was Ephesians in 20 minutes.
Mark Medley: Now we're back to community, okay, so let's finish it up talking about community, and I have a confession to make to you all.
Mark Medley: The Scripture says to confess your sins to one another.
Mark Medley: Right, I have a fault to confess to you, right, paul?
Mark Medley: I see now.
Mark Medley: I understand now what I didn't see before.
Mark Medley: Paul is writing Ephesians to a whole group of people.
Mark Medley: So all of these uses of the word you in here are plural you, it's y'all, y'all.
Mark Medley: So, and I didn't understand that, I have to confess that for years I was guilty of personalizing Ephesians directly to me.
Mark Medley: I thought it was only for me and it's probably just a product of maybe my own selfishness or maybe my own individualistic culture that we live in, right?
Mark Medley: But Paul has been saying all this tied into community, and he says things like this in Ephesians he says that you're fellow citizens with the saints and you're members of the household of God, that you're joined together as a holy temple.
Mark Medley: It's temple imagery, living temple.
Mark Medley: And he says that we're built together, temple of the Lord, built together, a dwelling place for God, us together.
Mark Medley: We are the new temple.
Mark Medley: So Ephesians is not primarily about me, it's primarily about God and what he's done in Christ and it's secondarily about all of us in community.
Mark Medley: And oh yeah, it's about me because I'm part of all of us, so it does apply to me as well.
Mark Medley: But here's what I learned we grow in the knowledge of the gospel together, so we rest together.
Mark Medley: We grow in practical Christ-like character together, we walk together and we learn to resist the enemy.
Mark Medley: Together, we wrestle together.
Mark Medley: And I learned that there are depths and dimensions of the love of God that are impossible for me to know if I'm not regularly around other Jesus followers that are not like me.
Mark Medley: And that's important because this whole thing is written to Jews and Gentiles.
Mark Medley: And there's this us part of Ephesians.
Mark Medley: And if we could all travel back to the first century Palestine and maybe we would feel the tension that he's talking about here, because there was a huge tension between Jews and Gentiles it's likely that most of the people in the Ephesian church in Ephesus were Gentiles, but there were Jews there as well.
Mark Medley: But you remember that in the temple in Jerusalem there was an outer court.
Mark Medley: There was an inner court right In the outer courts.
Mark Medley: The Gentiles could come outer courts Inner courts, only for the Jews and a big wall of partition in between.
Mark Medley: And Paul is saying here that Jesus broke down this wall of partition in between.
Mark Medley: Part of him destroying the principalities and powers is he destroyed this wall between us, between Jews and Gentiles, and he made one new man and he built us into a house, a dwelling place for God.
Mark Medley: That's part of the powerful work that Jesus did when he destroyed principalities and powers.
Mark Medley: So God changes our relationship with him.
Mark Medley: We were enemies, but now we're reconciled, and he changes our relationship with each other too, these other people from whom we may have been alienated.
Mark Medley: Maybe it's not Jews and Gentiles from whom we may have been alienated, maybe it's not Jews and Gentiles, maybe it's socioeconomic, maybe it is cultural, maybe it's, I don't know.
Mark Medley: We have so many categories of us versus them.
Mark Medley: Right, it's y'all and it's us, and we kind of live that way for some reason.
Mark Medley: But he removes from our hearts, the prejudice and the partiality that's naturally in our carnal hearts, and he brings us together.
Mark Medley: So let me finish by this one verse, in the middle, right in the middle of Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 17 through 19.
Mark Medley: Paul's praying again.
Mark Medley: He prays a lot in this letter.
Mark Medley: He prays again.
Mark Medley: He prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, rooted and grounded in love.
Mark Medley: This is where we are in chapter 1, right, the great love with which God has loved us, rooted and grounded in the rest of the gospel, the resting.
Mark Medley: There we can understand together the greatness of this love, to gather the greatness of this love, what God has done in Christ empowers us to understand, with all the saints, in community, the fullness of his love for us, so that we can love one another.
Mark Medley: So when Paul says maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.
Mark Medley: And Paul says there's one body and there's one spirit and one hope of calling and one Lord and one faith and one baptism and one God and father of us all, all of this unity that he's talking about here, how can I love you like I'm supposed to?
Mark Medley: And then, and the answer is chapters three through six, which is what it looks like for me to love you is only possible because of chapters one and two.
Mark Medley: It's the gospel that works inside of me, that changes me, that causes me to be able, that empowers me to be able to love you, and we love because he first loved us.
Mark Medley: But that's not just motivation, that's ability.
Mark Medley: You know, I understand.
Mark Medley: I'm motivated to love God because of his love for me.
Mark Medley: He loved me first and so I turn and I love him back.
Mark Medley: I get that.
Mark Medley: But it's not only motivation, it's ability.
Mark Medley: It's literally.
Mark Medley: I'm unable to love him until he loves me and he changes me and he gives me all those spiritual riches in Christ that he's given to me, and then I'm able to walk and love you.
Mark Medley: So ultimately it comes down to this In practical ways, every day, I judge all of you as either worthy of my love or not.
Mark Medley: I mean, it's kind of blunt, but it's really true, isn't it?
Mark Medley: You're either worthy of my love.
Mark Medley: In my eyes, you're either worthy of my love or not, and everybody that I'm meeting throughout the day either worthy of my love or not, and I can only see your value if I understand my value to God.
Mark Medley: I can love you because he first loved me.
Mark Medley: And when Paul uses this temple language, they understood temple.
Mark Medley: This was a great Neil reminded me this yesterday.
Mark Medley: This was the great city of Ephesus.
Mark Medley: There was a huge temple there, one of the wonders of the world.
Mark Medley: They understood the temple and what goes on inside a temple.
Mark Medley: And when Paul is writing to them that you are the new temple, you're the dwelling place of God.
Mark Medley: This was so important to them because they had a reference point for where God was and what we're supposed to do to worship him.
Mark Medley: It was a temple in Jerusalem, but within 10 years of when this letter was written, that temple would be destroyed Forever, changing the way they would understand worship.
Mark Medley: There's no more physical place for God to dwell, no more place for us to come and offer sacrifices.
Mark Medley: What great love it was for God to speak through his apostle and tell them but there is a temple.
Mark Medley: When the temple is gone, there's still a temple.
Mark Medley: You are the temple.
Mark Medley: You are a temple built together, a dwelling place for God, and the liturgy of that temple is love one another, as I have loved you.
Mark Medley: And it looks really practical and it's laid out there in the scripture, but that's the bottom line of it.
Mark Medley: And how can we do it?
Mark Medley: We can't do it through the law, so the law and the temple had to be done away with.
Mark Medley: We do it through the gospel.
Mark Medley: We love each other through the gospel.
Mark Medley: So how can I love you like I'm supposed to love you?
Mark Medley: Here's the way I thought of it this week as I'm reading this.
Mark Medley: If I can rest in him, I can risk loving you.
Mark Medley: So I'm going to try.
Mark Medley: Why don't we stand up?
Mark Medley: I want to pray for us all.
Mark Medley: You understand that Paul wrote this out of his own experience.
Mark Medley: He was a man who was driven by performance and driven by zeal, and he became a man who understood what God had done for him in Christ and he became a man who could rest Rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.
Mark Medley: He learned how to live loved, and the only way that we can be whole people is to live loved.
Mark Medley: And the only way that we can deal with the emotional brokenness that's caused by a broken world is to live loved.
Mark Medley: And the only way for me to obey the command of God to love you is to live loved, loved by Christ, rooted in His love.
Mark Medley: And the only way for us to wage war like chapter six war is to live in the peace of God that comes through the gospel, to live loved.
Mark Medley: So let's just pray that as a prayer this morning.
Mark Medley: Father, we just want to ask you to give us grace to understand.
Mark Medley: We pray for a revelation.
Mark Medley: Give us an apocalypse, god.
Mark Medley: Give us an apocalypse, lord.
Mark Medley: Open our eyes of our understanding to see not what's to come but what has already been, lord.
Mark Medley: Not the end times, lord, but for all time, what you've done in Jesus.
Mark Medley: Open our eyes, god.
Mark Medley: Teach us, god.
Mark Medley: Teach us how to rest in what you've done for us, lord.
Mark Medley: Our souls wander and our souls are just.
Mark Medley: I don't know.
Mark Medley: We have this, some kind of adrenaline that just pushes us and drives us, lord, and it looks in different ways for each of us, lord, but we need to learn to rest.
Mark Medley: Teach us, lord, how to rest in you first and then to stand from that resting place and to walk and to fight together.
Mark Medley: And, lord, I'm asking you also, as you teach us to do that, lord, I'm not praying that just as an individual prayer.
Mark Medley: Lord, I want that in my life, but we want it together, lord, Teach us to do this together.
Mark Medley: We realize that we're a temple.
Mark Medley: We realize that we're built together.
Mark Medley: We are a dwelling place for God, all of us, lord, together.
Mark Medley: So teach us how to grow in our rest together, lord, teach us how to grow in our walking in righteousness together.
Mark Medley: And teach us, lord, how to fight together.
Mark Medley: We pray, I pray your blessing on each of us.
Mark Medley: God, I thank you that your gospel comes to us and bears fruit and increases in us, even as it is increased all in the world.
Mark Medley: Lord, lord, let it happen, let it increase.
Mark Medley: And, lord, I pray, especially today, that that beauty of that peace that the gospel brings would be shed abroad to other people.
Mark Medley: Lord, that we could be able to hold this peace out in such difficult times, lord, in such hateful times, in such crazy rhetoric.
Mark Medley: Lord, in such division, lord, that we can live lives of peace, we can live loved, and that that would be seen by others and we can invite others into this beautiful gospel of Jesus, and I pray your grace and your peace on every home that's represented here.
Mark Medley: Lord, I pray that you would bless everyone, that you would keep everyone, that you would make your face to shine upon everyone, lord, that you lift your countenance upon everyone here, lord, and you would give us your shalom In the name of Jesus, amen.
Mark Medley: Amen.