Ephesians intro, part 5
A close friend from church and I work out on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with another guy. Recently that other guy, who is not part of our church, told us that he was reading the Bible over the weekend and thought the passage he was reading sounded like our church. I perked up. This could be good or bad.
What Bible passage reminded him of my church?
When you think of your church, what passage Bible comes to mind? This week we have been studying the introduction and conclusion of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We’ve come to the last two verses of the conclusion. They should sound familiar to the introduction, and they are verses that should describe any church.
In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 23 and 24, Paul writes:
“Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.”
Grace and peace, just like the intro in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2. But the conclusion adds love. In verse 23, love from God to the people. In verse 24, love from the people to God.
God is love. Love is not one of his characteristics. He simply is love. We can rightly say that everything else about God modifies his love.
God is gracious love.
God is peaceful love.
God is merciful love.
God is holy love.
Love is his all in all. And God wants us to experience his love. God wants us to know that he loves us. This is why John 3:16 is such a wonderful verse, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Or consider how Paul writes about God’s love in Romans 8:37-39, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
But this is a blog series about Ephesians, so let’s conclude with a statement of God’s love from Ephesians. In Ephesians 3, Paul writes a profound prayer. Look at Ephesians 3:17–19, right in the middle of the prayer, where Paul says, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
God very much wants us to know and experience his love in our day to day lives.
Groups of Christians form church families, and together we receive the grace, peace, and love of God. Then we share God’s grace, peace, and love with each other and the communities around them. When we share grace, peace, and love in the places we live and work and play, we Christians are small working models of the new creation that God desires for all people. We are not the full-blown new creation that Jesus will bring when he returns. We are just a model of it. But we are a working model. The real thing in small scale.
There you have it. Churches are to be grace, peace, and love amongst ourselves and with the other humans around us.
Back to the friend who was reading the Bible and said he thought of my church. He wasn’t reading Ephesians. He was reading Jesus’ parable of the Sheep and the Goats found in Matthew 25. That’s the one where Jesus says that his true followers will reach out to those in need of food and clothing. Jesus’ followers visit incarcerated persons in prison, care for the sick, and welcome strangers. He said that he read that and it hit him in a new way, “That sounds like Faith Church.” It was very encouraging, and it has much affinity with the grace, peace, and love that Paul writes about in Ephesians.
How can you keep that grace, peace, and love going in your church? Who do you need to give grace and peace to? In what new ways do you need to learn to live in and walk in the grace, peace, and love that God has for you?
Engaging Scripture 