Ephesians 2 - Focused

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0:12 For the rest of us, we're working through, as I mentioned, these four core values. If you haven't been with us, the Cross Orlando is part of a little multi-sider and network of churches. There's three churches and one school. And the school is in Sanford. It's called Holy Cross Academy. And there's Resurrection in Sanford. And there's Holy Cross in Lake Mary. And there's us down here. We're all chartered as one congregation with one board and budget and vision together.

0:42 We're going through that vision, the values of that vision over the last several weeks. Last week, Russ from Lake Mary was with you and talked about collaborative. The week before that we talked about adventures. Today we'll talk about focused. And then next week, Blake from Sanford will be with you and talk about sincere. But today to talk about focused, we picked focused. There's one verse where Jesus mentions, he says, something like, I only do the things I see the Father doing.

1:13 I don't do whatever I want. I do exactly the things that I see my Father doing. And when you look through the life of Jesus, he makes a couple of kind of pivots, turns, or choices he makes to really focus. Remember, there's one time after he feeds a bunch where they want to make him king. They're like, you should be king. And he just quietly walks away because he realized now is not the time to be king. You know, when he's in front of Pontius Pilate and Pilate is asking in these questions and he's not responding or answering the questions and Pilate's like, don't you know who I am

1:47 and the power and authority I have? And Jesus is like, dude, I'm not interested in your power and authority. My kingdom is not of this world. And maybe most famously when Satan tempts him in the desert and he says, I can give you all the kingdoms of the world and Jesus stays focused on his mission. And I think in the world and time today, it's important for a church to try to be focused on something. And so we picked as a core value for ourselves focused. But I think like it can be tricky to kind of figure out what should we be focused on

2:21 as a church. Like church is something that we are together. I think it's fair to know what you are focused on. We think that Christians are focused on love and lord are God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, whatever that means, that's your focus. But what are we called to be focused on together as a church? What's the call for who we might be? And for me, that looking at that, exploring that, at least in this week, the answer started

2:53 in Ephesians chapter two that I just showed to the kids. So if you want to look there, Paul's building kind of as he does, he just stacks one syllogism on top of another. You know, he's like building a long, logical argument. He always does that. And he's doing that in Ephesians chapter two, three and four. And so we'll try and kind of work through Ephesians chapter two, three and four a little bit to figure out what he's saying and see maybe what we might focus on. But if you start there in Ephesians chapter two verse eight, you get to it.

3:25 So if you have a phone or a Bible that you could look there. Actually right at the beginning of chapter two, he starts off with this idea. He says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air and the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, this among whom we all once lived and the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind that were by nature,

3:57 children of wrath. But then he goes down in verse, keep going. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him and seated with us in him in the heavenly places, Christ Jesus. So that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness

4:28 towards you in Christ Jesus. And then he gets to because or for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing is the gift of God. Not a result of work so that no one can boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he had prepared in advance for us to do. The thing to think about with Paul first here is that remember the situation that Paul's in, Paul was like a Hebrew of Hebrews and he started out leaving Jerusalem in order to kind of cleanse the Hebrew church of the followers of the way of Jesus.

5:02 And so when he's captured by Jesus of Nazareth on the road to Damascus, he's out there now. He spends several years in Damascus on an Antioch learning what it means that Jesus is the Messiah. He starts to go teach and he's actually in the point where he's writing letters back. He's interpreting the way of Jesus brand new. People know the laws of the Pharisees as he goes out there into these places. He knows they know what makes Israelites distinct, but they don't know what it means to live

5:35 under the reign of Jesus now. And so Paul's letters are they seem kind of esoteric and theoretical, but his intent for writing them is that people would know how to live, that they would know what to do together. And so when he says, for it is by grace you have been saved, not of your own works that no man should boast, this is a beautiful idea, but he says that the purpose that you have for which you have been saved, not of your own working or doing, but of the free gift, like we tried to explain to the kids, is that you might live out the life.

6:08 The good works that God has laid in advance for you to do. And so he sets up this like parameter that God of his own accord moves first toward you. He uses the metaphor of while you were dead in your sins. Did Christ come to you? And he rescued you. So then the question is now what he says, now go ahead and do the work that he has laid in front of you to do. And he follows that out over the next several chapters where he like says some kind of incredible

6:46 things. If you keep going down, he then talks about how in this work he's, God is making the church. So in this act of saving you while you are yet dead in your sins, he's like, Paul wants to make the point because it's new at the time that God is willing, open and able to save all people. So he's saying that Jesus of Nazareth, through Jesus of Nazareth, God has made a way for all

7:20 people to have life, to step out of this place of death and into life. So he's built the first, the expectation that God rescues people from death because he wants to, not because they have earned it or merited it or asked for it even while they were dead in their sins. God moves to them and rescues them. Then he begins to say he can move and rescue all people, not just any people.

7:51 Not just one specific set of people, not just Israelites, but Gentiles and all nations. So he says that here in this next second half of chapter two, and he comes down, he says in verse 13 of chapter two, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. This is what I wanted to remind you is that wherever you came from, wherever you've been,

8:24 wherever you've been, wherever you've found yourself, wherever your parents came from, wherever your parents were, Christ can get to you actually. And so there's nothing you have been or nothing you have done that have gotten you so dead in your sins that God can't bring life back to you. And so while you were yet dead in your sins, whomever, wherever, whatever, God finds you

8:58 in your death and brings life to you. And then what he's Paul is starting to say because he's experienced it himself and he's seen it happen in cities all throughout Asia Minor, that God then takes these people in whom he has breathed life and starts to graft them together into a group of people. So if you go down that paragraph, a chapter two verse 19, so that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of

9:34 God built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is like a really nice, what, this is affirming for me because what I want to say all the time is church is something to be and that's not rocket science, but it's nice

10:08 to see that Paul is saying the same thing. He's talking to people in Ephesus who know how to build temples, who know where God's are located in stone and graven places where you walk in our silent and he says no, God is you all as rescued in live and individuals are being built together into the very dwelling place of God. So like as we think about a focused church, it starts with all of you rescued from whatever

10:42 death is persistent in your hearts, minds, bodies and souls rescued from the death, brought into life and gathered together. And Paul is saying this is what God has been doing in Christ since, I don't know when he wrote Ephesians in the 60s maybe or the early 70s. God's been doing it and he's doing it here among us. That's what we want to say. Is that when we gather together here in this little warehouse and put out the chairs and

11:17 fight the distractions and the fears and put away the apprehensions and the anxieties and try to be present together with each other for a few moments, it's not for nothing. And it's not something we made up. We want to suggest that what we do here is in keeping end in line and there is an intent, a purpose and a direction that the whole thing is moving towards that we didn't create. And so it would be worth it for us to align ourselves with it as we look forward about who we want to be for each other with each other to Orlando.

11:51 And so Paul is kind of starting to lay that out and then he like gets into a little thing in the first part of three where he's kind of, he feels like he's defending himself, he's like, because he's a little bit embarrassed that he's been arrested because that would be bad but he makes an argument for why that's not bad. And then in the second part of chapter three there starting at verse 14, he says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and

12:24 earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he might grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so 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

12:54 Jesus that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Paul is saying, now you guys that have been rescued from whatever death you have wherever it is persistent in you rescued and gifted life and then grafted together as the people of God in the world. Now I ask that you would know that God would make it possible for you to know the height and breadth and length and depth of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus which sounds beautiful

13:25 but it says it surpasses all knowledge. So one of the reasons that we would get together is to actually be the people who encounter the love of God. Sounds good. It's hard to know what that really means. It's kind of esoteric and mystical but I want to encourage you that because it is esoteric and

14:11 mystical doesn't mean that it's not real. I want to suggest that the thing Paul is pleading for is part of what has held the church together for two thousand years. And what we'll see in what Paul is pleading for is the kind of engine that drives the life and the focus of the church.

14:48 That you would know comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ Jesus that surpasses all knowledge. I don't know if that calls to mind for you a certain memory. The idea of knowing the height and breadth and length and depth of the love of God for you in Christ Jesus. I don't know if there's a particular place or time or experience.

15:23 I have to say that for me there are just a few moments of that that I can pinpoint in my life. Like substantial where I'm like oh wow I have a experiential knowledge of God's love for me. I can feel the legitimacy of God's love for me. And I can give you a parallel, an example in case you can't quite put your finger on it.

15:54 There are times where maybe it's my wife or there is a couple moments where it was my dad. Even a couple moments where it was my mom. But maybe you have moments in relationships that you know where someone said something to you and the words that came out of their mouth

16:25 hit so heavy on your heart. For me I just weep in those moments. But maybe you had to sit down. Or maybe your body responded in the hug but the feeling that surpasses knowledge that you knew this person loved you. But when they said this thing to you it was so deeply true and good that it felt different.

16:57 Paul is suggesting that that is some little semblance or mirror or foretaste of the love you can have in connection to the God. Paul is suggesting that in Christ Jesus you can have an unmediated, unmitigated connection of love to the God. And he prays on his knees that the church in Ephesus would find it. And he tells us why.

17:28 He says if we keep going really into chapter 4 he gives us this first therefore. He's using therefore and so because he builds these things all the time. But he's like now you who have been rescued from whatever death enlivened from whatever death wherever you are and gathered together as the people of God. I hope that you I ask that God the Father would give you this unmitigated experience of his love.

18:04 Right and when he does therefore he says with all humility and gentleness and with patience bearing with one another in love eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace that is the one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to one hope that belongs to your call one Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each other according to the measure of Christ's gift. Why does he do this? Because he's trying to lay out what it means that they are church in Ephesus and he starts by saying

18:39 you are enlivened from death. And now as the ones alive in the world God has grafted you together as a people where he indwells and then you in his indwelling in your church presence together you can experience the unmitigated presence of the love of God. And so then he's like now you as these people in the world for heaven's sake don't divide against the petty. He's like yeah some of

19:10 you have more money and some of you have less neither is better than the other. Yes some of you uh they don't vote in Ephesus but some of you vote over here and some of you vote over here but you are the redeemed ones of God. There is one faith one Lord one baptism of us all. He's saying this is what holds you together as the people of God in the world so first off he's

19:43 going remember whom we what we are we are the redeemed of God under God's reign one faith one Lord stick together in that be focused on the work of God. But he keeps going and this is where we get to it if you go down because he goes if you're able to stay together now I'm in chapter 4 verse

20:16 12 11 he's like now if you're able to stay together then he's given you different gifts so that you can work together and he says has he given all apostles prophets evangelist pastors teachers to equip the saints for the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and throw by the waves carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness

20:54 and schemes rather speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body is joined together and every joint he's he's saying that we would stick together so that we could grow up and remember what's true so that we're not cast about and running after every small thing why is this important he gets to the last part why would it be good that we stick together and not be thrown about by every wind and he says here starting in

21:32 verse 17 so that or now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in futility of their minds they are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart they have become callous and have given themselves up to the things verse 20 but that is not the way you learned Christ assuming that you have heard him and were taught in him as truth is in Jesus to put off your old self

22:09 which belongs to your former manner of life and corrupt though deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness and look at this last distinction he starts to say what he's starting to say is that you have been rescued from wherever death persists grafted together into a group of people who in the one faith encounter the love of God and when you stick in that he's saying that

22:41 experience and knowledge equips you to live a different way in the world and he's suggesting that the Ephesians be focused on the knowledge in order that they might live and he's describing this life here in starting in verse 25 therefore having put away falsehood let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another be angry but do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity for the devil let the thief no longer steal

23:18 but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice be kind to one another

23:53 tenderhearted forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you to me this is the thing this is the result of the focus i would love to be a truth teller in the world i would love to be someone who works hard in order that he could be generous with his neighbor i would love to be someone who is forgiving as Christ forgave me

24:25 Paul is suggesting that the focus of the church is to be looking at the gospel in a way that they encounter the spirit of God such that they could live start living lives now that they will forever we want to be a place that is focused on the gospel not that we could be right or even so that we could sit wallowing in the goodness of the gospel but we want to be people who encounter the gospel in

24:57 such a way that it propels us to live truthful generous forgiving lives in the world a church that is focused has is made up of people who are engaged loving their neighbor with all of their gifts and skill sets and talents you can be the church of God in the world you can

25:30 the trick is uh to lean into the church the capacity to be the church is not in you it's in God and so as we focus on the gospel together it propels us out to live i want to pray that you might know the gospel again today in a way that lets you live let's pray hey lord thank you for this room of people whom you have rescued rescue us again today

26:05 from wherever death persists in our hearts minds and bodies that we might live now and forever in Jesus name we pray amen