Famous last words … of grace and good byes.  Ephesians 6.21-24

Exactly six months ago today, we opened Paul’s letter of Ephesians together.  What a journey it has been!  Though Paul wrote to the Ephesians, people with whom we had lived and loved for three years, his words are for us today, just as surely.  As he began the letter to the Ephesians, so will he end ~ with grace.   The drippings of Grace …   Longing for a scent of a flower we have not found, the Echo of a tune we have not heard,                                                        News from a country we have never yet visited. — C. S. Lewis

I asked you: What’s your experience with grace?                                                                                                                                         Have you known and accepted God’s grace?                                                                Has the infinite grace of God changed you?                                                                    Do you flow in grace – giving and receiving it freely?                                Hmmm . . . can’t really know love without grace                                            For love ‘believes all things’, bears all things,                                               and gives the benefit of the doubt . . .  That is grace.

It is grace that brought Jesus to earth, and grace that made the bridge of faith between he and us.  But, of course!  For by grace we have been saved—[made right with God]—by faith; it is the gift of God.¹ Therefore, none of us can brag of any good works that we have done that made our relationship with him possible; and similarly, our destiny in heaven does not depend on a certain amount of good deeds, a percentage of righteousness, or a completed certificate from Bible Study Fellowship. 

Paul’s tender heart is exposed over and over in the precious letter, but perhaps no more keenly than in his prayers for his friends and fellow believers—in chapters one² and three³.  How he prayed that Christians would know how wide and long, how high and deep the love of Christ for us!⁴  Trusting that knowing and experiencing God’s great love would change our hearts, he urges us to live life with humility, gentleness and patience⁵. . . to desire with earnestness a purer way of conducting ourselves⁶, and to take care so that we will not be deceived or led away by empty words and false teaching⁷.

Though we have no indication from Scripture that Paul was a parent, we see his father’s heart throughout the letter, and particularly so at the start of chapter six, as he addresses children and fathers.⁸ He sets a new standard for the way wives are to be treated … with a sacrificial love, just as the way Christ loved the church and died for her, while we are to be submissive to the protective love of our husbands.⁹

Finally, Paul uses the familiar sight of the Roman soldier to teach us about how to stand strong in the struggle with evil that is ours in this world.  ‘Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power,’¹⁰ he says, and then, piece by piece, uses the soldier’s armor and attaches the spiritual significance to it. ‘Stand strong in God’s truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God,’¹¹ praying faithfully, fervently and at all times in the power of the Holy Spirit.¹²

Oh, so much to be gained from this letter written two millennia ago, and so applicable to our daily lives yet today!  I hope you will return to the six chapters in your Bible, and read them through, underlining that which speaks to you. 

As he closes, Paul adds a personal note that Tychicus, who also carried the letters of Colossians and Philemon, and would be delivering this letter of Ephesians, and give a full report directly from Paul himself.

And then, as we highly anticipate in each of Paul’s letters, there is his benediction, that is at once sacred, intimate and oh, so beautiful:  “Peace be with you, dear brothers and sisters, and may God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you love with faithfulness. May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.”¹³

Thank you, Brother Paul, for your courage and depth of faith, knowledge and relationship with Jesus Christ that made such a letter possible and so valuable for us who would endeavor to walk in the footsteps of the Savior.  Amen.            {All of the briefings from Ephesians are archived at www.pastorwoman.com, as are Paul's preceding letters, and more!}