Tuesday, September
4, 2018 – Ephesians 6:23
The Blessing of a Faithful Life as Noted in Ephesians,
Pt. 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLRTTcIU3g
Grace Fellowship Church
Pastor/Teacher, Jim Rickard
5. The Encouragement, vs. 21-24.
Eph 6:23, “Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Greek Noun for “faith,” PISITIS,
is used in the book of Ephesians 8 times. Eight is the superabundant number,
the beginning of a new era or order, regeneration, and resurrection, as our
Lord was raised on the eighth day. Thus is speaks of the new creation, the new
creature, the new spiritual species we are in Christ. As such, our mode of
operation inside the Christian way of life is that of faith. It is found in Eph 1:15; 2:8; 3:12, 17; 4:5, 13; 6:16, 23.
A survey of the utilization of the Noun PISTIS in the book of Ephesians tells
us:
1. Eph 1:15, Seeing “faith” in other believers encourages and
motivates you to execute the Christian way of life.
2. Eph 2:8, Faith is a non-meritorious action because salvation is a
gift from God to those who believe.
3. Eph 3:12, “In whom we have boldness and confident access through faith
in Him.”
One important aspect of our
working faith is our prayer life as noted in this passage. Here, we understand
that through faith in Jesus Christ, we have confident assurance and access to
God the Father in our prayer life, 1
John 5:14-15.
1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence which we have
before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15And
if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the
requests which we have asked from Him.”
“Knowing,” in 1 John 5:15, is another way of saying faith. Faith is expressing
positive volition towards an object or thing that you have deemed to be real or
true. To “know” something means that you have learned about it and understood
it to be real or true. This is the application in 1 John 5:15. We, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, have
learned about the prayer life that we can exercise in the spiritual life. We
have learned that we can pray to God the Father, and that He answers our
prayers. Therefore, we know about the prayer life. Now in exercising the prayer
life, we understand and apply our prayer life by praying to God the Father. In
that, we have learned that He hears our prayers, so we pray to the Father. We
also have learned that He answers our prayers, so we wait patiently with
confidence for Him to answer them. When we do this that is faith, PISTIS in
action or PISTEOU.
If you are convinced in something
so that you “know” it to be true or real and then use that information in some
way that is faith. It means that you believe that thing to be so and you apply
it to your life. In this case, the thing we are applying is that we can pray to
God the Father and He hears our prayer, and that He answers our prayers.
Therefore, we know / believe that God hears our prayers and answers them, which
means we have faith. If you know / believe that God answers your prayers, that
is faith. Therefore, our prayer life is a great example of our faith rest life
in God.
Yet, if we are not bold,
confident, and assured that God hears and answers our prayers, even though we
have learned to the contrary, we are lacking in faith. Yet, if we are bold,
confident, and assured that God hears and answers our prayers, we excel in
faith as we should. As Heb 11:1
states, “Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
The emphasis on Jesus Christ in
this passage tells us that in our prayer life we can enter the Father’s
presence with “boldness and confidence,” because we are covered with the
righteousness of Christ. That gives us access to the Father. When we place our
faith in Jesus Christ, we have done so because we realize He is the only One
who met the requirements of God laid down in the OT Law. When God looks at
those people who live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, He sees the
righteousness of Christ in them, which equals His righteousness that qualifies
for relationship with Him, and therefore provides us the opportunity in grace
to offer prayers to Him. Therefore, we are able to offer prayers to God the
Father, because of what Jesus Christ accomplished for us on the Cross.
This is also part of the mystery;
that believers can experience a nearness to God that far exceeds that of the OT
saints. Christians can boldly approach God because of Christ, vs. 18. This is not an “arrogance of
access,” but a “freedom to access” that we are confident in, Heb 4:14-16. We know that God hears us.
He is for us. He is with us. That confidence is faith.
4. Eph 3:17, “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and
that you, being rooted and grounded in love.”
Just as faith has played its part in believers’
appropriation of salvation, Eph 2:5, 8,
and access to God, Eph 3:12, so also
it is “through faith” that Christ’s dwelling in the heart becomes a reality for
us. This is not the permanent indwelling of Jesus Christ in your body that
occurs at the moment of your conversion, John
14:20; Rom 8:10; 2 Cor
13:5; Gal 2:20 ; Col 1:27 ; 1 John 2:24. This is the result of
Occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ as He indwells the heart or right lobe of
your soul. This is the result of having a
close and intimate relationship with the Lord, which is based on faith and
trust in Him and His Word. When you have faith in God and His Word, Jesus
Christ enters into a more intimate relationship with you and is at home in your
heart. When His Word is resident within your soul and applied, Jesus Christ is
comfortable with those surroundings and feels quite at home in your heart.
An example of this is Abraham vs.
Lot. “God was going to bless Abraham with
a son, so the Lord Himself came down and visited Abraham’s tent, and He brought
two angels with Him. They came to the tent, they talked with Abraham, and they
even ate a meal with him. They felt very much at home, because Abraham was a
man of faith and obedience. But the three guests had another task. They had to
investigate the sins of Sodom because God planned to destroy the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, a believer, was living in Sodom, and God wanted to
warn him to get out before the judgment could fall. But the Lord Himself did
not go to Sodom. He sent the two angels, Gen
18-19. The Lord did not feel at home in Lot’s house the way He felt at home
in Abraham’s tent.” (Bible Exposition Commentary).
This is possible because faith
involves a relationship of trust and mutual resemblance and thinking between
two parties. It means that you have the “mind of Christ,” 1 Cor 2:16, the Word of God / Bible Doctrine, resident within your
soul ready to be applied to your life, which is applied. It means that you are
walking with Christ daily in a close intimate relationship with Him. It means
that the character of Christ and the pattern of Christ’s life are increasingly
dominate in your life and shape your whole orientation to life. It means you
think and act like Christ having acquire the “Christ-like” nature.
This is the precursor to knowing
and having the tesseract motivational virtue AGAPE Love of God in your life, vs. 18-19. Remember, faith comes before
love and peace. Therefore, when you have faith, Christ is at home in your
heart, and you will be able to have MVA love as you should.
Therefore, Paul is praying for a
deeper experience between Christ and His people through faith or what is
believed, i.e., Bible doctrine in your soul. Paul yearns for Christ to settle
down and feel at home in your heart, which is not a surface superficial relationship,
but an ever-deepening fellowship, cf. Gal
2:20; 4:19; Phil 1:20.
Gal 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no
longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself
up for me.”
5. Eph 4:5, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
This passage, along with vs. 4 and 6, is part of a creed of “faith;” what the early church and us
today are to believe and uphold as Christians. It was part of “being diligent to preserve the unity of God the Holy Spirit in love, in
the bond of peace”, vs. 2-3. In the unity of the Holy Spirit, there is only
“one faith,” that is, one way of salvation, as the phrase is between “one Lord”
and “one baptism,” which are the bookends to your past salvation, i.e., the
moment of your conversion, cf. Mark
16:16; Col 2:12.
Mark 16:16, “He who has believed and has been baptized
shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”
Col 2:12, “Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which
you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who
raised Him from the dead.”
As such, through faith in Jesus
Christ, (as noted above), and only through faith in Jesus Christ, is anyone
saved, John 14:6; cf. Acts 4:12; John
10:9; Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; Heb 10:20.
John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the
truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’.”
Therefore, we recognize and
understand that all roads do not lead to heaven, but only faith in Jesus Christ
paves the way for the gift of God to come and grant salvation. In this passage,
we are charged with upholding this truth; being diligent to hold on to it,
defend it, and proclaim it.
6. Eph 4:13, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature
which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
The unity mandate of the previous
verse continues. Here, it is Paul’s and God’s desire that all believers come
together in the “unity of the faith and
knowledge,” and that we collectively grow spiritually by means of the grace
and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, 2
Peter 3:18. This threefold picture of unity, (faith and knowledge,
maturity, and stature of Christ), is the picture of spiritual adulthood found
in Christ Jesus put in terms of expressing completion or perfection, which He
is.
The “unity of the faith,” is a unity of belief in Christ Himself, and
this belief is intrinsically related to our knowledge of Him. Therefore, faith
in and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ binds believers together. It binds
the Church together. It is a unity generated and conditioned by our faith in
and our true knowledge of the Son of God, in whom we too are the sons of the
Eternal Father. The goal for us is to be like Jesus experientially. To be like
Jesus, we have to know Him and His Word, and believe.
The context here is the giving of
the communication gifts to the Church by God, vs. 11-2, so that the entire body of Jesus Christ can learn His
Word and grow spiritually, and not be baby believers who are easily deceived or
dissuaded by false doctrines and the things of this world, (i.e., Satan’s
cosmic system), vs. 14. Steadfast
faith in God and His Word, will lead us to spiritual adulthood individually and
collectively, which is the type of body Jesus deserves to have; “to the measure of the stature which belongs
to the fullness of Christ.”
Even though there will be
diversities and varying degrees of faith between us, and even within us moment
by moment, the goal and desire of Paul and our Lord is that we have a fixed and
continuous faith that grasps the whole of Jesus Christ and always holds on to
Him.
7. Eph 6:16, “In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which
you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”
Recently we noted this passage.
The last of the pieces of spiritual armor, which are virtues or attitudes to be
practiced by the believer, was the “Shield of Faith.” The great shield you have
been given by God, the great protection you have inside of Satan’s world, is
“faith,” i.e., believing, trusting, and relying upon God and His Word.
The “Shield of Faith” speaks of
the protection we have as part of the “Full Armor of God,” to stop the attacks
of Satan and his cosmic system, (flaming arrows), from penetrating our souls,
causing us to sin. The “faith” noted here is not saving faith, but rather
living faith; a continual trust in the promises and power of God. In this context,
it is the confident trust in and receptiveness to Christ and His power that
protects you when you claim it as an objective Divinely given reality. Faith
takes hold of God’s resources in the midst of the onslaughts of evil, and
produces the firm resolve which douses anything the enemy throws at you. Faith
is a defensive weapon which protects us from Satan’s attacks.
Faith will enable you “to
extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one.” The flaming missiles
represent every type of assault devised by the evil one, not just temptation to
impure or unloving conduct, but also false teaching, persecution, doubt, and
despair. Faith is the power which enables you to resist and triumph over such
attacks. When you use the Shield of Faith, you are not deterred, deceived, or
deluded by the world. You will continue to walk in Christ, not allowing the
outside pressures of life to become inward stress upon the soul leading to sin,
human good, or evil.
If we do not by faith quench these
flaming missiles, (Satan’s attacks), they will light a fire within and we will
disobey God. We never know when Satan will shoot a missile at us, so we must
always walk by faith and use the shield of faith. Just as the soldier could not
afford to be without this protective shield at any time, the follower of Christ
cannot for one moment afford to be without faith.
Therefore, faith conquers Satan’s
attacks to wrath, lust, despair, vengeance, etc., 1 Peter 5:9. Faith overcomes sin and evil in the world, 1 John 5:4, and will likewise overcome
Satan, the ruler of this world, 1 John
5:18.
1 Peter 5:9, “But resist him (Satan), firm in your
faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by
your brethren who are in the world.”
