Walk Worthy of Grace

Introduction

Good morning, good morning. Glad to see everyone here this morning to come together to worship our Heavenly Father in song and prayer and praise and study his portion of his word. We’re just welcome, glad for all of you this morning. We have a whole lot of visitors with us this morning. And we’d ask that after service that you stay around a little while and let us get to meet you and you get to meet us and get to know you better. But we’re so grateful for you being here and worshiping with us.

Noah Nelson was baptized this week, and we’re so glad to have know that and have him come with us and worship and grow with us. So if you get a chance, be sure that you congratulate Noah on his decision to become a brother in Christ. Also, we want to keep Ed Giles and his family in our prayers on the loss of Don this week. We’re just so saddened by that. But just keep Ed and his family in our prayers and just bless him as he is a blessing to us. Also, on a little bit happier note, it’s Mother’s Day, and we have several mothers in our audience, in fact, a whole bunch.

But we also have mothers that are mothers that get to be mothers again. So we’ve been blessed with several new little ones in our presence, and we’re just so grateful for that. Also want to remember Galen. As most of you have heard, Galen had a stroke.

He’s with us this morning, but we want to keep him in our prayers and his family and support them in any way we can. Again, we’re glad to have everyone with us this morning. And just please put the things of the world from your minds. We’re here to praise and worship our Heavenly Father. And that’s our that’s what we’re here for. So just set your hearts right with that thought and prepare yourselves for that. We’ll have a few more announcements after service at the end of service. If you’ll please bow at this time.

Father, we are so blessed to be your children. So blessed to know you through your word. To know that you love us and that we love you. Father, we’re just so grateful for all the blessings we have. We’re so richly blessed in so many ways. We pray, Father, that you’d be with our mothers today and those that are expecting that all will go well. We thank you for this new brother in Christ. That we will always help him and grow him, and we’re so grateful for his choice. Father, we pray that you would be with the Giles family and be with Ed in this moment of loss. That you would comfort and strengthen them as only you can. And Father, we just pray that we’ll support him and the family in the coming days.

We’re thankful for Galen, and we pray that you will continue to bless him, that you will lay his healing hands, your healing hands upon him, bring them back to his full health. Father, as we go through this life, as we strive to spend eternity with you, we realize there was a sacrifice given for us in here to provide that path that your Son Jesus Christ freely gave his life upon that cross. And it was only through that sacrifice that we have the promise and hope of an eternal life. May we always look to you, and may we know that you’re always with us. In your son’s name we pray. Amen.

But now I am going to Jerusalem, serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. Therefore, when I have finished this and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain. And I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.

Good morning. Let’s begin our song service this morning with O Thou Fount of Every Blessing, number six eighty. If you’re using the book, we’ll sing three verses.

If you’re using your books, please turn number five hundred eighty four will sing, O Master, let me walk with thee. After which we’ll be led another prayer, followed by an opportunity for the saints here to get back.

I teach me life.

For I am being rained. Let’s pray. Lord, our God and our Father, it is you we praise this morning, for you are the giver of life and of breath. You are the creator of all things. You laid the earth’s foundation and marked off its dimensions when there was absolutely nothing. How blessed are we to be called your children? We come here this morning filled with hearts of joy, hearts of sorrow, comfort, and also hurt. We have joy because we have a risen Savior, and through Him we have a living hope. When we lose those who we love, and sometimes we have health issues that come up, we turn to you, Lord. It is you we seek. It is in you, Lord, that we have comfort that gets us through the most difficult storms and the peace that calms our hearts.

Thank you, Lord, for times like this where we can come together as a family. Help us to have open hearts to your word this morning. I pray that your word will strengthen us and guard our hearts and our minds. Guide us to seek your wisdom and godly counsel as we navigate the decisions of life. Let your wisdom be the light that guides us each and every day. Lord, you alone are worthy of all glory, honor, and praise. Only through your Son, Jesus Christ, can we find a true purpose in life and a hope that will endure forever. And it is in his name that we offer this prayer. Amen.

That we get have a chance to give back to the Lord a portion of that which He has given and blessed us with. If you’ll believe, please bow at this time. Our Heavenly Gracious Father, we thank you for the blessings of this life and the blessings that you’ve blessed us with. We pray, Father, that as we give back a portion of that you’ve given to us, that we realize that comes from you. And Father, we pray that we will do so with open hearts and grateful hearts for all that you have done for us and continue to do for us each day of our lives. Father, we thank you for your Son and for His blessing and for the blessing that he gave us on the cross.

Father, be with us as we go through this day, through this week, and through our lives. It’s in your Son’s name we pray. Amen.

In Heavenly Love Abiding. Number six seven, if you’re using your books.

We’ll sing all three verses.

If you’re using your books, our song of encouragement after Brent’s lesson will be I walk with the King, number three fifteen, number three one five. After you mark that, I invite you to stand while we sing the church’s one foundation, number three sixty six one foundation.

I want to begin this morning in Ephesians chapter one. Ephesians, the first chapter. I want to read a section of this text to kind of set the pace for where we’re headed this morning and talking about the grace of God and how we respond to it. I want to begin in verse three, Ephesians chapter 1 and verse three. It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

They’ve provided maybe grain for famine to take care of your city, or they’ve given some kind of tax relief. And because of the various things they’ve done, whether they’ve built a gymnasium or an aqueduct or whatever it might be, an inscription is put up in their honor. It begins by praising this person for their benefits, the things they provided, and then it calls upon all the citizens of this city to respond fittingly with gratitude, loyalty, continued honor. This happened frequently in the ancient world. If you lived in the Roman period, you would be familiar with this kind of thing. There was inscriptions all over the ancient world honoring such people who built the various structures that were necessary. It’s how their society worked. And last time, last week, we introduced this concept about grace from Sophocles, 500 years before the New Testament world, where he talks about this idea that grace is always giving birth to grace.

This is how things function. Maybe an easier way to portray this is you live in an ancient city and you have a threat around you. This is pretty common. Someone’s going to come in, destroy you, take your city, take your stuff, and some king or some ruler sweeps in and delivers you. How would you then respond to that person? To that nation or whoever it was. There would be a proper response to the grace that they demonstrated to you. Ephesians is a really interesting book for many reasons. One of them is the structure itself, sort of fitting to this ancient concept of grace. Frederick Danker, who is one of the authors of, you’ve probably heard me reference Bedag, it’s the biblical Greek lexicon. He believes that the book of Ephesians is based on the structure of honorific decrees.

I may say some more about that here in just a minute. I’m not sure that’s completely true or completely the way it is, but it certainly has strong connections. And what Danker is really getting at with this idea is the first, and this is pretty important in understanding the book of Ephesians. And so I want you to listen to this really carefully. The first three chapters of the book of Ephesians is all about God’s grace and what he has done. That’s the focus. So when it talks about by grace we have been saved through faith, Paul’s not trying to talk about here what we need to do to be saved in Jesus Christ. What he’s doing is he’s working through all the things that God has done, and the first three chapters are just filled with it.

And why we should be thankful for all the things that he’s done, it was just listing the various aspects of this. And then when you get to chapter four, there’s all sorts of things that change about the book. For one thing, it goes from what’s called the indicative, which is just describing things or explaining things, to the imperative form, which, if you know language, you know that means you’re starting to get commands at that point. Right? Here’s all the things that God has done, and now here’s how you respond to that. Here’s the proper response to how God has blessed you and graced you in life. Here’s how you demonstrate your thanksgiving. And so that’s where we’re headed this morning. We’re gonna get to chapter 4, verse 1 here in a little bit, and then talk about that statement about walking worthy.

1. Grace and Works Are Tied Together

What does that mean to walk worthy? I want you to understand it is heavily tied to the concept of grace itself. Grace and works are inevitably tied together. You cannot separate them. And that is the flaw of modern grace theory. It tries to do that. And you cannot do it. Not in the ancient convention of grace, not the way they would have understood grace, not even in how a book like Ephesians is written. They are put together and they hinge on each other. And that’s how it works, much like what Sophocles is saying. When you have grace, it gives birth to grace. There is a reciprocal relationship. There’s a back and forth that should always be taking place. Maybe another way to think about this is since we’re thinking about mothers anyway this morning, is to think about maybe a parent-child relationship.

Your parents don’t love you because you’re so good. They just don’t. They don’t love you because you’ve worked so hard and you have earned their love. They love you because you are their child. Now, what that doesn’t mean is you just say, Mom and Dad love me anyway. I’m just gonna do whatever I want. No. Actually, because of their love for you, an inherent love they have for you because you are their child, you should return that in honor. You should return that with respect, realizing you did absolutely nothing to earn their love. You simply were born. Or you were adopted. This is what the text talks about here in Ephesians chapter 1, where we just read. He chose us. We are adopted as sons. But this is by the power of God’s grace that all of this can take place.

And that’s what Paul’s trying to help us see here. This is by God’s doing in these first three chapters, they’re all about that and what God has done to make all of this possible, and without him, there would be absolutely no salvation. Without his grace, we would be in no place to have a standing before God.

And so I even this morning, children, I want you to understand, and some of us who are older, whose mothers are still here, we can understand that our mothers loved us before we did a single thing. And we ought to return honor and respect to them for what they have done for us. And now you take that image and you lay that over what’s happening in the gospel with Jesus Christ and how God’s plan then brought him forth and gave us redemption, and then how we ought to respond to that in kind. That’s what reciprocity is all about. It’s a big word that really just means you’re kind of returning in kind. So reciprocity, that’s not a term we often use. Maybe those of you who are in like government type positions, or maybe you have some sort of license, and there’s reciprocity between states.

2. God Has Poured Out His Grace upon Us

I mean, we kind of use it that way sometimes, but it’s an acting in kind, right? So somebody does something and you return that in kind. It’s not the same thing, but you’re returning back the same concept or the same idea. You’re honoring them for what they did for you. And so one state will honor the license from another state. It’s a back and forth relationship. Grace is that circle we talked about last week. It just never ends. It should continue. When you have been blessed, you should continue that blessing on to someone else or return it to the giver. And so Paul begins Ephesians with this reality that God has poured out his grace upon us. He has blessed us in more ways than we can possibly imagine.

He’s blessed us in Christ Jesus. He goes through this whole list of items. He chose us, he adopted us, he redeemed us through Jesus’ blood. He forgave our trespasses. He’s enlightened us with the mystery of his will, which was actually that through Jesus Christ, all things are going to be brought together to a head. Everything is going to be summed up, things in heaven and things on earth. It’s all brought together in Christ Jesus and what he did. He blessed us with that. So all the things we’ve known from the past, all the things we read in the Old Testament about what’s going to take place and all the things that are going to happen, they all come together into Jesus Christ and what he’s done.

And then we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. We have this down payment, which is the reality of what is going to be the greatness in the end when we are with the Father forever. And all of this is not really meant to honor me or honor you.

All the things that are taking place, how he has blessed us, it’s really not so much about us. It’s really about him. It’s centered on him and who he is and what he’s done. And what this does is we recognize this, we return honor to him by doing so. Interestingly, you’ve probably heard this before in Ephesians chapter 1, 3 through 14. It’s like the longest sentence in Scripture. It may be one of the longest sentences in the ancient world. So if you read this in English, we throw periods in to make it a little bit easier to work through. But in Greek, from 3 to 14, it’s just one long sentence. One of the reasons for that, and you’re somewhat familiar with this, is the type of rhetoric it is.

It’s called epidectic rhetoric, which is the rhetoric of praise or blame. And the way you’ve heard this done is maybe at like an award ceremony or something like that, where they’re going to give an award to someone, and they just go on and on and on and on about what they’ve done and what they’ve accomplished. Right? That’s what Paul’s doing here. That’s the type of language he’s using. He’s just going on and on and on about what God has done, what he has accomplished through Jesus Christ, and how grateful we should be for all the things that have taken place through him, for the authority that he’s given Christ, how he’s overcome all dominion and power, the sorts of things that are threatening that endanger us, he’s overcome all of that.

And now we can take comfort in Jesus Christ. He is the head, he’s the king, he’s the one who rules. And all of this is part of God’s grace being poured out upon us. Alright, so I want to show some ancient sources to you to kind of show how this works in the ancient world. There’s plenty of these, and I’m just giving you a little sampling here. This is the Prime Inscription. There’s another one called the Pathagonian inscription from about 3 BC, that are they’re honoring Roman emperors. But I want you to notice the language that’s used here, and in a sense, how Paul, sometimes other biblical authors do this sort of in a mocking way or a satirical way, how they take some of this language in, no, it’s actually Jesus and God you should be honoring, not Augustus, or not one of the other emperors.

Since Providence, which is a deified concept, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance, and we haven’t read Titus II yet, but this is the word right there, that grace has appeared. Right? We’ll talk about that in a later sermon. But by his appearance, excelled even our anticipations, surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done. Since the birthday of the God Augustus was the beginning of the gospel for the world that came by reason of him, which Ajah resolved in Smyrna.

Mark 1 has a direct connection here because it talks about the gospel, the beginning of the gospel in Jesus Christ. It’s the same phrase.

But this is the way the ancient world worked. They’re proclaiming Augustus for all the benefits that he’s blessed society, he’s brought peace. And if you were to read through Ephesians, you would see it keeps talking about the peace that God brings. He’s the God of peace, and all the peace that’s brought because of him. That’s not by mistake. It’s countering what’s happening in a statement like this about Augustus, where he is being claimed to be God.

This should sound familiar. Right? What is our calendar based off of? But they wanted to change the calendar based on the birthday of Augustus, because of how amazing he was. But this is all grace. This is grace being tied into how people operate and how they think.

And of course, the language of Scripture is actually countering that subtly and saying, no, this should be done to Jesus Christ and to God the Father. But I want us to continue to see what’s happening in the text. It’s not just that he’s done all these things for us, redemption and forgiveness. It continues on. This is part of in an honorific decree. You praise the benefactor, and then you have what’s called a manifesto clause. Here are all the things they’ve done for you. And it’s followed by the resolution clause. So now what are we going to do? Right? That’s the way to think of it. We’ll get there in Ephesians 4. But he’s talked about all the blessings we have in Christ. And then he’s going to talk about how he formed us as a people.

3. By His Grace, We Have Identity

By his grace, we have identity. And one of the key concepts in the book of Ephesians is that he took two people, he took the Gentile and the Jew, and he made one new man. He brought them together. This is what we typically reference as the church. Right? We come together as God’s people. He talks about it as the temple, as the household of God. God, through his grace and by his plan, not only did he deliver us, but he formed us together as his people. Grace does not leave us as an isolated, forgiven individual. It’s not that through God’s grace I’m forgiven and now I’m just on my own. I’m isolated. I’m alone. No, in God’s wisdom and in his grace and in his love, he also formed us together as a people who are to live this life together in honor of him.

So much so that he took two completely different groups of people. The Jews who followed the law of Moses and the Gentiles who certainly did not. And by his grace, he made peace. Our world is all about wanting to have peace.

What do you want? I want world peace. You know, this is the thing people say they want. You want world peace? You come to Jesus Christ. Jesus makes peace. He brings people together. And as much as people will follow him and trust him and do the things he has told them to do, that’s what’s going to make peace. That’s the point Paul’s making here. If you follow Jesus and if you honor God, if you walk in his ways, these two vastly different kinds of people from different walks of life, are now formed together through the grace of God. That’s the power of his grace and what it can accomplish. This is what he’s getting at in chapter two as he’s setting this up when he talks about the fact that we were dead.

We once walked in the passions of our flesh, and we were following the prince of the power of the of the air that now works in the sons of disobedience, the first part. And when he gets further down, he talks about how God has raised us up with Christ. He seated us with him in the heavenly places so that, verse 7, chapter 2, verse 7, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

His kindness is demonstrated by what takes place from his followers and what happens when they come together as one, which is what he’s going to do in the second part of chapter 2. As he’s talking about Jew and Gentile becoming one person, one body in Christ. Through Jesus’ actions, he became our peace, it says in verse 14. He made us both one, has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. This was the law, by the way. The grammar here is saying this is a dividing wall, which is a fence. There’s a dividing wall which is a fence between people, and that fence, as he goes on to say, was the law. It was dividing Jew and Gentile in verse 15. He does away with that, and he creates in himself one new man in place of the two, making peace.

Paul talks about how he came to preach peace. He came to preach the grace of God and the grace of God in chapter 3 and verse 6. This is the mystery that Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise of Christ Jesus through the gospel. This is all according to the gift of God’s grace, he says in verse 7. This is God’s working in the world. That’s what he wants us to see. It’s not because I did so many things right or you did so many things right. This is God setting his plan in action and making sure all of this takes place the way he wants it to take place. And by all of that, by the grace of God, he has formed a people for himself.

We are brought from death to life.

And he makes us unified.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. We are a holy temple, which is a dwelling place for God in the Spirit, He tells us in Ephesians 2.

It’s working on this concept of grace, the back and forth. When God blesses me, I then should take that blessing and bless others. I should take on the same attitude that he has in response. And what that means is people like all of us, who may be very different, can come together as one. Because we’re no longer acting for our own selfish desires and our own passions. Now we are working for the cause of Jesus Christ. And whether we are directly returning honor to him or whether we’re taking his blessing and blessing others, it brings us together.

4. Grace Is Not a Loan We Repay

Sometimes we think of our relationship with God as one of indebtedness. And there’s a sense in which that’s true, and we’ll we’ll see that. But it’s not a debt that we can repay. Grace is not a loan we repay, it’s a relationship that continues. It exists and it continues on. And Seneca explained this. In fact, if you go read Seneca’s On Benefits, it’s actually all about what we were talking about. Last week, this week, and next week. It’s this he’s a stoic philosopher who’s talking about essentially what grace is. He gives us a book on what grace looks like in the ancient world. And here’s one of the ways he describes this. He talks about how he has to be more careful in selecting a creditor for a benefit.

So he’s talking about this relationship of benefactor benefaction and reciprocity. He has to be more careful for that than for who he chooses for a loan. Because the loan he will pay back, and then it’s over with. He returns the money he’s borrowed, the relationship is over. But here’s what he says about benefaction when this system of grace, right? Even after I’ve paid my debt of gratitude, the bond between us still holds. For just when I have finished paying it, I am obliged to begin again. And friendship endures. And as I would not admit an unworthy man to my friendship, so neither would I admit one who is unworthy to the most sacred privilege of benefits from which friendship springs. The whole concept he’s getting at here is when we have a relationship, which we’re going to see here in a minute, is based on the grace of Christ and of God.

And we build that.

This is the building of a relationship. This is building something that’s going to continue on. And particularly with our relationship with God, we simply cannot repay it. And that’s often how it worked in the ancient world, if you think about it. You had super wealthy people, and then you had just the regular people like us, and they bless them, they help them, they take care of them. It’s a little bit maybe we can picture it kind of like our jobs. You’ve got these billion-dollar companies. I will never be a billionaire. You will probably never be a billionaire. Maybe you will, but probably not. Right? But they have resources that I will never have and that you will never have. But they can give you a job, they can give you benefits.

They have the ability to do that. And this is how the ancient world worked as well. And you would have someone who took care of you and you honored them in return. But now, if you lay that over our relationship with God, there’s no way we can ever. I mean, it’s not even possible. This is the parable of the talents, right? Or other parables Jesus tells, where we just simply will never be able to pay this back. That’s not the goal. You will never earn grace. It will never happen. But you can honor the giver. And that’s what God calls us to. He wants not someone who’s paying back a loan. He wants our heart. He wants us to give ourselves to him. He wants us to glory in the relationship that we have.

And that’s all that’s being pictured in the text like Ephesians, but it’s also in other texts as well, which we’ll see later on. The idea then is what we find when we get to Ephesians chapter 4, where the text transitions. Notice the end of three. He ends in a doxology, which is fitting. But he talks about how he’s he’s on his knees praying for the Father. Right? He wants him to give us strength. He wants Christ to dwell in our hearts. And he then, verse 19, he says, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This is what he’s praying for, that we’re filled with the fullness of God, something we can’t even really comprehend.

5. Walk in a Manner Worthy of the Calling

Now to him who is able to far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. It’s the ending of the section, it’s the ending of a concept about how God’s grace has been poured out on us. He’s formed us as his people, and now he’s going to transition into what would be called an honorific decree, the resolution clause. What are we going to do about this? What is expected of us? That benefactor, they built the agora, they built the aqueduct, whatever it was, they’ve done all these things for us. How are we going to respond to them in honor?

Right? That’s what this next section is. And this is how he begins, and this is actually one of the connections with honorific decrees. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. The word urge there is the word paracoluomen, which is typically found in honorific decrees. It is a call to respond to what the person has done. So God has blessed us in all of these ways. He said, now I’m pleading with you. I’m urging you. Don’t dishonor his gift. Don’t take advantage of his kindness. Paul says that in Romans 2. Just don’t take for granted all the things God has done for you. Actually, you need to respond to that in kind.

This needs to be a return of grace. And he says, You do it this way, with humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. These are all the ways in which we go about honoring God and returning the grace that he has given to us. The worthy walk is built on the foundation of chapters one through three. Sometimes, I don’t really want to spend a lot of time on this, but sometimes people will get into chapter two and want to go all down this road. See, we’re saved by grace. We don’t have to do anything. No, you’re missing the point. This is all about what God did. It’s not about what you’re doing.

We hadn’t gotten there yet. And without God, you can’t do anything. I mean, you’re stuck. There’s nothing you could do without everything that he talks about in chapters one through three. But God does have expectations. Any benefactor does. That’s how the ancient world worked. And to not do that would be shameful. It would be to dishonor him, to disrespect the things that he has done for us. And so Paul says very plainly, I’m urging you, based on everything you know about God and what he’s done for you, walk in a worthy manner. He says this in Colossians 1 10 and in 1 Thessalonians 2 12 as well.

I mentioned in the beginning an idea of a king coming and delivering or giving some kind of benefaction to a city. Well, here’s an example of that. In the third century BC, Ptolemy wrote to the city of Miletus, reminding them of their relationship. Can you imagine you’re this city and you’ve had someone come and deliver you and save you, and then you just kind of ignore them? How well do you think that would go? Not well. Ptolemy’s reminding them of the things he’s done and the things that they have done and how he wants that to continue, right? He says, I’ve given all sorts of benefits to you.

Whenever you have a new king, and this happens today with our political leaders too, they want to remind you how bad everybody else was, right? So that’s what he’s doing here. You had all these oppressive and harsh taxes. Remember how I took those away. And I want you to continue this demonstration of your good will toward us. There’s a whole language of grace, goodwill, honor, glory. These are all terms. Thanksgiving. These are all terms that fit within grace language, and they’re all throughout Scripture. So continue this goodwill toward us. We blessed you, we took care of you, we removed these taxes, and you’ve shown goodwill, but I want to remind you to keep doing that. And we call upon you for the future to maintain the same policy toward us so that, this being the case, we may exercise even more care for your city.

It’s the back and forth, right? Now, it’s not quite one to one-to-one, obviously, with our relationship with God, but you at least see the idea of how things worked and how they envision the idea of grace. I came across this one day when I was, I wrote my graduate thesis on Epictetus. Really interesting guy that you may probably have never heard of. But he’s a Roman philosopher, has a lot of similarities to Paul, and so there’s some interesting things and actually helpful in interpreting some of Paul’s writings. But I noticed this as I was reading one day, and I think this should be maybe enlightening to us. It was to me when I came across it about the turn terminology here. He’s in the middle of talking about this relationship he has.

He started out as a slave and then he became a freedman. But he’s saying, okay, someone’s saying to him, So-and-so reviled you. And he says, I am greatly obliged to him for not striking me. It’s the word grace. Yes, but he struck you too. I’m greatly obliged to him for not wounding me. That’s a very weird encounter. But what I want you to see here is the concept of obligation tied into the concept of grace. The word carus, which is translated in your Bible, grace or thanks, it’s tied into the word thanksgiving, Eucharisteo. A legitimate translation of that, or concept that comes from that word is the idea of obligation. I don’t know all the reasons for Epictetus’ obligation to this person, but he’s he is expressing this in the sense of grace, that he has some sort of duty, or he owes it to them in some way.

He makes this statement, which is maybe a little bit similar to what we’re used to in scripture. There was a time when I too sinned. He uses the word Hamartia. But now no longer, grace be to God. He’s speaking here about Zeus. But the idea here, he’s saying, I used to live a certain way, but now, because of grace, I’ve chosen. I’m trying to respond, at least in his mind, to what destiny or what Zeus, various ways he wrote a referenced it, what he’s done for me, accepting the things in the world and now living in an honorable way. That’s what he’s talking about here. But he uses the word grace to talk about it. Interesting. There’s all sorts of passages in the New Testament that demonstrate this.

6. Walking Worthy Is Returning Grace

I want to look at 2 Corinthians 8 through 9 quickly with you. It’s a text you’re probably familiar with. You’re familiar with it because when someone talks about contribution, often they’ll go to this text to talk about being a cheerful giver and that sort of thing. But I want you just to notice the language. We can’t read the whole thing. But he keeps using this phrase. He’s talking about their making this contribution to needy saints in Jerusalem. Matt read earlier from Romans 15, where he shows this sort of reciprocal nature, right? He says, You’ve benefited from their spiritual blessings, and now they should benefit from your material blessings. Romans 15, 26 and 27. Right? That’s benefaction and reciprocity. He said you’ve been blessed by God, and now you should be sharing those blessings together.

That’s what happens with grace. He continually calls this project that he’s on to get money and then bring it to the needy saints in Jerusalem. He continually, in this passage at least, talks about this as an act of grace. I want you to know, brothers, chapter 8, verse 1, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. Their grace, it’s being given. It’s something they’re doing. They’re going to benefit these needy saints. Verse 6, accordingly, we urge Titus that as he has started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. Verse 9 is the key, though. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

He’s blessing you to enrich you. He is giving up something of his own to make you better off. He’s telling them you take this same mindset when you’re gonna give to somebody, you’re gonna be generous. All you’re actually doing is being just like Jesus. Just as he gave of himself for you take and you give of yourself for them. Verse 14 Your abundance at this present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. It’s the relationship of grace. They’re blessing each other as those who are in Christ, who are God’s people. But thanks be to God. That’s the word grace, verse 16. Grace be to God, who put it into the heart of Titus, the same earnest care I have for you.

Right? He’s he’s describing everything about their relationship, whether it’s monetary, whether it’s their love for each other, it’s all based in this concept of the give and take of grace. The reciprocal nature of what they’ve been blessed with and how now they want to bless others. Notice verse 19, not only that, but he has been appointed by the churches to travel with us as we carry out this act of grace that is being ministered by us for the glory of the Lord Himself and to show our good will. Remember that inscription we just looked at? The demonstration of goodwill is a response of grace. This is what Paul’s saying. You’ve been blessed by the Father. You have been given so much. And now what I’m asking you to do is to act in kind, to act like the Father.

Grace is not just a gift, a free gift we receive. That’s not all it is. Grace is not, God gives us something, and there’s nothing else we can do, and nothing else we should do. And if we do, then we’re trying to earn it. That is completely absent in the ancient concept of grace. Quite the contrary. When we have been blessed in this way by God, we should want to turn around and bless others in our life. Be generous to the people who are around us. Motivated by the grace of Jesus Christ Himself and what He did. With the goal being that this increases thanksgiving to God in the end. 9 in verse 12. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but it is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

It’s giving much good grace to God. That’s the idea there in the terminology. When you do these things and when you help each other, and when you act like Jesus, it doesn’t just supply people’s needs, it’s also for his glory. It’s all tied together. And then he concludes in verse 15, all of this tying it all together to grace, right? God has blessed you. You’ve received the grace of God. Then you grace others and you return grace to God. He finishes and concludes all of this thought saying, Grace be to God for his inexpressible gift. That’s what all of this is based on. And so, yes, God has been amazingly gracious. He has blessed us in more ways than we can comprehend. But that doesn’t mean we just sit and take his blessings and do nothing with them.

We actually are obligated quite the opposite way. As people who are so richly blessed, we should see, we should realize that we ought to be taking those blessings and sharing them with others. Grace is not just some kind of self-improvement project that God will grace me and it just makes me a better person. It’s not inherently individual either. It’s not a debt that we pay to get on God’s good side. Right? When we walk worthy, it’s not that God’s just sitting there waiting to judge us, and so we just do as many good things as we can to avoid his judgment. Walking worthy is a returning of the grace that’s been given to us. It’s honoring the giver, it’s honoring God with our lives. I love the phrase that Paul uses of these Macedonian brethren when he talks about their gift.

He says they gave themselves first to the Lord. This giving wasn’t just about money being sent to saints, it was about them giving their own lives to God. And so when we forgive as we have been forgiven, we are returning grace. When we give generously, not because we have to, but because Christ gave and we want to be like him, we are returning grace. When our lives become a living sign of gratitude to the Father for what he has done for us, we are returning grace.

Conclusion

And so the question in all of this when I go through the book of Ephesians is how am I responding to this amazing grace that God has given me in my life? Am I presuming on his kindness? That’s what Paul warns us about in Romans 2. Am I making some kind of effort to earn grace? Like I think I have to do enough? No, he’s already graced you. He’s already blessed us. We can never earn this. We can never pay it back. But what we can do is honor him in our lives. Am I willing to walk worthy of the calling I have received? Not to pay God back, but to bring God praise. Because it’s all to the praise of his glory. Ephesians chapter 1.

Maybe this morning you realize how much you’ve been blessed in life. And that you really haven’t responded. You’ve just been taking the things, right? Some of them are material. God said sunshine and rain on the evil and the wicked. He gives it to everybody. He blesses us in all sorts of ways. But he does bless us in Jesus Christ. And you only get those blessings if you’re in Christ. And he tells us how to do that. We respond to him, we give our life to him.

We take up our cross and follow him. If we try to save our life, we lose it. But if we lose our life for his sake, we will find it. And the way we do that is by dying to self. We get rid of the old man. We’re buried in baptism and we’re resurrected to a newness of life, ready to walk with him as a new creature, a new person, a person that’s dedicated to him, that is in service to the Lord. And if you haven’t done that this morning, you’re not in Christ. And you’re not going to receive those spiritual blessings. This blessings that come with an inheritance for which we’ve already received a down spirit.

Will you follow the words of Jesus? Will you honor him with your life? Come now as we stand and we sing.

If we see my blood with thy king, I walk with thy king hallelujah. I walk with thy king, praise his name. No longer I hold my soul faces all.

He will bring up into the sunlight and walk with thy king. I walk with lightning hallelujah. I walk with thy king, praise his name.

I walk in my soul with thy king.

As we prepare our minds to partake of the Lord’s Supper this morning, we’ll sing number six oh three in the glory of his cross. If you’ve not yet received the emblems of the Lord’s Supper, please raise your hand now. The cup and the bread.

If you have your Bible out, let’s turn to Matthew chapter five. Point you there here in just a moment.

Housekeeping note before we focus more. We’re not going to have an announcement slide after the Lord’s Supper. There’ll be no more announcements as we regularly have towards the end of service. But we will close the Lord’s Supper this morning with a song. So that will happen, and then we will have the closing song. So just so everyone knows what’s coming up.

Scott was gracious enough to lead that song to help prepare for what I had to talk about the tale of power and the two hands of power. God, we know is all powerful. He spoke the universe into existence and breathed life into creation. Creation made in his image. He is creator, author, the one who completes our purpose. The show of force to convince a person or people to use that, to use force to convince someone, is right handed power. This is the power of overwhelming force, of fear, death, intimidation, or dominance. God uses right-handed power. Easy example comes in the Exodus. He uses this power to establish himself as the God of his people. He brought the plagues to the Egyptians, saved his chosen people by parting the Red Sea.

And Moses, in chapter 15 of Exodus and verse 6, in his song to commemorate this, he says, Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. This is the power to show that Yahweh is God. He then, at Mount Horeb or Sinai, in fire and smoke, spoke to the people of Israel in a voice like thunder. He led them with cloud and fire and fed them with the bread of heaven. Later we have Elijah, one of his prophets, as he is trying to convince Ahab that Yahweh is God and not Baal. There is a confrontation in 1 Kings chapter 18. For the purpose of showing that God is the God of Israel, and not Baal, who Ahab and Jezebel both follow.

In this confrontation on the mountain, Elijah says this in verse 37: Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Yahweh are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. Then fire from the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, Yahweh, he is God. The Lord, he is God. This overwhelming show of power, this right hand, God has. How was this miracle received? Did it change the heart of Ahab? Did it affect Jezebel? How long until the people returned back to the same thing that they were doing.

Ahab does not repent and confess God until the end of chapter 21, and God spares his life for a longer time. That’s after being confronted with his sin that Ahab repents. In chapter 19, just following this, we have Elijah in a cave back at Sinai at Mount Horeb. He doesn’t see God in the mighty wind that breaks the rocks. He doesn’t see God in the earthquake that shakes the mountain. He doesn’t see God in the fire. He sees God, hears God in the minute whisper. God has more power than just his right hand. God also uses left-handed power. By using the left hand, he uses reason and persuasion to change the heart of mankind. This is the power that Jesus uses in his ministry. Consider the final words of the song we sang, of each verse, we will glory all our glory, verse one, in the glory of his care, verse two, in the glory of his grace.

In verse 3, in the glory of his cross. And in verse 4, the glory of his love. These are not the right-handed show of overwhelming force. This is the left hand at work. Jesus, though he had the same power as the Father, used his power to show himself as God through the example of his life. He reasoned with religious leaders, debated the law, and taught in the synagogues. He fed the hungry, ate with sinners, healed the sick, raised the dead, and gave sight to the blind, both figuratively and physically. He showed his power through his care, his grace, his love, and ultimately the cross. While it was wholly within his power to call twelve legions of angels to take him off the cross, he understood that right-handed power, that show would be temporary.

It would be a flash in the pan of history that would be forgotten and lose its impact. Instead, he chose the power of the left hand of endurance, of suffering, of insult and mockery to the point of death. He chose the long-lasting spectacle that imprinted on the hearts and minds of men. While there were definite signs of cosmic unrest in the darkness falling on the earth, and the earthquaking, and the symbol of the temple veil being torn from top to bottom. These things go down as pivotal signs in history of that day. Then came the real power.

No trumpets, no thunder, no earthquake, no fire from heaven, no announcement. Like a whisper on the mountainside, Jesus defeated death and ushered in the opportunity for new life. Twelve legions of angels saving Jesus from the cross would not have the impact of one body walking quietly from the grave.

Today we’re here to thank God for the restraint of the power which he possessed and the wisdom changing hearts and minds. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, through his living out of the beatitudes, where I asked you to turn, in the final days of his life, through his patient suffering, he grants us opportunity for a reunion with him and the Father one day. Today we’ll remember his sacrifice and the restraint he showed on the cross because of his overwhelming grace, love, and care. If you want to see examples of what Jesus showed as his left-handed power, that’s the Beatitudes. That’s Matthew 5 in the first few verses. Read through those. Understanding that’s who Jesus is, and that he paid the ultimate price for us so that we have hope of heaven.

Let’s thank him for that now as we remember him and his body on the cross. I’ll say a prayer for the bread.

God is his body hung on that cross.

And for our sin. May we remember that now as we partake of this bread. It’s in his name. Amen.

Pray with me as we remember the cup. God, we humbly bow before you again at this moment, understanding that Jesus’ blood on that cross that gave him life, that ultimately showed his death, sealed the covenant that you have made with us. The covenant that allows us the hope of heaven that through him and through his sacrifice, the only sacrifice that could truly take away sin, we have hope. God, we thank you for that. May we remember him as we partake in his name. Amen.

Because of the slightly different format, Scott has asked me to lead this song. Ten thousand angels sing with me all four verses, and then the chorus.

And when he stands he gave himself to die sons one dress land to destroy the world and send him free ten thousand names by please be standing. Thank you for being with us today. We know we have a lot of visitors and we have some folks out of town for Mother’s Day. But thank you for joining with us and happy Mother’s Day to our mothers. Thank you for being with us. more announcements than what was said earlier, other than group one meets tonight upstairs. Please continue to remember the Giles family and member Galen in your prayers. Listening, call me hard as we close this close today this morning, and are led in the world word of prayer afterwards.

I can just say I can just sing for all your goodness, hopefully feel your presence.

I can just say I can just say right now I am and will to feel you, will you feel something again? I can hold on, I can hold on to what I am and never had to change me from me inside. I can be saved, I can be saved here in your eyes and never be home, never that needs laws now. You have loved me, deeper, I’ll go where you will be loved me higher. You have loved me, deeper, I know, you will be Lord, you leave me. I know. I love you, I am never let you change me from me. I be saved. I be saved in your heart and never leave home. Never let me fall. You have got me fire. You have loved me, deep her, I’ll no way, you will leave me.

You have got me fire, you have loved me, deeper, no way, you will be Lord, you leave me. I will be your soul. I will be your strong life, so let your mercy.

You have me high. You have followed me.

You have loved me high.

You have me high. You have love me deep.

You leave me. Let’s go to our Father in prayer. Lord, we come to you with hearts full of gratitude for this time together for the message of your word. We thank you for your constant love and grace that has no limits. Meets us at our lowest. God, we also recognize this time as a day of gratitude for our mothers.

We ask your blessings upon them. Lord, be with us till we return to you in just a few hours and let our minds be with you.