We're In This Together

Ephesians 6:21-24

It’s hard to say goodbye.

When I was a kid, our family made an annual 10-hr. drive from our home in central Indiana to my eastern Pennsylvania where the majority of our extended family lived. We’d spend a week with our grandparents, visiting our cousins, eating good food, and having a great time. Then we’d pile into the car and drive home. I remember the sheer joy we felt when we climbed the steep hill and turned into our grandparents’ driveway to start the vacation. I also remember the sadness we felt when we said goodbye. The kids cried, my parents cried, my grandparents cried – we all cried.

Here we find ourselves at the end of Ephesians having to say goodbye to a long Bible study series. We also read what Paul said when he had to say goodbye in this letter.

Through this letter, Paul has explained to the church all the many blessings God’s given to us as his children. He’s explained how God has brought so many different people together into this spiritual family through salvation by faith in Christ. He’s also explained how we should live worthy of all God has given to us by serving one another as a church and by treating people in our lives as Christ has treated us. Finally, he’s explained the kind of mindset we need for approaching the spiritual struggle we face every day. We’re all in one church together as followers of Christ. We’re in this together!

With this in mind, what does Paul say to bring his teaching to a close?

It takes teamwork to build the church.

This is the horizontal, social, external, and human dimension of the church (Eph 6:21-22):

“But that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you; whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts.”

These words are significant because they remind us that even the Apostle Paul couldn’t be everywhere and do everything that needed to be done for the church. Though he played a crucial role in the first-century church, he wasn’t a superhero. Christ doesn’t build the church with super, do-everything saints. He builds the church by a variety of saints working together in a variety of roles.

We already know Paul recognized his limitations because he asked the church to pray for him to have the courage and wisdom to carry out his mission in Rome (Eph 6:19-20). He felt that his success for Christ relied in part on prayers from those within the church who knew him. Prayer for one another is an important way that churches work together as a team. As some take greater risks for the church, others should uphold them in prayer.

Christian teamwork requires more than cursory knowledge.

For this kind of teamwork to be most effective takes more than cursory knowledge and vague requests. It takes shared info and close familiarity with one another. That’s why Paul said, “But that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing” (Eph 6:21).

“My affairs” (lit. my things) and “how I am doing” (lit. my experiences) refer in vague terms to details like Paul’s health, finances, and living conditions. In the published letter he explained his spiritual, ministerial prayer request, but in private, personal interaction, he wanted to relay more personal information about his day-to-day affairs.

These are sensitive topics which ministry leaders easily mishandle one way or the other:

• Some focus on them far too much, leading to a materialistic mindset of ministry.
• Others focus on them far too little, placing themselves in awkward, difficult situations.

Here Paul strikes a careful balance. He neither ignores these concerns nor draws attention to them. Instead, he draws attention to the ministry cause that’s before him while not neglecting his personal concerns either.

Since Paul was in prison and preoccupied with his pending court appearance, he was unable to deliver this message in person, so he delegated the assignment to a Christian friend named Tychicus. Who was this man?

• Luke says he was from Asia Minor, so possibly from Ephesus (Acts 20:4). He had taken the long, arduous journey to visit Paul in prison and provide personal assistance.
• We know that after Paul was released from prison, he sent him to the island of Crete to help Titus in his ministry to the new churches that were there (Tit 3:12).
• We also know that when Paul was imprisoned in Rome a second time (the was martyred), Tychicus visited Paul again and was sent by Paul on another assignment to Ephesus (2 Tim 4:12).

Here in Eph 6:21, we see that Paul was sending Tychicus back to Ephesus to deliver this letter to the church and to give them more personal information about Paul’s day-to-day living conditions and needs.

Here Paul describes this man as “a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord” (Eph 6:21). “A beloved brother” means that he was a close friend to Paul and “a faithful minister” means he was a committed friend. This was not a casual relationship. Paul viewed Tychicus as a brother who cared about him deeply and would do whatever he could to meet Paul’s needs and Tychicus viewed Paul the same way.

“In the Lord” further explains Paul’s relationship to Tychicus by using a phrase that appears frequently throughout this letter, “in the Lord” (7x):

• “I heard of your faith in the Lord…” (Eph 1:15)
• “A holy temple in the Lord…” (Eph 2:21)
• “I testify in the Lord…” (Eph 4:17)
• “You are light in the Lord…” (Eph 5:8)
• “Obey your parents in the Lord…” (Eph 6:1)
• “Be strong in the Lord…” (Eph 6:10)
• “A faithful minister in the Lord…” (Eph 6:21)

We could add to this list:

• the 6x Paul also uses “in him”
• the 4x he uses “in whom”
• the 12x he uses “in Christ”

That’s 29 such references. This key feature of the letter is why I’ve entitled this series “All in One,” because Paul teaches us how we’re all united together in the church by our relationship to one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. This oneness we share should be more than a theological fact, it should be the way we function – “all for one and one for all.”

Paul understood his close relationship with Tychicus was due to something deeper than compatible personalities, shared interests, or a common ethnicity. It was due to a shared faith and salvation from Christ. The love and faithfulness that Paul and Tychicus shared for one another was the result of their shared relationship with the Lord and this relationship placed them into a new community and family forever.

Believers unite around shared allegiance to Christ.

In the world at large and among nonbelievers, in particular, people unite together around a variety of causes. Shared ethnic backgrounds, hobbies, sports teams, brand loyalties, political parties and causes, professions, family, and even shared struggles. Such factors are not as deep or profound, however, as our shared allegiance to Christ.

What makes Christian unity so different from the way that other religions also draw people together around a shared set of beliefs is that we don’t unite around a set of rules or a system of religious behavior, we united around a person. What’s more, we don’t unite around just any person, but the only person in history who is both God and man and who has died on our behalf and risen again.

Shared allegiance to the Lord makes genuine, lasting relationships of true love and faithful service possible, and it’s relationships like these that build the church one relationship, one church, one century at a time.

Now that we’ve recognized the crucial need for close, supportive relationships in the church, we need to recognize a second crucial need, a need which is even more crucial.

It takes God’s intervention to build the church.

This is the vertical, supernatural, divine, internal dimension of the church (Eph 6:23-23):

“Peace to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.”

Paul introduced this letter with a similar focus saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:2). Here, though, he switches the order of grace and peace and inserts love and faith in between.

As we come to the close of Paul’s letter here, it’s helpful to know that secular letters in Paul’s day usually ended with a final wish for the recipients to be strong or to prosper. If you were writing a letter in those days, you would close it with something like, “Be strong my friend!,” or, “I wish you nothing but the greatest of success!” This was a formality of course, much like we may end a letter today with, “Kind regards!,” or, “All the best!” Even if you meant it, it’s not as though you could actually bring your wish to pass.

Instead of using these generic well-wishes, Paul chose to say something more meaningful from a spiritual and theological standpoint in what we call a benediction. A benediction is a beautiful Christian practice that means “words of blessing” and which consists of praying for God’s increased intervention in a person’s (or church’s) life.

The earliest, well-known benediction actually predates the church by more than a millennium (Num 6:24-26). This is what Moses taught the priests to pray for the people when they departed from worship gatherings at the tabernacle:

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Paul spoke similar, Christian words at the close of his letters. He would say something like, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” Today we might say, “God bless you!” (or “¡Dios te bendiga!”). The question is whether we, like Paul, truly mean (and even pray) what we’re saying when we give words like this, or are we only being polite?

By wishing (or praying) for peace and grace in the believers' lives at Ephesus, Paul was requesting something which he believed was more important than the secular wish for physical strength and health and material prosperity. (These are good things for sure, just not as important as what Paul had in mind.)

Paul prayed for God to involve himself in their lives in a personal and abundant way that would enable them to live according to his abundant supply of spiritual treasures made available to us through Christ.

This grace would be the wellspring and source, then, for the peace and love that Paul prayed they would experience as a church, and to experience this peace and love they would need to rely upon (“with faith”) the grace of God.

We need God’s grace to remain united as a church.

Since the church brings together sinful but redeemed people from a wide variety of backgrounds, division and infighting would be the natural result. Yet Paul prays that this diversity would flourish in peaceful harmony and Christlike love instead, and this is how the church reflects the glory and goodness of God throughout all ages (Eph 3:21).

This experience of peace and love which God’s grace enables grows as we learn not only to love one another (the horizontal dimension of the church) but most importantly as we learn to “love our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 6:24).

What ultimately drives us as a church, even in our relationships with one another, should be that we love our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s only as we commit ourselves to love Christ loyally that we’ll be able to love another, too, so that’s what Paul prays for in his benediction. The peace and love that come from the grace of God – this is far more valuable to the church than physical health and prosperity.

We’re in this together … forever.

“In sincerity” may also be translated as “incorruptible” or “in incorruption,” which we would explain today as “forever” or “without ever breaking down.” In this way, what Paul is saying resembles what he said in the middle of this letter when he prayed, “to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever” (Eph 3:21).

So, Paul prayed that the believers at Ephesus would enjoy love for one another and Christ in an undying way. He prayed this blessing would never die, a blessing which only the church can experience in Christ.

So, let’s put what Paul has said in this letter into practice through prayer and dependence on the Spirit. Let’s love Christ and love one another with Christlike love. Let’s build strong, supportive horizontal relationships within the church and look to God for the vertical intervention of his grace to live a life that’s equal to our calling. And remember, we’re all in this together.