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In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Vera, in baptism you have put on Christ. You have put off the old self, the sinful nature, and you are now clothed in the glorious beauty and righteousness of Christ. So that all the victory of Jesus, all his work, all his labor, all his suffering, all his death now belongs to you, and you belong to him. God be praised. And this, Vera, is not only true for you, it’s true for all of your new brothers and sisters who are also the baptized in the Lord’s Church. Knit together, and this is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4, knit together into the one mystical body of our Lord Jesus Christ, joined and held together by the Spirit.
St. Paul in our epistle, and we’re working through the epistle of Ephesians, and last week we had Ephesians chapter 3, where Paul was praying for the Lord and for his church, that we would have the Spirit and that we would, by the Spirit, that we would know what can’t be known, the height and depth and width and breadth of the love of God in Christ. And then Paul goes on now in this chapter, chapter 4, the first 16 verses, to talk about how we, as the Lord’s people, are to guard and to keep that treasure, the treasure of the Gospel, the knowledge of the love of God, which cannot otherwise be known.
Paul knows that it’s dangerous, or maybe to say it like this, Paul knows that the greatest danger that we face would be to lose that truth, that Jesus loves us, that we are his children, that he has saved us and redeemed us by his blood and by his suffering. Look at verse 14, he says, “so that we may no longer be children who are tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” But rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, the reason why this is so important, this gospel knowledge, is because we cannot know the truth of the gospel in any other way than by the word of God. There are truths that we can know apart from the scriptures. In fact, there are truths about God that we can know apart from the scriptures. We can know through creation, both looking out at the world and also looking at our own heart. We can know that God exists. We can know that God created the world. We can know that there’s an order to the world. We can know that we’ve lived out of sync with that order and that we deserve God’s anger. But that’s it.
In other words, the natural knowledge of God tells us that God is big and good and mad. But that’s all. To find out what God thinks about us, or to learn that God is gracious and merciful and loving to us, must be learned through the Gospel, through the Holy Scriptures and the preaching of the Holy Scriptures. That’s the only place we can find it, which is why the devil attacks it so furiously. Basically, the devil wants you to lose everything you have, but most especially, he wants you to lose this gospel truth, that Christ is yours and you are his. And he attacks it incessantly, from outside the church, from inside the church, which is why Paul says that we should strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace so that we would hold on to this truth.
Now Paul begins by telling us that there’s a certain attitude or certain habits or a certain way of life that is important for maintaining the truth and it’s maybe not what we would think of. I would think maybe that to hold on to the truth, Paul would say that we need to be steadfast and immovable. And in some places he does say that, but look at the four things that he says at the very beginning of the text: “I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness and patience, bearing with one another in love.”
As I was thinking about this text this week, I wonder if anybody would have ever described, used those words to describe me. Humble, gentle, patient, bearing with one another in love. And I want to ask you to ask that same question. Not about me, about yourself. Is that how people would describe you? Or, how about this? Is this how people would describe our church? Is this how people would describe our conversations? If this is how people came and visited the voters’ meetings, they would say, “Why? The people were humble, and gentle, and patient, and they were bearing with one another in love.”
It’s what Paul says. It’s how we should treat each other. It’s how we should act. And it’s important for the sake of preserving the truth of the gospel. Paul talks about this, Paul to the Ephesians and to the other churches about the danger of being after each other all the time, of being angry with one another all the time, backbiting and bickering and fighting. “You devour one another and you’re surprised.” The Christian attitude is not one of pride, self-aggrandizement or lifting yourself over other people, but rather the way of service and the way of suffering.
We are to pursue humility and gentleness and patience and long-suffering in love with one another in order that we might maintain the unity of spirit and the bond of peace, because the Lord wants us to be one. There’s one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, over all, and through all, and in us all. And the Lord has given us each grace according to the measure of His gift.
Saint Paul returns in the middle of our text, it’s chapter 4, verse 8. Saint Paul returns to a theme that he likes to come back to over and over again, and that is the theme of the ascension of Jesus. We heard it already in Ephesians, chapter 1, when Paul was praying that we would recognize by the Holy Spirit. We would recognize the hope of our calling that we would recognize the power that is working within us that’s working in our hearts and that powers the power of the Holy Spirit, and that’s the same power that rose Jesus from the dead and seated him at the right hand of the Father above all power and authority and every name that’s named in heaven and on earth.
So that Jesus stands or sits on the throne of God in heaven, and that matters because Jesus on the cross said it is finished. He was talking about his atonement, the work required for our salvation, but Jesus did not ascend up into heaven in order to rest. His throne is not a lazy boy with the electronic, you know, feet that go up like this that causes you to fall asleep when you sit down in it. No! His throne is the throne of power, the right hand of God the Father, and there he sits in order to work, to rule, and to reign the entire cosmos, and this is the key, for you.
Look at verse 9 in your bulletin on page 7. The editors of the text have put the most important verses in parentheses. In saying He ascended, what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? Now that descent in this context is not the descent of Christ into hell, but rather the incarnation. Jesus came forth from the throne of God and was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary so that He is flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood and bone of our bone. He is our brother, according to the Incarnation, and He has come down into our flesh in order that He might bear our sins and suffer on the cross and be buried for us.
That One, the One who descended, is the One who ascended. Verse 10, “He who descended is the One who also ascended far above all heavens that He might fill all things.” In other words, the One who is seated on the throne right now is the One who was nailed to the cross. The one who is ruling and reigning the universe is the one who loves you so much that he took all your sin upon himself so that he might be your Savior. The one who sits at the Father’s right hand is the one who says, “I’m pleased to call you my friends.” The one in charge is the one who loves you. The hands that bear the rod of iron are pierced through with nails.
This one, this is how John sees it in the Revelation when he sees the throne of God and who’s sitting there? The Lamb of God as he had been slain. In other words, if you want to know how Jesus is going to rule and reign the universe, you need only to look to the cross. And there you see, all that he does now is the same that he did then. In other words, everything is because he loves you. He arranges this world. He weaves together the tapestry of history. He works all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
So the one who ascended is the one who descended, and he continues to work. He sits on that throne, the right hand of the Father, so that he can give gifts. He gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, that is, the New Testament, the Old Testament, pastors and teachers to bring the New Testament and the Old Testament to His people, to equip the saints, to do the work of the ministry, to build up the body of Christ until we attain this unity of faith, the knowledge of the Son of God. Jesus is working, ruling, reigning, giving, so that you would know Christ.
So that you would know that in spite of your sin, in spite of your failures, in spite of all of your broken promises, in spite of all of your good intentions that have fallen short, in spite of all of your wicked thoughts and words and deeds, in spite of all the things that you’ve done wrong and all the people you’ve hurt, and in spite of all the hurt that’s been done to you and all the people that have hurt you, you, in spite of all of the dying and suffering and darkness in this world, in spite of all of it, Jesus has you, and he has the power to see it through, and he will. The one who’s begun a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ Jesus.
And the Holy Spirit is here working through this text, at this very moment, fighting back your own sinful flesh and the world and the devil so that you would know above everything else and with the certainty that comes by faith so that you would know that Jesus Christ is your Savior, and that your sins are forgiven, and that your death is nothing to be afraid of, and that the world and the devil cannot have you because he has marked you with his name and called you to be his own, and he has planted this knowledge in your own heart.
So God be praised. While we strive after humility and gentleness and patience and bearing with one another, God be praised that Jesus Himself is gentle with us, that He is humble and patient, that He bears with us in love, and that He brings to us His Holy Spirit to build us up into His body so that one day we will see him, have no doubt about this, one day you will see him face to face. God be praised. May God grant this for Christ’s sake. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
