Chapter 1, verse 10. with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens, and things on the earth. Let's pray together. Father, I come before You in the name of Your Son to pray for help to let me preach, to forgive me of my sin, to thank you for my one and only best friend. I can remember Don Johnson preaching years ago No one loves you like the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves your soul. And you're mindful of more than my frame, but my state of mind and my soul. You and you alone give solace to me and to any other man or woman or boy or girl who gets it. Help us now, Lord, to look into Your Word. We pray for Your Holy Spirit, who alone can make looking into Your Word profitable. who created the world, who will recreate the world, who alone has life and immortality and power and grace and mercy and clarity of mind and lack of fear and boldness and joy and righteousness and redemption and everlasting life to energize my body and all of the saints who die one day to raise them up And the sea gave up the dead that were in Him. And death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them by the power of Your might. And You lost none of them. Not one of them were missing. So, glorify Yourself, Lord, through this dust. One more time. Thank You for my breath. To preach one more time. To study Your Apostle one more time. To be saved from crooked and perverse generation again and again by You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Just over three years ago, we had our first sermon on the book of Ephesians. And I said then that, open it up with this statement, that Ephesians is a book of the Bible. And that means it's a book about Jesus Christ. But it's not just a book of the Bible. It's a book in the New Testament. That means it's a book about what Jesus Christ has already accomplished. But it's not just a New Testament book. It's an epistle, a letter, by an apostle. as opposed to a gospel. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, now said the memory one. And that means it's not just about the facts, that Jesus died, that he was buried, and that He rose again from the dead, but about the meaning of the facts. You would not read anything, hardly at all, in the Gospels about dying with Christ and rising with Christ. You get that from the Apostles. They are the sports commentators of the New Testament. As we look down on the field and see Jesus die and rise again, they give us the play-by-play commentary of what is happening. That means when you read a letter, an apostle is not just trying to give you and I the facts, but he's trying to get us to understand what does it mean that Jesus died. What's the significance of it? Why is His death different than the other two men on either side of Him? But Ephesians is not just a New Testament letter by the Apostle Paul, it is Ephesians, it's not Philippians, it's not Colossians, it's not Philemon, or Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians. That means when we come to this book, the Apostle Paul whom the living Christ sent to us without a pastor search committee. Christ sent Him. He's looking at the death and resurrection of Christ from a peculiar angle. And He's looking at that, and He's looking at us, and we don't see what He sees. And He is laboring from pinned down to pin up in this letter to get you and I to see it. And the peculiar angle and vision of Christ that is swirling around the mind of the Apostle Paul while he writes the book of Ephesians about the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ. Jeremy said we should preach on that verse. It's the same message from here. And apart from everything wrong in the passion of Christ, it's one of the beautifullest depictions. When Jesus looks at Mary and says, Behold, I make all things. What's on the Apostle Paul's mind in Ephesians is, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God is summing up all things in Christ. This word is anakaphaleo. Kafaleo is head, like Kepha, Peter. It means to bring together under a heading, like bring all your silly notes and jumbled notes under a heading, under a Roman numeral. And it's ana, and it means again. So to bring them under a head again. This word summing up your translation may have reuniting or something of that, nature, it contains, in a nutshell, the entire Christian worldview, which is creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. To sum up again means there was something once put together and it fell apart, humpty-dumpty fell off the wall, and there has been a great fall and a great shattering, and Adam, therefore, is viewed by this book as a great divider. He is viewed as Thanos. He is the one by whom everything comes apart into a chaos. Your conscience comes apart in a chaos. Your will comes apart. Your emotions come apart. In this age, people laugh when they should cry, and they cry when they should laugh. And finally, our very bodies come apart. Because Adam is a decomposer. He does a work of decomposition. But Christ is presented as the reverse of that. He is the reuniter. He is gathering all things back together. He is putting all things right, as our British brethren would say it across the pond. To put right. Everything put right. He is the put-righter. And that's why he says he is making all things new. That means, as Lewis captured it years ago so wonderfully in this classic set of books, the Chronicles of Narnia, the one that most people are aware of is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And Edmund is redeemed by Aslan on the stone table. He dies for him. And Edmund realizes he died for him. But in the last book, The Last Battle, Edmund realizes he didn't just die for him, he died for all of Narnia. And what Paul is trying to get me to see and to remember is that when no one else was there, when Annabelle was converted, in her room when she prayed a secret prayer confessing Christ as Lord, that Romans 10 idea that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, he's simply trying to say, look, I'm not trying to get you to believe anything extra. I'm trying to ripple out the rock that you yourself threw into the pond to get you to see. So put Romans 10 and Philippians 2 together. The simplest believer confesses where no one else is even there in the secret chambers of his heart. You believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you confess Him as Lord. Paul says eventually everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth will confess him as Lord. When we're singing that song, we don't mean he will reign forever in a little genie lamp stuck away in a cave of wonders. That is not the announcement of the New Testament. People are offended today at Christian nationalism. I've got news for you. The gospel, that's choir play. It is globalism. It is Christ, Lord of all. That is the announcement. And so, to see the wideness, the pensive, extensive wideness of the Gospel is Paul's point specifically to reunite all things in Christ. And so, if you could sum up in one doctrine, one statement, what is Ephesians about? The reunification of all things in Christ. The fulfillment of John Lennon's blasphemous song. Imagine! Do you realize that secularists today have a utopia? They have an eschatology. The world is going to be better, you know, our community. And we do a 5K, and we do a little run, and isn't it all sweet? Yeah, it's all sweet until one sin is committed. Because they have no gospel. They have no repair for sin. And so it's just sweet until someone sins and it's fractured and done and over. Over and over and over again throughout society. So, imagine, what does he say? The world being one, mankind cannot escape what he was created to do or long for. He longs for it. But he longs for it in the wrong way. But you have nothing to do with that if you're a believer. You have to do with putting the world right through Jesus. Putting the marriage right through Jesus. Putting the children right through Jesus. Putting your argument with this, that, and the other. Putting the body right through Jesus. Putting anything you see or can think of or name and use a noun for. It is there and it is to be redeemed by Him. That is the point. And there are simply two sections with Chapters 1 to 3 and 4 to 6, there is the renewal of all things in Christ that has already been done. And then there's the renewal of all things in Christ that is left to do, that is not yet done. So let us get in our Jurassic Park helicopter and fly over these two points. Number one, The reuniting of all things in Christ. That has already been done. Look at how the book opens. Paul, an apostle. How do you get an apostle? Something's already been done. By the will of God. The will of God is active and done something. and grace to you and peace." From who? From God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know God is a Father? Because He has a Son. How do we know He has a Son? He sent Him into the world. How do we know there's salvation through Him? He raised Him from the dead. You cannot even get through the salutation of the letter without already being reminded that God has acted in history. And He's known by His acts. You know a person by their actions. You say, what sort of a person could act like that? What sort of a person would send His Son into the world to redeem rebels like you? The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. A God who's by nature a Father and so on. There's a whole sermon there. It's there somewhere on Sermon Audio. The opening. The opening reminds you. So the great need in the Christian life. Mark Lloyd-Jones used to say it over and over and over. And Justin was praying. And I was thinking, do you realize how offensive that is that he's praying? That Justin Morgan deserves to hang on a cross. And it's part of the gospel message. And if I'm anything of a minister to tell you that you are supremely wicked beyond your imagination! Wicked! If someone came into your home today and they went through your home and they never referenced you and they slept in your bed and ate your porridge and ignored you, it would be such a high offense. And you play with God's leaves and His water and His creation and you go a day without referencing Him or thinking Him. It is, let the heavens shudder, Jeremiah says. Be a pall of moon and stars at what this person is doing in my world. How could you not worship the God who made you, who gave you every single thing you love? Do you not see that you are falling desperately sick? And so Paul here says, The great need the great need is to see what I was saying there is he goes on to pray in his prayer you know that We've been crucified with Christ. The whole point of the Good News is like, there's a way for me to hang like a wicked person who deserves to be humiliated and hung on a pole like we said. What do you want me to do? Hang on a pole? It is part of the Gospel for you to believe you deserve to be hung on a post out there when we leave and see you naked upon it. And for you to say, the God of all the earth has done right. Can you say that if you cannot? You do not know the gospel. Can you say that? I deserve that. Like the thief on the cross said. If you can, you'll be with Him in His kingdom. Because flesh and blood tells no man to say that. Everybody will gather around you. Oh, no, no. You're not that bad. Oh, no, no. Oh, no, no. Oh, no, no. Oh, no, no. That is not how the Lord Jesus Christ deals with men. Remember when he met Peter? He had the charcoal fire. Remember what you did, Peter? You get your sins taken away and you confess them and run to Jesus. Yeah, then they're gone. But not prior to that. Our great need, Martin Lloyd-Jones used to say, the greatest thing in all of the world is to be a Christian. The greatest thing. It's not to get a PhD in any subject, it's to be a saint, to be a Christian. That is the greatest thing in all the world. And our great need, therefore, is simply to realize what God has done. If you are here today and you're a Christian and you're discouraged and you feel just stuck in a rut, you need to own it. You know not what Christ has done. You need to own it or you wouldn't be that way. And so, there's only one command in chapters 1 to 3. It's in 2 verse 11. There's only one imperative. Remember. That's all you're told to do. Remember who you were, what he's done. So we're not called, as I was telling the children, you can start from a trampoline to jump or you can start from a piece of concrete to jump. Isn't it wonderful? God doesn't want me to read my Bible, to come to church, to pray a prayer, to move right, left, forward, back from a position of zero. from a position of defeat, and I'm therefore going to get a victory. No. To start from victory. And to do everything from that point. This is why Paul opens up with praise, even though he's in prison. Look at it. Remember, he is in prison. And he opens up like Fantasia. He opens up like Beethoven. He is conducting the ceremony of the whole orchestra. It sounds like one of Beethoven's symphonies to read Ephesians 1. And you would think that you were in the halls of a great orchestra, but it is in a prison. And he is belting out, blessed be the God. Surely you must admit that Paul sees something about Christ that you don't. And so he praises him generally. He says he has blessed us with every single thing in the heavenly places. And then he goes specifically into all the different gospel blessings of election and predestination and this revelation. We have the sports almanac of back to the future. We know God's purpose of where this is heading. He gets into... the inclusion of the Gentiles, that not only them, but you've been included. These wicked people out here who never knew a verse, who never did anything, if there's anyone in here and you were to say, if we assess this room, I feel like I'm the black sheep. You are included in the gospel. That is what Paul means by the end, like verses 13 right then. In him, you also, after listening, you people on the outside, you also believed and were given the Holy Spirit. So he opens up with praise because of it, and that sets the book going because we want to know, well, Paul, I feel like I don't have any hope. And here you are at the end of your apostolic ministry, sitting there right at the point where he should have been. discouraged and you're handled, belting out the Messiah, okay, what do I need then so that I can join you? He says, well, you need to pray about it, number one. You need to pray for us to see. That's what verses 15 to 23 were about. So praise it. So the first reaction, you got one doctor and the first reaction is praise for it. The second one is prayer for it. Because of course, you already have faith. You already have love. You've already done a bunch of good deeds. But the thing is, your mind is still foggy. Your mind is not fully redeemed yet. Do you know the lost person's problem? The noetic effects of sin, the Greek word nous for mind, that you can't even talk to them. You'll be talking to a lost person. And they're just like, well, where do we worship? You're like, were you even listening to me? They're like, well, where do we get breakfast? Or where do we get bread? You realize they are dead in their mind. It requires grace, truly. And when you're converted, that changes, but it doesn't change completely. You still have this fogginess of mind and sinful thoughts and cloudiness. And so Paul prays for you in the second half of chapter one, the way Elisha prayed for his servant, who's saying, alas. So if you're here today and you're saying, alas, this has happened. And therefore, I guess I just kind of cruise toward the end of life this way. Paul says, let's pray. Lord, open his eyes that he may see. You see, you don't need to see less reality and go veg out and go on vacation. A vacation will not help you without the gospel. and just bring the same problems there. And you just go lick from a broken system for a little while and then come right back to them. You need your eyes open to see reality more. And so that's what to pray for. So he mentions that. And what you need to see is what God has begun to do in Christ. Look at the last half of chapter 1, by his resurrection, his dominion, the way he presents Christ to the church. I mean, look at it. It's not just me. Like Jesus told the rich man, well, you look at the law. How does it look to you? I mean, you look at verse 23. And He put all things in subjection under His feet. I don't know how else to read that, but to be more than a Christian nationalist, to be an everything nationalist, to be a complete globalist in regards to the aim. And then He says, He presented him this way to the church, you know, all authority is given to me, go preach the gospel. And he says, which is his body? The fullness of him who feels all in all. But Paul would say to you, if you say, well, I sure ain't doing the Handel's Messiah thing in my sorrow like you are, Paul. What else? He would say, well, first of all, I want you to praise it. In order to do that, you've got to pray about it, that God may open your eyes to see it. The third thing is, you ought to preach about it. That's what chapter 2 and 3 are about. You ought to preach about it. Notice how he starts preaching about it. So, there's a two-pronged thing. It won't do to just stick one prong in the wall. You need prayer and the Word. You need both. So, the thing to do if you're a Christian and you're discouraged is to say, alright, so one thing I need to do is pray, God, open my eyes to see. And then the wondrous things of the law. And then the second thing you need to do is look at the law. Look at it. While you're praying, look at it. And so he starts preaching about it. You sum it up very easy. Chapter 2, first half, is how God has begun summing up all things in the heavens. Man's vertical relationship with God. Second half, how he's begun summing up all things on earth is, horizontal relationships with other men. Look at what he says. How did he do it? Chapter 2, 1 to 10. He made you alive. He didn't ask you if you wanted to be made alive. He made you alive. He taught your heart to fear when you're on the way to Emmaus. It wasn't because someone had died. It wasn't because this, that and the other. You know what men will do if people die and God leaves them to themselves? They will come harder and harder and more bitter and more dead. No. You began to listen because Holy Spirit taps you on the shoulder and starts speaking into your ear and teaching your heart to fear. He made you alive. Why did He make you alive? Because He's rich in mercy? Because of the great love? And because of His surpassing grace, and then look at it, He made you alive together with Christ, because He chose to unite you to Jesus, and He raised Him from the dead. It's like when Aslan comes, and all the people frozen in stone, they unfreeze, like you unfroze because you're included in Him. Not because you chose to be included in Him, because God chose to include you in Him. And so He made you alive with Christ. He didn't just make you alive as an individual. He made you alive with Him. You're with Him, so it's like a stringer of fish pulling Jesus out of the water. You came with Him. That's what Paul says. And then look at 2.11-22 where he explains the reuniting of all things on earth. You're horizontal. Yeah, it is horrible. You're horizontal relationship with other men. You say, well, you don't know what Joe did to me. Or you don't know what Kenneth did to me. Or you don't know how my wife sinned against me. Or maybe you would say, you don't know how you sinned against me. Well, maybe I don't. But I do know we can figure it out and fix it. Or I do know I better be able to figure it out with you and fix it, if I want to be forgiven. Because Jesus died as a propitiation for all law-breaking. So if you have a reason to be angry at me, I broke the law with you somehow. I was supposed to be compassionate, and I wasn't. I was supposed to minister somehow, and I didn't. I was supposed to be kind and check on you somehow, and I didn't. Or I just said something wrong, or I was rude, or I was arrogant, or whatever I did. I did something and I offended you. I broke the law. Well, he died for all law breaks. That means you, like God, are to be appeased the very same way. You're to look down at the tablets in the ark and you say, look at that law Jeffrey broke. And then on the mercy seat, you see the blood and you say, look at how Jesus died for that sin. And you no longer see the law anymore, you see the blood and you say, come here brother, I forgive you. That's how it's supposed to work. You see how the world and their little communities have no hope? What are they going to do? Divide us versus them over there. You remember what they did? They have no grace. They have no gospel. They have no good news. The Gentiles, Jesus is the ultimate person of consequence. Paul says, look at how it was before he came, now in Christ there's peace. Look at what happens after he came. The Gentiles have been put in God's most special place, his temple. So it's just like the toy story. We have like a Woody and Buzz situation here, with whoever the Christian is that we don't like. You know, the Jews are like Woody, they were in the special place, they were in Andy's bed, and then now you got the problem of like this Gentile is in the bed. And the whole movie is about this tension, and then eventually, in the end, they're both laying there in the bed. So that's the way to be united with whoever this other brother is and whatever he's done is to lift up his shoe and see Andy like God has given him the Holy Spirit and God has received him. I have no excuse not to. So because he's in, regardless of anything else that's mentioned, I only have to ask one thing. Do you believe he has the Holy Spirit? Done. Done. That's enough. That's reason enough. He is in God's special place you must embrace. And not like the two kids, you know, in the we're together shirt, mom put us in a little shirt. No, no, no. From the heart. Because you look at what matters and what matters is the Holy Spirit. And that's what you're thinking about. So think of a little girl, all of this to say chapters 1 to 3. The rest of chapter 3 is just about telling you that nothing can stop it. It's an invincible purpose. It's an eternal purpose to do this. So that Paul, you've got to learn how to talk. Paul says, I'm a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I'm not a prisoner of Rome. I'm like Joseph. All things are working. We were talking before about Miss Donna's death. Even Miss Donna's death could be used. No weapon prospers against you. Right? They're all just like little arrows that turn into flowers. Everything is working for you. Because God is for you. And so, all of it together, the reuniting of all things in Christ that have already begun, are to be on our minds before you get to 4 to 6. It's like this. Think of a daddy holding up his little girl to, like, grab something off the shelf. That's how you're to live the Christian life. You're not to do it in your own power and in your own piety. Remember, Peter? You think, by our own power or piety, this man has been raised? That's how you should talk about anything. You think, by my own power or piety, I read the Bible? I cared? I performed this act of love? No. So there's this realization that like, yeah, if I was by myself, I would give up. How could I reach this? But I'm not by myself. God is with me. God is strengthening me. God is not pounding me saying, come on, where are you at, Josh? Come on, Charlie. Goodness, he's doing this again. That is all Satan in our own conscience and our own psychological problems. It's not the voice of the Lord. Look, you see His voice. He begins a letter to you, grace to you, peace. That's how His begin. Look at what all I've done for you. He takes three chapters before He ever even asks what you're doing. And you forgot about it by then. That's how to get victory over many sins, don't you know? Again, while the secularists can't do it, no, we need a whole book on anxiety. Is anything in the New Testament like that? Anywhere. No. No. You would be better to read a whole book on the gospel. And then you come back like, well, what about the anxiety? I forgot about it. God doesn't call you to just stare at certain particular sins like that and conquer them in your own strength. So, what a structure to this letter as we're telling the children, therefore, he says in chapter 4, verse 1. So, can't you see God doesn't want you pursuing the secular utopias? As I said, without the gospel, every community is one cent away from being done. We were, our AC's been out like all summer. Say out, like badly not working. I thought I had enough patience, but I guess I needed more patience. So that's been going on. And the guy who put the new AC in, it still ain't been working. I guess by the time the weather gets cool, it'll get fixed. But they got to where the company who put it in, now they had to call the manufacturer. Because they're like, there's no way it's not working. He said, it's not working. I checked everything. I did everything. Y'all are going to have to come out. You know how that is in capitalism. They don't ever want to pay for anything. So they don't want to come out. So now they're finally going to come out. Now, what's the point in getting the manufacturer to come out? Because he's the one who made it. He knows everything about it. Why does the savior of the world have to be Jesus? Remember how the Gospel of John begins? In the beginning was the Word. All things came into being through Him. And it's that very same Word that became flesh. Since He created the world, He knows how to redeem the world. And that's why the Savior has to be Him. So, after the reuniting of all things in Christ that's already been done, that has already started, chapters 4 to 6, which I'll try to go through quicker for you all, is the reuniting of all things that's left to do. What's left to do? Number one, preserve it. Guard, guard, guard, guard it like it's the Ark of the Covenant. Not create it. It's another difference of the world's unity. It's uniformity, not unity. Let's all pretend to smile, like at Christmas time. I see friends shaking hands, saying, how do you do? And just let's us all smile and let's all shake, but you know it is fake, because the moment a big sin is committed, it's done. There's no ability to deal with it. So, we're not called to create a unity. We're just called to realize what God already did. He made you alive. He made me alive. He gave you the Spirit. He gave me the Spirit. My biggest problem is just to think about that and quit thinking about everything else that I think is important. Well, we use this method of spanking. Like, you think that's a joke. Like, that can be a tremendous divider. I mean, when you get to that level, who cares what method of spanking you use, right? It's Christ is all and in all. That's all that matters. Christ and the Spirit. Do you have the Spirit? Are you believing on Christ? So, the big thing is to just guard it. You see it on Twitter. Every week, after Sunday, Monday, by Tuesday or Wednesday, there's some kind of big thing that everybody has to talk about, and it's not the gospel, and these Christians go here, and these Christians go here. You see it every single week. You know how to preserve the unity? Avoid that. Avoid that. Be the guy in the crowd that constantly says, but he does have the spirit, right? Yeah. So we are supposed to then be unified then, right? Be that guy in the crowd. preserving the unity. So there's a defensive posture. Don't be the guy who says, well, I know Jeffrey offended me, or I know someone said this, but I'm just a man of peace. And that's what we do. It's our natural, I'm a man of peace. I just won't say anything. I'll just slip out the door, just come in and sit here and leave and do this and do that. And you know that does not work over time. It does not work. I've tried it, you've tried it, it does not work. The thing to do is to humble ourselves, which is really hard to do. Because then you gotta say, you remember that time I invited y'all over for Cheetos? And y'all never could come, like it hurt my feelings. And it changed my whole attitude, and then that changed how I reacted. That's pretty hard to admit. So it feels a lot better to say, I'm just struggling with stuff. But the gospel is supposed to free you more and more over time to just say, you know, the thing is, just this silly thing offended me. And then you're able to just, and it's so wonderful when you get used to it. You can keep things clean that way. So, preserving the unity, not by being passive, but by being active. In other words, so God has called you to act. God has acted, but He's called you to act. He hasn't called you just to sit there and to not care and to sit on the sideline. He's called you to be that guy in the crowd that says, well hey, isn't there just one body and one Lord and one faith and all of that? So preserve the unity. That would be a defensive response. The second response, though, is offensive. And that is from 4-7, really all the way to the armor section. And that is to push it. So let me re-summarize what you have. You have one doctrine. God is summing up all things in Christ. First way to respond, praise Him for it. Second way to respond, pray for it that you may see it better. Third way, preach about it. Constantly be preaching about it and talking about it. Fourth way, preserve it. Fifth way, push it out into the world. Push it out into the world. That's what that whole section was about. Finish the puzzle. It's like a puzzle that begins and you finish it. Do not view anything in your life as secular. If God is summing up all things in Christ, how can anything be secular? There's no sacred in secular. It's all sacred. So how do you do that? Well, by growing, he says, by sitting under preaching and growing, by changing, by becoming on the outside who God already made you to be on the inside. Remember the putting off and putting on? When Cinderella put on that shiny dress, It was fitting, it fit her. She was already the person that ought to have worn that dress already. And Paul says, put on kindness, put on forgiveness, put on wisdom, put on good words, not bad words. He's just saying, be who God already made you to be. You see that? It's like, realize who you are, be who you are. The whole Christian life is God has already acted, or because God has acted, I'm going to act. Remember Paul? I press on that I may lay hold, and then he says, of that for which I was laid hold of. So, I'm spinning my tires to get out of the mud of this sin that I'm in because God has hooked His winch to me and I feel the jerk of it. And that's the encouragement for me to give it gas. It's not just we come to you in the mud and say, can you get out, brother? That's not it. But often that's how we think of it. To be honest with you, after studying the book of Ephesians, a lot of people think Doug Wilson is unique, all of Christ for all of life. I think, have they ever read Ephesians? It just seems to all be here. Everything. Politics, education, just list, I don't know, crickets, list it, lifesavers, all for Jesus. All of it. Grace intends to take over nature. The Spirit of God aims to redeem the world of God through the people of God. And we don't know how. or the times in the epics, you say, well, hi, it looks pretty puny. Look at the world. I don't have to know all those answers. Let's just aim at the right thing and fire the gospel at the right thing. In Deuteronomy 29.29, secret things belong to the Lord. Why can't we be an untiliest? We just preach the gospel and we follow the Lord and we know that all things are going to be put under His feet somehow in His providence. And we just keep doing this until it happens, and if it doesn't happen by the time our days are numbered, then like David, we fall asleep after serving his purpose in our generation, pass the baton on to the next, and we wait for the resurrection. The last thing he says is, protect yourself by it. That's what he told us in the armor section. Protect yourself by it. Put on what God has already done. Put on His righteousness, not yours. His faithfulness, not yours. All of that. You will need that. Because you'll get muddy in this battle. You'll fall in this battle. You'll be trying to help someone and you fall into sin. What are you going to do then? Well, you have His armor. You can put that on and get back up again. So in conclusion, I guess you could say Ephesians is a book about one doctrine with six responses. John Lennon's imagined song is coming true, but Jesus is doing it. And there are six responses. Praise Him for it. Pray about it, that you may see it. Preach it. Preserve it. Push it out into the world and protect yourself with it. But I guess I have to add a number seven. If you weren't here last week, that sermon is somewhere in the ether. But plead for others with it. The grace of God, that was a lesson last week, very last sermon of the book. The grace of God is not just for others. You see that man Tychicus, the little Whitman sampler messenger boy, carrying the letters everywhere and all the wonderful things said of him. That's a man in whom the grace of God is there, but then Paul switches at the end of the letter, and he says, yes, but peace be to all the brothers in love with faith, and grace be with all. Paul has an Irenic spirit and a wide, warm heart, and everyone he sees, he thinks, you know, grace be to you, God be gracious to you. You get in here too in this grace. So from here on out, this would be a wonderful way that our church could show we study Ephesians together. If someone asks Ryan, Ryan, why are we doing the singing? Because God is summing up all things in Christ. That's why we're singing. If you say, why do y'all have a prayer meeting? Because God is summing up all things in Christ. And I don't see it well enough. Will you come pray with me that I might see it better? And y'all always preaching. Man, y'all preach. Y'all just preach and preach and preach. Why y'all preaching all the time? Another sermon, another sermon, another sermon. Because God is summing up all things in Christ. And I live in the world, you know, six days out of the week. And they ain't talking about this. And my mind is being conformed to this age. And I need to come through the means of grace and be reminded about this and see this. You're preserving it like someone says something. You're mindful of unity. You're just trying to keep the brethren together. You're playing defense. You're the goalie. You swat that conversation. And somebody's like, that was kind of rude. You kind of told that lady she was wrong. God is summing up all things in Christ. And He's already begun. I'm trying to protect the unity. And if someone wants to know, why are you always talking about pushing Christianity in the politics, and education, and the bedroom, and the children, and the sports, and the hunting, and the jokes? Jeffrey, you've got the Gospel in Aisle 2 of Kroger. What are you doing? The answer is, God is summing up all things in Christ. The Gospel belongs there. And when we fall, when one another falls and we come to each other and say, Corey, I can't even look at you, what I did. Or Jeffrey, I can't even look at you, what I did. And we put the armor on each other and protect each other's righteousness by His righteousness and His faithfulness. And so how can you just do that? How can it just be grace like that? God is summing up all things in Christ. That's how. And He's already got that victory and He invites the brother to put it on. And lastly, if I keep speaking to some of you, or I even grab you by the side, there's some of you I would want to, and keep speaking directly to you and say, why are you not following my Lord? Why will you die? Don't you love life? Don't you care? Don't you love your children? Why would you just rot? Why would you just have vanity? Like, why won't you have grace? I might be worse than you, you know that? I might be a worse sinner than you. It has nothing to do with your sin. Your sin qualifies you. You're qualified to receive grace because you're so wicked. Because your life is so broken. You know, how do you glorify a mechanic? I mean, you really bring him the problem truck. And then it's like, wow, what a... So you can glorify Jesus through your mess. I want grace for you. I want you to know if you're one of the people here that I don't know is a Christian, or you're confused somehow, or I don't know exactly what all you're thinking. Like, I grieve about you. And I wish for you to bring your broken life. If God is summing up all things in Christ, doesn't that include you? Doesn't that mean He could put your life back together? Why don't you say, well, it's just so broken. It's just so broken. I'll help you get all the pieces. Let's just bring it to Him. I meant for this to happen and this happened instead. I meant for this route in my life and this happened. Well, let's just take the life you do have that's all broken and shattered. Why not bring it to Him? So, if you're a Christian, final comment, If you're a Christian, and if God is summing up all things in Christ, why would you not throw yourself into living the Christian life in every single way, in full force? And if you're not a Christian, and you're confused or whatever, if God is summing up all things in Christ, why would you not? bring your broken life to Him. I hope you don't think, despite anything you ever see, I hope you don't misinterpret my passion, I hope you don't misinterpret, I know I have sins and lacks in my holiness, I hope you don't think that I'm above you. I hope you don't think I'm better than you. I hope you don't think that I think your life is more broken than mine and you can't have anything that I have. So, you believe. You receive the grace of God. Call on the name of the Lord and bring your life to Him. And be baptized in His name. Let the world know that you are identifying with His death and resurrection. And God does command you to do it. May He help you to do it. And may He bless all of you sweet people who are already in Him. What a wonderful privilege to be able to preach through a book of Scripture and God's providence over our lives. I love you all and amen.