Ephesians 3 v 1 thru 6

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This morning we'll be in the first six verses of chapter three, and um Paul here in these verses, he really kind of opens a window into what uh is termed a mystery, not that it's something that is mystical or or unknowable, but something that was once hidden and is now gloriously revealed in Christ. And this passage is not just about Paul's ministry, it is about God's eternal purposes that unfold in the person of Jesus Christ. And uh it brings together Jews and Gentiles into one body. Um this text should humble us, it should expand our understanding of the gospel and its effects, and uh it should also confront our pride because it calls us really to kind of marvel at God's grace and and because God is the one who unites us into one new humanity in Christ Jesus. Let's look at Ephesians 3. Says, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we ask that you would calm our minds and our spirits and our hearts and allow us to receive your word this morning to gain more understanding so that we might become more like Christ because of you and the word that you have handed down to us through your apostles. Father, we ask for your grace and your mercy to go before us and to instruct us by your spirit. In Christ's name. Amen. So Paul begins here in this, what we have as the third chapter. Obviously, it was just another paragraph in his letter originally. Um, but he begins with, For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles. He begins with kind of an interruption to the flow of the letter, and he starts a thought that he really doesn't complete until you get over to verse 14, where he again says, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, and goes on. So he he begins with that thought for this reason. Then he says, I Paul, he reminds them it's me, this is the apostle Paul, prisoner now uh uh of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles. And then it's like, oh, wait a minute, here's this parenthetical statement until we get through what we have as verse 13. Then I'm gonna come back to that thought later, is kind of the way this falls in the text. And he immediately identifies himself, notice there, not as a prisoner of Rome, but as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He's there's an incredible theological statement in that because Paul is chained very likely in Rome. Uh, this is probably like Acts 28 um uh time of of his life, and we see um examples of that in Acts 28, 16, and then verses 30 and 31. But he doesn't see himself as being ultimately bound by Caesar. Rather, he sees himself as bound by Christ. And he conveys to us that no matter what the law of man may be, he is bound in chains because of his testimony of Christ Jesus. He's not there because he was out being lawless and and you know taking his own pleasures. He he was not there because he broke laws and and you know was being subversive in any way and fighting against the government, but rather he was arrested and thrown in jail because of his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. John Calvin writes that Paul glories in his chains because they are the bonds of Christ. It's exactly why he was there. Paul's suffering, he understands, is not accidental, rather, it's providential. God has him there for a purpose. He's there to accomplish some things. And he says it is for the sake of or on behalf of you Gentiles. Who's that? Well, I don't know for sure that we have any Jews in this room, so that's all of us, everybody. Okay, anyone who is not a Jew. And and so he says that it's for the sake of the Gentiles, those who back in verse 13 of the previous chapter, those who were once far off that are now brought near. Um we are brought near in Christ. And and it aligns with what Joseph told his brothers back in the book of Genesis and chapter 50 and verse 20, when he says, What man meant for evil, God meant for good. While Rome may think they've got Paul bound, they have him in prison, he's in chains, they've got him right where they want him. God's using it for his own purposes because Paul writes multiple letters from prison. And so he he was demonstrating to us that even his imprisonment serves the purposes of the gospel and the gospel going forth. And he he was one of a group of men who was willing to die for his faith and for his Lord. And if we know anything about the deaths of the apostles, what at least history and tradition tells us, John's the only one that got to die an old man. The rest of them were killed for their faith, crucified, crucified upside down, literally drawn and quartered, and their body parts scattered. Why? Because of their faith, because of their unwillingness to deny that faith. And we see similar things all down through history. We studied church history for two years, two and a half years on Wednesday nights, and we saw example after example after example of men who were drugged to the stake and burned to death because they refused to deny their faith in Christ. And oddly enough, most of those were being done under the authority of what's supposedly the true church based in Rome. Many of those people died at the hands of a pope who said, I don't like someone challenging my authority. Huh, that sounds familiar. I think we've seen that. It's in the gospels. Religious leaders didn't like Jesus challenging their authority and their position in society. And we have that throughout scripture. And the reality is that that is the calling of every genuine believer in Christ, is that if need be, we are willing to die rather than deny our faith in Christ. It reminds me of a, I remember hearing a report years and years ago from the mission field about a group of bandits who broke into a church one Sunday and they pulled a picture that was supposedly representing Christ off the wall, and they had they were armed, had guns, and they told the people gathered there that they had to leave, but on the way out, they had to spit on that picture of Christ. And person after person spat on that picture and walked out the door. And a teenage girl walked up to that picture and got on her knees and took her hair and began wiping the spit off the picture and said, I could never deny my Savior. They didn't shoot her. They were in awe of her faith. That's the kind of responsibility and the kind of calling that every genuine believer in Christ has on our lives. That we, if necessary, are willing to go to our death for the gospel of Christ. That's why we're studying a book called Hard to Believe in Sunday School right now that's all about the true biblical gospel of Christ. Because nothing else has the power to save. We are all called to die. We die to ourselves. Paul says, I die daily. He wasn't talking about dying to myself. He was saying I'm putting my very life at risk every day by going out and proclaiming the truth of the gospel within the Roman Empire where Christianity at this time was against the law. It was an illegal religion. And Paul says, every day I put my life at risk. But he was doing so for the gospel of Christ, not for his own sinful desires. And we have to understand that if that is the path to which God calls us, then it will be because he has ordained it and it is for his purposes. There are Christians all over the world who are being really persecuted. Not just, oh well, they told me I was stupid for believing that. We're all stupid in some way. And the reality is, if if they really knew us deep down on the inside, they'd have a whole lot worse things to say than that. But I'm talking about people who are being imprisoned and killed for their faith. Thousands of Christians in China are dying every week because of the gospel. That's persecution. Not they said I was dumb. They disagreed with me, they argued with me. Sometimes I think Christians are, what's the term? Snowflakes. Well, they were mean to me. Yeah. What did Jesus tell us? They did this to me, they're gonna do it to you. So we should not be surprised by that. And Paul is telling us don't be surprised by that. When you stand up for your faith, you're going to endure hardship and trial. And it's all because it's for God's purposes.

unknown 12:15

R.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

C. Sproull once said, there is no maverick molecule in the universe. God's sovereignty extends even to the chains of his apostles. Paul wasn't there by happenstance. It was all God. He was not a victim of man's law. He's a servant in chains for Christ's purposes. Then, verses two and three, we he talks about this stewardship of grace. Assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have written briefly. Paul speaks of this idea of stewardship. It's a compound Greek word, it's okonomia, and it means a divine administration or trust. Something that was given him with responsibility. Not just to take it and hold on to it and hide it, but to go and administer it to people, to share it with others. The King James uses the word dispensation there, not in the sense of a period of time, like we typically would think of dispensation, but as one who is dispensing. He's dispensing the grace of God. He's sharing the grace of God. How does he do that? Well, the same way we should be, through sharing the gospel. Because Christ is grace in person. And so if we're sharing the gospel, we're doing that. And so Paul is showing that he's been entrusted with the gospel, and in particular, what the implications of the gospel are for Gentile believers. That's why he says, on behalf of you Gentiles, okay, this stewardship is grace, it is not merit. Paul, who was once a persecutor of Christians, go read the beginning of Acts chapter 9. Once a persecutor, now he's a preacher. He is demonstrating the transforming power of God's grace. And I mean, Augustine said, God does not choose us because we believe, but that we may believe. Just as he chose us in him from before the foundation of the world. That sounds familiar. Oh gosh, that's Ephesians chapter one. He chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. That's speaking of God's elect. Peter uses that term a lot, the elect. In fact, that's how he starts. I believe both of his epistles. I, Peter, to the elect of God, the chosen of God. What Paul is telling us is that he didn't earn this role. It's grace. God gave it to him as a gift of grace. God called him to go to the Gentiles. It was his calling by the Holy Spirit to offer then the gift of grace to the Gentiles. And aren't we grateful to that? Those who were far off, the Gentiles, us. We should be so grateful that God didn't limit the gospel to only Israelites. That choosing is a picture of the New Testament church. Okay? That's a mystery that's been revealed. Kind of like what Paul's talking about here. He carries this message, and it's important that we understand Paul didn't discover this message. He says it was revealed, it was given to me. How the mystery was made known to me by revelation. God gave him that understanding. What does that mean? That means before that time, as Paul also writes, his eyes were darkened. He was blinded by the prince of this world. But then Christ revealed himself to him. I mean, I'm sure you're all familiar with the story in Acts where Paul's traveling to Damascus, and all of a sudden this light, brighter than the sun, appears and he's struck blind. And a voice calls out to him and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he's dumbfounded. And then the voice tells him, You go into town on a place called Strait Street, and you seek out this man. And he went. And after he was there for a few days, scales fell off of his eyes, and he could see. That's the picture of being given spiritual understanding and spiritual sight to see who God is, to see who Christ is. It's the picture of genuine salvation. And this really underscores the idea of a key principle that divine revelation is a primary doctrine. Where do we get divine revelation? This book is God revealing himself to us, showing us who he is, how he operates, how we should then live, how we come to faith in Christ, how we ought to carry ourselves after that. We're going to see here in a few weeks when we get through chapter three and we start chapter four, that Paul says right there at the beginning of chapter four, I therefore, in light of everything I just said in the first half of this letter, then live this way. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Then live this way in light of all of that information. That's how Ephesians is definitely split. Three chapters of here's what God has done for you. I mean, he starts out after his salutation in chapter one. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Then he lays that out. In light of those things, live your life this way. And so it's a message of divine revelation. We don't ascend to God by reasoning and by figuring it out. Rather, God descends to us and reveals Himself to us. It's the only way salvation works according to Scripture. John MacArthur said that the mystery is something man could never know on his own. It must be disclosed by God. It must be disclosed by God. And that keeps us from human speculating, from thinking, gosh, look what look what a brilliant concept we've come up with. What it does is it tells us that the gospel is not a human invention. I chuckle, I see these, as I flip through reels on social media, I see these clips all the time, especially one guy who's now dead and he knows the truth. A British guy by the name of Christopher Hitchens was a world-renowned atheist and and would just ridicule Christians in debate. Not that he won the debate, but he he liked to talk down to people. He was really full of himself. And he would say things that just, well, you know, what kind of a religion any religion is is wrong because it says you have to do something and and truth and and peace and happiness and harmony lives in everyone. Really? Go to civilizations that haven't had the gospel. Very cutthroat. Literally. I mean, to think that man could come up with sixty-six books written over roughly a 1,500 year period by about 40 human authors inspired by God and tell a cohesive story. She's gonna say what I said. It's not gonna happen. You ever played a telephone game in school? We used to do that. Play the telephone game. I'm going to whisper something into this person's ear. And then they tell the next person and the next person and the next person. And you get 10 or 15, 20 people around the room, and it's not even close to what was said to start with. How do we think we're going to have 40 people over a 1500-year period tell a consistent story unless it's breathed out by God, like Paul writes to Timothy? All scripture is theanustas, God breathed. It is not some human invention, it is a divine unveiling. It is God pulling back the curtain and showing us Himself in Scripture. Verses 4 and 5 then talks about the understanding of the mystery. And when you read this, he says, You can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed. Paul invites the readers of this letter and those who would hear it to understand this mystery is intelligible because it was revealed. Just doesn't make sense to me. Well, there are parts of it that it's kind of a, well, I think this is what this means based on Old Testament prophecy and all of that, that I think we don't really have nailed down yet. And we talked about that in Sunday school this morning. But it begins the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Even revelation that is so confusing in many ways, we can understand it to a certain degree because it is God revealing, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. Okay? Something that is revealed is no longer completely out of our realm, out of our scope to get it, to understand it, with the Holy Spirit giving us understanding. Not in our own brilliance. And that's where people, that's where non-Christians don't understand. John's gospel tells us that if you don't understand, it's because you don't have the Spirit to give you understanding. Now, I'm not saying, I mean, we all are going to understand to certain, to differing levels. Why? Because we all have different intelligence levels, we all have different perceptions, we all have different life experiences, but words have meaning. So when we read words on a page, there's a basic meaning that is there. And then how we apply that depends upon where we are in our lives and our walk with Christ. But the basic meaning is there. Okay, and that's, I mean, it's all about context. That's why here we are in chapter three. And what did I do? I just quoted to you a few minutes ago some verses from chapter one. Why? Because we can't forget those in chapter three. Because it's in the context of the book. It helps us to understand better and more fully what we're looking at in chapter three if we don't forget what chapter one said. We can't look at it in this enclosed space that ignores everything around it. Okay, back to the concept of Job. Job says there is no God. Well, yeah, it says that. The Bible says there is no God. But the context is a fool has said in his heart, there is no God. So it's not that the Bible says there is no God. A fool says there is no God. That means someone who is devoid of God in their lives. They don't have Christ. They don't have the Holy Spirit. They say there is no God. So, yes, those words are there. There is no God, but we have to understand the context. Same thing with this. We have to understand the context. The reality is that Paul tells us this is a mystery. He says it was not made known in previous generations as it is now. It doesn't mean the Old Testament was silent. Instead, he's saying that what was previously in shadows and types, even in Job, we see a type of Christ. In Joseph, we see a type of Christ. Not that he is Christ in another form, but we see one who is demonstrating to us the love and the grace and the faith of Christ and who is presenting that. And if you know anything about Job, as we're now almost halfway through the book of Job on Wednesday nights, if you know anything about that book at all, Job says, it's not about me. In fact, last week, this last Wednesday, we saw the kind of the turning point, I think the key phrase in the book of Job. I know that my Redeemer lives, and on the earth again shall stand. That's the key point in all of the book of Job. He'd been through, he'd lost all of his children, he'd lost all of his livestock, he'd lost everything he had except for his own life and his wife, and he's covered in boils. And his dear friends come and say, We're here with love and compassion to tell you this is your fault. You've sinned somewhere. What did you do, Job? And Job essentially, in a real, a much kinder way, I think, than Daryl would have said it, he says, You're stupid. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the whole picture. Because we know from the beginning of Job, God said to Satan, Satan says, There's nobody on the earth that's righteous, blah, blah, blah. And God looks at him and says, Have you considered my servant Job? He is blameless and upright. They didn't know that, so they assumed, based on their understanding of God at that point, it's got to be Job's fault. Sometimes we do that. We forget grace and mercy, and if it wasn't for grace and mercy, we'd be just like the worst person we can think of, who's probably not as bad as we would be without grace and mercy. I know me better than anybody knows me except God. And I can guarantee you, I would not be on the path I'm on now apart from God. What is it, Wendy Bagwell used to always say, with my hand in the air, I know who I was before Christ. And I was not a good person. I was not a nice person. I was mad. I was angry. All the time. And I could cover it up usually by being sarcastic and poking fun at someone else to get the attention off of me. But when the grace of Christ comes in and makes us a new creation, the old is gone, and the new has come. And so we have this picture that Paul is trying to show us that these things were hidden before. You saw shadows, you saw types, you saw glimpses of the grace of Christ, sacrifices, rituals, specific prayers, all of these things that had to be done. Sounds pretty familiar, huh, Janet? Very much the Roman Catholic Church goes back and kind of they talk about the sacrifice of Christ, but they bring their traditions from the Old Testament a lot. And Paul says, all of those things are now revealed. They're revealed in Christ. And I mean, the reality is that those things were there in the Old Testament, but they weren't clear yet. I mean, Job, which is thought to be the first book of the Bible written down, as far as how old it is. Obviously, we have the creation account. Job had to be after that, but that wasn't written down until later. But with Job very early, historically speaking, and he says, I know that my Redeemer lives. He had an understanding. He knew there was a promised Messiah. We know that way back in Genesis chapter 3. Okay? And the reality is that we see it again in Genesis chapter 12. We don't have the clarity of it, but it's there. Genesis 12, 3, and you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That's God talking to Abraham. Isaiah 49, 6, that there would be a light for the nations. Psalm 67, God's salvation among all nations. The inclusion of the Gentiles was always part of God's plan, but now it is revealed with full clarity and fulfillment in Christ. As a Gentile, you could convert to Judaism. And historically, we understand, guess what they would do when someone converted to Judaism? They would baptize them. Baptism is not just a New Testament concept. They understood that. They understood what was happening when someone was baptized. But now we have that fulfillment in Christ and it makes all those mysteries clear. John Chrysostom said that the mystery was not that the Gentiles should be saved, but that they should be saved in the same way and united in the same body. Okay, again, remember last week we looked at the dividing wall being broken down. You would walk into the temple, and there was the court of the Gentiles, and if you weren't Jewish, that's as far as you could go. But then the Jews could go further in. And then priests could go further in, and then one day of the year on Yom Kippur, then the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies and offer sacrifices for the people. But that's all been broken down in Christ, and all of those mysteries have been revealed. This is really the scandal and the glory, not just that Gentiles are also saved, but that in Christ we are on level ground with Jews who are also saved. Not every Jew, because most of them deny Christ as their Messiah. This is an affirmation of the Trinitarian work of revelation. The entire Godhead is involved, planned by the Father, revealed in the Son, and applied by the Spirit. So then finally in verse 6, we have the content of the mystery. This mystery is that Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Paul says the mystery plainly. He plainly says what that mystery is. And there are three parallel truths that define it. First of all, we're fellow heirs, and that's a 15-letter long Greek word that is fellow heirs. And it means that we share equally in the inheritance that is Christ. We are not second-class citizens, we're not guests, we are heirs. And it's because there are no classes of Christians. You're either born again by faith in Jesus Christ or you are not. You are an heir if you are in Christ, and you are not an heir if you are not in Christ. It's that simple. Romans 8 17 says we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. The second part of that is members of the same body. That's a much easier word. I can pronounce that when it's the Soma. And it means one body, not two groups of people. Not Jews, Gentiles. One body, united in Christ. They're not parallel covenants. We have a new covenant in Christ. We are one church. Later on in this chapter in verse 16, it says that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. He's reconciling us in one body. Verse 16 of the previous chapter tells us that. That's why we sang that song beneath the cross of Jesus this morning. Because that second verse talks about, who am I to judge those whom God has called? Because we're one in Christ. There's a complete destruction of any kind of ethnic and spiritual pride in this mystery. It doesn't matter if you're talking Jew and Gentile, black and white, red, yellow, black, green, pink, purple. I don't care. When we are in Christ, we are Christians. Regardless of the amount of melanin that happens to be in our skin. That's what determines how dark or light your skin is, by the way. If you didn't know that. I mean, the reality is you are a Christian who happens to be of whatever skin tone you are, but you are a Christian first and foremost. And here's the sad part. You want to know the most divisive time of the week in the body of Christ? Right now. Because you got black churches and white churches and cowboy churches and Chinese churches and Hispanic churches when we're all one body in Christ. I understand there are language barriers that exist. I get that. But the reality is there are a lot of us who speak the same language and understand it very well, who choose to go where people who look like us go. Rather than, hey, let's go over there. I had a guy who played bass guitar in a group I sang in back in the 90s who had moved up here from Louisiana. He came from a church of about 3,000. He said, literally, that church was about 1,500 blacks and about 1,500 whites. And he said, We all came together, we all worshiped God together. We all, he said, we met together throughout the week. We'd have dinner together or go out after church on Sunday for lunch. Whatever. He said, we were just the body of Christ. He said, for that church, the divisive time came on Monday morning. Because then the cultures kind of separated. But he said it was not like, oh, I need to worship with people who look like me, who have my background. Why? Because we're new creations. That is not the point that we're different skin tones or different ethnicities. I won't say races because there's one race, it's the human race. We have different backgrounds. So what? I bet there's not two of us in this room that has an identical background. I'm the youngest of seven kids. Anybody else? My dad's retired navy. Anybody else? We got one, so there's one similarity. All my siblings and my parents' names start with the same letter. Anybody else? I know, I know the lets have that going on. No, I know, you guys. But how many of you grew up in Alameda, California? Just me? How many of you how many of you had lost a parent when you were six weeks from graduating high school? There was one back there. We're all different. But the point is, we are one in Christ. We bring our differences together, and it only makes us stronger because of Christ. John Calvin said, God has so mingled the Gentiles with the Jews that they form one body. And that's the reality. Finally, we're partakers of the promise. Partakers of the promise. What does that mean? It means that we are co-participants in the promise of Christ. It means there is only one God, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one salvation, and we are one in Christ if we are in Christ. We sang that song too, in case you don't remember. Because the promises made to Abraham now belong to all of us. Galatians 3.14, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. This happens through the gospel, not through the law, not through your ethnicity, not through works, but through the good news of Jesus Christ by grace, through faith. I quoted this last week and I couldn't remember who had said it, but it was Charles Spurgeon who said, The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We all come the same way, by grace through faith. Regardless of our status in society, we're all one in Christ. Great Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, he wrote that Christ is the common savior of all the faithful and the bond of their unity. So what do we do? Well, we marvel at God's redemption plan, we embrace unity in the body of Christ, we live as stewards of grace, and we rejoice in our identity. Because if you are in Christ, you are an heir, you are a member of his body, and you are a partaker of the promises. And remember, this is not earned, it is given as a gift. That's the mystery revealed. If uh Amos and Mark would come forward, we're going to prepare to receive the Lord's Supper.