Why the Church? — Ephesians 3:1–13 | Season 2, Episode 6

Have you ever looked at the church — with all its mess, its hurt, its broken people and broken leadership — and wondered why God would choose this as his plan?

Paul has an answer. And it's bigger than you might expect.

In this episode of the Set Free Stay Free Bible study podcast, host Matt Dawson opens Ephesians chapter 3 and lands on one of the most surprising statements in Paul's entire letter. God's purpose in bringing Jews and Gentiles together into one people wasn't just about them. It was to use the church to display his wisdom — in all its rich variety — to rulers and authorities across the heavenly realms. That was his eternal plan. Plan A through Z. The church.

Not a gas station. Not an airport hub. A display of God's wisdom to the watching world.

Using the SOAP method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer), Matt unpacks Paul's deep sense of privilege in being called to bring this mystery to the Gentiles, why the church matters more than we often give it credit for, and what it looks like to walk boldly and confidently into God's presence because of what Christ has done. He closes with a personal reflection on what it means to consider suffering in ministry an honor — and a challenge to share this study with someone this week.

This Ephesians Bible study is for anyone who has underestimated what God actually wants to do through his church.

In this episode:

• Why Paul calls himself the least deserving of all God's people
• The mysterious plan revealed — Jews and Gentiles as one new people
• Why God chose the church as his eternal plan to display his wisdom
• What it means to come boldly and confidently into God's presence
• Why Paul considers his suffering in prison an honor, not a burden
• A closing prayer for the church to embrace its calling with courage

📖 Passage: Ephesians 3:1–13 (New Living Translation)

🔍 Keywords: Ephesians Bible study, Bible study podcast, SOAP method Bible study, Christian Bible study, Scripture-first Bible study, Set Free Stay Free, Matt Dawson, walking through the Bible, Christian discipleship podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Well, welcome back to the Set Free Stay Free Bible Study Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Dawson. We are in season two of this podcast, episode six, as we continue to look at the new book of Ephesians. No, it's not new, but it's new for this podcast. And uh we are continuing into chapter three, but I want to go ahead and start with this particular question today. Have you ever wondered why the church matters? Like in all the things God wants to do and through his people and what he wants to do in this world, like have you ever wondered why, why would you choose the church? Like the church is just a screwed up place. Like, like I'm a pastor and can say that. Like the church, sometimes I look back, I'm just like, God, I ask him all the time, like, why, why would you choose the church to do some of the things you've called the church to do? Like, why would it be your plan? Like, why is it your plan A, the church? And honestly, I think Paul addresses it here in this chapter three, as we look in the chapter of Ephesians, that the church is more than just a community of broken people, right? It's more than just a group that God needed to worship him. The church was going to represent something. The church was going to be a place where his wisdom was shown to the world, that enemies became family, that lost people became saved, that that transformation was celebrated, that even in our mess, we would celebrate the God who's at work in our mess. Hopefully, you have your Bible with you. Remember, we use the soap framework to look through scripture, scripture, observation, application, and prayer. And if you don't know uh much about the soap method, there's um a resource for you I'd love to give you. Um you can look at the description description and click the link in the comments. Um, you can also DM me, and I'll be glad to get you that resource for free. It also gives you some other things that you can begin to soap through scripture on your own. Let's pray together before we dive in here to chapter three. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word, and we just pray that your Holy Spirit would reveal to us what you want us to know. That your living, active, breathing word would just speak to us today. We pray this and trust this in your name, Jesus. Amen. I'm gonna read through, probably won't stop maybe once or twice, but let's go ahead and dive into Ephesians chapter three, God's mysterious plan revealed. Paul's been talking about this mysterious plan that's been revealed and the plans that we've been talking about this last couple episodes, but let's let's this is the title, so to speak, of this third chapter. Let's dive in. Paul says, When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ, Jesus, for the benefit of you Gentiles. And then if you're looking at your Bible, your Bible might have a dot dot dot or an asterisk. And honestly, this is something I'll just throw in there. When the Bible was put together, and when these they find these letters, and sometimes there's manuscripts that have certain additional words, or they'll make notations in the sidelines. So if you have a study Bible, like mine says, Paul resumed his thought that when I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to God the Father. So I mean it's not most of these things are not anything critical in terms of what you see, but you know, the Bible wants you to know hey, there's some manuscripts that had more. Uh, there's something finishing this thought, but in this NLT that I'm reading today, it just kind of ends there with the asterisks. It says, I a prisoner of Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus, for the benefit of you Gentiles, assuming, by the way, you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles. As I briefly wrote earlier, God Himself revealed His this mysterious plan to me. As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ. God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now by his spirit, he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets. And this is God's plan. Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the good news share equally in the riches inherited by God's children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessing because they belong to Christ Jesus. This all goes back to our previous episode. Go back and listen to episode five about all of this understanding of the two groups kind of being brought together in and through Christ. Let's go to verse 7. But by God's grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this good news. Though I am the least deserving of all God's people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom and its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence. So please don't lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you. So you should feel honored. I really only have one part that I want to focus on. I think there's great observations in this. If you just jumped into chapter three, this is maybe your first episode you've listened to or first part of the podcast. Um, there's some there's some rich stuff happening here in verse one through, what is it, verse six, because it's an it's an echo or a refrain, if you will, of all the things we've read in chapter one and chapter two so far about this beautiful work that because of what Christ has done, He has now we've been we've been dead and we've been brought to life. We were far away, we were outsiders because we were Gentiles, and now even the Jews are brought into this one people, this one new dwelling, this one new people group, if you will, of Christ. So he's kind of repeating that, right, in a very concise way, that he brings all of them, Jews and Gentiles, they all share the same thing, and they're all being brought into this together because of Christ. And then he goes on to talk about this mysterious plan that God has and has revealed to his apostles. So it wasn't just Paul. Paul was saying that he did have the privilege of being able to go to the Gentiles. Now he wasn't the only one who did this, but in terms of what we see, in terms of what we know, he was the strongest, and his missionary journeys with Barnabas and all of them, like that, they're all pretty amazing when you read the book of Acts. Like it was a group of people going to help spread the message to the Gentile world. Even Peter, we talked about last episode. Peter to Cornelius spread this message and shared it with Gentiles. But Paul says it was it's an honor, it's a privilege to have been called to share this good news. This the mystery is what he continues to say, is that God's gonna bring these two groups together into one people. The mystery is that through the work of Christ, it wasn't gonna be all about just the Jewish people, it was gonna be about all people that are made in God's image. They're all gonna have this opportunity to be restored in relationship to God. And he says, God's purpose. I'm gonna go to verse 10, okay? God's purpose in all of this was to be able to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety in all the rule to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Like this to me, he says, this was his eternal plan. And I continue to come back. Again, I'm a pastor of a church, and I look, guys, I love my church. My church is amazing. I am, I am extraordinarily blessed with my church. But I've been in the church, I'm 51, been in the church all my life, before I was born. And not every church is the same. And you experience, sometimes you experience church hurt, sometimes you experience church damage because there's messy stuff that goes on in the church. There's messy, sinful people, there's messy, sinful leadership. Um you experience things, all sorts of things in the church. And so sometimes, you know, there's times that I've just questioned and been like, God, really? Like, this is it. This was your plan. This was your plan to reach the world was through your mobilized people of God through the church to share this message. That's your plan. Like that's your eternal plan. Like it's it. Like this was it. Plan A through Z. And so sometimes even when I see things like this, I'm just I marvel, right? Because Paul is talking to an early young church that, um, I mean young in terms of just, you know, maybe a couple decades, but he's just talking about like, guys, like this is God's plan is to use you, this group of people in Ephesus meeting in homes, passing this letter around. You're the church of Jesus Christ, right? You're the people of God. Probably some maybe even some Jews who live there, like Jews and Gentiles, you guys are all now one. You're the church, and he's gonna use you, use the church to display his wisdom and its great rich variety to leaders and to authorities in this world. Right? That's that's his plan. It's his eternal plan. And so I I just pause there because I think sometimes, and I I'm just saying this out loud, sometimes I underestimate the purpose of the church. Sometimes I've underestimated its role, like it's just there to, you know, like a gas station to fill people up on Sundays and they just rolling through life. And uh some people have used the example of a airport hub, you know, planes come in and out, and we're just working to kind of resource people in the moment and get them back out on the mission field and you know, take off. And yeah, there's all elements to all those things, but but when you really read what scripture says, man, the church, he's such incredible plans for the church. He's gonna do some incredible work through the church, and even this, that the church is gonna display wisdom to rulers and authorities in this world. Sometimes I have to confess that I shortchange and I underestimate just the, I think, all that God wants to do in and through his church. And we're gonna actually see a repeat of this in this book at Ephesians, in this letter to the Church of Ephesus. We're gonna see this continually brought up again because he does have plans for the church, and he did do incredible things for the church through Christ, through his Holy Spirit. I just think that maybe the observation for us today is I don't know how you view the church, but maybe we all need a little confession and a little bit of restoration in the fact that, you know what, this is God's plan. This is what he's doing, and we need to be on board uh with that and pray for the church and be engaged in the church and be the church that he's called us uh to be. Last couple verses uh as we close out, I think are great observations. Because of our faith in Christ, it says we come boldly and confidently into God's presence. And I think that's a you know, boldly to the throne of grace is how that's used in a couple other verses. But I love the fact that because of the Holy Spirit and because of what Christ has done, we now have this very, very intimate and immediate relationship with God in which there are no barriers. There's no high priests, there's no veil, there's nothing that blocks us from having direct access to the creator of the universe. And I love that. And that's an observation I think all of us need to remember every single day. We don't come sheepishly, we don't, we don't, we don't like, uh, you know, I don't know if he wants to hear my problems, I don't know if he wants to, if if I don't want to bother. I've heard people say this about prayer, like, I don't want to bother God with the like he loves us. We're adopted as sons and daughters of God. We have this relationship with him now. He's like, Paul's just like, remember, because of Christ, he can boldly and confidently go into God's presence and ask him and and call on him and be empowered by him to do what he's called us to do. And he actually ends this with the statement of talking about his being in prison. He says, I know that some of you guys uh, you know, are struggling um because of my trials here, because I'm in prison, because I'm, you know, I'm gonna be under trial and those kinds of things. He says, but don't. Like I have he said, you should be honored because I'm suffering for you. Like I'm I'm more than willing to do this because it brought you the good news. And I think that's his message was like, I'm more than willing to suffer a little bit. Like I'm more than willing to go through the trials that I've been through because I had a privilege and an honor to be called to the work that he's called us to. And I, you know, I don't know what that looks like for you. I can say as a pastor, and I don't know how many years, 20, 30 years I've been in ministry, but as a pastor, you know, sometimes there are weeks that are harder than others. There are circumstances that are more difficult to walk through than others. COVID was one of those that I don't know if I felt honored to lead the church through COVID. Like I did, there's times at which I've probably not had the best attitude, but honestly, like I look back and I go, even with me being a pastor, there's part of me that goes, like, I I told God, now this is a statement I've never really told my story, but I will at some point. I told God when I was, when I first realized that my I might be being called into full-time vocational ministry. And a good friend of mine, I don't know if you'll watch this, but he he knows this because I had this conversation and told him directly. I told God that I would be willing to handle whatever problems he set my way if he would give me the opportunity to serve full-time in the church. And I'm not saying, I mean, I haven't had some problems that other people have had, but the first three years of ministry, I had a lot of things that I walked through, a lot of things that I I went through that I was like, yep, he just unloaded both those at me and just okay, Matt, you asked for it. Here you go. But as I've learned, and again, spiritual wisdom and knowledge, like more over the years, I do consider all of those things, even the things that I didn't enjoy. I'm like, I'm okay. And it was a privilege and honor to be used the way God uses me. I continue to be grateful. Again, I got my new sign up there for you to be grateful for all that he's blessed me with. And um, and I want to remember that. You know, that's like I understand there might be if I could tell my story sometimes people are like, oh, I'm so sorry for you. And I'm like, I get it. But God brought me where I am. That's and that's what ultimately matters, and I want to be grateful for that. Let's look at this again and pray that God would bring about application to each one of our hearts, um, as maybe God revealed some things to you that maybe I didn't say uh out loud, but ultimately the work that God is doing, even expressing the minister, the mysteries of God through Paul for us to read now. What a beautiful thing it is that we can now walk boldly into and confidently into the presence of God and pray right now to Him and ask Him to do an incredible work in our hearts. Let's do that. God, we we do it with just what Paul said. We confidently and boldly come with our prayer and say, God, reveal to us not just what you want us to see, but today, as we live this out over the next couple days, like just give us opportunities to serve you in such a way that would bring honor and glory to you. May we understand your role for the church and maybe stop underestimating what it what the actual call is. Like really begin to believe that, God, you are calling us in a very unique way and that the church has got an incredible job in front of it. God, I pray that you would help us continue to equip and strengthen the church by what you've called us to be, to be the church as your people, and that God, we would continue to bring others and point others to the absolute hope that is you, Jesus. We pray all of this in your name again. Amen. I just want to continue to say thank you guys so much for being engaged. I think we're about almost halfway through the I don't know, I guess we're not halfway through yet, but we're we're close, halfway through this study, and I hope that you are enjoying this. If you are, I'm gonna ask you to do something very different today. I want you to share this with somebody. I want you to copy the link in YouTube, and I want you to post it on your social media. Maybe share it directly in a text with a friend. If you're listening to it on podcasts, share it with somebody and say, listen, I don't know what you're doing right now to study the scripture and maybe walk through the Bible, but this is a resource that I've been using and share it directly with people in your circle, people in your life. That's what I want you to do today. Don't worry about commenting and doing all the stuff and rate and review. I want you to share this episode, maybe share the podcast as a whole. Um, and I want that to be your challenge this week. Share that, be the church and share that with others, even in the church and outside the church, so that we can all continue to do the work that God's called us to do. Love you guys.