Well, we are in chapter three of Ephesians this morning.
We've been working our way, we're studying our way through the book of Ephesians.
And what I want us to remember is that the purpose of Ephesians that we've talked about, that it is about what we have in Christ before it is about what we do for Christ.
So it's about how we are loved fully and the sufficiency of Jesus, how lavish that is for us.
Chapters 1, 2, and to 3, before we begin to get to what should I do?
How should I live for Him?
Which is amazing if you're weary at all.
Like if you're tired at all, tired of church, weary of the to-do list of being a Christian, maybe you're just drowning in children, maybe you're older and you're tired.
Like if you're just tired, like I don't know if I can just I don't know if I can take another list.
Um, then Paul is very strategically in all his books, we see it again in Ephesians, he is laying out a framework, not just of this letter, but how we should understand and live and walk with Jesus.
That we never get to the end of Ephesians, what we should do without getting through the beginning of Ephesians, who we are and the lavishness of Jesus.
And so again this morning, he's just rooting us into this lavishness of the love and the provision, the forgiveness and the righteousness of Jesus, how unsearchable these riches are before he begins to get to later in Ephesians what you should do.
And this is why it's really important when you go to have your quiet time or devotional, and that devotional starts out in Ephesians 5.
So you have to remember Ephesians 5 came from somewhere or else you just become a legalist, right?
That's how we become legalists, is we think we're gonna live out the end of Ephesians without the beginning of Ephesians.
And we can't do that.
We always live out being a Christian through the sufficiency, the fullness of Jesus, that we are already loved, even while we're not perfect of the whole end of Ephesians, right?
Like we don't perfectly live out the end of Ephesians.
It's okay because Jesus is sufficient.
Now let's remember where Paul is.
Paul's in Rome.
He's in prison.
He's in a house prison, which means during the day, he's walking around that house, he's writing his letters, he's thinking about different churches and people groups, and he's writing them.
And then at night he's chained to a soldier to sleep at night.
But listen how he sees himself.
Right?
He's a prisoner of Rome, but look how he sees himself.
Ephesians 3, 1 and 2.
For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, which right there, that's a radical notion.
Because up until this point, until Jesus begins to love the outsider, uh, love of God was for the Jewish people.
Right?
The law came to the Jewish people.
Jesus came through the Jewish people.
And now Jesus began to love the outsider, the non-Jew, the Gentile, and Paul is extending that love, the righteousness, you too can be in the family.
Like if you feel like an outsider, you too could be in the family.
And so Paul's writing, on behalf of you, the outsider, the Gentile, verse 2, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you.
He's saying, This is my purpose to tell all of you about this richness of the love of Jesus.
So Paul's a prisoner in Rome, but he sees himself as a prisoner of Jesus.
So one thing's going on, yet deeper, something else is going on.
And I bet, big hunch, big hunch, something's going on in your life.
Like some stress or disappointment, you relational, you can't get along with your brother, something, I don't know what it is, something's going on, your family and your life, your health, your emotions, something, and something's going on, but deeper, something else, I promise you, something else is also going on.
For five years, I worked for our family business while I was working my way through seminary.
I go to seminary all day Mondays and in the evenings.
And Tuesday through Friday, 8 a.m.
to 5 p.m., I drive 50 minutes each way, did the commute, did that, sat in an office, and I binded up engineering manuals and sent them to engineers.
This is what I did with my life for five years.
Is as some of you know, you're like, yeah, I think that's the job I have right now.
Like it feels like I just go to an office, I put binders in a box, I tape them up, I print out the address, and I ship them out.
I did this for five years.
No internet, by the way, okay?
So imagine that.
Imagine being in an office without internet, right?
Like I had a radio on my desk, and it went from uh 99X, morning X to anybody in their 40s, morning X, uh, and then it went Charles, no, it went Chuck Swindall, Charles Stanley, Michael Yousse, Lunch, Clark Howard.
Anyone else in their 40s?
And you're like, I remember that rhythm.
Like I did that.
That was the rhythm before podcasts.
That's what we all did.
That was my life.
So one thing was going on, and yet something else was going on.
I was incredibly unhappy.
And I was resistant to this whole situation.
I was kind of bitter about it, but something else was going on.
I see it now.
It's hard to see at the time, but something deeper was going on.
Like how to show up and work hard.
And you just do it the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and you show up the next day, and you work hard, and you show up the next day, and you work hard, and you show up the next day, and you work hard, and you just keep doing it.
And I was learning what it means to be faithful over time in one place while you wait.
And I wonder, right?
That that was my story.
One thing going on, another thing going on.
Still happens today, one thing going on, something else going on.
There's something going on right now.
This is swirling, but something else is going on.
That's what's going on with Paul in prison in Rome, house, and yet something else is going on.
In the midst of the most difficult circumstances, Paul sees who he really is.
All right, prisoner of Rome, really I'm a prisoner of Jesus.
There's one thing that's going on, but that's circumstantial.
There's something else going on.
Verse 6.
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, the outsiders.
They're part of the family, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
And of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.
Point number one is this we are our race, and we are one in Jesus.
Meaning you're white or black or Asian or Latino or Ethiopian, or maybe you're a mix of different things, but you're Christian.
In the Old Testament, God spoke through the Jewish people, the law.
Jesus comes to the Jewish people, and then Jesus goes and upsets the whole system because he starts to love everybody.
And then Paul gives this mission to extend that gospel that the Christian family is open to anybody, Gentile and Jew, no difference, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever.
Heaven will not just be a bunch of Russes and my Peter Millar quarters up with my Topacino.
And you know, did you watch the Rider Cup yesterday?
I watched the Ryder Cup and 38 Beautiful.
It's so beautiful.
I love it.
Like, like I that's me.
That's me.
Like, I just nailed myself, like that's me.
Love the quarters up.
Love the Topocino, right?
Like, that is me.
Incredibly, incredibly white.
More white than I want to admit.
Unbelievably white.
And heaven is gonna be so much more beautiful than that.
It's gonna be so much more diverse.
It's gonna be a tapestry of humanity.
It's gonna be so much more beautiful than just my little stuff and the things I like and how I am.
My mentor, Scottie Smith, he wrote this prayer.
Lord Jesus, thank you for making peace between God and us.
Through your finished work, we have become objects of his affection and ambassadors of reconciliation.
Thank you for tearing down the dividing wall between Gentiles and Jews and other people groups as well.
Only you can replace hostility with hospitality.
That's our prayer for us toward other people.
Replace our hostility with hospitality, meanness with kindness, and peace breaking with peacemaking.
You fulfilled the demands of the law for us.
Now fulfill the beauty of the gospel in us.
On to verse 7.
Paul uses this word minister in verse 7.
The word minister is the image of serving tables.
That's how he views himself.
A prisoner of Jesus and a servant.
Serving tables is in the ancient Greek literature, this word minister was used as somebody, a table waiter who was always at the bidding of the table.
Point number two is this we will all serve someone or something.
We will all serve someone or something.
We're all we're all gonna serve someone or something.
Last week I was at dinner with a few friends, and our waitress, her name was Katie, and Katie had just graduated college, and she was trying to figure out what she was gonna do with her life, like we were all doing when we were 21 or 22, and so she was taking some time off to figure this out.
And Katie was smart, and then Katie was capable.
Katie was really quite amazing, but that night, positionally, she was the waitress, and we were the diners at the table.
So she served us all night, over and over and over.
She'd go into the kitchen, get the food, come out and serve it.
She'd riffle our water, she'd get us a drink.
Over and over.
She served us.
Paul is saying, that's what I'm doing.
I'm going into the kitchen, and I'm coming out to serve you with truth and grace.
We're all servants.
Paul's using this word because he's definitely remembering he used to serve something else.
Right?
He used to be a religious scorekeeping, legalistic moralist.
And he served that.
Like, if I'm good enough, then I will be loved by God.
Anybody do that for a while in their life?
Or maybe you're doing it now, you're incredibly weary.
I promise it.
Or you're incredibly prideful.
You go kind of back and forth when you do that.
That's what Paul did.
He was a performative religious person, always scorpion himself, judgmental toward others.
He belittled and imprisoned people that were different than him.
He lived by the religious trying to earn God's love by his performance.
He was a servant to his performance.
And now he says, now I'm a servant to God's love and to other people.
See, none of us get to be autonomous.
We're all bound.
We will all serve something or someone.
You remember in Lord of the Rings, Gullum, who who he was once that just hobbit-like creature, but he finds the ring, he ends up looking like this.
Is this what he ends up looking like?
I don't know.
We've all felt like that.
I mean, very few of us look like that.
We've all felt like that, right?
Like when when that very thing, the evil we shouldn't love, right, takes hostage of us.
Or the good thing we love too much.
He didn't start out looking like this, but that ring captivated him.
It consumed.
Over the years, his body begins to twist and turn inward.
He begins to argue with himself.
In fact, this part of him, this former part, this schmeagel wants freedom, but then this new part that's enslaved to the ring, Gollum, Gollum wants this ring.
He calls it his precious.
And the point is that Gollum thinks he has the best thing.
He really does.
And look at him.
Like, what?
But he he he thinks he has the best thing.
But he is actually in service to it.
It has him hostage.
He's not free at all.
See, we all serve something or someone.
I mean, it was very clear to me last night at about 11:30 p.m.
I mean, the Alabama quarterback tore us up.
Good job.
And then we got some, yeah, like great, great job.
Oh.
And my precious Georgia football.
Five years.
We haven't lost at home.
Like, precious, precious.
Like my precious.
Like what?
Like, I'm like, no, like, let's fire him.
And like, or why can't we recruit more?
Let's raise more money.
Let's pay more.
Like, what do we need to do?
Like, I'm so upset.
I'm mad.
I'm devastated.
I don't know if I can go to sleep.
I'm gonna watch like five Seinfelds to get myself calmed down from this.
Right?
Like, very clear what my precious is, what I'm in service to.
I didn't even play in the game, by the way.
I didn't call a play.
I'm really not involved at all, mind you.
I'm at home watching this on my TV by myself.
I'm not involved at all.
I can't get more removed from this very thing that I think is so precious to my identity that I feel like I have an identity crisis last night at 11:30 and have to preach the gospel to myself.
No, my very identity is not in the University of Georgia football.
I really think it is, but I kind of feel like Gollum when I do that.
You know, I'm more, much more.
I'm a Christian.
I'm a child, I'm a son of God.
I'm telling myself, like looking in the mirror, you are beautiful, you are lovely, you're smart, you're okay, you're enough.
So Bob Dylan wrote this in 1979.
Gotta serve somebody.
He wrote this.
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody.
None of us are autonomous, independent islands.
We will all serve somebody or something.
My question is just are you serving a thing that makes you flourish and frees you?
Or are you serving something else?
Paul goes from serving legalistic religion to this radical grace that rescues him, that transforms his life.
To me, Paul, to me, though I am the very least of all the saints, he can reflect on his past life.
I mean, he's imprisoning people, he's like a murderer, he's basically almost like a terrorist, like a religious terrorist.
And he says, this grace was given.
Like to me, to me, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.
Point number three is this we are called not just to intellectual, intellectually know, but to marvel at Jesus.
Right?
We talked about the word know a few weeks ago.
It's not just intellectual, it's all that there's an emotive spirit, inner being, connection.
We're to marvel, to wonder, or have admiration, to the marvel upon that which is remarkable.
Almost 20 years ago, I let a single adult retreat to Grayton Beach.
We took like 30 single adults down there, packed in a few houses.
Soon as we got down there, it was evening, about sunset.
As soon as we get down there, my friend Tim, who's about 30 years old at the time, he says, Hey, but I hadn't been to the beach since I was a little boy.
I hadn't been to the beach in like 20 years.
He said, I don't even remember what the ocean looks like.
And I'm like, let's go.
It's like one block.
Like, like, let's go right now.
Like, I want to watch you see it.
And so we walk up there together and we come up over that boardwalk.
Here's a picture of Grayton Beach.
If you haven't been down there, it's a beautiful beach, right?
Like we walk up and I just watch him watch it, and he never once looks at me and is like, hey, can we like discuss why this is beautiful?
Can we like discuss some of the finer points of the sand or the water?
Like, no, no, no, no.
He's he's like, Oh wow, I've forgotten.
Like this is this is beautiful.
He just looks at it, right?
Like we've all done that.
We've had these moments, you're on the beach or the mountains, and you just marvel at something because it is remarkable.
And there's something about your inner being is connecting with it.
You're marveling, you're beholding.
We're filled with wonder and admiration.
And we marvel upon Jesus, and it is an intellectual knowing that connects into our inner being, and that we behold him more.
This is why Paul is writing Ephesians, every other book that he writes in the New Testament, this way.
If he can get you and me to marvel upon Jesus, we will live out of that, empowered by Jesus to live for him.
And he doesn't want us to skip over the marveling just to do the living because we'll become legalistic moralists.
And we've all done that.
But if I can remember how loved I am and how sufficient the cross is, and if I can live in that, oh wow, I'm I'm beholding, I'm marveling.
Oh, now I like my desire, my heart changes.
My desires change.
We behold him more.
What does this Jesus give us?
I I made a quick list this week.
I just wrote it out.
I was like, what am I marveling at?
This is my list.
You you could have a separate list.
Maybe you can make a list this week.
Jesus is one-way love.
Love without conditions or limits, love and acceptance that does not end.
Jesus is my forgiveness and my righteousness.
The end of my guilt trip.
Anybody else good at that?
Good at that?
Like a good guilt trip, really make yourself feel bad.
End of my condemnation, constant companionship, tenderness and challenge.
Both.
He's tender with me, but he challenges me.
Secure acceptance without regard to my issues or mistakes or my trauma.
Peace with God.
Validation is worthy.
Needed that last night at 11:30.
Rescue from sin.
Relief from judgment and judgmentalism.
Because I am righteous by Jesus' righteousness, I don't have to be self-righteous about my own performance.
Ah, what a freedom.
Relief from judgment, judgmentalism, relief from performancism.
He's my godliness, and yet he empowers me to grow in that godliness.
He's my welcome into a heavenly home.
I mean, what a thing to marvel at.
The unsearchable riches we have in Jesus.
Verse 10, so that through the church, that's what we're doing right now, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness.
In him we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
And point number four is that, that verse 11.
We live in confidence because of our faith in Jesus, not our faith and our work for Jesus.
That distinction will change your life.
And if you don't have that distinction, you can easily get on a religious treadmill that feels really good for a while, and then you start to get worn down.
And like I said, you can be in despair and beat yourself up because you're not good enough, and then you can swing because you have a good week, and you can be arrogant and judgmental at everybody else, and you just swing back and forth because your faith is actually not in Jesus, your faith is in your own faith.
Rather than your faith being that God's delight in me today is not based in what I do.
That God fully delights in me because of Jesus' work on the cross.
Back in verse 8, there's that phrase, I've said it several times, unsearchable riches.
This is the unsearchable wealth we have of the goodness and delight we can only dream of.
Everything I'm trying to squeeze out of Georgia football or my wealth or my investments or my children's success, right?
There's our idols, college football and children.
Like everything I'm trying to squeeze out of that, I actually already have it in Jesus in terms of validation and worth.
Unsearchable riches of forgiveness and righteousness.
Alright, so imagine with me, just imagine, uh, we go to Laurel Park over by Kroger.
You know, Laurel Park off Whitlock over by Kroger.
Here's a picture of Laurel Park.
Beautiful, right?
Just lovely uh pristine water there.
Looks like looks like all of our sewage just went to Laurel Park.
But let's imagine that we walk around the pond at Laurel Park, which I've done many times.
Let's just say we walk around Laurel Park.
You could probably walk around in about 10 minutes or so, but let's imagine you start around that pond.
And as you get around that pond and you're walking, the shoreline just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
And it's actually much more like walking around Lake Alatoona.
Here's a picture of Lake Alatuna, 20 minutes north of us, a little bit prettier.
All right, so walking around Lake Altoona would be about 270 miles around.
Take you about 14 days to walk around it if you wanted to.
You could probably do that.
I I would venture to say all of us could do it if we really wanted to.
Might be painful, might take longer than 14 days, but we could get around Lake Altoona.
If we really want to give a life's mission to walking around Lake Altoona, we could do that.
But say imagine you just begin to do that and you start around it, and you know, 14 days goes by, 15, 16.
The shoreline just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And actually, it's a lot more like walking around the Atlantic Ocean, which is 69,000, thank you, ChatGBT, miles around, 20 miles a day, it would take you 9.5 years to walk the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean, which I would say a lot of us could do that.
Like it might take 10 years or 20 years, but like if you wanted to give your life to it, you could give your life to that.
But let's imagine you give your life to that and you just begin to walk around the Atlantic Ocean, and again the shoreline just keeps getting bigger and longer and bigger and bigger.
It's much more like walking around the oceans of the whole entire world, which is 221,000 miles.
And if you walked 20 miles a day, every single day, every single day, 20, 20, 20, never stop, ever, ever stop.
97.5 years, and you just can't do it.
You you you don't do it, you don't have enough time.
Can't do it, won't happen.
You finally realize you you'll never get around it.
It's just too big.
Unsearchable riches of Christ.
This is exactly what it is like to be a Christian.
Because you start out being a Christian when you're 13 or 23 or 43, whenever, and you start around Laurel Park, you think you got a pretty good grasp of this.
And you start around and you're like, isn't he lovely?
Wow, Jesus is really lovely.
I really, I really have a hold of this.
And the five points of Calvinism really helped me.
You know, really, I really, really know it, and I'll I'll argue.
I'll argue with you how much I know it.
And you start around, but it's a lot bigger than that.
And the shoreline gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Unsearchable riches of Christ.
There's no, there's there's no end.
There's no end to how much he loves you apart from anything you do, just because you're his.
Because it's not your righteousness report, it's his righteousness report.
Because God chose you and he pursues you.
Now imagine imagine Paul back in that house in Rome.
He's in prison during the day, he's walking around, he's writing these letters, at night, he's chained.
But he's thinking about these young churches.
He's thinking about the Jewish people trying to come to grips with, okay, we're gonna love and accept other people.
And he is so overwhelmed that he is loved while he's a mess.
That he is fully righteous without him having to get some religious checklist fully checked off.
He is so overwhelmed that Jesus fulfilled the law on his behalf.
He's so overwhelmed that eternity heaven is a given in Jesus.
He's so overwhelmed that this love of God is not just for the Jewish people, but it's for all the other people groups.
And he is just writing these letters.
I gotta tell all these people.
Beloved, there's always another shoreline.
There's always another shoreline in Jesus for you to discover how big his love is for you.
His forgiveness, his righteousness, his validation.
I know we all turn to different things.
That's why we're gonna confess.
We confess again and confess again inside the grace of God.
We keep confessing because we fall short, but we only live out the end of Ephesians through the beginning of Ephesians.
That shoreline of the love and acceptance of Jesus, about halfway toward the ending.
Listen to what Paul says about halfway toward the end of Ephesians.
We'll study it next week for this reason.
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for Jesus this morning that the work of the cross is enough for our sins, that the work of the cross is enough for our guilt trips and the condemnation, the separation that we have, or we feel with you Jesus is enough.
And how we fall, we confess and fall backward into your arms this morning.
That you love us in Jesus, that you have affection for us and you delight in us, that you delight in us like you delight in your own son, Jesus.
Because you see us through Jesus, you know us through Jesus.
Help us to be rooted in our inner being, that we might be strengthened to know how big this love is.
Help us to have a distinction between what it means to have faith in our own faith and faith in our own works versus faith in you.
Rest in you.
Help us to gaze and marvel and behold all the more that our lives may honor you.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.