WEBVTT 00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:05.440 Ephesians three, one verse this morning, Ephesians three verse six. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:19.359 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. 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:32.079 The TV series Unsolved Mysteries made its debut in 1988 and quickly became a staple of American 1980s culture. 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:34.799 I use that word culture loosely. 00:00:36.000 --> 00:01:01.920 It became a series that focused on unsolved mysteries in the world, and it launched a whole new genre of television, the genre of the docudrama, as they cast actors and actresses to reenact historic mysteries and to dramatize them with this mixture of like this faux documentary appearance, but actors walking through the great mysteries of mankind. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:14.560 They touched everything from the Loch Ness monster to other sea monsters to Bigfoot to unsolved murders to the Shroud of Turin, even the aliens landing in Roswell. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.120 As if that's hard to explain. 00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:26.000 The show became wildly popular over the course of its decade or more on air. 00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:29.200 It was generally one of the most watched television shows. 00:01:29.439 --> 00:01:33.040 Over 1,300 mysteries were featured on the show. 00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:50.959 Half of the ones involving unsolved crimes were solved with tips from the show, so much that there became this whole kind of black market in the private detective world of, you know, if a loved one you knew was murdered or kidnapped or missing, you could hire PR firms to try to get the show on unsolved mysteries. 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:55.120 As I mentioned, over half of such crimes were solved by the show. 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.519 A hundred missing people were found. 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:05.680 Seven wrongful convictions were exposed by the show, and the sea monsters off the coast of England turned out to be Norwals. 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:07.280 Who knew? 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:16.159 As I mentioned, it became a staple of 80s culture, right up alongside tight-rolled jeans and boys wearing neon. 00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:28.080 This morning, as we turn our attention to Ephesians 3, verse 6, we encounter what really is the greatest mystery of mankind. 00:02:28.159 --> 00:02:41.280 And as the text uses the word mystery here at the beginning of verse 6, know that when the Bible uses the word mystery, it does so slightly differently than we often use it in our own culture. 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:51.199 In our culture, the word mystery has this aura like unsolved mysteries, something complex that if you just got a good enough detective, he could look into it and crack the case. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:54.479 The word mystery in the Bible, though, means something slightly different. 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:58.639 It's a very common religious world word in the Greek empire. 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:12.560 There were all these different religious cults and sects that followed the different Roman and Greek gods, and they used the concept of mystery to mean a fundamental practice of their religion that you couldn't learn or understand until you were initiated into it. 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:16.080 There are some cults today that still function in that way. 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:21.520 If you want to know what this religion or that religion believes, you must first join them and then you find out. 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:25.599 Like you have to install the app before you read the terms and conditions. 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:29.840 The word mystery in the Bible functions in that sense. 00:03:39.599 --> 00:03:45.120 There are so many of them, and they all had their own mysteries, and for you to find out what they believed, you must join them. 00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:52.240 And so Paul, writing to a city, very familiar with this Greek and Roman concept, uses his own word mystery to them. 00:03:52.319 --> 00:03:55.759 He tells the Ephesians that we also have a mystery. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:58.800 We also have something, some truth given to us. 00:03:58.960 --> 00:04:06.400 Only unlike the Roman cults that you couldn't know what the mystery is until you joined, in Christianity, Paul is advertising the mystery out front. 00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:10.319 He's letting everybody know this is the mystery of Christianity. 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:20.560 However, in commonality or in similarity to those Greek and Roman cults, only those who are saved can rightly understand the mystery. 00:04:20.800 --> 00:04:26.319 It's not because we keep it secret, though, it's because those without faith can't understand it. 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.240 They don't have ears to hear, they don't have eyes to see, they don't have a heart to believe. 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:37.839 And so Paul can explain the mystery or proclaim the mystery, announce it, and yet it falls onto hearts of stone. 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:43.759 People can't believe it until the Holy Spirit opens their hearts to the truth. 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:52.639 And so the book of Ephesians is marked by this description of mystery, a truth that was hidden in the Old Testament and now is revealed in the New. 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:59.279 That's another way commentators define the word mystery in the Bible, something hidden in the Old Testament, now revealed in the New Testament. 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:01.759 The code has been cracked, so to speak. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:10.800 But I think Paul is rightly using it in a way that reminds the Ephesians of something that's true for those that know the truth. 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:16.560 Something that had been hidden throughout the Old Testament, but is now finally on great display. 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:32.399 And this truth that the world can't understand, that the Old Testament saints only looked forward to, but without comprehending the reality of it, is that those who have faith in Christ are joined together into one body. 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:35.040 That's what he describes in verse 6. 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:43.199 This is the mystery that Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow heirs here, the word fellow here, describing their relationship to the Jews. 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:46.319 The Gentiles and Jews are together in this. 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:48.319 They are in fellowship. 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:52.000 The wall between the Jew and Gentile has come down. 00:05:53.360 --> 00:06:03.199 As an outline this morning, I just will walk you through this little statement here that it's the greatest mystery that through the gospel, Jews and Gentiles can be, and what they can be is united. 00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:08.319 They can be fellow heirs, they can be members of one body, they can be partakers of the same promise. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:15.199 The point is the Jews and Gentiles have a union together in one spiritual body. 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:21.839 Now, this is rightly called a mystery because this is undiscovered in the Old Testament. 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.000 This is something that begins in the New Testament. 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:28.480 I titled this sermon Dispensationalism 101, like an introduction to dispensationalism. 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:37.360 And what the word dispensationalism means, it's a theological word, but what it means is that is exactly this: that the church begins in the New Testament. 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:44.000 That the church may have been alluded to or perhaps foreshadowed in the Old Testament, but the church did not exist in the Old Testament. 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:58.240 That the church came into being at the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit came from heaven and tongues of fire spread, and those who had faith in Christ were sealed by the Holy Spirit and brought into one body. 00:06:58.319 --> 00:07:02.560 That's what dispensationalism means, that the church began in the New Testament. 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:10.399 It's a mystery because in the Old Testament, the Savior was promised to the world, wasn't he? 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:16.160 The promise went to Adam and Eve, that it would be a descendant of Eve, a seed of Eve, a seed of the woman. 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:30.240 Adam and Eve are the father and mother of all mankind, and the Savior would come as a human being to undo the curse of the devil, to undo the wages of sin in this world, to put back into right what had been made wrong by sin. 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:34.079 That's what the promise of the Savior would be, and he would be that for the world. 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.199 And through a period of time, the world went its own way. 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:42.879 There was no governments, there were no laws, there was only rebellion and anarchy. 00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:52.000 And then God ushers in a new dispensation, a new era when he floods the earth and then separates the nations and separates the languages. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:08:05.600 And then ushers in yet another era, another dispensation when he calls Abraham out of the nations and gives the promise that was given to Adam and Eve to Abraham, that one of Abraham's descendants will be the seed. 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:08.000 The Savior will come from him. 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:12.240 And Abraham starts a new people, a new nation, the Jewish nation. 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:17.680 The promise does not go to Abraham's oldest son, Ishmael, but to his second son Isaac. 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:23.680 The promise does not go from Isaac to what was probably legitimately his oldest son, but to his second son Jacob. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:30.079 The promise doesn't go from Jacob to his oldest son, but to his fourth son, Judah, and so forth. 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:33.120 And the promise becomes isolated in Israel. 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:37.120 And then God separates Israel from the world. 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:43.919 God gives Israel their law, defines what they can eat and what they can wear and how they worship. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:48.480 They have their own language, they have their own culture, they have their own everything. 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:51.120 They are walled off from the world. 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:54.559 And the promise resides in Israel. 00:08:54.799 --> 00:09:03.600 Israel is clean, the Gentiles are unclean, the food they eat is kosher, the food of the world is unclean, not kosher. 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:05.279 They are separated. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:10.399 And Gentiles have no access to the promised gospel. 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:23.200 Remember, when you say the gospel in the Old Testament, what that means is that the Savior, the one promised to Adam and Eve, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Judah and David, the king of Israel, will take away their sins. 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:26.480 The Gentile nations have no access to that. 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:27.840 They have no knowledge of it. 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:29.679 There's no great commission in the Old Testament. 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:35.440 The Old Testament's not being translated into Gentile languages with apostles going out and proclaiming it. 00:09:35.519 --> 00:09:36.879 The Gentiles are cut off. 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:42.159 To use the language of Ephesians 2, they are aliens and strangers to the promise. 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:45.039 They don't understand it. 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:53.279 Jews make up about 0.2% of the world's population. 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:54.159 0.2%. 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:58.320 And that's been fairly consistent throughout most of human history. 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:04.559 You get a higher number if you ask who has any Jewish blood in them, because of course we all run together back to Noah. 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:12.320 Or you get a lower number if you say who has only Jewish blood in them, but that of course would eliminate probably everybody in the world, even the line of Christ had Gentiles in it. 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:16.320 So 0.2% is probably a pretty accurate number. 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:25.200 So I want to impress upon you how big the gulf was between the promised Savior and the nations of the world. 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:45.120 That 99.8% of human population would have no access to the Savior who is promised by Yahweh to take away people's sins and offer forgiveness, to bind up the brokenhearted, to heal the lame, to open the eyes of the blind? 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:50.000 Most of those who have ever lived are cut off from that promise. 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:52.799 And this is by design. 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:56.720 The walls that the Torah built were built by God. 00:10:57.759 --> 00:11:00.240 And so this becomes the question in the Old Testament. 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:06.799 In what sense could Israel's promised Savior really be a light to the nations? 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:15.120 In what sense could Yahweh be the God, the true God of all the worlds, if he's confined to Israel? 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:18.080 How can there really be salvation outside of Israel? 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:19.679 That's the question. 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:25.519 And God answers that in the New Testament when Jesus comes to the earth. 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:33.600 He comes as a Jew, of course, leads the perfect life, fulfills the law, but then he goes to the Gentiles and preaches the gospel to them. 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:52.720 He's cut off by the Jewish people, he's betrayed, literally put on trial by the leaders of Israel, condemned to death, executed, rises from the grave, and sends his Jewish apostles to all the nations of the world to preach the gospel. 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:54.000 And of course they don't go. 00:11:54.159 --> 00:12:06.080 They huddle, they may move back and forth between Galilee and Jerusalem, but eventually persecution comes, and then ultimately the Holy Spirit comes, seals their hearts, binds them together, and they go out into the world. 00:12:06.559 --> 00:12:07.759 That's the mystery. 00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:09.519 That's how it is cracked. 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:15.200 That God will start something new in the New Testament by building up his church. 00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:17.840 And that's the way the word mystery is used in the book of Ephesians. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:19.919 It begins in chapter 1, verse 9. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.559 It's the mystery of God's will to bring all things in heaven and earth under one head, even Christ. 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:26.399 That's Ephesians 1, verses 9 and 10. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:32.240 The mystery is that all things in heaven and earth will have their significance and meaning under Jesus Christ. 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:39.679 And then Ephesians 5, 32, towards the end of the book, this is the mystery, Paul says, that it is Christ and the church. 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:41.039 That's the great mystery. 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:43.840 This is what the Old Testament saints didn't understand. 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:49.120 They couldn't perceive that God is going to bring the Gentiles in through starting something new. 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:55.120 Remember, in the Old Testament, when somebody, a Gentile, wanted to come to faith in Yahweh, they'd be very few and far between. 00:12:55.440 --> 00:13:01.840 They'd come to Israel, the Queen of Sheba or Naaman, the Syrian, and get converted and go their own way. 00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:03.200 It wasn't exactly their own way. 00:13:03.279 --> 00:13:07.519 It wasn't exactly a paradigm of global hope or anything like that. 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:12.720 And the New Testament says, no, the mystery is that Christ will have his church. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:14.159 He will have his church. 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:16.639 And then the phrase is used all over Ephesians 3. 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:18.080 We looked at it a few times. 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:22.879 Last week we'll look at it again next week, but this morning is probably the best definition of this mystery. 00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:34.000 In verse 6, the mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the same promise through the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:35.840 We'll look at these three one at a time. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.480 First, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs. 00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:39.519 Fellow heirs. 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:43.519 An heir is someone that receives the promise at someone else's death. 00:13:43.759 --> 00:13:46.399 We get the word inheritance from the same concept. 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:48.720 When someone dies, you inherit their property. 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:49.919 You are an heir. 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:53.519 The promise was passed down as an inheritance. 00:13:53.600 --> 00:14:03.679 It was passed down from, as I said, Adam and Eve through Seth and then through the line all the way through Noah, who's, you know, his hand would give the people rest, Noah's dad thought. 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:09.120 But instead he flooded the whole earth, and the promise goes not to any of the nations made at Babel. 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:10.720 None of those nations get the promise. 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:12.799 Instead, it is given to Abraham. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:22.080 And it's embedded in the promise, even to Abraham, that Abraham's offspring, that promised seed, would be a blessing to the nations of the earth. 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:25.759 Nevertheless, the promise did not go to Ishmael. 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:27.120 I mentioned that earlier. 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:31.200 If you remember the story, Abraham was too old, he thought to have a child. 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:42.559 Sarah was too old to have a child, so Abraham slept with Hagar, and Hagar conceived, and you know this could be the promised descendant, and God tells Abraham, No, not through Hagar. 00:14:42.639 --> 00:14:43.759 So Ishmael is cut off. 00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.120 Ishmael is literally sent away with tears and a farewell. 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:50.320 It's a heartbreaking story, but Ishmael does not get the promise. 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:54.480 Even though he's the oldest son, he is cut off and sent away. 00:14:55.360 --> 00:15:01.360 And now what Paul is saying here in Ephesians 3, verse 6, is that Gentiles do in fact get the promise. 00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:06.480 The Gentiles will in fact be grafted in, that they will receive the promise. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:08.559 They will inherit the promise given to Abraham. 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:10.000 It will go to Ishmael. 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:11.840 It will go to his descendants. 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:22.879 This is what Romans 4, verse 16 says, that God is the father of all who believe. 00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:27.519 You know, that's a verse that is so easy for your eyes to go over in Romans 4, verse 16. 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:31.360 You know, if you underline the book of Romans, you almost have to say, I'm not going to underline the book of Romans. 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:33.840 Otherwise, all of Romans will be underlined in your Bible, right? 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:35.919 You never know where to start or stop. 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:39.919 But if you try to use self-control, you might skip over Romans 4, verse 16, right? 00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:41.279 God is the father of all who believe. 00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:42.159 Of course, let's just keep going. 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:43.679 It's not that profound. 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:49.759 Catch the story in redemptive history that Ishmael was sent away. 00:15:49.919 --> 00:15:51.600 He would not be from Abraham. 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:58.480 But now in the New Testament, that God will be the spiritual father for everyone who believes. 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:09.679 Those who descend from Ishmael and those who descend from Isaac, there will be no distinction between them if their faith is in the promised Savior given to Abraham. 00:16:09.840 --> 00:16:12.879 That is a grand scale of a statement right there. 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:19.200 That God is the father of all who believe, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless if they're Jewish. 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:24.480 Do you understand how cataclysmic this would be to a Jewish reader? 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:31.440 The promise from the Jewish mind, it was to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob, and their people are set apart. 00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.799 They're the ones who were promised the Savior by God. 00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:41.519 And the New Testament comes along and says, while that was true in the Old Testament, it is no longer true. 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:47.360 Now the promise goes to all who would believe, Jew and Gentile. 00:16:47.519 --> 00:16:50.080 Abraham will truly be a blessing to the nations. 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:52.720 Israel will truly be a light to the nations. 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:55.679 Yahweh will truly be a God of the nations. 00:16:56.320 --> 00:17:01.759 You have the Queen of Sheba in the Old Testament who declares to Solomon, Happy are your men, happy are your servants. 00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:04.559 They continually stand before you, they hear your wisdom. 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:07.440 Blessed is Yahweh your God, the Queen of Sheba says. 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:16.480 I mean, that's kind of the Old Testament Gentile conversion right there. 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:20.160 Extolling Yahweh, the God of Israel, and then she goes her own way. 00:17:20.799 --> 00:17:30.000 Or Naban the leper, who is ministered to by a Jewish slave girl, ministers to this Syrian military leader whom God struck with leprosy. 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:35.039 She's ministered to a Jewish slave girl who sends him back to Israel to be baptized in the Jordan. 00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:39.119 And then he goes back to being a Syrian military leader. 00:17:43.039 --> 00:17:47.599 In the New Testament, Gentiles are not grafted into Israel. 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:52.079 For you to get saved, you don't have to go get baptized in the Jordan like Naaman did. 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:54.799 You don't have to go join Israel. 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:59.039 And when Jews get saved, they don't go join Gentiles. 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:02.960 Instead, God starts something new. 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:06.240 Jews are not grafted to Gentiles and Gentiles to Jews. 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:18.000 Instead, God starts a new program, a new spiritual entity, the church that contains both Jews and Gentiles with no distinction. 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:23.440 Jews and Gentiles both receive the promise. 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:26.559 They both become heirs. 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:29.200 That's the mystery. 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:36.079 This is something you could not see in the Old Testament because they didn't know that God was going to start something new when the Savior came. 00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:44.079 The Jews viewed the Savior coming as the way to end Roman occupation and usher in all the promises in the Old Testament and to be the Jewish Savior. 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:51.279 They did not see or anticipate this idea that the Jews would, in a sense, be, in a sense, be broken off. 00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:57.039 And that God would, through the sending of His Holy Spirit, launch a new spiritual entity. 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:00.960 But of course, this has always been in the heart of God. 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:03.920 I think of the parable of the wedding feast that Jesus tells. 00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:10.720 So there's the person throwing the wedding feast, and they send out the invitations, and the people who are invited don't come. 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:12.000 Do you remember the story? 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:14.480 They all have excuses, such good excuses. 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:18.079 I can't come because I have taken my own wife. 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:20.000 I can't come because I got a new ox. 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:21.599 I gotta go work with the ox. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:23.279 Like just RSVP. 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:25.519 No, okay, I don't need a story about the ox. 00:19:26.079 --> 00:19:27.359 But everybody has excuses. 00:19:27.440 --> 00:19:29.119 And this is obviously representing Israel. 00:19:29.279 --> 00:19:30.240 The Savior came. 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:37.200 God sent the invitations to the Israelites to come and believe in the Savior, and they all came up with excuses and they rejected the Savior. 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:46.480 And so now the wedding, the person putting on the wedding feast instead sends his servants to the highways and the byways to invite, you know, the B list. 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.000 And you guys come and they come and there's still room. 00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:53.920 And so he sends the servants out again and says, Go find the sick and the lame. 00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:55.680 Go on the highways and the byways. 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:58.000 Look behind bushes and find the homeless. 00:19:58.160 --> 00:19:58.799 Invite everybody. 00:19:58.960 --> 00:19:59.839 Bring them all in. 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:01.440 Pack the place out. 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:05.119 And that's obviously a reference to the Gentiles. 00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:06.400 That's us. 00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:10.160 That we're invited into the wedding feast of God. 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:11.680 We receive the promises. 00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:14.640 We get the wedding gift because we've been invited in. 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:20.000 Not because we're Jewish, but because we listened to the invitation. 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:21.920 We were invited. 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:27.440 So in that analogy, by the way, if you're not Jewish, which is probably most of you, you are the sick. 00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:28.640 You are the lame. 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:30.400 You're the homeless in the analogy. 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:34.880 You're the one who was not on the A list or the B list, but you just got rounded up in the sweep. 00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:38.240 But praise God, you got to go anyway, right? 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:53.279 Dieter and I were at a wedding a couple weeks ago, and we sat next to somebody who said that they just got invited the night before, that some people bailed because of COVID, and that they got a call from the family and said, Hey, some people canceled, so we've got room for you. 00:20:53.359 --> 00:20:55.039 And they came and they were so excited to be there. 00:20:55.119 --> 00:21:00.000 And they did not feel insulted at all that they weren't on the A list or the B list, but the call the night before. 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:01.839 But they were there and they were happy. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:04.000 What a great illustration. 00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:05.039 That's us. 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:06.319 Here we are. 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:07.839 We're not here because we're Jewish. 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:10.079 We're not here because we kept the Mosaic Law. 00:21:10.319 --> 00:21:18.799 We are here because we inherit the promises of God through faith in Jesus Christ. 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:28.400 Well, the first way, the first part of this mystery is that Jews and Gentiles will both inherit the promises that we are fellow heirs. 00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.839 Second part of this mystery is that we are one body. 00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:32.720 One body. 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:34.880 The word body here, it's a corporal statement. 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:39.279 Body means when you incorporate something, you're identifying it as a new body. 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:43.279 You can't get a more personal analogy than that of a body. 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:52.960 Even marriage is the closest union, physical and spiritual and emotional on earth, and yet one body is still closer. 00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:57.839 That's why in Ephesians it says the husband and wife will become one flesh. 00:21:58.000 --> 00:21:59.119 They'll be joined together. 00:21:59.200 --> 00:22:05.680 It's just a it's It's a metaphor about the reality that your body is you, not the person next to you. 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:10.720 I can distinguish between you and your wife or your husband because you were you and she's her. 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:12.480 You have different bodies. 00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:18.000 What Paul's saying here is that in the church, it is Jew and Gentile are in one body. 00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.319 Again, Gentiles didn't join the Jewish body, Jews didn't join the Gentile body. 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:26.880 God starts a new body, a new spiritual person. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.799 And those who place their faith in Christ are incorporated into that body. 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:47.920 When you recognize Jesus as Lord and you put your faith in him, you join not a nation, you don't join a movement, you don't join a political party, you don't join an institution, you don't join a nonprofit, you become part of a body. 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:52.559 This is where the language of membership comes from. 00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:59.119 And other organizations and clubs steal the language of membership from this spiritual illustration. 00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:10.960 You know, you can become a member of Costco or a member of, you know, whatever, giant shoppers club, or whatever you become members of, members of a country club, or members of a church, even, but church has it first. 00:23:11.039 --> 00:23:13.440 And it's the analogy is from the human body. 00:23:13.599 --> 00:23:17.440 Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 that you are members of the body. 00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:18.559 You have an arm. 00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:20.559 Your arms are members of your body. 00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:24.559 Your leg is a member of your body that's part of you. 00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:29.759 And every believer is a member of the body of Jesus Christ. 00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:34.960 Now that expresses itself in local church when you become a member of the local church. 00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:43.839 It's the local public manifestation of the universal reality that everyone who has faith in Christ is part of the same spiritual body. 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:47.119 You have membership, is why we call that in the local church. 00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:53.359 You're all members of this body because you are members of the invisible body of Christ that is global. 00:23:54.160 --> 00:24:01.680 You are joined not just to Emmanuel Bible Church when you're a member here, but you are joined to every Christian everywhere in the world. 00:24:01.920 --> 00:24:09.759 Christians in speaking Russian right now, or Hebrew right now, or Arabic right now, you're part of the same spiritual body as them. 00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:11.839 That's what Paul means here. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.200 It's a new thing. 00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:15.519 Body demonstrates a unity in function. 00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:16.880 A body is doing one thing. 00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:21.119 Unity in design, it's designed for one purpose, for one person. 00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:22.240 Unity in headship. 00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.000 A body has one head that's giving it directions and steering it where it will go. 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:26.799 That's what it means. 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:28.480 That's to be part of one body. 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:32.160 When you come to faith in Christ, you are part of the body of Christ. 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:34.319 A body has one blood. 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:38.160 The blood of Jesus Christ is our body when we come to faith in Christ. 00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:39.359 A body has one life. 00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.480 The life of Jesus Christ becomes our life. 00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:46.880 We have one faith, Paul's going to say in Ephesians 4. 00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:48.880 And it's faith in Jesus Christ. 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:50.400 We become part of his body. 00:24:50.559 --> 00:24:57.119 Listen, this is why you're a fellow heir with the Jews, because you become the body of the Jewish Savior. 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:02.799 You don't come to faith, you come to faith through Christ, but you don't even come to faith to Christ. 00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:04.400 You come to faith in Christ. 00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:11.440 When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you receive the inheritance of God because you are placed in the Son. 00:25:11.680 --> 00:25:13.519 It's his body we're talking about here. 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:17.519 He uses this language earlier, back in chapter 2, verse 16. 00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:27.200 Jog your eyes up on your page there, Ephesians 2, verse 16, that Jesus might reconcile us both, meaning Jew and Gentile, to God in one body through the cross. 00:25:27.599 --> 00:25:35.920 That's what happens at the death of Christ, that he destroys the hostility between Jew and Gentile by being the forgiveness of sins in his body. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:54.720 And the word body here, I think Paul is using it intentionally to cover both sides of the meanings here, that we're reconciled to God through one body, meaning Jesus' body, and a one body, meaning the church, through the cross, kills the hostility between Jew and Gentile because we're now in the Savior. 00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:57.359 We're in the Savior. 00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:02.799 When you become a Christian, it is more than joining a new family. 00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:04.960 It's joining a new body. 00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:10.640 You don't just get new brothers and sisters, you get a new body, namely the body of Christ. 00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:13.920 Now, I'm dwelling on this being a mystery because this is huge. 00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:16.559 Do you understand this is not in the Old Testament? 00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:23.200 And perhaps maybe if you're a raised Presbyterian or a covenantalist or something, this might be new teaching for you here. 00:26:23.359 --> 00:26:28.880 But do you understand that in the Old Testament, Israel is never called a spiritual body? 00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:31.759 That's not something used to describe Israel in the Old Testament. 00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:33.839 They're not a body in the Old Testament. 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:35.359 They're a nation. 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:46.559 They have the Word of God, they have an ethnic identity, they have a linguistic identity, they have an identity that is in outward sense religious through circumcision and external obedience to the Torah. 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:53.759 That gives them a nationalistic identity, but they are never called a spiritual body because they do not possess the Spirit of God in them. 00:26:54.559 --> 00:27:06.160 When people got saved in the Old Testament, certainly that required regeneration, certainly they required the Holy Spirit to save people, but in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit did not seal people, did not dwell with them. 00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.039 That's what it means to be one body. 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:13.759 Your body has one spirit, one soul. 00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:35.680 When you come to faith in Christ, now in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit doesn't simply regenerate you, but he seals you and he abides in you and he lives in you, in your heart, in your spirit or soul, whatever term you want to use, convicting your mind of sin, applying the word of God to your heart, and he resides in you for the rest of your life. 00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:40.160 And he resides in every person who has placed their faith in Christ. 00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:48.079 And so that every person then who has faith in the Savior is legitimately part of the Savior's body because they all possess the Savior's spirit. 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:50.319 That's what it means to be one body. 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:53.039 This is a New Testament reality. 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:55.680 There's nothing even remotely like that in the Old Testament. 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:57.519 Do you use Paul's language in Romans 9? 00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:00.559 Not all who are Israel are Israel in the Old Testament. 00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:03.920 Not everyone circumcised in the flesh is circumcised in the heart. 00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:06.720 Israel had their own priesthood, they had their own temples. 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:08.640 Jews meet together in a synagogue. 00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:10.880 This is nothing at all like what we have. 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:16.640 We don't go to the synagogue, we go to church, and it's not just a different name for the building. 00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:19.759 It's a fundamentally different design, different purpose. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:23.839 We don't have our own priesthood, we have elders and deacons. 00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:28.240 We don't have circumcision on the eighth day. 00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:31.599 We have baptism at faith in Christ. 00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:39.119 There's parallels, of course, because one I think can foreshadow and point to the other, but it is just fundamentally, and it was a mystery. 00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:40.720 That's why he uses the word mystery. 00:28:40.880 --> 00:28:43.440 All this stuff was a mystery in the Old Testament. 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:48.640 Jonah had the closest encounter with it, and he ran for the hills. 00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:52.160 But this is the New Testament reality. 00:28:52.319 --> 00:28:56.400 The Jews and Gentiles will share one body together. 00:28:56.880 --> 00:28:58.400 And I want to make this so clear. 00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:02.079 When I say this, it's not Gentiles that have joined the Jewish body. 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:04.960 It's not Jews that have joined the Gentile body. 00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:14.480 It's God starting something new in Acts chapter 2 by sending his Holy Spirit to the world, and all those who place their faith in the Savior become part of that new thing. 00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:17.519 They become part of that new thing. 00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:21.200 Well, this leads to the third way we see this mystery. 00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:24.079 We see the mystery through Jews and Gentiles being fellow heirs. 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:31.680 We see this mystery through Jews and Gentiles being part of one body, and we see this mystery between Jews and Gentiles being the recipients of the Messiah. 00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:39.279 And that's what Paul means in verse 6 that is now, he says they become partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:41.279 Now, promise is singular here. 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:46.400 Partakers is the word that Paul has used before to describe receiving the Holy Spirit. 00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:48.319 He uses it that way in Hebrews 6. 00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:56.880 He alludes to it that way in Ephesians 1, that you become the promised Holy Spirit seals you, or in Hebrews 6, you partake the spiritual blessings. 00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:00.319 Here he uses that phrase, I think, to indicate the Holy Spirit. 00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:13.440 The Jews and Gentiles will both become partakers, not tasters, but partakers of the promise, and the promise here is the Holy Spirit, which is in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.559 Jews and Gentiles together receive this. 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:18.240 I mentioned the Old Testament. 00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:22.559 The Holy Spirit seals, uh, regenerates people in the Old Testament, but did not seal them. 00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:29.279 The Holy Spirit rested upon people in the Old Testament for specific functions, like a judge to deliver Israel or a king. 00:30:29.759 --> 00:30:32.160 But it was not some kind of eternal promise. 00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:36.720 This is why David can legitimately pray for the Lord to not take this Holy Spirit from him. 00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:42.319 He didn't want to be cast off like his Holy Spirit was taken from Saul or from others. 00:30:43.200 --> 00:30:45.279 This is something new in the New Testament. 00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:48.799 When the Holy Spirit comes, you become a partaker in him. 00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:53.119 He dwells in you and places you into a body of Christ. 00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:55.759 And so you almost have to zoom out here. 00:30:55.920 --> 00:31:12.160 Understand that if you draw your eyes up to Ephesians 2, verse 12, you used to be, Gentiles used to be separated from the Savior, separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of the promise, having no hope and without God in this world. 00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:17.359 That was the situation that Gentiles found themselves in before the church. 00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:19.519 Separated from the promises. 00:31:20.079 --> 00:31:27.200 As I mentioned, 99.8% of the world, not able to read the promise given to Abraham, not able to hear it. 00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:34.000 Intentionally built on the other side of the wall, with no Paul's language here is no hope. 00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:36.000 Strangers to the hope. 00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.640 Strangers to the covenants of the promise. 00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:42.400 It's not like things were better off inside the wall, though, either. 00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:48.400 The Jews who had the covenants, who had the promise, for the most part didn't believe them. 00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:50.559 That doesn't mean the word of God failed, of course not. 00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:53.839 It just is a testimony to how sinful the human heart is. 00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:56.480 And so this is your story. 00:31:56.720 --> 00:32:14.720 Whether or not you are a Gentile or whether or not you're a Jew, whether or not you're born in Tel Aviv and grew up speaking Hebrew, or born in New York City and grew up going to Jewish school, or born in some far-flung, backwater, nowhere, out-of-the-way place like Alexandria, Virginia. 00:32:16.400 --> 00:32:20.720 No matter which category you fall in, you're born into this world in sin. 00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:24.960 With no way to get out of it. 00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:39.519 If you're born in a Jewish family, it doesn't matter how fastidious your Judaism, you grow up learning the Torah and reading Hebrew, and but you can't keep the law of Moses. 00:32:39.839 --> 00:32:40.880 You can't. 00:32:41.200 --> 00:32:42.640 You try and you fail. 00:32:42.799 --> 00:32:44.960 You try to keep it and you break it. 00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:50.559 And it becomes a way of testifying about your sinfulness. 00:32:51.359 --> 00:33:07.599 Or you grow up in a Gentile family and you learn the difference between right and wrong, and God has pressed natural law into your heart, into your conscience, and your conscience tells you not to lie, and your conscience tells you not to lust and not to hate and not to be greedy and not to covet, but you do all of those things. 00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:14.160 And so your conscience condemns you for being a liar, for being greedy and covetous. 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:20.319 Both persons, the Jew and the Gentile, are both condemned by the law that God gave them. 00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:22.880 They're both strangers in that sense to the promise. 00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:28.960 And you cannot earn forgiveness then by keeping the law, because the more you try to keep the law, the more, of course, you break the law. 00:33:29.119 --> 00:33:32.880 The more you break the law, the more you're condemned by it, so the worse off you get. 00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:40.720 In some sense, it's almost better to just claim ignorance of the whole thing and be like, I don't know the word of God, so I can live however I want. 00:33:40.880 --> 00:33:43.279 Now that's not going to get you to heaven either. 00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:47.680 But at least it's not going to keep heaping guilt upon your head. 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:50.799 That's the way people are in this world. 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:55.200 Then 2,000 years ago, Jesus is born to this world. 00:33:55.519 --> 00:34:00.799