No Trash, Just Truth! - Proverbs 9:10 Ministries

Episode 134 - Mystery Solved! - The Truth Will Set You Free Part 5

April 11, 2022
No Trash, Just Truth! - Proverbs 9:10 Ministries
Episode 134 - Mystery Solved! - The Truth Will Set You Free Part 5
Show Notes Transcript

A good mystery is not one you have figured out 15 minutes into the movie, t.v. show, or book. A good mystery is not too simplistic. It's answer is multi-layered and unfolds as the story goes on. It makes our brain do some work – it is  deeper and more complex than it first appears. Maybe we even need to get some back story to fully understand.  If you like these kind of mysteries, Paul has a great one for us in Ephes. 3:1 - 13. The Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians were fighting over the Gentile Christians not getting circumcised before being accepted into the church. Paul saw that there was a lot more going on than what it appears. He understands there is a heart issue that needs to be resolved. And he resolves it by revealing the mystery that was not known to past generations, but has been made known  to Paul and the other Apostles. What was the heart issue and what does it have to do with us? Join us and find out!

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Episode 134 – Mystery Solved

   Welcome Back. Chris, I love mysteries, but lately, it seems like I can figure out the answer pretty shortly into most books, movies, tv shows, whatever. And its not that I’m exceptionally smart, far from it, but it seems most mysteries these days all follow the same plot – maybe like Hallmark, they’re using the same script, and just changing out characters and location. I like when the answer is a complex, multi-layered mystery that unfolds. One that makes your brain do some work – one that deeper and more complex than it first appears. Maybe you need to even get some back story to understand.  

          I’m glad that’s the kind of mysteries you like, because Paul has one just like that for us in Ephesians chapter 3:1 – 13. But before we get to that mystery, let’s make our brains do a little work and fill some back story. Remember we said there was fighting amongst the Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles. The fighting was centered around whether or not the Gentiles had to be circumcised before they could be a part of the church. We looked at in detail last week, but this was just a symptom of a much bigger problem.  Circumcision in the Old Testament was the physical sign that you belonged to God’s people, Israel. Even foreigners who wanted to convert and join the Israelites and worship Yahweh, had to get circumcised and keep the Law. So on the surface, it looks like the Jewish Christians in Ephesians were just applying that OT concept to the Gentile Christians, but Paul understood that there was something much deeper going on. He knew that the Jewish Christians had a heart issue that they needed to address. And it might be a heart issue some of us have, too, that need resolution.

          In these 13 verses, Paul will show his readers in Ephesus that it’s their hearts that needed circumcision, not a body part. He has already laid out some of the groundwork for it in the previous chapters. In chapter 1, he writes that God the Father chose all those that He was going to save before He even created the world, and as soon as He saves them, He gives all of them everything they need spiritually. He also took the time to point out that neither Jews nor Gentiles had anything to brag about because salvation didn’t come to the Jews because of anything they had done, and the Gentiles received salvation even though they hadn’t don’t anything. He then exhorted them all by his own example to think bigger – by thanking bigger and praying bigger than just for the things of this world. He showed them how to be eternally minded and think beyond just the here and now because its only temporary.

          In chapter 2, Paul fleshed out those same truths even more. He drove home that God has elected those He chose save. He does all the work of salvation, so again, nobody has anything to brag about, nor do they have anything to be insecure about. God saves them from beginning to end. And, as we saw last week, that includes us being brought to life from our dead state, being able to rest in the finished work of Jesus over sin, Satan, and death, and getting the inheritance of eternal life in heaven. Paul admonished his readers to make sure they weren’t adding anything to the Gospel message – to the finished work of Jesus. Jesus + nothing equals everything, Jesus + anything else equals false teaching or heresy.

          As we said, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians would have been read all at once. So the listeners would have heard all we looked at in the first 2 chapters right before Paul hits them with the first 13 verses of Ephesians 3. And all that he has already said is very important to what Paul addresses in chapter 3 – the issue that is really at the core of the whole circumcision debate. 

Let’s start with the first verse, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.” Let’s just take the first 3 words, “for this reason.” What reason does Paul have for what he’s about to say? We ended with that reason last week. Paul told both the Jews and Gentiles that they were no longer strangers to each other. They were all citizens of heaven, and members of the household of God. They were brothers and sisters. It is because of this truth, that Paul is going to address this heart issue with the Jewish & Gentile believers in Ephesus.

But before we get to that, let’s finish out his first verse. We saw that Paul identified himself as an Apostles chosen by Jesus at the beginning of the letter, but here in the middle, he gives himself another title, “prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.” It’s an odd phrase, but Paul uses it intentionally. Remember, he wrote this letter while languishing in a Roman prison for preaching the Gospel to Gentiles. Paul is letting his readers know, make no mistake, I am in prison because it is where Jesus has put me. If He wanted me out, I would be out (remember the angel breaking Peter out of his cell?) Paul understood he was exactly where he was needed to be.

          He states the fact that he is a prisoner of Christ on behalf of you Gentiles pretty matter of factly. He’s not resentful, he’s not resigned, nor is he restless. He’s not resentful that he’s in prison, he knows it’s God’s doing. He’s not resigned that he has to be in prison and feeling sorry for himself, he sees it as an opportunity to evangelize as we see from his letter to the Philippians written during this same time where he says in Phil. 1:12 – 13, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And he’s not even restless. He’s not asking for them to pray he gets released or saying that he looks forward to the day when he will be released. 

 

John Calvin said, “The glory of Christ not only overcomes the ignominy of the chains, but converts what was in itself a reproach into the highest honor.” Paul makes the most of being in prison knowing its exactly where God wanted him at that moment. There’s lots of Gentiles in prison to evangelize to! And we see in other places in Scripture that that is exactly what he did. In Acts 16, he and Silas spent the night after a beating singing hymns for all of the other prisoners to hear. Later, when the jail broke open, Paul didn’t leave but stayed. As a result, the jail guard was converted. Paul reminds us of another Biblical hero who was falsely imprisoned yet was never resentful, resigned, or restless – and that’s Joseph. Both Paul and Joseph were given the ability to see that, in the words of Andrew Murray, they were there “by God’s appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time.”

          Paul was put in prison for faithfully and persistently preaching the Gospel to Gentiles, but like a good story, it took a lot of twists and turns to get there. Let’s start with verses 2 – 6, “Assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 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. 6 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.” There are a few important things to unpack in this. Chris, you want to start?

          Sure. In this passage, Paul uses the word “mystery” 3 times. He says “the mystery” was made known to him by revelation. He talks about the “mystery” of Christ. And he reveals what the “mystery” is. The original Greek word for mystery is “mysterion” (moos-tay'-ree-on). The definition of it is, “that which, being outside the range of unassisted natural apprehension, can be made known only by Divine revelation, and is made known in a manner and at a time appointed by God, and to those only who are illumined by His Spirit.” This word is used 27 times in the ESV Bible. All refer to a truth that cannot be comprehended by man unless they have the Holy Spirit revealing it to them. Now you could say that pretty much applies to the whole Bible, because without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, we can’t understand the truths in it. But more specifically, it’s used when talking about the Kingdom of God, the Gospel, the wisdom of God, the will of God, and things like that. 

          While Paul knows that those mysteries and others can only be understood with the help of the Holy Spirit (He uses the word for those things many of the 27 times), Paul is saying that this mystery he is about to tell them was made known to him and the other Apostles by divine revelation. And verse 6 tells us what the mystery was - that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” So the mystery was that Gentiles were to be a part of the family of God.. But before we get to that, let’s look at Paul saying that this mystery was made known to him and the other Apostles by revelation. The Apostles all received special revelation and gifts (like healing, exorcising demons, and performing miracles) in order to start the initial spread of the Gospel and start the church. They also received special revelation from the Holy Spirit for their mission.

          And part of that special revelation was the revealing that Gentiles were going to be brought into the family of God. They were shown that the true family of God would be made up of both Jews and Gentiles that God has chosen to save. We said that there was a lot more going on than just the Jewish Christians wanting the Gentile Christians to be circumcised. There was a heart issue going on. That heart issue was that the Jews resented the Gentiles being saved and let into the church. They didn’t think those “dogs” as they called the Gentiles were worthy of being God’s chosen people. 

Like a lot of good mysteries, we need to fill in some back story. First, the term “Gentile” was used for anyone who was not Jewish. It was used derogatorily sometimes to mean the ungodly or unbelievers. Second, the resentment of Gentiles by the Jews was not new to New Testament times – it went way back. There was some bad blood between the Jews and Gentiles. In fact, it was so bad, that Jews would not permit Gentiles into their homes because it would make them unclean. Beginning with Moses, it was the Israelites who had a means of accessing the Lord, whereas the Gentiles were not even able to enter His presence. Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites had the law, covenants and prophets to guide them. The Gentiles had none of these.  In fact, in Deut 14:2, Moses tells the Israelites, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” So we can see that the Jewish people felt like they were God’s people. 

And on the other side, all during the Old Testament and even into the New Testament, the Israelites were tormented and oppressed by Gentiles. The Egyptians, Cannanites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, MedoPersians, Greeks, Romans, to name just a few. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple Solomon had built, the Greeks outlawed Judaism, wouldn’t let them offer sacrifices to God, and slaughtered a pig in the Temple; and the Romans slaughtered the Jewish Priests. And we could go on and on with one offense after another perpetrated against the Jews at the hands of Gentiles. Many Jews saw it as them, God’s chosen nation, against the world

          But that’s not what the Old Testament said. There are plenty of indications in the OT that it wasn’t the nation of Israel that were God’s chosen people, but a remnant of them that God would choose. Micah 2:12 says,“ I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.” Paul quotes Isaiah and David in Romans 11:7 – 10, where he says, “Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, 8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”

There are also lots of prophecies that God was going to open up His people beyond this select remnant of Jews to include select Gentiles – people from all nations, tribes, and peoples. We’ll just give a few examples. First in Genesis, God tells Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” This promise foreshadows the people of God are not those physically descended from Abraham (meaning Jewish people) but all believers from all parts of the earth. Then, in the Law, God gave several instructions for “strangers” or “sojourners” who wished to be included in the people of God. One of those is in Lev. 24:22, “There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the Lord your God.’”

Daniel sees in a vision in Daniel 7:4, that “To Him (The Son of man) was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him.” Hosea 2:23, “And I (God) will say to those who were not My people, You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my God!’” And we’ll do one more that we see in Is. 49:6, talking about Jesus, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” So the evidence that God planned on expanding His people to include the Gentiles is there throughout the Old Testament. But again, we on this side of history can see it a lot clearer. It was a mystery to those living in those times. 

While God laid out His redemption plan through the prophets, there was a veil over it. Meaning that people couldn’t have clearly foreseen exactly what was going to unfold. They would have no way of fully understanding that God’s Son would become fully Man, while still being fully God, be betrayed by His own people, tortured and crucified on a cross, and resurrect on the third day. And even if they understood that Gentiles would someday be grafted into the family of God, they had no idea when it would happen or how it would happen. John Calvin said this, “There had always been some of the Jewish nation who acknowledged that, at the advent of the Messiah, the grace of God would be proclaimed throughout the whole world, and who looked forward to the renovation of the human race. The prophets themselves, though they spoke with certainty of revelation, left the time and manner undetermined. They knew that some communication of the grace of God would be made to the Gentiles, but at what time, in what manner, and by what means it should be accomplished, they had no information whatever.” So Calvin is basically saying that even if the Jews knew that someday God would include Gentiles, they didn’t know the details which is why some balked at Gentiles just being accepted without having to go through what they had to be one of God’s people (meaning circumcision and keeping the rituals). 

          So in these verses, Paul is telling the Ephesians that 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. The Holy Spirit gave Paul and the other Apostles and prophets special revelation so they could understand and link together all that the OT said about bringing in Gentiles. But even some of the Apostles needed further teaching. Even after Jesus telling them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation,” they still weren’t preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. It took Peter getting vision 3 times for him to fully get the Gentiles were to be included. 

If you know the story from Acts 10, Peter is at the tanner’s house – which is ironic since a tanner deals with dead animals and Peter’s vision is about eating animals – but anyway, after he understands that the Gentiles are to be preached to and welcomed into the family of God, Peter goes to Cornelius’ house (which was huge because remember the Jews at that time would have considered going into a Gentile’s house would make you unclean) But Peter goes into the house where he preaches and many believe. Afterwards, Cornelius bows before Peter and Peter tells him to get up and not bow to him, he’s just a man. Alistair Begg notices something poignant about this whole episode. Peter had to teach Cornelius that he wasn’t a god, and God had to teach Peter that Cornelius wasn’t a dog. 

And there’s something else that Paul realizes that is amazing and feels the need to write about. We see it in verses 7 -12. “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. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, 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, so that through the church 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 and access with confidence through our faith in him. There’s a lot in these verses, so we will revisit them in the next episode, but for now, Chris, you want to talk about the gist of what Paul is saying?

We can get that Jesus refined Peter to change his view on Gentiles and send him to go preach the Gospel to them. Jesus chose Peter at the beginning of His ministry. Peter was in the inner circle of Jesus’ Apostles. So it seems completely logical that Jesus would choose Peter to go to the Gentiles. In fact, we would probably say that sending any of Jesus’ original Apostles would make sense. He spent 3 years teaching them, letting them observe Him, seeing how He was treated by Rome and the Pharisees, and then He tells them before He ascends into heaven, go and make disciples of the world. Any of those guys would be the sensible choice as the instrument to preach to the Gentiles. But since when is God in the business of making what we would call sensible choices?

That answer would be never. From the very beginning, God has chosen those who seem the least likely to be able to pull something off to do just that. Take Job vs. Abraham. Scholars have dated that Job lived during the time of Genesis. So why didn’t God choose Job to be the father of Israel? Job was already devoted to God. He’s even called a righteous man. But instead, God chose Abraham for was a pagan from a pagan family living in a pagan land. And how about Samson? Who in their right mind would choose an immature, bad-tempered, selfish, womanizing narcissist to lead their nation? Yet that’s exactly what God did. We could go on and on throughout Scripture showing that the obviously best choice is not the choice God makes. And why is that? Well, if Job were the patriarch of Israel, it would be easy to say, Job loved God first, so God chose him. Get where I’m going with this?

Once you see election, you can’t unsee it! God calling, equipping and using those who are the least likely to be able to succeed in the calling, it shows that God is the one doing all the work – the work of saving and the work of sanctifying. God turned that pagan Abraham into a faithful, God fearing patriarch. God worked through Samson’s deficiencies and killed more Philistines through him than through any other judge. So now we get to the New Testament, and as we said, it would seem completely sensible for Jesus to have sent any of his original Apostles as the instrument to bring the Gentiles into the fold of God. But instead, He chooses about the last person anyone else would have chosen – Paul

Paul was not only a Jewish Pharisee, who would have been amongst those Jews who hated the Gentiles. He probably called a few of them dogs in his day. But he also hated Jesus’ followers. So Paul hated everyone that Jesus was sending him to minister to. To put this in perspective, it would be like God choosing Hitler to preach the Gospel to Jewish people. We all know that Hitler hated Jews, but he also hated Christians. He started a state sponsored church throughout Germany. It was a sham to even call it a church since it basically worshipped government, and any true Christian that spoke out against it, like Deitrich Bonhoffer found themselves imprisoned and eventually executed. So you can say that Hitler and Paul were the same person, except for factor.

And that’s a huge factor – God. We see over and over in Scripture a logical argument being laid out, but then it says, “But God.” Hitler and Paul were the same person, but God – but God got a hold of Paul, regenerated his heart, saved him, and guided him through sanctification. Paul proved to be one of the greatest men to serve God and spread the Gospel, “but God” gets all the glory for it. And this is exactly why God chooses the least likely to do His work. So the world can see that there is absolutely no way the person could have accomplished what they accomplished had it not been for God’s sovereign intervening.

And none of this is lost on Paul. He frequently recounts his past life and Jesus getting a hold of him and completely transforming him. Paul’s testimonies usually always include him calling himself “the least of the Apostles,” or “the worst of sinners.” Here is Ephesians 3:8, he calls himself “the very least of all the saints.”  This whole section in 3:7- 12 is Paul marveling that Jesus chose to reveal Himself to Paul and send him out to preach the Gospel and bring to light the “mysteries” that were once veiled in the Old Testament. In fact, when we look at the issue going on between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, 

Imagine this, Paul was actually the perfect person to send to resolve issues between the two. As a Pharisee, Paul was a Jew’s Jew, but now he has been commissioned to go to the Gentiles. He fully understands where the Jews were coming from, because he was once there. That’s how he knows that what’s going on isn’t about getting circumcised or keeping rituals, it is a sinful heart issue 

And we see it in several places in the NT. In fact, it was a line in the sand for many of the Jews and many turned away from following Jesus because of it. It’s at the core of why Christianity turned predominantly Gentile. Like any good mystery, we should be left still thinking about the story long after we’ve solved it. This one is no different. What does Paul taking so much time and effort in telling and showing the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in Ephesus that they need to check their heart, because like it or not, both are God’s people, and both belong to the kingdom of God and to the church have to do with us?

Has any of us ever looked at someone at church and thought that person doesn’t act like a Christian, or we don’t think that person is a real believer. Maybe we are a little more subtle and just look wide-eyed at someone shocked that they would wear that to church or watch that show or talk like that or whatever. The point is if we have ever taken upon ourselves to decide what a Christian should be we need to check ourselves. The rule list for being a Christian has one rule on it – believing that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. That’s it. Nothing about how we dress, what we watch, or anything else.

And, we should point out that we are talking about salvation, not sanctification. The Jewish Christians in Ephesus didn’t think the Gentiles could be saved without adhering to Jewish Law first. Of course, once a person is saved, we should come along side them and disciple them showing them Scripture that does tell us how we should dress or what we should fill our minds with – how to live a godly life

And that’s exactly what the Apostles did. They took away the stumbling block of circumcision and OT rituals out of the way of the salvation, but then they told them ways to live out their faith. As they wrote to them in Acts 21:25, “As for the Gentile believers, they should do what we already told them in a letter: They should abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.” Jesus needs to be the only stumbling block in someone coming to saving faith – so we need to get ourselves and our viewpoints out of the way.

          Chris, the first time we went to the church where you and I met, it was July. We weren’t fully living in our house there yet, so we had limited supplies with us. We showed up in shorts and t-shirts. Walking in, we saw some very well dressed people entering the church. My teenage daughter wondered if we would get dirty looks or maybe even asked to leave because of how we were dressed. I told her, if we do, this isn’t somewhere I have any desire to be anyway. And, look, I’ve been on the other end of this, too. I have had my share of judgmental thoughts about some who have walked into church with extremely tight shirts or short skirts. In both cases, the people at Faith Church didn’t know if I was a believer or not. And I didn’t know if the people I was judging were believers or not. It was sinful – as sinful as the Jewish Christians were being.

          Paul has been showing us that salvation is 100% from God. Jesus + nothing is everything, but Jesus + anything else is heresy. So if we are putting conditions on people, making judgments based on how they look , what they do, or how they behave we need to check ourselves. We shouldn’t even let what they believe be a stumbling block so long as they believe the true Gospel message. Like if they have wonky thoughts about the end times or think women should be able to be pastors or anything like this – these are secondary issues – they are not essentials. Secondary issues are addressed in sanctification, not salvation.

          I grew up Catholic, but knew nothing. I started going to Sunday School and church at a Baptist church with my husband. When I became a Christian, I knew nothing, and I mean nothing but the bare essentials of the Gospel. And they were pretty bare. I was a headstrong know-it-all, who called herself a liberal Christian because I believed women could do anything men could do and there was no way you were getting me to buy that God chose who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. Thankfully, God gave me a very sweet older woman who patiently – very patiently – put up with me challenging everything and asking millions of questions. She would ignore anything that didn’t have to do with the essentials of salvation, while she patiently, over and over, laid out the Gospel for me.

          And that’s our take away from this passage in Eph. 3. Paul is telling, not just the Ephesians, but all of us, that we need to remove stumbling blocks from people. It doesn’t matter if you’re circumcised, wear tight clothes, have a foul mouth, or believe that Christians will be taking up arms to fight in Armageddon. If God has chosen to save that person, they will be saved – and we shouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to be a part of it. Let’s make sure we clearly communicate the essentials – the Gospel message – to bring others to salvation. We can deal with the rest in discipleship.

Paul nails this in Romans 9:30 – 33, “What does all this mean? Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God’s standards, they were made right with God. And it was by faith that this took place. 31 But the people of Israel, who tried so hard to get right with God by keeping the law, never succeeded. 32 Why not? Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the law instead of by trusting in him. They stumbled over the great rock in their path. 33 God warned them of this in the Scriptures when he said, “I am placing a stone in Jerusalem that makes people stumble,  a rock that makes them fall. But anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”

Paul finishes up this section with verse 13, “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” Paul is telling them not to get discouraged or feel badly when they see him suffering for his ministry to them. He gladly accepts any hardship and persecutions if it means being used as an instrument to bring people to salvation.May we see ourselves in the same light Paul sees himself.

And that’s a good place to end. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to check out our website proverbs910ministries.com for everything proverbs 9:10 ministries. Have a blessed day, everyone!

 

 

 

 

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