Eph 3:1-13

Text: 1 John 3:11-24

1. How has the author organized the text? Show the author’s structure with sections and verse references.

I. (1-6) Paul was given the mystery of God by his grace to give to all the gentiles that they may receive the promise in Christ.

II. (7-11) Paul was given to bring the light, the plan of the mystery. That through the church the wisdom of God may be known, according the the eternal purpose given in Christ.

III. (12-13) Paul shows that we have confidence in Christ, so that they shouldn’t lose heart over his suffering.

2. How is the meaning of your text informed by its context? Answer this question using 1) the immediate context (the closest passages on both sides of your text), 2) the context of the whole book, and 3) the historical context.

Prior: That all have been made one in Christ, Jews and Gentiles alike.

After: Paul’s intercessory prayer for the church

Whole: to display the scope of God’s eternal plan for all humanity

Historical: Written to Ephesus while Paul was imprisoned in Rome. He also wrote to the Colossians and Philemon at this time. This is also to a gentile audience who dealt with Gnosticism, magic, and polytheistic worship in near past. They now are reminded that God saves all the same, no special revelation, no special plan for select few, but salvation through Christ to all who accept him.

3. What is the main idea that the author is communicating to his original audience (i.e. to them then)?

Answer this question with one simple sentence.

This mystery given through Christ to the church so that it may be known, that all can be partakers in the promise.

4. How does this passage connect to the gospel of Jesus Christ? How would you incorporate one of

these connections into your sermon?

A. (5-6) Jesus is this now not so hidden mystery. As it was hidden before the ages until his coming he is the mystery. Jesus Christ is this gospel of salvation. There is no other secret knowledge or works that provide a way to heaven, but Paul and others, the (whole world) were given this mystery in Christ. He died and rose again defeating sin and death. This is the salvation to the Jews and to Gentiles alike

B. (7-8) Once again it is established that Paul was the envoy of this message. By the grace of God, though it hardly may seem as a grace, he was made an apostles, though the least of them all. The point is he was here to proclaim Jesus as he is now, the unsearchable, unfathomable, indescribable, incomprehensible riches of Christ Jesus, and what he has done for us. That he died fro us revealing salvation for all who believe in his name. How astonishing the beauty and richness of Christ's glory.

C. (9-11) That Jesus came to bring light, to bring knowledge of the mystery that was hidden before the ages in God, the mystery of salvation. He gave salvation to all who beloved in him, and they gathered to be his body, those who are in the body of Christ are now called to bring forth this same message that Paul brought, this message that was according to the eternal purposes found in Christ. that were realized, and brought to us only in him. oooh how awesome that is, this message brought in Christ for us to share.

D. (12-13) In this Christ we also have boldness and confidence, no need for doubting and worry, whether we are at risk or others we love.

5. What is the primary argument (i.e. main idea) of your sermon (in one simple sentence)? What applications will you make for your audience? Include both the unbeliever and the believer in your applications.

The Mystery given in Christ is for the Church that it may be known and lived for all.

6. What is your preaching outline? Hint: In most cases, the structure of the text (i.e. question #1) should be reflected in your preaching outline.

I. We are partakers in the promise of Christ

II. We are called to share the gospel throughout the world (to the heavenly places?)

III. We have confidence in Christ in everything (access to what)

The Not so Mysterious Mystery

Overview/Summary

So we continue on in our study in Ephesians. Man Ephesians is just such a beautiful story, that Paul is telling us, whenever I read I just get so excited and have an awe of God’s goodness, of just how undeserving we are of his Love, Paul just paints a beautiful and complete story, so lets re-walk through that. 1. What do we learn about in Chapter 1, this is the beg. of the story, or before it actually. God predestined, adopted those into his kingdom, acc. to his will, revealed the mystery of his will, which he set forth in Christ, that we might have redemption through his blood, How Beautiful, and that he secured us with his Holy spirit as the promise of new life in Christ. Then after Christ died and rose again, God seated him at his right handing showing that Christ’s work was enough and complete, and Christ was above all ruling and authority, both spiritual and earthly, and Christ is also head over all things to the Church, and as head of the Church, Paul then tells us in Ch. 2 who were are before God, That we were dead to our sin, but God made us alive in Christ, if we have trusted in him, that it was all by grace and nothing of our merit, then he tells us that all of this, our salvation, our unity in the church, our adoption into the kingdom, was all done by Christ, that Christ grafted us into the family of God and that all are one in him, not Jews and Gentiles, but One under Christ. That leaves us where we are at today in Ch. 3 where we learn some about Paul, his role in all of this, we are fed again the goodness of Christ, and what all of this news that we have learned so far means for us as Christians today. Without further a due, let us read Ephesians 3 1-13

Ephesians 3:1–13 ESV

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 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. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

I. We Are Partakers in the Mystery of Christ (1-8)

Intro into the chapter

Paul Prisoner

mystery revelation

(1)Here Paul starts this next section of this letter with informing Ephesus that he is imprisoned on their behalf, Paul is both literally in prison at Rome while he is writing this letter as well as a few other letters, but Paul is also a metaphorical prisoner, he is a minister, servant, slave prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the Gentiles, he is the apostles with the noble calling to bring the message of salvation to all the world, to those that aren’t Jews, the Gentiles, to people like you and me. This is exactly what Paul is doing and has been doing. We remember back in Acts 19-20 Paul was a minister to these people, he even exclaimed to one of their leaders his great love for them but that God is calling him to leave, although it may bring imprisonment, which it eventually did, That it would bring affliction and suffering which it did if we recall anything about the story of Paul. We know his life was brutal and full of pain. Through his shipwrecks, through his beatings and stoning, and his imprisonment, we know that Paul suffered, but it was as a servant a minister, a prisoner of Christ that he did. All on the behalf of the Gentiles. He did all of this suffering so that someone like us could hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, that is Paul goes on (2) and says that he is a prisoner for you gentiles assuming that they have heard of the stewardship and administration of God’s Grace that was given to them, what was this grace, this grace was the Spirit of God that we saw in Chapter 1, this grace is to be welcomed into the promise of God as we saw last week and will see again tonight, this grace was given to Paul that he might give to them, of (3) how the mystery was made know to Paul by revelation, as he previously wrote in the book and in the book in chapter 1, that God is making known the mystery of his will set forth in Christ. (4) Paul tells them that after you read this you will understand his view on the mystery of Christ, what the mystery truly is.

What is this Mystery?

Now here is a question that i want to pose. What is the Mystery? or I guess Why use the term Mystery? Is it not odd to use this kind of terminology, why do we keep seeing here in Ephesians, and in may other writings of Paul, why do I never see this term in the Gospels? These are all good questions i hope you guys are asking as good youth group scholars. Because it seems odd sometimes to use the word mystery interchangeably with the word Gospel, so I want to tell you why I think this word mystery is so important, not just to us, but extremely to his audience and to the context of the culture. For who is Paul once again writing to, what are the Ephesians, they are gentiles, and previously we learned that the gospel message and the promise is extend to them, and to us.

Gnostic Crap

But in that days culture, in early Christianity and even a short time before Christ the culture struggled with gnostic belief, with Gnostic Judaism and Gnostic Christianity, the culture also struggled with polytheism, for they had a temple to dedicated to their main god Artemis, this Ephesus culture and culture around in general was super mystic. What does that mean? First Gnostics were a group that thought to attain salvation that they needed this hidden secret knowledge that was only bestowed upon a select person or select group of people. And to get to “heaven” one must share this knowledge, but this knowledge was not offered to all and only a select few were destined to receive it, and everyone else they thought at least, just had no soul and no meaning to life. This is a very mystical line of thinking and a prominent way of thinking during this time, and we also see from the book of acts, that when Paul traveled to Ephesus, that after he persuaded and taught to Ephesus, many people burned all of their books of magic and witchcraft, for this was a very mystical mysterious culture. This is why I think the word mystery carries so much wait. I think Paul was intentional in using this vernacular, for it stuck with his audience, they as the church is reading this letter to the people someone may here the word mystery and be engaged, for they want to be part of this secret knowledge or have an upper hand to someone else. So this word and Paul’s phrasing will peak their interest. And Paul proclaims that when you read this you can perceive MY INSIGHT, wow someone might here this and think we are getting this super knowledge of an apostle of God, and with a cherry on top Paul even says this mystery was hidden to other generations, Man these people probably think they are in for a treat, and man oh man they are, but not what one with mystic thinking might think, for paul is humble, and he shows that he isn’t the only one with this given mystery, but that the holy apsotles, along with phrophets have been given this mystery, and even better this mystery wasn’t given from some weird mystical guy proclaiming a secret knowledge and access to free your spirit from your body, or some magical witchcraft that gives you power, but instead, this mystery was given by this Spirit of God himself! Wow what authority one must have with this mystery, I bet many think that they want this mystery that others don’t have, only the apostles of God. But on the contrary this mystery (6) is that even you gentile Ephesians may be fellow heirs to the promise of Christ. This mystery isn’t some sort of special enlightenment, but it is the same news that Paul preached to them while he was with them. The same message that he wrote to them earlier, and they same message that they probably read about in other letters that Paul sent around to churches, the fact is that this mystery is not much a mystery anymore. This mystery is revealed and isn’t a secret, God revealed it to the apostles and prophets that they may share it with the world. The fact is that their is no secret knowledge, the mystery is Christ Crucified, died, and his resurrection, it is his love for us, that God would even welcome these gentiles as sons and daughters, as heirs to the throne of grace. This is the message to Ephesus and surrounding areas, salvation isn’t a secret, Salvation isn’t limited to a certain group of people, no one is special like this, but as Paul wrote about last chapter, that all are one in Christ, he was proclaiming that it was limited to the circumcised, not just the Jews, but to you also. This is the mystery, by God’s grace salvation is offered to everyone everywhere, to the slave to the freeman, to the scynthian, barbarian, the jew the gentile, the 13 yr old, the 15yr old, even offered to Abe the Babe. There is no secret for a certain person, but God exposed the secret for all that they may believe in Christ and repent of their sins and turn to him as Lord and Savior. Well isn’t that good, we learned about Ephesus and their weird mystic ideologies, that Paul was smart in his wording and revealed the message of the gospel to them.

Application, so many religions today mystic American thought

Well how does that apply to me, Aaron? I’m glad ya asked for I myself am asking the same question. How does this apply to me, why did you tell me all about this word mystery, did that even matter? Well of course it matter in the context of that culture, but how does it apply to the real word today? I really wish I could tell you it doesn’t matter, I wish i could have told you just the straight message that Paul was proclaiming and not get into the weeds about Gnosticism and Mystic thinking, for it isn’t the main message of this passage, but it so heavily informs the point to the passage. SO how does this apply to the world I live in. Well Gnosticism itself as it used to be is very little in the world, but the mystic ideologies and philosophical thoughts that come with it are evermore prominent. There are so many different beliefs in and about God that are just wrong and come from the line of thinking about this mystic special knowledge or revelation one must have. Things like Scientology, thinking there is this godlike being floating around, must be smart enough to see this, or something like even like Islam, a religion based around this man receiving special knowledge and revelations from God that founded the whole religion and twisted the whole Bible. There are literally over 1.8 billion people that believe this, about this one man with this special thought, you believe this special thought and do these things to be apart of it, even Jewish peoples beliefs on salvation that is twisted from scripture, do all of these things, be a good person. Hinduism and Buddhism with a combined total of over 1.6 billion people believing that you must reach this special nirvana and be released from you body, and last but not least, there are 2.4 billion Christians in the world. Wow thats great news, which it is, but how many of those claimed Christians are actually saved. many will say Lord Lord, but never knew Jesus and will be casted away. I can’t tell you how many times, and I’m sure this has happened to many of you, I go evangelizing, I talk to a person and they say they know God and are a Christian and they give a wack set of beliefs and clearly there is no evidence of fruit in their life and you know they aren’t saved.

Vector front 1 or two rows stand

This happened to me like two or three weeks ago, I was talking to a group of three teenage guys, who were even smoking weed right in front of me. And this one guy we shall call him Vector, me and a friend were you know going through the gospel asking what they believed, and how they thought they stood with God, we walked them through the 10 commandments so that could see for themselves what sin was and that they are in fact sinners, when talking directly to Vector he was just acknowledging what we were saying, and I asked him, How do you have assurance you are going to heaven and he Vector said very mythological that yeah he knows he does some bad things and he sometimes tries not to, but will he really wants to, and that God loves him, which is true God loves all of his creation, but his view on God was twisted, he made for himself an image of God that suited him, much like all of these other religions, and even Gnosticism, He said that God knows deep down that Vector is special, and because of his specialness that he knows that he will be in heaven one day, he kept describing this veiw of God as a cosmic logical mystical being that just sees the special ness inside of a person. And Vector isn’t completely wrong, he is just missing the point, in which paul tells us, Vector is right that God loves people, that God is this higher being than we are and that God did make us special, for we are all made in his image, but that alone doesn’t safe us. Which we explained him, we told him, that yes we are all special, all made in God’s image, but that doesn’t make us worthy or good that God should welcome us into heaven, for we have all sinned and fallen short of his glory and we are all worthy to Hell, but we told him and I’m telling you the same thing Paul has said in this book, that Jesus died for sin, rose again and made a way for all to be in Heaven, by grace through faith, faith and trust that Jesus did safe us and a continued belief in him giving our selves to him, saved by God’s grace, not for being special. Do you guys see it now in our world, lets make this even bigger for our eyes, there is like 7.8 billion people in he world right, there are about a combined worth of 3.5 billion Hindus and Muslims, lets say half of the claimed Christians are like our friend Vector, that is another 1.2 billion people, we are 4.7 billion people! now lets add how many Atheists wthat there are, who have no belief, even though they belief in a mystic creation that came from nothing, that another 1.2 billion, now we at 5.9, lets add 1/2 billion for all of the other weird religions like Buddhism, and folk religion of the world. we are at 6.4 billion, from all of that alone, that way over 80% of the world that don’t believe in God but have some twisted view of him and of salvation, just like the polytheists, and Gnostics and Paul’s day. The fact is that there are so many people that aren’t reached by the gospel and who are on the track to hell, but as in our next point

II. We are Called to Share the Mystery to the World (6-13)

We are called to share the Gospel to the world, and we will see that in our text, but hold on to what I told you about Vector and the over 80% of the world that aren’t saved

v6-8 heirs, willing to suffer (not big about World missions yet)

Jumping back to the text, in verse 6 once again I want us to see, that those in Ephesus are gentiles like us, like literally everyone else in the world but the several million Jews. The revealed mystery, that we see in verse 4, the mystery of Christ, is that Gentiles, you, are fellwo heirs, members of the same body of Christ, that the Jewish Christians were part of and the same body that those in The OT who had faith in God and looked to the promise, were apart of. You are partakers, maybe a better word is share holders, you share all the glory that comes in the promise of Christ, the fact is that if you believe in Christ as lord and savior it doesn’t matter who you, male, female, abe, or lyla, preacher, or student, we are all partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, now back to Paul, He was made a very minister, slave, servant to this gospel, all according to God’s grace. Although to Paul, he as the least of all of the saints, of all the apostles, but that was grace given, the task for him to preach to the gentiles, the unsearchable, unfathomable, incomprehensible, riches in Christ. Pause here for a second and be humbled, by paul’s heart, for it for sure humbles an arrogant idiot like me. Two things, Paul really just said he is the least of all saints, how is he, he is an apostle and does all of this work for the church, writes all of these letters, exhorts other churches and ministers, how could paul say this, because he truly believed it, he knew he was undeserving of God’s grace and love, for he persecuted the church and didn’t deserve grace, just like you and me, we didn’t deserve the grace of salvation, but God loved us anyway as he did Paul. We should mimic this heart of paul, that we should be humble not only to call ourselves the least of all saints, but to live it out, for that is the other thing that astonishes me and humbles me about Paul, the grace given him, was to preach to the gentiles, this grace would lead him to not only a physical death, but also to much hardship, right now Paul is in Jail, remember verse 1, he is in Jail on their behalf, Paul receives much torment, and even jailing because of his faithfulness to declare the gospel to the gentiles, and to the whole church. And he calls this a grace of God, that he is suffering. What would you do in his circumstance? I know I could live through it, but there would be alot more whinning, Cracker what would you do, in this circumstance, no video games to play in jail, would any of you call this mercy or grace. The fact is that it is a grace, because he is still living and he is living for Christ, any situation we go through even in the midst of persecution like paul, we should see the grace, for we get to suffer for Christ,

The Mystery for all, the church

which that brings us to the main point of this text, which we see in verse 9-10, this mystery, this gospel which is found only in Christ Jesus, is to be made know to everyone, that the mystery may be brought light, no longer hidden, no longer in the dark, that it may be revealed to EVERYONE, yes everyone, not just the Jews, not just at Ephesus, but to the whole world, to you and me, to the Muslim in Indonesia, to the Hindu in India, to the person that made God into their own personal image. This mystery is to be revealed to everyone everywhere, not just to s special group of gnostics, but salvation instead is to be brought to light to everyone, but here comes the fun part for you and me, Paul preached the unsearchable riches to the gentiles that he may bring to light to everyone the mystery, but also he proclaimed this to the church, they church is as we see in (10) to bring the wisdom of God, the multi facet, the manifold, unending wisdom of God, that it may be even known to the rulers and authorities even in the heavenly places. That the church be vocal in the sharing of the gospel that even the angels in heaven can see the working of God and all of his wisdom throughout the earth, even so satan and all of his demons can cower in fear at the working of the manifold wisdom of God in act through the church, for this is what he purposed before time in Jesus, his eternal purpose, our salvation and to declare this hope, mystery, gospel, whatever you will, to the everyone everywhere. This brings me back to my rant from earlier, about all of the people who have these mystic thoughts that are leading them to hell. It is the purpose of the church to latch onto their ankles and beg and plead with them to trust in Christ for them to believe, it is all of working of God, but God purposed us to bring about his will of Salvation, and adoption to the nations.

Who went on mission trip, why did we go

I have quick question for you, who all is going to Ecuador this summer, raise your hand, why are you going? Why are you going? Why am I going, who went to KC last year, or Jamaica, or Colorado, or Tennessee, who helped with VBS last year or in Years past? Why did we do this? Was it cause we had to, we wanted to be around friends, around the church, feel good about ourselves. No that is all crap, those aren’t the reasons we go anywhere. We go to these other places, we go to school, work,friends house, even to church, that we may make disciples, that we may evangelize the lost, that we may bring to light to everyone everywhere the mystery of Jesus. That he died for you and me, rose again, and brings us life after death, if we surrender all to him. That is the gospel, that is what we the church, no just we FBC Youth who have a cool squirel on our merch, not just FBC Mulvane, or Pleasentview, or South Rock, or Calvary, whatver churches around us, no but this is for all belivers everywhere, for the body of Christ, that we are welcomed into, to share the mystery to everyone. rememebr we talked about how over 80% if not more of the world is on the way to hell. We are called to share the light with them. So what does that mean for you the 12 yr old all the way to 10,000 yr old Kendall in the back, that means God has called you, he has predestined you, to be like paul here, to be a slave to Christ, to be a servant, a minster of the faith, no you are not an apostle, but you are a minister of Christ, which minister means servant, so you are a minister of Christ, hear that, a minister of Christ, given the gift of God’s grace, just like Paul, to share the mystery of Christ, that all are welcomed, that one must trust in him, you are graced with that, that you are called to share it. Yes you, Elly Hula, EZ, Creavy, Nadia, Johnny, etc… are called to what we word as Americans, the mission field, you are called to be missionary, to bring to light the wisdom of God throughout all of God’s creation. How can I be a missionary if I’m only in middle school and highschool, I can’t travel overseas, maybe one day and I pray that some of you will, that you will devote your lives and serve God in another country, for that is a noble task and again is a grace of God, I pray that for you, for that is a calling from scripture, to make disicples of all nations, and that is a calling we see in this text, to bring the mystery to light for everyone, so that does mean some and many should go into missions and serve overseas, but that isn’t practical for you sitting right here for today, you aren’t in asia or Bengali, or Spain, or South America, but I got good, but sad news for you, the sad news is that there are millions of people in America that are on the path to hell because of their sin, and their are people at your school on the path to hell, people on you sports teams, maybe even some people in your co-ops that don’t know Jesus and are on their way to hell to spend an eternity in hell, does this not outrage you, like ahhh, I hate this, this fires me up, well guess, what, here is the good news, God has adopted you Christian into the family of God and he is going to use you to bring more to him, you right now Ezra, Piper, Corli, Fish, Eli, are called to the mission field today, to go bring to light the mystery of Christ, the gospel, to everyone everywhere around you, what noble calling all of us Christians have right now today before us, there are so many countless people that going to hell around us, what are you doing sitting back watching, beg, plead with them and resaon with them the mystery of the gosepl, of how a God could love us that he would send his son, that is a mystery to me, how culd God love someone like me, how could God love anyone in this world, but he did, and he sent Jesus, who died for you, and Now God is sending you to tell of this gospel, he has purposed you from eternity past, to bring about his will, to share the gospel that someone else may be welcomed into the family of God,

Why we fail to share, scared don’t care

So why aren’t you, I know why, its the same reason I struggle, Because you don’t care, whoa Aaron I care about people, no you don’t you obviously, I obviously don’t care enough about people if my words are pointing to Christ. And why do we not care, Dukey, Jaida, Cracker, why do we not care, because we are scared, we are scared of rejection, of losing friends, of how other may think of us, where scared with being uncomfortable, I know I am, I would love to stay here all the time and live a cozy life with all of my closest friends, but brother and sister, you have such a higher calling, as I, as Cameron, Dave and Jason, do, a higher calling as Paul, had, but we are lazy, idle, comfortable, and scared. Paul knows this, that is why he reminds us, yes you are called to share this message with everyone everywhere, of how God has purposed through Christ, but in Christ, as you are scared, idle and lazy, we have boldness, in Christ, confidence in Christ, that we may one not be scared, because we go back to chapter 1 and know salvation is in God’s hands, we just need to proclaim that message, and two we have access to God with confidence, we have boldness, because of the faithfulness of Christ, because he died for us, that we could even have faith in him. That is why Paul tells the Ephesians not to be worried for his sake, for his suffering is for Christ for their glory.

We will suffer, exmp of myself bible people

Which reminds us, that yes, we are also going to suffer for the namesake of Christ. I don’t want to deceive you and tell you that tommrow when you share the gospel that you will accepted, for you won’t, you will suffer for Jesus, you will face ridcule, you may lose friends, may be disrespected, belittled, not taken seriously, they will muzzle you, and do anything from hearing the gospel that saves souls, how do I know this, well because I also went to highschool, and even at a conservative small school, all of those things happended, to me and it sucked, how do I know this, becuase this happens to me when I share the gospel with starngers, it sucks, how do I know this, because it happened to Paul and all of the other apsotles, it sucked, they died for Jesus, literally, paul got his head cut off, peter was crucidied upside down on a cross, it sucked. How do I know this, because my Savior Jesus Chirst, was shamed and ridciuled, he said that we too will be shamed and riduculded if we followed him, he then died a sinners death, the most shameful death anyone could die, naked on a cross, with a crown of thorns, with your sin and my sin stained upon him, and yes it sucked, that is how I know it is going to suck for you and for me, but man oh man, we have confidence in Christ, and we are graced by God to suffer for him, the Christian life isn’t easy man, it will suck, but God is bigger and better, he has better purposes for you, he has an eternal purpose that you be bold with faith in him, and suffer for him, sufer together as the body of belivers for his name sake, for the sake of the 7 billion people on the way to hell, suffer for them and for God, that you would give up your comfort and idleness and cowardness and share the gospel with others that they may enter the promise with you. Do you not see this is what Jesus did, what Paul is doing here in this text, be like Jesus, be like paul and be ready to suffer, go and share the gospel with the nations, go overseas and bring this news to the lost, I again I pray that many of you would devote your life to overseas missions, But I pray that you devote your life to missions right her right now, that is your calling today, I know because God is telling you that right now in his word, there is no special feeling one must have to be a minister of the faith, to be a missionary, I used to think that, But no, I am telling all of you in this room that call yourself Christian, that gave your life yo him, you are all called to missions.

The Unbelievers

The sad thing is there are many people in this room tonight that have no Idea what I’m talking about, you feel this doesn’t matter to you, and you don’t want this, I ask you to look at your heart, examine yourself, have you ever truly surrendered your life to Jesus as Lord and Savior, are you in pits of sin that you love and you are fine where you are, do you think that you are good enough to get to heaven, are you like my friend vector who thinks he is just some special guy and that he is the exception to the real gospel. Do you not have a heart for other to know Jesus, Check your heart for you don’t know him, and you too are like 7 billion other people that on the way to hell. Does this scare you, cause it should, it scares me, it is a real and scarey thing, but there is hope. We talked about it last week and tonight, it is something that will be proclimaed form this pulpit every week. The hope is Jesus Christ. To those that I just talked about, Jesus is the only way to heaven, you can’t squeak by, you aren’t good enough and you aren’t worthy, there is no other way to heaven except through Jesus, He is the way the truth and the light and the only way to the Father, no other name or thing or deed or action or anything on your own part can save you from hell, from your sin, only Jesus. Repent, run away from your sins, from all of the bad things you have done, ask God for forgiveness, he will forgive you, Trust and follow Jesus follow his ways for they are better, surrender your life to him and be welcomed into the family of God, be a fellow heir, and partaker in the promise. Give your heart to him.

And again to you who are Christians, you have no need to fear for God is greater than your fears, he is faithful to us, so be faithful to him, consider the mission field for your future, but do the work of a missionary today, share the gospel wherever you are for that is your calling, God said so, be ready and glad to suffer for the sake of Christ, be ready to give your all for him and be ready to share boldly full of confidence the goodness of Christ and the salvation that he brings the salvation tat is not a secret. Lets pray.