Untitled Sermon

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Ephesians 3:1-13

Welcome

Good morning, thank you for joining us this morning if we have not met yet my name is Jacob Ward I have the honor of serving here as the next gen minister meaning I have the youth and young adults here at this church and am thankful to be able to bring y'all the message today.

Our Minister Bruce is not here today he and his family are getting some much needed rest down in florida seeing some family and friends so pray for their safe travels and what not.

Before we begin I just want to tell y'all about the different groups we have here as part of the NextGen ministry, some of this information is online but we’ve made some changes so they might not be updated on there yet but we will get it figured out this week.

We have our youth group Sunday nights at our office at 5:00

We have a young adult Bible study at 7:00 on Thursday nights at my house

And then we have a randolph macon community group Thursdays at noon at the depot in ashland.

If you or someone you know is part of those age ranges tell them about it, give them my card or number or email.

Over the last few weeks we took a break from our series through Ephesians to go over the story of the prodigal son in preparation for Easter but now we are picking up where we left off.

A little recap we know that the book of Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul while he was in jail to the church of Ephesus that is composed of mostly gentiles. The first three chapters of this book tells the story of the Gospel and explains it, then the last three chapters talks about how the Gospel should affect every part of our lives and our stories.

Now to start I’d like to just read the whole passage top to bottom to get the full context then we'll jump into it.

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Ephesians 3:1-13

READ

3 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 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[a] that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

7 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. 8 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, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in[b] God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Pray

Now there's a lot going on here so I’m going to kind of break this passage up into little bite sized chunks as we're going through this.

However before that I want to ask yall something, now don’t answer out loud but just be thinking about this during the message.

Who is in charge of your life?

3 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 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

Prisoner of Christ

If we are prisoners, it is to Christ

Earthly speaking Paul was imprisoned by Nero for preaching the Gospel and was currently appealing to the emperor so he was locked in prison awaiting his trial. Though he was a prisoner of the Roman Empire in earthly terms, he saw things in heavenly terms and considered himself a prisoner for Christ instead. He asked himself, who is in charge of my life?

Was it himself? No

Was it Rome? No

Was it his mother or father? No

It was Christ.

He had given God complete control over his life and knew that if he was suffering or if he was not his whole life was under the lordship of Christ.

Are you all familiar with John Bunyan? The famous writer from the 1600’s who wrote books such as the pilgrim's progress, and the holy war, and many others.

John Bunyan was born in 1628 in England to his father Thomas who was a tinker who melded pots and pans and stuff like that and his mother Margaret. Not much is known of his childhood but he does remark that as a child John received some schooling and took up his fathers trade and even records that he took up his fathers habit of swearing, and suffered from some pretty severe nightmares and enjoyed reading. When John was 16 he lost both his mother and his sister and then enlisted in the military. After about three years he left the military to continue his trade as a tinker. Within two years he married his wife whose name is sadly lost to history, but John calls her a pious woman. By his own account, Bunyan had as a youth enjoyed bell-ringing, dancing and playing games including on Sunday, which was forbidden by the Puritans, who held a particularly high view of Sunday, called the Lord's Day. One Sunday, the Rev'd Christopher Hall, vicar of Elstow, preached a sermon against Sabbath breaking and Bunyan took this sermon to heart. That afternoon, as he was playing tip-cat (a game in which a small piece of wood is hit with a stick) on Elstow village green, he heard a voice from the heavens in his soul "Wilt thou leave thy sins, and go to Heaven? Or have thy sins, and go to Hell?" and thought he could feel Jesus Christ looking down from Heaven rebuking him. The next few years were a time of intense spiritual conflict for Bunyan as he struggled with his doubts and fears over religion and guilt over what he saw as his state of sin. During this time Bunyan, whilst on his travels as a tinker, happened to be in Bedford when he passed a group of women on a doorstep, talking about spiritual matters. The women were some of the founding members of the Bedford Free Church (or Bedford Meeting) and Bunyan, who had been attending the parish church of Elstow, was so impressed by their talk that he joined their church. At that time the nonconformist group was meeting in St John's church in Bedford under the leadership of former Royalist army officer John Gifford. At the instigation of other members of the congregation Bunyan began to preach, both in the church and to groups of people in the surrounding countryside. In 1656, having by this time moved his family to St Cuthbert's Street in Bedford, he published his first book, Gospel Truths Opened. Fast forward to 1660, the monarchy was restored which now curtailed his ability to preach freely and then got his church kicked out of St John’s which they shared with an anglican congregation. One day a few miles away he was preaching when he found out that there was a warrant out for his arrest. Instead of trying to escape he decided to turn himself in. After being held for almost a year, he was sentenced to 3 months in prison under the condition that he would have to stop preaching. He denied their request and instead his sentence was extended to 12 years. During this time is where he writes several tracts, one book, and half of the pilgrim's progress. What I did not mention before is that he had 4 kids with his wife, one of them being blind. Then his wife died and he remarried and had another kid with his new wife and at the time of his imprisonment another kid was on the way. So while he was in prison, his wife had to take care of 6 kids all on his own. Thankfully their church stepped up and helped, which is a whole other sermon on its own. But here is what I find so amazing. John was convinced that his purpose was to preach, so much so that he was willing to be jailed, even though there was more of a threat of execution for his crimes, he entrusted God to take care of his family while he was in prison, and even used his prison time wisely by writing some of the most influential books of all christian history. After his sentence was up he traveled around on horseback to different churches and continued his ministry even getting arrested again for 6 months. He truly allowed Christ to be the Lord of his life.

I could spend all day talking about this incredible show of faith and obedience and what the lordship of Christ means for our lives but we will get to that later on in this book. This is absolutely a beautiful example of this concept.

Paul had a calling to the Gentiles that he knew would get him in trouble, but he stayed faithful anyway and continued to preach to the gentile and was happy to suffer for Christ’s sake.

Heart for the gentile

Even though Paul is in Prison for His ministry he is still marveling at the unique role God has given him which is to bring the Gospel to the gentiles. If you all can recall Paul spent most of the last chapter talking about how gentiles were now allowed into the family of God through Jesus and ethnicity no longer plays any role in your adoption into the family of God. Something I find cool about this is that Paul if you remember was not only Jewish but a Pharisee and a zealot. A religious leader of the Jewish people who participated in the imprisonment and murder of followers of Jesus. God then calls him to do the complete opposite of what he was doing and gave him a heart for the gentiles

So what does that mean for us? After encountering Christ our lives have to change, we have to be willing to submit our whole lives to Christ giving Him lordship over everything and we must have a heart for the gentiles or the nonbelievers.

Oftentimes we have this idea in our society of us vs them, whether its sports or politics or what have you its us vs them. Unfortunately it is just as common in Christianity.

Paul does not have this mentality, we need to have a heart for the nonbeliever, we need to see those who are not in Christ not as the enemy, but as those who need to be told the Gospel and shown love so that one day they will be with us in paradise.

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[a] that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

The Great Mystery

I love a good mystery movie, or a good riddle that you have to pay close attention too and really focus on and see the little details and try to figure out the meaning or the truth behind what's going on, but I sure am glad that my salvation is not a mystery. That's one thing we don't want to be worried about or questioning. Paul said that the great mystery was revealed to him by Christ through revelation. Christ also revealed this to Peter and in the Old Testament but not nearly as clearly as He did to Paul. Praise God he has made it known to us through His Son and through His Word.

Salvation comes to the Gentiles

The mystery is that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body: This describes the mystery itself – that believing Jews and believing Gentiles are joined together into one body of Christ, into one Church, and no longer separated before God as such. That the gentiles are now full partakers of the promise of Christ and this is through the Gospel, Christ’s work on the cross.That Christ came down from Glory, He lived a perfect and sinless life, that He was punished in the most horrible way invented by humans for crimes He did not commit but crimes we committed, then three days later resurrected from the grave by the power of God being the ultimate sacrifice that was then raised. So that anyone who believes in Him is to be saved, not by our doing but by His power. He has come to save not just the Jews, but Gentiles as well. Unifying all peoples to each other and to God through His blood.

One of the main themes of this book is unity, unity is not just suggested, it is demanded. If we are to live as prisoners of Christ, as followers of Christ we must promote unity. We are not called to keep peace, we are called to make peace. In the sermon on the mount Christ says blessed are the peacemakers not peace peacekeepers.

This is super convicting for me, I have this idea of peace that is very passive. If I have a problem with someone or something I'll often keep peace by just keeping distance, and there is some wisdom to that. However being a peacemaker requires action, it requires going into the middle of turmoil and finding a way to make peace with some sort or resolution. This idea is very uncomfortable with American Christians because we have a very individualistic idea of the body of Christ. A very much “don't tell me how to do my job I won't tell you how to do yours” mentality. But friends, if one part of the body is not doing its job or is unhealthy it affects the whole body. We are not called to live separate lives together, we are called to live in a community that is active in building each other up which oftentimes requires getting in each other's lives in a very deep way.

I don't want to get too far off topic here so I’ll end that there but be praying about that. Find some people in this church or in the church as a whole and let them into your life in a real and vulnerable way and hold each other accountable.

God has always planned this

We have the gift of hindsight so we can go back and see the mystery hinted at in the OT. but they did not have this luxury. The Jews and Gentiles both would have been astounded by this idea because of a tradition.

The Present Church Age is when the Gentiles are saved. This term gets thrown around in some weird circles with weird definitions but all I mean by this is that if you looked that future of salvation through the lens of the OT prophets, you would see two mountains, the coming of the Messiah, then the second coming of the Messiah and you would miss the valley in the middle that talks about the time we are in now where the Messiah has come, defeated sin and death, and now in the waiting of the Messiah coming back to bring about the final judgment is when gentiles are allowed into the family of God.

The Old Testament people could not see the valley because of the mountains, but that valley is where the Gentiles are allowed into the family of God. This is the mystery. This is the Gospel.

7 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. 8 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, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in[b] God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Ministerial Power

Paul describes himself as a minister here, this title literally translates to servant or attendant. Paul is describing himself here not as having a job, but as having a title of servant to the Gospel. Paul is a servant to this Gospel and sees it as a gift of God’s grace which was given to him by God’s power.

Paul describes himself here as the least likely person to be giving the Gospel out of humility and meekness, then goes on to again be thankful that he gets to preach to the gentiles about the unsearchable riches of Christ. The word preach here means to “bring or announce good news.”

Comes from Christ

None of what Paul is doing here is of his own power. Notice he says here that he was a minister because of God’s grace and the working of God’s power. Guys that's it. That's all you need. You don't need a fancy degree, a masters or doctorate, those things are good and should be pursued. Continuing in the pursuit of knowledge is a great thing. But all you need is the power of Christ.

We in the christian church believe that everyone is a minister, we are all servants of the Gospel. It is not Bruce’s sole responsibility to evangelize. It is not Bruce’s sole responsibility to minister to your family. It is not the youth minister's sole responsibility to teach your kids about Jesus. It's part of our jobs, sure but the burden does not just fall on us.

Now that may be scary for some of yall, some of yall introverts just gulped I heard it.

But guys remember it is not your capabilities, your hours of study, your degrees, your anything it is the power of God and the grace of Christ.

Used for Christ

None of it is for your glory though, Paul isn’t trying to get the glory for preaching; he is saying that he is glad that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Our obedience in our ministry or our servanthood to the Gospel, is that the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places would know what Christ has done. Rules and authorities in the heavenly places refer to angelic beings who are interested and instructed by the lives of Christians. This is why the conduct of the church is so important: because angelic and demonic beings are looking on, and God’s intent is to teach them through us. Again we don't have a whole lot of time to get into this, but this is a theme in the New Testament that is fairly prevalent.

So our obedience in our ministry is used for Christ for His purpose. We should absolutely consider it a joy that Christ would give us some way to help aid Him in His eternal purpose. That’s incredible.

11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Eternal Purpose Of Christ

The eternal purpose of Christ is pretty simple: The mystery reveals and furthers God’s eternal purpose in Jesus, this was told to us way back in Ephesians 1:10 – that in the fullness of time God will gather together (essentially, to sum up or resolve) all things in Jesus. The mystery of the unified body of Christ is according to that purpose. It is a preview of what Jesus will ultimately do in the fulfillment of summing up all things in Himself. His eternal purpose leads to our eternal life.

Eternal life found in Him

Our confidence in Him

Our confidence in ministry and evangelism does not come naturally but supernaturally through Him. The fact of this unity is shown by the truth that we (Jew and Gentile collectively) have the identical boldness, access, and confidence before God – because it has nothing to do with national or ethnic identity, only with faith in Him (Jesus).

We were caged in sin and relying on our worldly skills and abilities that will always fall short, we were in a prison. God came and unlocked our prison doors and yet sometimes we just stand in that cage and rejoice that the door is open but we never really leave. We never really step out into that freedom and boldness that Christ has given us. And If we do it's only for a short while then we go and walk ourselves back into that cage where it's safe and comfortable for us.