Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s Great Canvas

July 29, 2007

*Ephesians 3:8-10*

* *

I’ve brought a painting from home, one which Robyn sent to us for Christmas from Scotland a few years ago.

I want to use it as my message illustration.

If you come close to the painting and look at each brush stroke the “big picture” will allude you.

But from a distance, the “big picture” is seen.

So, please come up and see for yourselves – as you get closer and closer, you see the brush strokes and paint, but that’s all it looks – paint brushed on to a canvas.

But, the further back you move, the more an actual picture comes in to focus and you see the house and the landscape.

Today’s Scripture has already been read, but I am going to read verses 8 through 10 again.

Please turn there in your Bibles and follow along with me.

I am reading from the NASB this morning.

/“To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, \\ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.”

/

/ /

We are going to focus, this morning, on Ephesians 3:8-10.

And we are going to move backward through this text like we did with the painting I brought, passing from the widest view to the most narrow view, or from the biggest picture of things to the smallest, or from the greatest goal of missions backward through three successively smaller means to reach this great goal.

*Four Steps *

So we will move first from /the display of the wisdom of God /to His innumerable angelic armies mentioned in verse 10; to /the means that God uses to display this wisdom/, namely, the church (v.

10a); to the preaching of the of the unsearchable riches of Christ (v.

9); finally to /the means of this preaching/, namely, you and me, the least of the saints (v.

8).

I go backward in this order because I want to end with /you/.

God is not done with the work of missions.

He said go make disciples of all nations in Matthew 28:19.

And then he said, “I will be with you to the end of the age.”

The /promise/ is good till Jesus comes, because the /Great Commission/ is binding till Jesus comes.

Therefore you and I face the question, what is our role is in obeying the great commission to reach all the unreached peoples of the world with the gospel of the riches of Christ?

I’ve said it before, it’s the Great Commission, not the Great Suggestion.

That is where I will end this morning, Lord willing.

My aim is to awaken a sense of God’s leading in your life toward missions.

So let’s pray now that God would be at work to awaken and confirm and encourage your own sense of his leading in your life.

*A Picture of These Four Steps *

Now I want to create a picture for you of these four steps.

Remember we are going to move backward through our key Scripture passage from the display of God’s manifold wisdom (v.

10b), to the gathering of God’s global church (v.

10a), to the preaching of Christ’s unsearchable riches (v.

8b), to the service of God’s ordinary missionary (v.

8a).

The picture is this: Picture in your mind a great, wise painter, painting on a huge canvas with many brushes, most of them very ordinary and messy.

The painter is God, so you can’t picture him.

He’s invisible.

But he intends for his painting to be the visible display of his wisdom.

He knows people can’t see him, but he wants his wisdom to be seen and admired.

His canvas is huge.

It’s the size of the created universe.

I know you can’t really imagine looking at that canvas because you are in it and it is endless.

But do your best.

And God is painting with thousands and thousands of colors and shades and textures—a picture as big as the universe and as old as creation and as lasting as eternity—a picture we call /history –/ that is His Story!/,/ with the central drama being the preparation, salvation, and formation of the church of Jesus Christ.

And God is using thousands of different brushes, most of them very ordinary and very small because every minute detail is crucial in this painting.

These brushes are God’s missionaries.

They are us.

That’s the picture.

Now there’s a reason in the text that I am encouraging to have a picture like this in your mind.

It’s in the word “manifold” in verse 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.”

This Greek word for “manifold” occurs in the Bible only here.

It is very unusual.

Half of it (/poikilos/) is used to mean, “wrought in various colors,” diversified, intricate, complex, subtle.

It’s basic idea is of varied in color.

Then Paul puts a prefix on the word that means “many” (/polupoikilos/).

So the emphasis is very many colors and variations and intricacies and subtleties.

I want you to think of the display of God’s wisdom as a universe-sized painting with innumerable colors and shadings and texture.

It is unsearchably intricate.

*1.

The Display of God’s Manifold Wisdom (v.

10b)*

Now let’s go to our four backwards steps and start in verse 10 with the greatest goal of history and missions.

Verse 10 starts, “. . .

so that . .

.”

You can see from the words “so that” God’s purpose and aim.

It is like the word “therefore; you have to look at what it’s “there for”.

God’s purpose is so that  missions and the church go forward.

The riches of Christ are preached to the Gentiles, the nations, and the church is gathered from all the peoples “. . .

so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”

So this is God’s goal.

He created the world, and he redeemed a people through the death of his son (see Ephesians 2:12-19), and he sends missionaries and gathers his church by the preaching of the riches of Christ “so that that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known.

That’s the goal of all of history.

That is the goal of missions, the central drama of history: to make God known!

This universe is about the many-colored wisdom of God.

History exists to display the infinitely varied and complex and intricate wisdom of God.

Missions is the means that God uses to gather the church to hear and see His wisdom.

And that gathering from all the nations is the focus of this wisdom-displaying painting.

You see that in the words “through the church”: “/through the church/ the manifold wisdom of God might be made known.”

But stay with the display of God’s wisdom for a moment.

The next point has to do with the church.

Look who the audience is in verse 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/.”

This means that the painting, and the drama of history and redemption that it portrays, from creation to consummation, is meant to show angels—the good ones and the evil ones—the greatness of God’s wisdom.

Missions exists, and the ingathering of God’s elect exists, and the church exists so that angels would stand in awe of the wisdom of God.

God displays his wisdom in history so that the worship of heaven would be white hot with admiration and wonder.

The good angels marvel at the wisdom of God’s grace but from outside, so to speak as no good angel will ever sing Amazing Grace.

“How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

They are not wretches and have never been lost.”

But God wanted the angels to see the wisdom of his grace: the way he saves the church by justifying the ungodly (Romans 4:5) from all nations by faith alone on the basis of Christ alone.

And the angels love to stoop down and get as close as they can to the  painting of the wonders of redemption and how God prepared and saved and gathered his church (1 Peter 1:12).

And the demons (Ephesians 6:12)—the evil principalities and powers—must look at this painting and watch the wisdom by which they were defeated in the very moment they thought they had triumphed—in the death and resurrection of Christ, and in the blood of the martyrs.

They may think they have won, but Scripture refutes this.

Look at Revelation 2:10 in your bulletin insert: /“'Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.

Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

/Just when God paints a dark color of the death of his witness and the devils begin to gloat, God picks up another brush and with orange and yellow and red makes that dark death serve the beauty of his wisdom.

And the demons gnash their teeth.

The final glory of the painting entitled “Missions” is that every brush stroke will add to the infinitely intricate display of God’s wisdom to the armies of heaven.

So let’s step back now from the display of God’s manifold wisdom to through. . .