God's Wisdom and His Church - Brandon Scalf

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Ephesians 3:9-13 MAIN POINTS:

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When you think of the church, what do you think it is for?
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In other words, when you think about the church, what do you think its purpose is?
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Well, there are a lot of people who argue a lot of different things in books and in churches abroad.
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You might answer the question, well, the church is for the gathering of the saints, that we might be encouraged for one another.
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You might say it's so that we could gather in fellowship groups and live life on life with another.
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Some of you might say it's a place where we go to get counseling in time of need and affliction.
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Others might say, well, it's a place where we gather together to join an army where we go out and push the darkness back into its rightful place, away from this earth and away from our
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God. Well, maybe it's to join soup kitchens and to help the homeless and to be a shoulder to cry on for those who are in need.
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I could keep going because the lists of why we think the church exists is legion.
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But what if I told you, according to this passage, that the church itself has a purpose that is far greater than any of those things that I just mentioned combined.
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In other words, the church is not just something here on earth and given a purpose to do its work on the earth, but the church is cosmic in nature.
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That its ripples and its effects and its purpose radiate not only throughout the whole world, but throughout the heavenly places.
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What Paul is going to help us understand as we look at this passage is that the church is bigger than you think it is.
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It's more important than you think it is, and it is more cosmic than you think it is.
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And the revealing of this church and the way that it is in quote -unquote
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New Testament times has always been the plan to be revealed, and so it is now.
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So if you would please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient word.
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I'll begin reading in verse one, so that way we can get caught up in the flow of the
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Apostle Paul's argument, as it were. This is the word of God. For this reason,
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I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, if indeed you heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief, about which, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit, that the
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Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promises in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which
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I was made a minister, according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power.
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To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to proclaim to the
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Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light for all what is the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
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This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus, our
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Lord, in whom we have boldness and competent access through faith in him.
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Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my afflictions on your behalf, which are your glory.
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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever, amen. Amen, please have a seat.
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We find ourselves currently in the ending stages of what we have called a parenthetical passage of scripture.
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That is, Paul begins in verse one of chapter three by saying, for this reason
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I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, was on behalf of you Gentiles, and he's meaning to continue on in a prayer, which is why in verse 14 of chapter three, he returns back to this, for this reason,
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I bow my knees before the Father. This is indicated by a dash in many translations after the word
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Gentiles before verse two begins. Paul, in other words, has paused what he was going to say to say something that he thinks we need to understand before moving on to what he really is going to say.
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And what he means to say in this parenthetical passage is that grace is more amazing than you think it is.
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Amazing grace truly is amazing. I know I've already talked about it. Let me talk about it again.
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In many ways, he's recapping the beauties and glories of the things that he's already discussed. And he helps us to understand that the church itself, that is the universal church made up of the
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Jews and the Gentiles underneath the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ is a mystery that has been hidden in God.
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But it has now been revealed by special revelation through the apostle Paul and the other apostles, and it should cause us all to worship
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God. Because as we have seen, God had to do a lot to make that happen.
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He had to first make Christians because Christians do not make themselves.
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He had to regenerate them because they did not, we did not respond to spiritual stimuli.
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He had to give us a new heart that loved him, cherished him, wanted him. And then it was only after creating
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Christians by the triune work of the triune God that he could then begin to assemble, as it were, a new thing, a church that is made up of the
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Old Testament people in Israel, the Jews and the Gentiles, those who were quote, unquote, far from Christ.
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And he didn't just make, as we have said, Gentiles, Jews, nor has he made
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Jews, Gentiles. He's created the church. And the church has been mentioned in chapter one.
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And in concept, it's been mentioned a lot in chapter two and even chapter three.
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But as we look at our passage today, it's going to deepen.
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And Paul is honestly gonna say some alarming things to us. And what
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I mean by that is it might bump up against some of our reformedness because he's gonna talk about the spiritual realm.
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And sometimes that makes us very uneasy. I know when I sat down to study it, I was thinking to myself, oh, this is going to be a doozy.
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And I was not wrong. There is some beautiful truth here that we need to ascertain.
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We need to know so that we can love and appreciate the church all the more, not just the universal church, but also the local expression of it.
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And so as we look at our passage, the first thing that I want you to note is the exposing of God's mystery.
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In many ways, this sermon is a continuation of last week's sermon. We learned that Paul considered himself to be the least of all the saints.
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And the reason for that is because not only was he a prisoner of Christ at Rome, but that he was also a minister of God's gospel.
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And if you remember him being a minister meant that he was a servant, a slave, a waiter of God's people, enslaved to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And he says in verse eight, to me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to do what? To proclaim, to preach, to herald to the
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Gentiles, the good news or the gospel of the unfathomable riches of Christ.
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And now in our text in verse nine, he gives a second thing that he has given the grace to do, which really is not divorced from preaching and proclaiming
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Christ and his unfathomable riches, but it is an addition, an appendix, if you will.
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He says in verse eight, to me, or not only am
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I here to preach to the Gentiles, but I am here also to bring to light for all what is the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God.
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The reality is good preaching is not just saying pithy things or not just being charismatic up on a stage.
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It's not just saying truth and hoping that everybody walks away with it. It's to expose and unfold that truth which you proclaim.
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And so Paul is not only given the task to preach, but he's given the task to help people understand a mystery that has been, as we have already talked about, hidden in God, wasn't unknown to God.
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It was hidden in him and saved for the fullness of times. That is the coming of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that he was given to bring to light, that is to make known, to expose, to show the relevancy and beauty of, what?
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That very mystery that has been hidden in God who created all things.
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And of course, we know that the mystery that has been spoken about is the mystery of Christ, which has been summed up for us, particularly in verse six of chapter three, which says, the
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Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
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So God has made a church made up of Jew and Gentile, and they are all saved by virtue of the blood of Jesus' cross.
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That is the only way to the church. It is the only way to participate in the life of the church.
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It's how the church essentially began. And it was this truth that was given to Paul to preach by God.
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Now, every preacher is to preach in such a way that he unfolds or exposes the truth of that truth that he is proclaiming, but only
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Paul got this truth. And so what we need to understand is that though we can liken his ministerial work to the work of ministers today, the reality is this particular truth was given to him directly by God, and he is speaking and preaching special revelation.
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Now, of course, this stands opposed to natural revelation, which states that we can know
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God by virtue of what's outside, right? Romans chapter one tells us that we know that there is a
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God. There's no such thing as a person who doesn't know that there is a
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God. There are only people who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And we look at Psalm 19 and other places like that, and it talks about how the glory of God is made known to the world through that which is made, the beauty of nature, the human body, if you think about all of its intricacies, all of these sorts of things point to a creator that is glorious and beautiful, that's observable, it's natural, but this is special and spiritual and divine, and it's given to God, or it's given to Paul from God himself.
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And so he is, as we have said, an apostle, which is the foundation of the church itself.
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But I want you to notice something here as we look at verse eight again, or verse nine again, rather.
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It says that he needs to bring to light or expose this mystery for all what is the administration of the mystery.
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Paul's job was not to just tell a few elect people this truth, but every single person that he could possibly tell for all.
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It doesn't say for some. It doesn't say just for the Gentiles. It says for absolutely all.
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Now, of course, we know that Paul did feel an obligation to the
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Gentiles. In Romans 1 .14, Paul says, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.
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He certainly felt bound to be a spokesperson to the
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Gentiles. He had a specific calling, as in fact, he called himself the apostle to the
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Gentiles, but his aim was like buckshot. He had an aim, but he wanted it to go absolutely everywhere, and that should be our heart posture as well.
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It is all, and though we are Calvinists here, we believe that God chooses whom he saves because he's allowed to do that.
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He's God. It makes no sense at all that we would not have the same heart posture that the apostle
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Paul has, which is to proclaim the unfathomable riches to everyone who has ears on their head.
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Why? Because Christ is that good, first and foremostly, but secondarily, we don't know who
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God's elect are. Charles Spurgeon famously would say he would preach to the elect only.
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It would save him time and capacity if he could lift up the back of their shirts and see their elect status on their back, but alas, he did not, and so he preaches to all men everywhere that they might repent and believe the gospel, and this was the heart posture of the apostle
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Paul, but not only that, he had a superb theological understanding of what happened in preaching and the exposing of said mystery, namely that when you preach the gospel, when anybody proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ, it always works.
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It never fails. It will always do what it was meant to do, and it would not return void.
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This is the truth of Scripture. There is always something happening in preaching.
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Of course, he knew that some people would not accept his words, but that did not slow him down. He understood that sometimes when he preached, people would fall on their knees and understand the gospel and give their lives to Christ, and he also understood that other people would see it as a disgusting, vile, silly, foolish thing, but the theology that underpinned his movement was one that understood that both of those things were actually doing something.
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2 Corinthians 2, chapter 2, verse 15 through 17. Let me say that again in case you're taking notes because I really butchered that.
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2 Corinthians 2, 15 through 17, Paul says, for we, speaking of Christians who have the
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Christian message, are fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved.
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In other words, our message smells good to those who God is wooing and winning, and among those who are perishing, to one an aroma from death to death, to the other as an aroma from life to life, and who is sufficient for these things?
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Who is sufficient for these things? No one. But Paul says, for we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but ask from sincerity, but ask for God in the sight of God, we speak
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Christ. So Paul understood that when he preached to all, it always worked because the word was designed to work.
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The word always works. Here's what this means for you very practically, friends. Every Sunday that you are here to sit under the preached word, no matter if it's me or Pastor Corey, someone who is visiting, or whatever the case may be, every sermon is doing something, always.
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Even if you feel like it's the same truth you've heard 100 times, which is going to happen.
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The apostles understood. This is why they often said, we say this to you by way of reminder.
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As I said just a few weeks ago, the Bible is not hard to understand, generally speaking. It's just hard to swallow.
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We need reminded. We need encouraged. We need implored. And so we preach.
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And so we sit under preaching. But here's the reality. It's not always working for your good.
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If you don't know Christ, then the message might be condemnation.
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So in other words, the sermon that you sit under might either be saving you, sanctifying you, or condemning you.
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But it doesn't do nothing. So if you grow cold hearing preaching, the problem is not the preaching, generally.
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The problem is you. The problem is your heart posture. The problem is how you see
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Christ. Or it's equipping you, or it's teaching you, or encouraging you.
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There's a lot of things that 2 Timothy 3, 16 tells us that the Word is good for. It's not always good for the same thing.
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Some days you'll learn new things. Some days you'll learn old things. Some days you'll be encouraged. Some day you'll be pricked in your conscience.
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Some day you will be saved for the first time. Other times you will just grow in maturity. There's so many things that the preached
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Word is designed to do, but it never does nothing. And this is why the
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Puritans always said, it's the same ice that melts, or it's the same sun that melts the ice that hardens the clay.
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The same preaching is an aroma of life to some, an aroma of death to others.
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But we preach to all, and all will hear it. Children, would you look at me for just a second?
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I know sometimes it's hard to tell our friends about Jesus Christ and his gospel. Sometimes we feel intimidated, like either when we're nervous because we might get it wrong, or we think that they're not gonna listen to us, or it won't work.
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But the truth of the Bible is that every time we proclaim Christ, Christ is there to help us give that message.
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And if you remember in the book of Ruth, Naomi had the worst evangelism, and yet Ruth was still saved.
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But more than that, even if it doesn't work, or they don't listen or don't believe it, that doesn't mean that what you did failed.
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What you did worked. It'll always work. The question is just how.
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What is God doing? God might have used that to plant a seed. He might use that to save them, or he might use that to condemn them.
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All of those things are how God uses his word.
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The second thing that I want you to note as we look at our text is the displaying of God's wisdom.
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The displaying of God's wisdom. At the beginning of verse 10, we have a purpose clause.
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It says, so that. So that, right?
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Paul has been given this grace to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light the mystery that has been hidden for ages in God.
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So that, here's the reason for it. In other words, that the manifold wisdom of God might now be known through the church.
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So Paul here is helping us to see the grand purpose for which the mystery has now been revealed.
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In other words, Paul is showing us here how the word works. Now, up to this point,
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Paul has been telling you that he proclaims the word, that the word contains this content, and now he's going to show us, this is what the word looks like as it permeates the church.
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This is the supernatural effects of God's word going forth through the world.
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Well, it's so that the manifold of wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities and the heavenly places.
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But let's pause here and think about this. The wisdom of God is the thing that's sitting on the pedestal.
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In other words, it's the thing to which this entire part of scripture is pointing to.
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It's the climax. And of course, we have to have kind of an intellectual slash heart shift, as it were, to understand why making the wisdom of God known through the church to the rest of the world and the cosmos and the heavens is better than all of those things that I just listened, listed at the beginning of the sermon.
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Well, the reason for that is because God is so satisfying in who he is.
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And he's so amazing. And for us to know God, especially in his wisdom, helps us to spread that wisdom.
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And people can come to know and love the Lord Jesus all the more. God is greater than we.
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Amen? And we must see him as such, and we must do ministry in such a way that it makes much of him and his wisdom.
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God is wise. But he's not just wise. It says here that he is manifoldly wise.
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This word manifold is a word that's not too often used in the
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New Testament. But it's an important word, and it's not usually used in this context either.
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But a way we can understand this is, what manifold means is, it's like a beautifully embroidered tapestry.
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It means varied colors. That's kind of where the Greek root find itself.
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And the Septuagint, this word is used to talk about Joseph's coat of many colors. And so God is not just wise.
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He doesn't just possess wisdom. He is manifoldly wise.
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He is so wise that it's like a tapestry that weaves across one another with various different colors and dimensions and shapes and shadows and so on and so forth.
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It's a bottomless pit. His wisdom is so wise that it needs such a description.
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The scripture is replete with God's wisdom. Romans 16, verse 27 says that he is the only wise
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God, through Jesus Christ, be glory forever, amen. He's the only wise
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God, and he's the only God. Romans 11, 33 through 36 is a meditation on God's wisdom and greatness.
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And Paul says, oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways for who has known the mind of the
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Lord or who became his counselor, or who has first given to him that it might be repaid to him for from him and through him are all things.
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To him be glory forever, amen. Can you praise God for his wisdom? Then I'm not sure that you understand how big of a deal it is.
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So not only is God the only wise God and the only God, not only are his judgments unfathomable and his ways unsearchable, he is wisdom itself.
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Now this is hard for us to wrap our minds around, right? Because we are creatures and creatures gain wisdom by growing and learning, by interacting with the world, by reading books, by being in fellowship groups, by being a part of Shepherd's Institute.
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We grow and we learn and we understand what is going on in the Bible, where we learn things maybe from our parents.
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And we learn new information that we did not possess before and we grow in wisdom.
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We didn't have it, but we can get it. And we get it primarily by asking
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God. That's why it says in James, that's why James, the brother of Jesus says in his epistle in chapter one, verse five, if any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask
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God because he gives to all generously and without reproach. God likes to give his people wisdom, but he is wisdom.
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And this points back to the Trinity Sermon series that you might've been a part of over the last couple months.
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That God is not made up of parts. He's not 50 % this and 50 % that. He is all wise all the time, just like he is all love all the time.
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And it's who he is. It's ontological in nature. It's part of his being. The reason that wisdom exists at all is because it's in God.
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So God possesses wisdom because he is wisdom itself. You see here, this is great.
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This is phenomenal. In fact, it's kind of bumping up against the story of the
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Bible. What do I mean by that? Why are we in the predicament we are in? In other words, why are we, according to Ephesians chapter two, dead in our transgressions and sins apart from God?
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Why are we lovers of the world and those who desire to gratify the flesh?
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Why are we, apart from God's help, alienated from him and begging for his wrath?
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Because in the garden, our first parents, Adam and Eve, thought that they were wiser than God.
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Why are Satan and his demons alienated from God?
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Because they were once angels who thought they were wiser than God. And God is saying the purpose of the gospel, yes, amen, to save a people for himself, to bring
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Jews and Gentiles together. But most assuredly and most importantly, it is to glorify my great name and to show off my wisdom to the watching world and to the unseen realm.
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And how is he gonna do it? He's not gonna directly tell them. He could have already done that.
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But in his providence and in his wisdom and in his graciousness, he decides to do it through what?
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Heritage, Ecclesia who sent us other churches underneath the umbrella of the universal church.
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It's wonderful. You see this so that the varied nature of God's wisdom, the manifold wisdom of God might now be known through the church, through the church.
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This word church here is used more than 114 times in the New Testament. It is used two times in the gospels and it is used over 23 times in the book of Acts.
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And staggeringly, it is used 46 times by the apostle Paul. It's always laughable to me when certain theologians or people try to act as if Paul did not care about the local church.
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He spoke about it more than everyone. He loved the church. He labored for the church. He's a minister of the gospel for the sake of the church as we all should seek to be.
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It comes from the Greek word Ecclesia which literally means the called out ones. But as we have looked at the church forming from an eternity past in the
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Godhead as they had planned the covenant of redemption to the individual centers, to the bringing together of people groups, the church could be defined this way.
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The body of the Lord Jesus Christ that has been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of the triune
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Godhead, right? Because in chapter one of Ephesians, we saw the
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Trinity in action, planning and accomplishing salvation. And after each member of the
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Trinity, do you remember what Paul burst it out with? To the praise of his glory or to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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The church is here to bring about the unfolding of God's wisdom.
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So that makes the church a very big deal. What is its purpose then? To make much of God.
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To make much primarily of his wisdom and to show it to everyone who sees themselves as wise but we will get into that more in a moment.
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I want you to see here and this is the part of the passage that really kind of makes you pause.
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Verse 10 at the end here. So he's saying that he has been given this mystery so that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities and you think it should stop there, right?
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So that we can go tell the world and the kings and the politicians and the rest of the world so that they would know how wise
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God is because if they knew how wise God is, they would govern better, they would do things better and the world would be a better place but he does not say that.
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To the chagrin of every single Christian nationalist in the world, it's absent.
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But what does it say? In the heavenly places.
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In the heavenly places. And if you remember, we talked about the heavenly places or in the
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Greek, the heavenlies which is why you use a legacy standard Bible or a new American standard Bible. This word is in italics, it's supplied.
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The word places is supplied to help us understand what's being said but the word is heavenlies and where did we encounter this word before?
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Ephesians chapter one, verse three when it said, blessed are or blessed be the God and father of the
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Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places or in the heavenlies.
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So the church with his boots on the ground has been made the church so that the manifold wisdom of God would be put on display and that it would be seen in the rafters, so to speak of the heavenlies.
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And what this helps us to understand is that the mission of the church is not local only nor is it global but it's cosmic.
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It's cosmic significance is unparalleled. You see, everything that we do in this world will burn.
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I've heard one preacher say, everything you own, all that is is stuff to fill up future garage sales.
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Now, does that mean that Christ is not gonna work beautifully and wonderfully as history presses on? Yes, but they won't remember our name and they'll sell our stuff.
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But when we understand that what we're doing here at Heritage in participation with the universal church is bigger than what happens here right now, it changes the way that we do church.
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It changes how many times we hit the snooze button. It changes the way that we show up to things.
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It changes how we order our priorities. And so let's dig in a little bit.
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We may be afraid to talk about the spiritual realm but Paul's not, the
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Bible is not. For instance, in Isaiah six, there's a type of angel although I was talking to Pastor Corey about this just yesterday and it's interesting that a seraphim is often lumped in with the group of angels considering it's never called an angel.
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But let's say for argument's sake, that it's a type of angel happens in Isaiah six. They're in the presence of God.
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Daniel chapter 10, it shows us that angels are often at war with sinful angels, demons.
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Luke two and Hebrews one both make the apologetic that angels praise Christ. First Peter 112 shows us that angels have a special interest in God's dealings with man.
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And first Corinthians chapter 11, a controversial passage about women's head coverings. We don't have time to get into that but there's an interesting phrase in there that says that they are to have a covering on their head for the sake of the angels or for the angels.
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What in the world does that mean? Maybe someday we'll preach through first Corinthians and we'll figure it out.
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But right now, this is what you need to know. Angels are very present, very real. And they are not a figment of charismatic imagination though they disfigure, deform and mess it all up.
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But that's another talk for another time. Hebrews 114 shows us that angels are said to be ministering spirits to those who believe.
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Luke 15 tells us that angels rejoice in the salvation of sinners.
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And in Revelation 7, there is this beautiful picture of angels joining together with us in eternal praise for our great savior,
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Jesus Christ the righteous. So though angels don't make the top 10 things to talk about in the reformed camp, they are real.
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And here we see that specifically. Now, let's think about this in context.
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Just a little bit later in Ephesians chapter six, we're gonna be talking about spiritual warfare. And in verse 12, it says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the authorities and against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies or in the heavenly places.
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So there are angels and then there are demons or fallen angels, ones who are bad.
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So you have good and bad, both existing in the heavenly places. And if that doesn't make sense to you, then think about Job, right?
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Think about Job. Job, Satan comes to God and says, Job will fall away from you if I mess his life up.
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If you remove your hand of protection, he'll walk away. And he was in this court. So somehow in the heavenlies, there is both good and bad and they are at war with one another.
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If you look at Colossians even, for example, in 2 .15, it says that the cross disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public display of them, having triumphed over them in him, speaking of these very realities.
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So it's not speaking about the rulers and authorities in the earthly places.
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It's speaking about the heavenlies. So in another way that preaching always works is because even if no person were to hear you tell someone about Jesus, or if every person in this room, sitting in a pew, put some
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Apple earbuds in, heaven is listening. Heaven is listening.
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Heaven is listening. Right, 1 Peter 1 .12 shows us that the working of God in salvation is something that angels long to look at.
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One, because they don't get to experience salvation. They weren't made to be saved, but also because it's mesmerizing.
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This is why John Calvin called the history of redemption the theater of God. So think about it this way.
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When Jesus is proclaimed and God's wisdom in Christ is made known through the church to the heavenly places, it's as if God's universe is his classroom and that he is the teacher.
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The angels are the students and the church is the illustration. And the subject matter is the manifold wisdom of God.
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Or we could say it another way. In the theater of God, borrowing John Calvin's language,
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God is the writer and director. The angels are the audience. The church is the cast and the plot is the manifold wisdom of God.
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And so when the church acts like the church and does what the church is supposed to do, which we're gonna get into in Ephesians chapter four, as the well deepens,
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God's wisdom is put on display because it centers around who?
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Christ. Which brings you to the third thing that I want you to know. The glorifying of God's Christ.
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So we've seen already the exposing of God's mystery, the displaying of God's wisdom.
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Now, let's look at the glorifying of God's Christ. Look with me at verse 11.
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We have the word this. Let's ask what this is for. This, of course, is speaking of what just came before.
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This plan that God had hidden, that is to bring about the church, was made so that the manifold wisdom of God, his great deepness of wisdom would be put on display.
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And this was done, this thing, it was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he had carried out in who?
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Christ Jesus, our Lord. And make no mistake about it, there is a reason that he put Christ Jesus, our
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Lord, why he used these three descriptors. But what this is showing us is that Christ is
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God's plan and his church that had been hidden for ages is wrapped up in Christ.
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It's his church. He died for them. So this is not plan
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B, this is plan A. This has been planned from the beginning and it's in accordance with or in alignment with or wrapped up in God's eternal purpose which has been carried out in Christ Jesus.
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He did it, he made the church, he loves the church, he's the head of the church. Christ is the pinnacle of this entire letter.
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If you remember in Ephesians chapter one, verses three through 14, 11 verses,
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Christ's name is used 11 times. That averages out to about one per verse.
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Christ is a big deal. And God in his wisdom made sure that Christ, that the second member of the
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Trinity would put on flesh, come to the earth to live the life that we should have lived, to die the death that we deserve to die and to absorb the wrath of God on our behalf.
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It's all about Jesus Christ, our Lord. First Corinthians 8, six, Paul says, yet for us there is one
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God, the Father from whom are all things and we exist for him and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through him.
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Christ, everyone, Christ. Colossians 1, 16, for in him, that is all things were created both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.
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And so Christ can never be divorced from the church.
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It's his church. And the union is so profound that he's gonna liken it to marriage in Ephesians chapter five.
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There's a spiritual union. This is why the church is called the bride of Christ.
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And he bought her with his blood. Is that not the point of Ephesians chapter two, verse 15 and 16?
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That by abolishing in his flesh the enmity the law of commandments contained in ordinances, he himself might create the two in one new man, making peace and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross.
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It's the cross that binds the church together, friends. And it's the church that makes the mission, or it's the cross that makes the mission worthwhile.
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And that is a foolish message. But this word does the work.
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This is why in first Corinthians chapter one, verse 18, Paul says, for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
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First Corinthians two, 14 and 16, the natural man does not accept the depths of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.
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And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual examines all things.
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Yet he himself is examined by no one or who has known the mind of the
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Lord that he will direct him. But we have the mind of Christ. Christ crucified is our message.
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And it is through that message that the church is formed and the wisdom of God is put on display to every one on earth, of course, that hears the gospel.
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Though they might not love it, they can see it if they're being saved.
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They're not, of course, it sounds like foolishness, even to those in heaven, or it sounds like life.
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But the Bible calls this the wisdom of God. First Corinthians 1, 25 says, the foolishness of God in the preaching of foolish things,
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Christ being crucified, right? It's not really foolish, but that's the way that people ascertain it, is wiser than men and weakness of God is stronger than men.
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So though it sounds like a weak message, a foolish message, it's actually putting on display the wisdom of God.
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It pleased God to save people through the foolishness of preaching.
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And in the foolishness of preaching, the message that God gave Paul, God's wisdom is put on display.
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Doesn't it sound weird that if you stand up and that you proclaim Christ as beautiful, as excellent, as amazing, as the only hope for humanity, as the only hope for your soul, as the only balm for your wounds, on the surface, without spiritual ears, it sounds crazy.
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To those who are hungry for God, for those who are hungry to be healed, it is God's wisdom on beautiful array.
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Not only that, but Christ is the wisdom of God. First Corinthians 1, 24,
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Paul says, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom.
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It's amazing reality. So all of this, this church being made, was in accordance with the eternal purpose, essentially completed by and wrapped around the work of Christ Jesus, our
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Lord. Christ Jesus, our Lord, Christ, of course, meaning the coming
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Messiah, Christos, Jesus's name, meaning that he would save his people from their sins and the
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Lord. Those are the aspects of Jesus that you have to nail down before you can call yourself a
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Christian. He is the promised hope, he is the savior of the world, and he's Lord of all.
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He's not just some guy who has some cool sayings. He's the guy you must listen to, who's also
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God. He gets to dictate every thought that you have, everything that you do, everything that you are, and you must kneel, or he will make you kneel on the last day.
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The promise of scripture, friends, is that we'll either knee in humble submission to this Lord here and now, or he will shove us to the dirt, and we will recognize his lordship there.
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And so, Paul is trying to make it clear, and we will dig deeper into it next week, that if you want
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Jesus Christ as savior, if you want Jesus Christ as the head of the church, then you don't get to reject him as Lord.
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Don't get to reject him as Lord. The next thing that I want you to see is the beauty of God's gospel.
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The beauty of God's gospel. Children, would you look at me here for just a second?
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Did you know that the gospel is not just something to know, but it's something to love?
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Like it's information, you have to remember things, right? We do catechisms, and you memorize truths about the gospel, but it's something that when we actually come to understand it fully in our heart, we love.
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Our minds are blown by it. And so, what you're working toward is not just knowing more information, but being transformed by those truths as the
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Holy Spirit inflames your heart. And as we look at this next part of this passage,
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Paul's wanting that to happen for all of us, because he's gonna say some stuff that we've already talked about a lot.
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And why is he doing that? That we might love it. It's beautiful in other words, right?
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It's not a math problem, right? There's nothing beautiful about math, just numbers on a page.
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Now, for the guys who love numbers out there, they're like, what in the world? You know, when I see math, I see colors.
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Okay, we're not talking about you, okay? We're talking about normal people. But language is beautiful.
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God is beautiful. His gospel is beautiful. It's something to admire, to love.
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And that's what's happening, right? In verse 11 it says, or verse 12 it says, in whom, speaking of course of Jesus, we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.
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It's this Jesus that the church is wrapped up in, making much of the manifold wisdom of God who gives us boldness and confident access to who?
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The Father, who we once stood alienated from, but as Ephesians chapter two verse says, but God stepped in and He gave us
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Christ who was pierced for our transgressions and our iniquities and makes it so that we can come boldly and come confident.
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Now, don't mistake this with irreverently. Jesus is not your homeboy, right?
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God is not your best friend. You don't bow your head and say, you know, what's up, dude?
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No, Jesus told us to pray a much different way. Hallowed be thy name, right? Like very reverent. But the idea here is that you can come to God freely without fear that He would crush you, though you deserve it.
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And you can come to Him as Father and ask for that wisdom that He is and possesses and gives freely and generously.
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He will hear your prayers and He will walk with you. He will help your proclamation of the gospel.
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He will help this church because of Jesus. It's as if we have access directly to His throne.
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And that is a beautiful reality. It is a beautiful reality.
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And that is what He wants us to understand. And we have that, it says here, by virtue of the fact that we have faith in this
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Christ who achieved these things. And when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we can freely come to God, as I said, and share in all of heaven's unfathomable riches.
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Because they've been given to us according to Ephesians chapter one, verse three. And this is huge.
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This is huge, this is bigger than you think it is because if you remember in Judaism, only the high priest could enter the presence of God in the
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Holy of Holies, in the center of that temple. And he could only do that briefly, once a year on the day of atonement.
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And if anybody else went in there outside of Him on that day, they would be killed. But friends, you have free access to your
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Father. Hebrews chapter four, 15 and 16 makes this even clearer when it says, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin.
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Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
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Do you need help, churchman, churchwoman? Run to the throne of grace.
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There you will find your balm. There you will find your Savior. There you will find your
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Father. So faith in Christ alone, rooted in the grace of God alone, enables us to draw near to God in full assurance of faith.
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This is why Hebrews chapter 10, verse 22 says, let us draw near, what, to the throne, of course, with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
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And you can do that because of Christ. And it's your faith in Him and His work that enables that to happen.
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Now, of course, if you remember, I told you once very provocatively that faith does not save anyone.
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Faith in Christ does not even save anyone. Christ saves sinners, and He uses faith as the instrument to bind
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Himself to His people. So faith binds you to Christ, and having been hidden, the biblical language, in Christ, you can come to God the
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Father as a child of the triune God. Is that not amazing? Is that not amazing?
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That is beautiful. That is beautiful. And the last thing that I want you to see, and it wraps up this parenthetical passage, is the affliction of God's minister.
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Paul began by saying he was a prisoner of Christ, Jesus, and of course, we unpacked that, and we found out that he was actually a prisoner in Rome, but he did not see it that way because every appointment, if you are a
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Christian, is a divine appointment. He wasn't there by accident. As we will see here in this last verse, it actually was for a purpose, and that purpose was to make much of the wisdom of God, and it's great.
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So he's a prisoner, and he's been in some trouble. Look with me at verse 13.
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He says, therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my afflictions on your behalf, which are your glory.
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Let's cut this in half, and let's think about this. It's obvious here that Paul was so enmeshed in the lives of his people.
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He so loved them, and they so loved him, that they obviously had concern for him. He had been in prison likely for years at this point.
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They'd been writing them letters. People had been bringing them stuff to him. He's about to meet death, right? He's about to be martyred for the sake of Christ, and they were likely very nervous about that prospect and also very concerned for his well -being, and this word here that is rendered,
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I ask you not to lose heart is do not grow weary. Do not be saddened by this reality.
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I mean, how many of us can say, I mean, we've already seen Paul as just like an ironclad warrior of the faith, although he would disagree with me saying that if he were here.
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He would say, no, I'm the worst of all the saints. I've already said that in my scriptures. Quit talking about me like that. That's what makes Paul so awesome.
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He was humble, but not only was he humble, he was not worried about himself at all, and when they were worried about him in such a way that we would all be worried about anybody that we loved, especially our pastor, if he was arrested, which y 'all hear the way
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I preach. That's coming, right? It's happened in Canada to friends of mine.
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He asks them, though you know I'm looking death in the face, though you know
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I've been imprisoned and though I've been beaten, don't worry about that. Now let's catalog, let's catalog his afflictions, right?
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He says, don't lose heart over what? My afflictions, and what are his afflictions? In 2 Corinthians 11 verses 23 to 28, he tells us, and he says, are they ministers of Christ?
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I speak as if insane. Now, in order to understand this passage, you gotta go back a little bit. He's trying to defend himself, and he's trying to say, if these guys are so much better, let me indulge you for a second, because Paul's humble, and he doesn't want to talk about himself.
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In fact, he almost never talks about himself unless he's being self -deprecating, but he was trying to justify his apostleship to the
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Corinthians, because they had horrible things to accuse him of, and so he begins to talk about himself almost in a way that's like showing them he's better than them, but on its head, right?
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Because he's like, yeah, they can preach really good. They're really awesome. Have they been beat up for Christ? Let me talk to you like I'm insane for a second.
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Let me talk to you like I'm one of them, but let me show you what it actually looks like to be a real minister of the gospel.
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Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as if insane. I'm more so in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, in beatings without number, in frequent danger of death.
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Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods.
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Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked, and at night, in a day I have spent in the deep,
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I have been on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the
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Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the desolate place, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers.
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I have been in labor and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in starvation and thirst, often hungry and cold and without enough clothing.
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Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all of the churches.
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He says, they've got numbers, they've got followers, they've got silver tongues, I've got scars.
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I've got scars. And Paul would rather go to heaven with scars than a crown on his head given to him by people who make much of him here on the earth.
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He's got a coliseum of people watching in the heavenly places, and he's got a God. There's a
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God who desires to please. And who needs the applause of men when you have the approval of God?
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And of course, if his afflictions were in his mind, then he might say something like, well, don't worry, it's producing glory in me, right?
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Because that's what we say, right? We say we're suffering. And so the reality is, you know, that's working good in me.
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All things work for those who love God. Da -da -da -da -da -da -da. And we preach to ourselves the reality that of course
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God chiseled and molded us through afflictions and so on and so forth. That's not what he's saying. Because he ends by saying these afflictions are on your behalf and they're your glory.
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Don't worry about these scars. Don't worry about these chains.
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Why? Because it's your glory. It's your glory. If Paul had said that his tribulations were producing glory in him, we could in measure understand what he meant.
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God uses our tribulations, as I said, to conform us more to the likeness of our Savior. In our tribulations, we are cast back on the
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Lord and find in all our suffering, he promises grace. But Paul here speaks about the relationship of his suffering and their glory.
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He's not preaching Romans 5, 3 -5 to himself, talking about how it's going to make his character better or that he is going to persevere.
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And in perseverance, he will grow in perseverance. He's not saying, as 2
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Corinthians 4, 17 says, for our momentary light, affliction is working out for us eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.
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He's saying that, this is what he's saying. Look what these afflictions have done.
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Look what these scars have produced. You, you, you know
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Christ. You love Christ. You see Christ. You labor for Christ.
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And Christ has brought you from death to life and he has made you a church.
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And that church is one that though is here on earth, is cosmic in nature.
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And the work that it does echoes, not only throughout the heavenly places, but through all of eternity.
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Everything done in Christ Jesus will last. Why would you pity me?
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Look, look, what a heart posture.
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And that same heart posture is found in his Lord and our Lord, Jesus Christ.
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When the shadow of the cross began to penetrate his human soul, he said, now my soul is trouble and what shall
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I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this person, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.
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Jesus was about to be nailed to the cross for our sins, believers. And he says, what is it time for me to check out just because I'm about to get the nails?
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No, this is why I came. Paul says, this is why I do what I do. This is why I'm a minister. Don't weep over me.
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Thankful, it's your glory. It's greatness for you. And that should be the heart posture of every single minister because he understood, he understood that the church is bigger than people meeting together to fellowship.
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It's bigger than getting together and going to soup kitchens. He understood that it was bigger than pushing back darkness in the civil and cultural sphere.
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He understood that it was cosmic. And he understood that this mystery of Christ changes everything.
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Do you see the church and its purpose that way? Would we go through all of that affliction for that?
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And dear friends, I don't know that you understand what the church is. And friends, if you do not know
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Jesus Christ, if you have not been brought in to the fold as it were, you can do that now.
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You can repent of your sin. You can believe in him, trust in him, and all of your deadness will fall away.
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In a moment, Christ can be yours. And you can have access to the
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Father. And you and your life and your participation in the church can be the revealing of the manifold wisdom of God in Christ Jesus.