Ephesians 3, What’s the Reason?

The Reading of Ephesians 3 and the Apostle’s Mystery of Christ

Ephesians chapter 3, hear the word of the Lord. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.

When you read this, you can proceed my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power.

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

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

For this reason, I bow my knee before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, one of the results of the pandemic on me personally is becoming a cyclist. That day, a little over a year ago now, I read a sign on the door to the YMCA that they were closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus.

I realized I didn't ever want to be in the position, again, where I could be locked out of my primary form of exercise. Swimming was already plan B for me, so since I couldn't run anymore, and now I found, at least for a while, I couldn't swim.

So I got on the bike. At first, I just used an old trail bike we already had and wore a helmet from my boy's taekwondo. My reason, after all, was exercise, and that was good enough. After a while, I bought a decent road bike, stimulus money, and a $10 cycling helmet.

Now, Robert had warned me that cycling can be costly, and he's right. I've seen others with bikes that cost like several thousands of dollars. It's carbon fiber, only weigh a few pounds, and then there's all the gear.

They get these shoes that will lock into the pedals. One guy is trying to talk me into getting that because it increases the speed, and special clothes. Now, I'm sometimes tempted to go for that stuff, but I remember what I'm doing it for, what I'm cycling for.

I'm not doing it to set cycling records, you know, to win the Tour de France. I just want some exercise, and so every time I'm tempted, you know, to upgrade or to buy some special pieces of equipment, I think, you know, do I really need this to exercise?

A basic bike, a styrofoam helmet, and regular clothes, as long as they don't get caught of the gears, is good enough. So, understanding what something is for answers all kinds of questions about you need, what exists for.

Understanding the reason for something answers the questions about why it, why it is, what to do with it. What's the reason for your exercise? Is it really to be an Olympic athlete? No, probably not. Then you can skimp on a lot of the gear.

What's the reason for a car? Is it to race? And some guys think, well, no, it's to get around. What's the reason for sexuality? Is it just for pleasure? What's the reason for ice cream? Is it to get me fat?

What about for your business? Is it to serve mammon or provide for your needs and enable you to be a giver? What's the reason for your life? Even though people have been barred for about a century, probably over a century now, with the idea that we're just evolved by chance and so that we're really nothing more than the species that got lucky, that we really are just material and so we can live by bread alone.

Even though we've been incessantly propagandized with that idea, it just doesn't satisfy. People want to believe that there's a reason for their life, that it's not just haphazard, just meaningless chance.

The problem, though, is that they usually want the reason to be all about.

Them.

The Mystery: Gentiles as Fellow Heirs in Christ

So we're stuck in this awful bind, like someone being tortured on the rack or being pulled in two different directions at once, between a yearning for noble reasons to fulfill the purpose we were made for, pulling us up, and earthly, selfish, sinful part of us, telling us, you know, our own pleasure, our own ego is enough of a reason.

Pulling us down. But what it means to be a Christian is that we found the reason. And here we see the Apostle Paul deal with that, talk about our reason for being. We see that in three parts. First the mystery, then the purpose, and then the power.

First in verses 1 to 6 is the mystery. Now Paul is continuing his thought from chapter 2. Believe this is the same line of thought. There's no, in his mind, there would be no chapter break here. Same topics in his dominating his thinking.

And in chapter 2 he had said that God had broken down the wall, a wall of hostility, remember that? But not only between sinful us and a holy God, but also between different groups of us, one against another, especially Jew versus Gentile, that that division, he said, has died in the death of Christ.

So that now in Christ, there's what he called in chapter 2, one new man, a new humanity, a new race. Not white or black or Asian, but the true Israel. The family of God. And then in chapter 3, he begins, for this reason, because of this one new race of God's people, I, Paul, a prisoner on behalf of you Gentiles, he's talking to Gentiles, people like us, what was the reason for Paul being a prisoner?

Now he's backing off. The way I read this, he begins with, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner on behalf of you Gentiles, and he's about to start something and then he thinks, wait, I need to make sure they understand why I'm a prisoner.

He's breaking off his train of thought to answer that question first before he continues it. And then really I think he continues what he was about to start in verse 1 and he continues that in verse 14.

But he backs up now, starting in verse 1. What's the reason for his imprisonment? You know, you Gentiles, think clearly about it. He explains, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship. Have you heard about it?

That is the responsibility that was entrusted to me. You've heard about my stewardship, right? You people, have you? Well, if not, I'll fill you in. It was given to him by grace, he says, for a reason, he says, for you.

That was the reason, it was for you. It wasn't just for his ego, so that he could have a grand lofty title, you know, an apostle with respect and authority and a ring that everyone was supposed to kiss.

He has a stewardship, a ministry entrusted to him. Of course, it ultimately belongs to God. That ministry was, in verse 3, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation. Revelation means it was revealed by God.

There was a hidden truth now revealed to Paul by God. It didn't come from any, you know, deductive reasoning or from other apostles. Was it something taught to him by others? Now, God may have also revealed it to the other apostles.

I think he did. But Paul's saying, I learned this directly from God myself. Came to me by revelation. The Lord opened a truth that was mysterious and gave that truth to him to spread as his responsibility to teach that to others.

The Lord opened a truth that was mysterious and gave that truth to him as his responsibility to tell others. And he says in verse 4 that they, that we, that's Gentiles, should be able to see that he has been given an insight.

I wish you should be able to read this. Hey, man, this guy's been given an insight. He's been given a revelation. That light that was given to him by God to enlighten us and we should learn it from him.

And this mystery he calls the mystery of Christ. Now, meaning it is from Christ. It's about what Jesus did. It's the reason for his perfect life, his death, his resurrection. Now, Christ means Messiah.

And so the mystery of Christ, you could say the mystery of the Messiah, means there was something about the Messiah promised in the Old Testament that wasn't fully revealed in the Old Testament or at least wasn't fully understood.

It was a mystery so far up to this point. What was that reason? Why did Jesus come? Was it to be the Jewish king like David? That's what the Jews thought. Was that plan A? He's got to lead Israel to be an independent nation again and rule and become the prominent nation on the earth.

That's plan A, right? That's what they're expecting. Since they rejected him though, God resorted to a standby plan, an alternative, a plan B. And that's to give this gospel to the Gentiles. Is that, is that what it was?

There are Christians today who say that he came first to be a Jewish Messiah King. And so then literal Israel then is the most important thing on earth. God is still mostly concerned for race and nationality.

And then all the law and the prophets and even the teachings of the Lord Jesus himself, like the Sermon on the Mount, well, they're for Israel. They're not really for us. Because Israel is plan A. We're plan B.

If that's the reason. But that's not the reason. The reason was a mystery up until this point. Anyway, the true reason Jesus came, he says in verse 5, was not made known to the sons of men in other generations.

In other words, up until this point. Sure, I think there were hints of it here and there, like in Genesis when Israel is called three times a company of nations. It's hinted at when Gentiles like Rahab, Ruth and Naaman believed that the Lord became part of the people of God.

It's hinted at in the prophets when we're told that the coming Messiah will be a light for the Gentiles, that the nations, that is the Gentiles, us, people like us, they said that the nations will flow to Mount Zion.

Well, that's going uphill. It's odd to flow uphill, isn't it? But they will flow, the Gentiles will flow uphill to the Lord. It's hinted at, but it's not clearly laid out. A mystery is a truth that was hidden and now is made known.

What was in the Old Testament concealed is in the New Testament revealed. Notice what has changed and what has not. Now, yes, something has changed. This mystery was not made known, at least not clearly in former generations in the past and what we now call the Old Testament.

Now, this mystery is made known, that God is making one new humanity out of all kinds of people by grace, through faith in Christ. Notice he doesn't say this is a new reality. It's an important distinction.

He says it's a new revelation. A mystery is a hidden truth, not a new truth. A mystery doesn't mean that God is doing something different, only that he is revealing something new about what he has always been doing.

What was he doing before? Well, before it was a mystery. Now it's made known. God has always been about being a blessing to the nations, about making a new humanity of his people from all kinds of different people.

He was doing that in the Old Testament. It just wasn't as obvious then. Now he's revealing that mystery. And in case we don't understand what the mystery is, he tells us plainly in verse six, the reason Jesus came was to gather all his people.

Now, three times in this verse, verse six, Paul uses in Greek, he uses the same prefix about us in our connection to the fateful believing Israel. OK, understand the fateful believing Israel, people like Moses and David and and, you know, the prophets.

And he says we're part of the same Commonwealth of Israel with them. And he says with them, we are that he uses the same prefix three times. You could translate it as joint or like joint heirs, joint members, joint sharers, or you could translate it as co-heirs, co-members, co-sharers.

We inherit the promises God made to his old to his people in the Old Testament. They're ours because we're co-members, we're co-sharers. They are fulfilled in Christ and they are for his people. The true Israel also called Christians, the church.

We are, he says, members of the same body as them, as Israel, the same as the believing Israelites. We are united with them. There's only one people of God. We are partakers in the ESV, meaning sharers, that co-sharers of the promise, that promise of blessing made all the way back to Abraham in Christ Jesus.

We we get the same promises he did, we are partners with him. That is through what he did for us in his perfect life and death, taking our punishment, his resurrection. And we get to we get these promises.

We become co-heirs, co-members, co-sharers. We get them through the gospel when God enlightens our hearts and when we believe it. The gospel is the means that is the conduit, the pipeline through which God delivers the promises to us.

And then he makes us co-heirs, co-members, co-sharers. What's the reason Jesus came then? So for us, for you and for me and for many others of all nations and complexions and nationalities, the reason is to make us one nation with all those believers from the Old Testament, from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, Micah, one body, one people, with one shared inheritance, eternal life, a new heaven, a new earth.

We share it all together. What's the reason? From verses 7 to 13, Paul gets right to the heart of that. Well, the purpose. He says, of this gospel, God called me. Okay, remember he's backing up. This is the reason.

Wait, you've heard about my stewardship, right? My ministry. I have this mystery and of this gospel. And of this gospel, the gospel through which God delivers his promises to his people, I was made a minister.

And the word there literally is servant. Minister makes it sound kind of lofty. It's just he's a servant. He serves the gospel by spreading it and he does that according to the gift of God's grace. By that grace, that grace was given.

How? How did he get that grace? By him making the right decision? Is that what happened? By the exercise of his free will? No, grace comes by the working, he says here. By that grace, by the working of his power.

We know the story. We know the story of what happened to Paul, right? On the outside of Paul. He was traveling to Damascus to persecute Christians. Jesus appears to him in a blazing light, knocking him off his horse.

Jesus asked him why he is persecuting me. And they call him and he and Jesus calls him to be an apostle. Those are those are the facts. But all of that would be insufficient if there were not a change of heart.

If the resurrection power of Jesus hadn't reached into his heart and made him new. You see, Jesus didn't just appear to him and give him a new fact to consider. Hey Paul, you considered this. I'm alive.

Look at me. He gave him a new heart to believe with. God's grace came through the working of that power. It does the same with everyone who believes.

God works by his power.

To give us a new heart. So now we can believe. It's like a newborn baby that can suddenly breathe by the working of his power. Paul now, decades later, was in prison and he's still amazed at this. To me, he says in verse 8, Though I am the very least of all the saints.

Oh, there's all the believers in the world. I'm the least.

Can you believe it to me?

God was gracious like this. And here literally Paul makes up a new, really not grammatically correct word in Greek, to emphasize how unworthy he feels. You could translate it as here in the ESV. I think I'm the very least but really it's something like I'm the leastest of all the saints.

The leastest.

Now least should be enough. You know, if he said I'm the least of all the saints, you can't get any lower than least. You're the least. You're the least. That's the lowest you can get. You're the least on the team.

You're the worst. You can't get any worse. But Paul feels so amazed at grace that he is unworthy of. He's not content to just say he's the least. He's got to say I'm the leastest. A wretch like me. That's why he's so amazed.

To me, can you believe it? To me, was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. He doesn't have a, he doesn't have the view of that preaching to these dirty Gentiles. You know, I understand where he's coming from.

He's a Jew. They're the, he, they're the chosen people. They have God's Word and these Gentiles are like dogs. But he doesn't have that view. He doesn't have the view that preaching to these, to me, was given to preach to these Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

He doesn't have the view, well, oh man, I got to preach to these dirty Gentiles with their, their pork chops. Can you believe they eat that stuff? Their idolatry, their sexual promiscuity.

That's lowly work.

Like garbage pickup. He wished he could have a more dignified, respectable ministry. You know, he could, if only I could be debating with the rabbis, you know, in the synagogues. Proving to these refined men with, you know, looking at the scrolls that Jesus was the Messiah.

It would be respectable. Up there with the scholars. That showing that the Old Testament was, was fulfilled by Jesus. And of course, if you're going to have such a ministry, you need to have the same kind of well-taken-care-of lifestyle, right?

You need a library and a book allowance. Some scribes, you know, staff. Nice robes. Lofty titles. A chariot to go in. An entourage. No, he doesn't, he doesn't think the gospel, bringing the gospel to anyone is second-rate works.

Like some, some people today think ministry to the youth is like that. It's, it's what you give to, give to people who can't do anything better. No, Paul is amazed. I get to preach the gospel to anyone.

To Gentiles.

You know, to us. He tells us the unsearchable riches of Christ. Unsearchable means that you can't get to the bottom of it. You, you can't exhaust it. Never, ever totally, fully describe it. No matter what words you use.

It's never adequate enough. When I lived in Florida as a teenager, we, we lived by a lake. And one day I decided I wanted to search out how big this lake was. By walking all the way around it. And I did.

After a few hours, coming back a little scratched up by going through so much dense forest, I completely circled the lake. And I got to its extent. The riches of Christ, Paul is saying here, are unsearchable.

They're like, if you started to try to walk around it, you wanted to find out how big is this, this love of Christ. And you kept walking and walking until you eventually realized, hey, this isn't a lake.

This is an ocean. And it goes on and on. To give us at least a taste of how vast those riches are. Is what Paul says he's called to do. And he's still doing it right now. Through Ephesians. And he says in verse 9, to bring to light for everyone, that includes us.

What is the plan of the mystery? Hidden for ages in God who created all things. The wisdom of God's plan, the mystery. He's already revealed that God is creating one new people who are co-heirs. Co-members and co-sharers is now being brought out into the open.

This is the great travesty of church people in former times, hopefully former. Former generations thinking that they can keep out some people who aren't like them. Of stopping them at the door and saying, you know, this church isn't for you.

You go elsewhere because you're in another race. That puts in the dark what God is now bringing out into the light. This mystery of one people united around Christ. God created all things and this is what he is creating now.

A church that's about Jesus built on his word tied together with grace. But what's the reason God is creating that now? Why is he doing it? Just because it's cool and trendy, you know, it's the 21st century, right?

Anything that's diverse must be good. We love diversity. No, he spells out the purpose in verse 10. So that this is the purpose statement. So that, verse 10, through the church, through the assembly of God's people, through us, the manifold that's multifaceted like a diamond with many sides or like a flower with many petals.

The manifold wisdom of God. That's his plan, his mind, his intention that his wisdom might now, right now, be made known to the rulers and authorities and heavenly places. Now remember he already told us that he is saving us formerly dead people.

He's doing that so that in chapter 2, verse 7, remember he told us that in he's doing that so that in the coming ages we'll be trophies of his grace. We will be the exhibits of his graciousness. And here he tells us who God will be showing us off to.

Who's gonna, who's the evidence gonna be demonstrated.

To?

Here probably angels or demons or both and he tells us that that display of us, it's already started now. Right, that we might, the manifold wisdom of God might now, and this time, be made known. Now he is making known to the rulers and authorities and heavenly places.

That means for us that right now we need to be showing this, to be demonstrating that there's something about us. Then this is greater than can be explained by a bunch of similar people who come together.

Because they all, you know, we all kind of like this, the same style of songs and the same politics. And so we just, we got out of jail. There's nothing, there's nothing unusual or attention-grabbing about that, is there?

Similar people, similar culture and race, ethnic, economic background, who like to gather. There's nothing, world sees that all the time. That's not the manifold wisdom of God. Here he said, he says, no, there's something about the church, something greater that could be explained by just good marketing techniques, by good entertainment, by the fact that they just kind of get along.

That there is a manifold wisdom of God on display here among us right now. So much so that angels and demons, you know, sit up and wait, take notice, wait. You know, those, those Republicans or those Democrats getting together and having concerts, that we understand.

But these people getting along, something going on here. Something can't be explained by social or economic or cultural factors. Why these people, why these trophies of God's grace, why they live together as a church.

That, he says in verse 11, is the eternal purpose. You know, notice it's not a new purpose, not a standby, fallback plan, it's not a plan B purpose. Well, I wanted to do the Jewish king thing, but that didn't work out.

So I'm getting, doing something new now, just to take his place. No, it's the eternal purpose. God always had in mind to display the glory of God, the unfolding like, like petals of a flower in spring of God's wisdom.

Unfolding with a Jewish petal and a Gentile petal, a white petal and a black petal and an Asian petal, an Indian petal, all pointing to the center. Jesus, our Lord, our purpose as a church is to show that God's plan throughout the ages has worked to create one new humanity around Jesus.

That eternal purpose, the goal, was made by God in Christ Jesus, that is in what he did when he bought the church with his blood. In him, Paul says, the leastest, again, of all the saints. You'd think he'd be down on himself.

Wouldn't you? You think about where Paul came from and what he did. He'd be discouraged, inferiority complex. He's the least of all the saints, after all. It means of all the believers in the whole world, he's saying he's the least, the leastest.

You'd think he'd be scared, unsure of God's acceptance. Never thinking he can measure up, you know, if he's the least. And he would be if he thought his relationship with God depended on himself. But, he says in chapter, in verse 12, because of Christ's life and death and resurrection, we have, we have boldness.

He has boldness. We have boldness and access with confidence. We don't have to grovel and be afraid. Not because our sins are grievous. They are. But in Christ, God has dealt with them so that if our faith is in him and not in us, well, then we can be bold.

Bold in prayer. Bold in our relationship with God. Confident of being able to approach God. Of being accepted by him. Unafraid of the judgment to come. Because we know our sins have already been judged by God, in Christ, on the cross.

So Paul, the prisoner, likely in chains, probably dictating this letter, facing a possible death sentence, says in verse 12. And you think about it, the context. These, these ironic words in verse 12.

Think of where he is. He's in prison. He could, he could be having his head chopped off soon. And he writes to them and he says, Please don't lose heart.

Over me.

Now you think they should be the ones telling him. Hey Paul, we know you're suffering. Don't lose heart over yourself. But no, he's, he's so much more concerned over the impact of his sufferings on them than he is on himself.

He's chained up. He's facing trial and his first thought is, you know, I hope, I hope this doesn't discourage them.

He says, it's your glory.

My, my imprisonment, my chains are, are your.

Glory.

It's something to be rightly proud of. To feel good about. We are worth Paul suffering for. Oh, yes, you are. Paul says, not at all feeling sorry for himself. Feel good. Be encouraged by that. I'm going through this for you.

Feel good about it. The purpose, the reason is that we would make known God's manifold wisdom, the greatness of his plan, the mystery that Christ is making one new people from all kinds of people. And finally it is for this reason he is able to return.

I think, starting verse 14, to return to where he wanted to start in verse 1. Now in verse 14, so he starts again. For this reason.

For this reason.

The reason of the greatness of the gospel. Paul bows his knee. He's so overwhelmed with the greatness of the gospel. He falls to his knees before the Father and now he prays for them again. And he prays for power.

He kneels before the Father. He says, from the Father, every other father, in verse 15, and the word there translated family is actually father. There should be a footnote in your Bible that says it's father.

So from the Father, every other father, that is every authority, every head of every family, whether you have just one baby or you're the father of a country, of the fathers who are rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

They all derive their authority from the one ultimate Father. All those fathers, those authorities, are to see God's manifold wisdom on display in the church. And these.

You.

Trophies of grace on display that he's gathered from all kinds of fathers. For that to happen, Paul prays. Now in chapter 1, he prayed for them. And he prayed that they would have knowledge, revelation, that their eyes of their heart would be enlightened so that they would know God.

And here he prays that they would have power. Now some think we just need power,.

Not knowledge.

Some think we just need knowledge. Knowledge is good enough. Some say knowledge is power. Here in Ephesians, Paul shows us that we need both. We need knowledge and power. The main request in verse 16 is that we be strengthened with power.

We're to be strengthened according to, that is in proportion to, as the measuring stick of how much power we need is the riches of his glory. You think about that. We have enough, we need enough power according to how much glory he has.

He has a lot of glory. And so we need a lot of power. And we are strengthened through his spirit, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, in the inner being, in our spirits. Now later in this letter, he will tell the Ephesians to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And here he is praying for them to, to experience that. Pray for power. That strengthening results in Jesus himself living in our hearts, that he will live out his life through us so that we will be rooted and grounded in love.

Notice that love should be our foundation. It's not a quest. Some people think about power with the power of the Spirit. They, they love that idea. They want to experience a thrill. Sometimes lets them forget other people.

Makes them feel superior to other believers who don't have it because they have the power and you don't. But he, Paul says, no, first things first. First, we should have love as our foundation. And then he prays on that foundation, we have power.

Here's specifically the power to comprehend, the ability to begin to understand. And not by ourselves, you know, merely studying some doctrines alone, kind of reading a theology book. But understand, he says, with all the saints along with the rest of the church, that together we would all have the power in our hearts to get our arms around what he mentioned earlier in verse 8.

Have that power to understand or there's to search out those unsearchable riches of Christ. Here, power to comprehend the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, the measurements of the immeasurable, to grasp the ungraspable, the power to surmount the insurmountable, power to, to circle what, what you can't get around.

To, he says in verse 19, this is the purpose. What's the purpose? What's the reason? What's it for? To know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. What an odd prayer. He's praying that we would know something that's impossible for us to know.

You can't, with your mere brain by yourself, know something that's beyond knowing. It takes power to do that. If you can get from God the power to know what you can't by yourself know, the love of Christ for people dead in their sins, if you get that power,.

Then.

You will be filled with the fullness of God. Not just a taste of God, but you'll be filled. Not just filled with a portion of God, filled with the, the fullness, with everything God has to offer, all of God.

That's his prayer for us here. Power to know the unknowable love of Jesus so that God will, will fill us. Then he says, that's the prayer, that's the request. Here's the praise. Now to him, that is to God, who is able, who has the power to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.

Even give us the power to know what is beyond our ability to know. According to the power that work within us, to him be glory in the church. There's our reason. Glory to God and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. When you get confused about the reason for something, you get confused about what it's for. The reason for the church, is it just for people of a similar race or culture to meet and to hear the stories and the opinions and songs that they are used to hearing?

The reason for the church is to glorify God, to make God look good, to make people and even angels sit up and pay attention. That there's something about us that isn't explainable by sociology or psychology or self-interest.

But God's wisdom, the plan of the gospel, is on display like a beautiful, freshly bloomed April flower. That was a mystery. People didn't understand in the past.

Some still don't.

But that's the purpose God is up to right now.

And.

He expects us to be displaying how great His gospel is. It takes power to do that, power to comprehend the incomprehensible, to grasp what our mere minds cannot grasp. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.

Vast,.

Unmeasured,.

Boundless,.

Free,.

Rolling as a mighty ocean, in His fullness,.

Over me.

That's the reason for your life.