Sunday Sermon: The Mystery of God Revealed (Ephesians 3:1-13)

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September 1, 2019

Pastor Gabriel Hughes preaches from Ephesians 3:1-13 regarding the mystery of how God was going to redeem people from all nations to Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Visit fsbcjc.org for more info about our church!

00:14: You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.
00:25: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a
00:31: New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.
00:38: Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians. Here's Pastor Gabe.
00:46: The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Ephesus, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you
00:54: 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.
01:07: When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the
01:20: Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
01:34: Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of His power.
01:42: To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the
01:48: 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.
02:12: This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our
02:17: Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
02:27: So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
02:35: Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we open up your word again this morning, and as we continue to read and understand the mission of the
02:45: Apostle Paul to the Gentiles, and even his letter here to the
02:50: Ephesians, may we continue to see the light and hope of the gospel that was sent into all the world.
02:58: That the people that you have called to yourself are made up of every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth.
03:05: And it is by the grace and blessing of God that we, though diverse, though we come from many different backgrounds, have been gathered into this one place to sing the praises and glory of our
03:15: God together in one voice. So we continue to praise you for the goodness that you have shown to us, and that we might continue to be encouraged in our kindness and love and growing in these things toward one another as well.
03:32: We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name and all God's people said, Amen. Thank you.
03:37: You may be seated. Now remember that when the Apostle Paul is writing this letter, he is writing from prison for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
03:50: He has preached the gospel and has made his way even all the way back to Jerusalem where he was arrested and then taken by ship from there, from Jerusalem over to Rome, which is where he is currently imprisoned.
04:05: And it's there in Rome that he's under house arrest, so he can't go anywhere, but people can still come to him.
04:12: And as he's been under house arrest there, he's been allowed to preach the gospel to anybody who comes and visits him.
04:17: And sometimes the house will be packed with the people that are there to hear the
04:23: Apostle Paul preach. Paul is the first apostle to be able to make it there to Rome and share the gospel with the
04:32: Romans. It's not that the gospel wasn't there. It most definitely was there because there was a church that had already been planted there.
04:40: We know that church was there because Paul wrote to them the letter to the Romans prior to him being able to go there and share the gospel, but they had not yet had an apostle come and minister to them.
04:50: Paul is that first apostle to be able to get to the capital city of the world and share the gospel there even in his own home.
04:58: And according to what Paul says to the Philippians, the palace guard had even come to an understanding of Christ.
05:07: That palace guard that was there at his house keeping guard over his house, watching over this guy, they had heard the message that he preached and they even came to faith as well.
05:17: So Paul encouraged the Philippians when he wrote to them, don't be under duress because of what has happened to me here.
05:24: I'm telling you that what's happened to me here has actually been very good. People are coming to know the Lord, the palace guard has come to know the
05:30: Lord. So Paul is writing while he is in prison, not prison in the sense that we might think of a dank dungeon, but still in chains, in bondage.
05:42: He doesn't have freedom to go out and do as he might, but this is still all under the providence of God.
05:49: So when we hear the apostle Paul praise God and speak joyfully about the things that are going on for the cause of the gospel,
05:57: I hope you understand his circumstance. This is a man who's been beaten, a man who's been persecuted severely.
06:03: He has been put in stocks and in chains before. On the ship that he was on sending him over to Rome, he was shipwrecked and then on the island that they were on, that they ended up on after being washed ashore, he got bit by a snake.
06:18: You know, with all the stuff that was going on with Paul, you'd think at some point this guy would go, God, come on. I'm sharing the gospel for you.
06:25: And this stuff just constantly keeps on happening, but he continues to give praise to the Lord. Even in 2
06:31: Corinthians 1, verse 9, where he says, with all the persecutions that had happened to us, we thought we had received a sentence of death.
06:38: He says there, but this was to make us rely more on God who raises the dead.
06:45: In the book of Philippians in particular, those four chapters of Philippians, we see the word joy come up more in Philippians than we see it in any other book in the
06:55: New Testament. Joy, rejoicing, constantly. And Paul even says to them in Philippians 4, 4, rejoice in the
07:05: Lord always, I will say it again to you, rejoice. And this he's saying to a people who were, they were even a little stressed out at the fact that the apostle
07:15: Paul who had come to them and had preached the gospel to them was now in prison. And they've heard other Christians speak ill of the apostle
07:21: Paul. It's part of the reason that the Philippians were prompted to take a collection and send an offering to Paul while he was under house arrest in Rome.
07:31: But since that's the emotional condition of that church there in Philippi, Paul writes to them and encourages them to rejoice all the more, knowing that all of this is happening according to the sovereign hand of God.
07:44: Nothing is happening outside of God's will. All of these things have happened in such a way, just as God had foreordained it from before the foundation of the world, that those whom he had elected would come to hear the gospel of Christ and so believe in it and live.
08:01: So I remind you of Paul's condition again, as we come into this section in Ephesians chapter three, knowing again that it's from prison that Paul is writing and says right here at the start of chapter three, for this reason
08:13: I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you
08:19: Gentiles. For this reason what? For what reason? Well, let's refresh a little bit the end of chapter two, starting in verse 19.
08:28: You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
08:42: Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the
08:50: Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the
08:57: Spirit. When the apostle Paul wrote to Titus, in Titus chapter one, verse one, he says, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus for the sake of the faith of God's elect.
09:08: Why is it that Paul says that? That he's an apostle for the sake of the faith of God's elect? Because he goes out with the gospel to preach that all those whom
09:16: God had elected for salvation would hear the gospel and turn from sin and so be saved.
09:23: By God's election which he set forth from before the foundation of the world. And it's not only that God has elected for himself a people to be saved out of the world, but also that he's elected to them to grow in the faith and salvation that they have.
09:39: So we're not just talking about conversion here. We're talking about persons being called out of the world to Christ, to walk in Christ, in good works which
09:50: God prepared beforehand, as we read about in Ephesians 2 .10. So not just to call a people to himself to make some sort of declaration of faith, but even that they would walk in faith.
10:04: So God has called a people to himself and Paul does this work for their sake, for the sake of the faith of God's elect.
10:12: For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you
10:17: Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you.
10:25: He's not taking anything for granted here. There may even be people in the midst of those
10:31: Ephesians, the Ephesian church there in Ephesus, who had not yet heard the gospel.
10:37: And furthermore, this letter is not just written to the Ephesians, but it would also be copied and circulated around the other churches of Asia Minor and even the rest of the churches that had been planted around the globe.
10:50: We know that was the case because we're reading this letter now. So we have the letter that has been copied down over the centuries and has been distributed to all of the churches and eventually all these things compiled together in the
11:05: Bible that we have. 66 books from Genesis to Revelation. These letters that had been written even by Christ's own apostles to the world have been compiled and published for us, that we might grow in an understanding of the gospel and grow in a maturity in the faith as well.
11:23: But Paul, again, is writing in such a way not to take anything for granted. There may even be those persons in those churches that he is writing to that may have not come to know the gospel.
11:36: Maybe there's still unbelievers among them that are just kind of wandered into the church because they're curious. What is this all about?
11:42: I heard these guys preaching downtown and they said that their church was down here and they praise
11:48: God on Sunday morning. I don't know why they're doing that. That's the day of the sun, but they're praising a sun.
11:54: So I'm going to go check and see what all of this is about. So they wander into the church to see what all the hubbub is.
12:03: And we know that there were churches in which this was taking place because Paul even wrote about it in 1 Corinthians 14 where he's talking to the
12:09: Corinthians about ordering yourself in such a way so that when unbelievers come in among you, they don't think you're acting like crazy zoo animals, which is why we as a church shouldn't be acting like crazy
12:21: Pentecostals flopping around on the floor in the middle of the aisles. People will come in and say that you're mad. That's what
12:27: Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14. So we know that there were unbelievers that would come in among them.
12:33: Paul even addresses the unbelievers to a certain degree in Romans 8. Those who do not have the
12:39: Spirit of Christ do not belong to him. So again, he's not taking anything for granted here. And he says, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you.
12:50: You know of my story. You know how I was a person who had previously persecuted the church of God.
12:58: And it was even on my way to do some more persecution in Damascus. The Lord Christ appeared to me on that road.
13:06: I was stricken blind. I was taken to the street called Straight. There I was fasting for three days, while Jesus then spoke to a man named
13:16: Ananias, who was going to come to me and lay hands on me and baptize me. And the scales would fall from my eyes.
13:22: And previously blind, previously persecuting the church of God, now I can see, and now
13:28: I became an apostle of the church of God. So this was Paul's testimony. He says, you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, that I would become an apostle to the
13:39: Gentiles. That's what Jesus said to Ananias. I'm going to show him how much he must suffer for my name, for he is going to be my apostle to the
13:49: Gentiles. Verse three, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.
13:56: Again, the revelation of God that appeared to Paul on that road as he was on his way to persecute
14:03: Christians. Now, we didn't come to faith that way. And I say that if anybody in here says, no,
14:10: I was walking down a road, Jesus appeared to me, and now I'm going to say, no, you're a liar. Because Jesus even said in Matthew 24, if anybody says to you, look, here he is in the inner rooms, or there he is out in the wilderness, do not believe it.
14:25: For his next appearance was going to be as lightning. It would be as far as the east is from the west, we would see the coming of his glory in the clouds.
14:34: So the next appearance of our Lord Christ is going to be when he returns, lest anyone say to you that they've had a personal encounter with the
14:45: Lord Christ. And there are people, even in our own community today, this morning, where there are preachers and persons, even sitting in the pews, claiming that they had come to faith because they had an appearance of the
14:57: Lord Christ that appeared to them. That's not going to be the case for us. God always had a particular cause and purpose for his prophets and apostles.
15:09: And those prophets would see revelations of God and they would be shown miraculous things that would affirm that the message that was coming to them was truly from God.
15:20: The apostles had seen and testified to those things that were done to Christ Jesus, that they had seen him resurrected from the grave.
15:30: They had seen him ascend into the heavens. I'm currently going through Acts on the podcast, and we're also going through Acts with our students in our
15:41: Wednesday night Bible study in our journey group. And right at the very beginning of Acts, the apostles standing there on the
15:48: Mount Olivet as Jesus is ascending into heaven right in their very midst. So they testified to the things that they saw.
15:56: We're not going to be privileged to see that. That was in the plan for the fullness of time.
16:02: But as the apostle Peter wrote about in 2 Peter 1, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.
16:10: Meaning this word, the Bible that has been given to us has been more fully confirmed. We actually have something better than even the apostles and the disciples had.
16:22: Because all those things that have been said and done have been written down and are affirmed and tested and tried and true.
16:31: You understand the disciples saw the empty tomb. They saw Jesus risen from the dead, and they didn't understand what it meant.
16:39: They were still confused about it until Jesus came and according to Luke 24, opened their minds to understand the scriptures.
16:48: And then they had eyes to see and ears to hear. Folks, that same thing is done for us.
16:55: When you come to a knowledge of the gospel, it's because God opens your eyes to see it.
17:01: It's because he opens your ears to hear it. Lest you think of any preacher or great evangelist or theologian of their day, and you look at these persons and go, wow, what great knowledge that they have and how great their faith must be because of the things that they know and how great a voice they have and the huge following that they have amassed and so on and so forth.
17:28: My friends, everybody, whether they are a teacher or whether they are a lay person, everyone has come to faith exactly the same way.
17:37: All of us were blind and we're given eyes to see. All of us knew not and then through the power of the spirit came to know.
17:49: This is the way everybody has come to faith. We were all sinners perishing in our sins.
17:58: We were as dead men with the rest of the world, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, as it says in Ephesians 2, 3.
18:10: But God sent someone to us to preach the gospel that we would hear and know and come to faith.
18:16: And everyone has come to saving faith exactly this way. The mystery was made known to Paul by revelation.
18:26: It was made known to the other apostles because they were witnesses to it. They saw and they understood.
18:35: We have come to know this mystery by the teaching of the word. Somebody shared the gospel with us.
18:42: Somebody has taught the word to us. And that is how we have come to this knowledge.
18:48: And all of it according to the spirit of God that dwells within us. As Paul said to the Corinthians, 1
18:54: Corinthians 2, the naturally minded man can't understand spiritual things for they're spiritually discerned.
19:01: It is the one to whom the spirit of God is given is able to understand the things of God.
19:09: Verse 4, Paul says, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.
19:15: When Paul wrote to the Colossians, which is a couple of books later, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
19:21: He wrote to the Colossians and said that in Christ, we have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are bound up in Christ Jesus.
19:31: Now, does that mean that everything that you can ever know about history, science, and mathematics you find in Christ?
19:38: I don't know, that's not what that means. But rather how these things pertain to the glory of God.
19:45: We find those things in Christ Jesus. The Bible is not a math book. It is not a biology textbook.
19:53: And although there are great historical counts that are written here, it is not technically a history book either.
20:01: The Bible is the revelation of God's plan in the fullness of time.
20:08: It is how he was using his prophets and apostles to bring about the knowledge of our
20:14: Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to those who would believe in him. We were clueless, we were blind, we knew not the ways of God.
20:23: Who can understand the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
20:31: As Paul says in Romans chapter 11, through the prophet Isaiah chapter 55,
20:37: God says, my ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts higher than your thoughts. Who has known the mind of the
20:45: Lord? We would not know. We would be clueless if not for the fact that God had revealed his will to us through his prophets and his apostles.
20:53: Had he not sent his Son to us to show us the way to the Father, we would not know.
21:00: As it says in John chapter 1 verse 18, he who is at the
21:06: Father's side has made him known. Jesus reveals to us the
21:12: Father. He has shown us the way to the Father. And whoever has the Father has the Son. Whoever has the
21:17: Son has the Father also. As Jesus said, I and the Father are one. We have no ability to know these things except for the surpassing greatness and revelation of God and the mercy and grace that he has shown to us through his
21:32: Son. All of these things were mysterious and they were mysterious even to those they were first spoken to in the
21:38: Old Testament. You have this thing called progressive revelation where throughout the passage of time,
21:43: God is revealing more and more his plan for the fullness of time. We have what we have come to know as God's revealed will and God's hidden will.
21:53: What is God's revealed will? We can understand God's revealed will in two ways. His revealed will, first of all, according to his will from heaven to earth would be what we have in the scriptures.
22:06: The 750 plus thousand words that make up the Bible. This is how we understand
22:12: God's revealed will. It is given to us in the pages of scripture. You might also understand God's revealed will this way.
22:19: Those things that have already happened. What was God's revealed will for yesterday? Well, you know it because you look back at yesterday.
22:26: What is God's revealed will for tomorrow? We don't know. It hasn't been revealed yet. So there's
22:32: God's revealed will and his hidden will. And in some cases, his will is hidden even for those things that have transpired.
22:40: Have you ever tried to look back on a particular circumstance and wonder how God was using that for his glory?
22:47: In some cases, we can look back on those things that have already happened and we can look and see how
22:52: God was using that ultimately for his goodwill. But then there are some times we look back on those circumstances that are so trying and so difficult.
23:01: When we look back at those things, we wonder, God, what were you doing with that? Why did I go through that thing?
23:08: Why am I still left with like the residual aftermath of that thing that had happened yesteryear?
23:16: Why do I still have the scars and the memories and the struggles of all those things that had happened?
23:23: I'm still feeling the effects of that. What was the purpose in that? In some cases, we will know and in other cases, we won't.
23:32: And that's God's hidden will. Those things that leave us wondering what
23:37: God's ultimate purpose is in those things. But we understand this,
23:43: Romans 8, 28, that God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
23:50: And 1 Corinthians 13, 13 tells us this. Now we see in part, but then we will know fully and we will know just as we are fully known.
24:04: God fully knows us. He knows exactly what we've been through, what we're going to go through and ultimately what he's going to do with each and every one of those circumstances for his glory.
24:16: We don't quite see it clearly. In fact, as 1 Corinthians 13 says, we look as through a glass dimly.
24:23: We can kind of see an image of something, but we can't quite make it out. You ever look through opaque glass before?
24:30: You could see that there's light coming in kind of from the other side. There might be if somebody stands on the other side of it, you can kind of see a shape of something, but you'd never be able to identify a person's face that way, right?
24:43: And that's the way that we look into the hidden will of God. There's something there.
24:49: We can tell there's something there. He's doing something, but we don't fully understand what it is and we won't fully get it until we enter into glory on the other side.
25:04: I've shared this with you multiple times before, but in Exodus chapter three, when
25:09: God was sending Moses back to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let my people go, he's speaking to Moses through the burning bush.
25:17: He tells Moses, this is how you know that I was with you when you come back here and you worship me on this mountain.
25:26: God didn't say to Moses, you'll know that I was with you because of all the miracles that we're going to perform. You're even going to part the
25:32: Red Sea and you'll pass through as on dry land. That's not what he said. Through miracles, you'll know that I was with you.
25:39: He said, you'll know that I was with you when you come back here, when all of it is said and done, you will come back here and worship me on this mountain.
25:49: As though God was saying to Moses, you'll come back to this place and you will look back and you will be able to say, oh,
25:55: I see it now. Now I get why we did the whole thing with the plagues.
26:03: And Pharaoh's army was bearing down on us and it looked as if we had nowhere else to go until you parted the sea and made way for us on dry land, delivering us on the other side and drowning
26:13: Pharaoh and his armies in the sea. Now I get it. And this is how we will come to understand
26:21: God's full purpose in time. There will be a day, my friends, when we will stand on that mountain,
26:28: Mount Zion in glory and we look back and we see, not with tears in our eyes because as it says in Revelation 21, he'll dry every tear and there'll be no more.
26:41: But if we could cry tears of joy, we would. And we will look back on all those things that had happened, all the trials and difficulties that we went through and even through those things persevered and even in those things continued to praise and declare the glory of God.
26:56: Through our trials and tribulations, we never let go of our hope. And in that day when we're in glory, we'll be looking back and we will say, oh, there it is.
27:09: That's why you were doing this. This is the glory that it was for.
27:16: The glory of God's great name. As Paul said to the
27:22: Corinthians, God never puts us through anything without giving us a way out. You will never be tempted beyond your ability to resist.
27:31: With every temptation that you face, it is for you to place your heart and your mind fully in the trust of Christ who saves you.
27:43: Paul again in 2 Corinthians 1 .9, this was to make us rely more on God who raises the dead.
27:54: Paul says, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the
28:07: Spirit. And again, here we're talking about the revealed will of God, which once was a hidden will and has now been a mystery revealed.
28:18: It's been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the
28:23: Spirit. Now, there's a way to interpret holy apostles and prophets that's a little bit different than the way that we had seen apostles and prophets earlier in chapter 2, verse 20.
28:34: There in chapter 2 .20, we're actually talking about the apostles and prophets that the church is built upon, the foundation of the church.
28:42: Those that had talked about the coming of Christ and those that had talked about Christ has come, prophets and apostles respectively.
28:50: They would be the foundation of the church by their witness and their testimony. But when we get to verse 5, and it says, 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
29:04: Spirit, this may be talking about the same people rather than two different groups of people. Apostles and prophets, meaning those who actually were with Christ and those who have come to faith by the hearing of the gospel and are now going out to prophesy the message of the gospel of Christ.
29:22: That may be the meaning of the apostles and prophets in this particular context in verse 5.
29:27: Verse 6, 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.
29:40: Now this was something that the Jewish people simply did not understand how this was going to work.
29:47: They knew that God was going to bring the nations to worship him.
29:54: They knew that. That had been talked about in their own prophets. In the Psalms, Psalm 22, verses 27 to 28, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the
30:05: Lord. Not just Jewish people, all the ends of the earth and all the families of the nations shall worship before you, for kingship belongs to the
30:16: Lord and he rules over the nations. Psalm 45, 17,
30:22: I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations, therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.
30:30: And through the prophet Isaiah, chapter 60, verses 1 through 3, through the prophet, he's talking about a restored glory for Israel, the glory of Israel.
30:39: And it says right at the start of Isaiah 60, arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the
30:45: Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the
30:52: Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.
31:02: Now see, that's talking about the glory of Israel. So the people of Israel were like, okay, so this is how that's gonna work.
31:09: We're gonna be made a great nation and a great empire and then all the people who fear us,
31:14: God's favor will be upon. And all the people who curse us, God will likewise curse. So, okay, we see how that's gonna work.
31:21: We see how the nations are then gonna be brought to fear God. It's gonna be because Israel's gonna be great.
31:28: So they misinterpreted what was being said through the prophets. It's not that Israel was gonna be great.
31:37: It's that God was gonna be great. And the great one, Jesus Christ, was going to come through that people whom
31:46: God had separated out for himself. And that was the Jews. God was gonna come through the
31:53: Jewish people, the Jewish line, and he was going to be the glory of Israel because he and only he would be faithful Israel.
32:07: And so through Christ, the light has come. The glory of the
32:13: Lord has risen upon you. Behold, darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the
32:20: Lord will arise upon you and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.
32:32: Because Christ is great. The worship and the glory was gonna be Christ. The people of Israel were looking for a
32:41: Messiah who was gonna come and re -assume the throne of David and make Israel great again, right?
32:49: They were gonna be a superpower, an empire on the earth, just as they were in the days of David and Solomon.
32:55: But that's not what happened. And in fact, the disciples themselves were even completely bewildered when their
33:02: Messiah, which they thought was going to be the next king of Israel, and even praised him and exalted him as king, they were totally baffled when he was then arrested and tried and killed.
33:17: We thought this was gonna be it. We thought he was our Messiah and he died. And even they did not understand the meaning of this until after Christ was raised and explained it to them.
33:38: We find in the gospel of John that after Jesus was crucified, the disciples are not in a room jumping up and down, praising
33:47: God, going, death has been defeated! Our sins are forgiven!
33:52: That's not what they were doing. They were hiding because they didn't want to be arrested and put to death just like Jesus was.
34:02: And when the women came to the apostles, because the apostles were all cowardly, they're all hanging out and hiding in a room, but it's the women who saw the tomb was empty and had to come to the men and go, what are you hiding for?
34:16: He's risen! But then Peter and John are the first two to actually break ranks and go to the tomb and find it empty.
34:27: And even there, looking into this empty tomb, they didn't understand, what's the point of this? What's the purpose?
34:34: Jesus talked about the meaning of it before it happened and he sent his apostles to disclose the mystery revealed and the meaning of all of it.
34:46: Everything that was written down in the prophets, everything that was fulfilled in Christ, what his death represented for us, what his resurrection meant, what his ascension meant, and being seated at the right hand of the throne of God, the meaning of all of these things we have in the pages of scripture from Romans through Revelation.
35:05: The mystery revealed. And the mystery is that the
35:10: Gentiles, our fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
35:19: We already went through this last week at the end of chapter two. The dividing wall of hostility that separated the Jews and Gentiles has been broken down.
35:26: It's been broken down in his flesh. God became flesh, allowed the very creatures that he created to put him to death.
35:35: But he did this to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. That all who believe in him, our sins are forgiven and we stand before God as righteous.
35:49: Verse seven, of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given me by the working of his power.
35:59: To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the
36:05: Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Let's unpack a couple of terms that are mentioned there.
36:14: He says, first of all, I am the least of all of the saints. Now we know that the apostle
36:19: Paul thought of himself as the least of the apostles. He says so in 1 Corinthians 15. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also unto me.
36:28: For I am the least of all to be called an apostle since I persecuted the church of God.
36:34: So Paul thought of himself as least of the apostles because he was one who before becoming an apostle was a persecutor, a persecutor of the church.
36:43: None of the other apostles had done that, but Paul had done that and so therefore he called himself the least.
36:50: But in this particular case, it may mean something slightly different because he says he is the least of all the saints and there may be two meanings behind this.
37:01: Number one, at this particular time, he still may have been the only one to have previously been a persecutor of the church and then became a
37:10: Christian. There may not have been anyone else who had done so. That would have been their story until it had happened to the apostle
37:17: Paul or since it had happened to the apostle Paul. That may be one reason, maybe one meaning.
37:23: So he's not just including himself among the apostles at this point. He's even saying of all Christians on earth right now,
37:29: I'm the least because I had previously persecuted the church of God. Here's the other possible interpretation and this interpretation would apply even to you and to me.
37:40: Paul is saying very humbly that no one knows their sins more intimately than the person who has sinned them and so in knowing his own sins, he knows that he's the least of all the saints.
37:56: As Paul said to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2, Christ Jesus, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
38:04: Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. And again, likewise there, a humility in that saying, in understanding that no one has sinned more greatly than I.
38:18: I know all my sins before God. Only I can be so intimately acquainted with the grace and mercy of God that he has shown to me.
38:29: And so each and every one of us should not look at anyone else as being a worse sinner than I because I know my own sins more intimately than I know yours, right?
38:43: So in this case, Paul's saying I am the very least of all the saints. This grace was given to preach to the
38:49: Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Again, God has appointed gifts to his servants and each one has received a different gift.
38:58: To Paul, he was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.
39:10: This is coming back once again to praise God for his sovereignty, that he reigns over all things.
39:16: He reigns over all things because he created all things. He can ordain all things and he can bring all things to come to pass because he's the one that created it.
39:26: He created time, space, matter, all of it. All of it was his creation.
39:31: He reigns over all of it. So he is the one who has created all things. Therefore, he is the one who is bringing about in the fullness of time his plan to redeem
39:43: Jews and Gentiles unto himself. Verse 10, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known, catch this, this is very interesting, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
39:59: Whenever Paul makes a reference to the rulers and authorities, he's often talking about spirits and even in some cases, he may even be talking about dark spirits.
40:09: So we're talking about demons, the workers of Satan, even they are referred to as rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
40:17: Heavenly places, not as it would concern only heaven, but as it would concern a spiritual realm.
40:25: So through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
40:37: Now we're gonna unpack this more when we get to Ephesians chapter six, because it's there in chapter six where Paul says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we fight against the rulers, the principalities and the authorities that are in the spiritual realm.
40:54: So here's how we understand this. When you go to share the gospel with somebody, you are not doing battle with the person that is across from you.
41:06: Your war is not with them. The war that we fight and the war that we wage is against the dark spirit that has influenced them to do the work of Satan rather than the work of God.
41:21: And reminding you once again, all of us were ensnared by that before we came to Christ.
41:27: All of us were in that same snare. Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter two, the
41:32: Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, correcting opponents with gentleness, patiently enduring evil.
41:46: Verse 25, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from a snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
42:04: And my friends, that is all of us. At some point we were all ensnared by Satan to do his will.
42:14: With or without your knowledge does not matter. I was having a conversation with somebody earlier this week about false teachers and how we are warned to have nothing to do with false teachers, but to rather expose the fruitless works of darkness, which is a phrase that Paul uses here in his letter to Ephesians.
42:34: And we got into this discussion about false teachers and we started naming one teacher in particular.
42:42: And this person says, well, this person's not a false teacher because they believe so sincerely in what it is that they're teaching.
42:50: Though it may be wrong, I don't think you could label them as a false teacher. And I said, is a lie only a lie because the person means it to be a lie?
43:00: And they understood what the answer to that question was, so refused to answer it.
43:07: I said, a lie is a lie, no matter what the intentions of the heart of the person that says it.
43:12: They may absolutely believe that what they're saying is the truth, but they're deceiving because they themselves are deceived.
43:25: And the lies that they're speaking are the lies of Satan, whether or not they're even aware that Satan has manipulated them to speak the things that they are speaking.
43:38: All of us prior to Christ, we've all been ensnared by the devil.
43:45: In 1 John, it says, this is why Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan.
43:52: Jesus came and what he accomplished on the cross and now what has been spoken to us through the gospel breaks those strongholds, those chains of unbelief, of rebellion against God that we were all in before God illuminated to us the saving message of the work of Christ.
44:16: And when we came to believe we were set free from the bonds of sin and of Satan to do his will, and instead, my friends, now we are set free to do
44:26: God's will. And how is it that this has come to pass?
44:32: How is it that a person has been brought from that bondage into freedom in Christ?
44:39: And the answer is right here in verse 10, through the church. Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
44:54: We have gathered here this morning because we are Christians. We are followers of Jesus.
45:01: And we come here not to do a religious duty, but because we love God and we want to sing
45:07: His praises with the people of God. We come here to hear the Word of God proclaimed so the hope in our hearts is restored, is renewed.
45:15: We are looking all the more toward heaven knowing this world has nothing for us. But there are still people walking around in this world who are lost.
45:25: They are blind. They're stumbling over themselves. They're falling into pits and snares and nets as Satan continues to accomplish his will through them.
45:37: How is it that they are rescued out of the snare and the darkness that they're in to come to the light of Christ Jesus?
45:44: It's through the sharing of the Gospel. It's when we take this Gospel that we rejoice in every
45:50: Sunday and now we take it into the highways and byways of this world throughout the week. And we share with those who are unbelievers so that they might believe and be saved.
46:01: Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places so they may escape from a snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
46:18: And again, we talk more about this when we get to Ephesians 6. Verse 11, this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our
46:28: Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
46:36: As it says in the book of Hebrews, we can now enter into the Holy of Holies and be there in the presence of God because we have a great
46:43: High Priest that has gone before us. Christ Jesus, who is our fellowship with God, in Him we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
46:54: The kings of the past, the kings of old, you can never walk into the throne room of the King. Unsummoned, He will put you to death.
47:02: If you try to walk up to the White House today and you said, I'm here to see the President. They said, okay.
47:09: Who said? Me. Freedom of speech, right? So I'm going to go exercise my freedom of speech and go into the
47:18: White House and talk to the President. You can never get past those gates unless you are on the guest list.
47:23: You try to hop the fence, you try to barge your way through the door, you will get shot and killed. No one can enter into the presence of the ruler without being summoned.
47:36: And my friends, we have been called in Christ. You have been called through the gospel.
47:42: You have access to the Father and now you don't even need to be scared that when you go into the throne room of God that He's going to strike you down.
47:51: In Christ, we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
47:58: So I ask you not to lose heart, Paul says, over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
48:04: And now we wrap up in the same way that we started. Paul giving an encouragement for the sufferings that he is going through.
48:11: The reason why he's suffering this is for the cause of the gospel. And my friends, you may be going through a suffering or a struggle.
48:19: And the reason for this is one of two things. And it's not an either or, it's both and.
48:26: You're going through this to make you more into the image of the Son, to make you more like Christ, to grow you in holiness and in faith and in closeness with your
48:37: God. That's number one. And the second reason why you're going through this is so that you might be a testimony to others of the goodness of God in your life.
50:38: So thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.
52:40: For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.
52:46: On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.