Ephesians 2:6-22; 3:1-11Print Page 3 Unity in Christ

Ephesians 2:6-22; 3:1-11

Page 3

Ephesians 3:1-11

Now, “For this cause”, now you can go back to chapter 1 & 2 and pick whatever cause you want to. We just read a lot of stuff. ‘For this cause’, all this amazing stuff we’ve been coming through, verse 1, “I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles…” Now he’s the prisoner of Rome presently [when he penned this]. But he doesn’t see himself that way, he’s the prisoner of Christ and for the Gentiles. If we trace him back to the book of Acts you’ll find out it was when he was standing on the steps of Jerusalem . He had started a riot, some guys there accused him of stuff, a riot started and Paul started to speak to the crowd and they all quieted down, and because they heard him speaking in the Hebrew tongue--but when he got to the line where he said “and the Gentiles will receive through Christ [literally the word he used was “Messiah”, Christ is a Greek word] the riot started up again, they [the Romans] had to drag him away so that he wasn’t killed. And the idea is, this imprisonment is in relationship with the Roman government and his appealing [as a citizen of Rome ] to Caesar, has continued all along. And he says “I’m a prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles,” because he would not back down amongst his own countrymen on the issue that Jew and Gentile were now one in Christ. Now, by the way, I think that is an exhortation to us. I think, you know, here we are in the last days, we really shouldn’t back down to our families either. You know, I get a lot of questions, “My aunt and my Mom are driving me crazy, they want to get the baby Christened in the Church, should we do it or should we not?” Looking at the issue, my response is “It doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t hurt anything (the kid might get a cold if they sprinkle too much water on him).” I mean, it doesn’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t hurt anything, but it doesn’t do anything. And what you have to decide is will you be doing your family a greater service by standing up to their ideas and challenging them and freaking them all out, or do you think the Holy Spirit’s saying ‘OK, just play along and we’ll sink the knife in a little further down the line.’ I can’t tell you that, but I know Paul was not willing to compromise with his own countrymen, the people he loved and grew up around, and his fellow-students from the school of Gamalial and so forth. He stood up for what was true. And how we need to stand up in the day we live in. “For this cause, I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles…” And he kind of goes in this, takes a break until verse 13, where he goes off now. Verses 2-5, “If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me to youward, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)--reread that a few times, you’ll get it--“which in other ages was not made known…” ‘You understand why I’m in this position, God has called me to that’ is what he’s saying. “…which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit”--there’s New Testament “prophets”, by the way. Now, by the way, these are things we take for granted, you know them. In Paul’s day this theology of the New Testament was developing in an incredible way, and being safeguarded by the Spirit and recorded, things that you and I take for granted. Verse 6, “That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the same body, partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” Verse 7, “Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.” Now he’s reflecting back to what he said as he finished up chapter 2 in the breaking down of this partition wall. Verse 8, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all the saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Doesn’t sound like a guy on UHF does he? This is a guy who has encountered God. ‘I am the least of all saints…’ Isaiah says ‘Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips’ when he encounters the Lord. Daniel, ‘All my comeliness was turned to ashes when I encountered the Lord.’ John in Revelation, ‘I fell down as a dead man before him when I saw him.’ Anybody who’s had a real experience with God has himself in perspective. That is, you don’t believe the press clippings, you don’t take yourself very seriously. “Unto me” he says “who am less than the least of all the saints is this grace given”--speaking about the ministry--“that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” He uses a word here “unsearchable riches”, it means “unable to track the footprints.” You know, it’s interesting, he says that’s the unsearchable riches of Christ--you can’t track the footprints of the whole thing, how it works and why he did it, and even though people spend years trying to do it--as we reach through chapter 1 & 2, it’s obvious, we can’t track the footprints of the whole thing. We set up camp and say ‘Well I believe the footprints mean this, and I believe’--and I’m an Armenianist, and I’m a Calvinist--and Paul says ‘Hey, I’m the least of all the guys that he called and amazingly grace has been given to me that I should proclaim the unsearchable, the untrackable riches of Christ to the Gentiles--that I should take those things and try to communicate them--of what he understood and of what he saw of them. By the way, that’s one of the problems we have as we speak to our unsaved friends and relatives, we’re taking unsearchable riches that they, because they’re dead in trespasses and sins, have no real capacity to appreciate. So Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4 that the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. But James tells us that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much. It means ‘On-target prayer.’ If you want to know how to pray effectively for your unsaved friends and relatives, especially in the Christmas season, the doors might open up to witness to them, you pray that God would bind the prince of this world, and that the blindness would be taken off their minds. That’s an on-target effectual prayer, praying Biblically, according to Scripture. And that they would be able to see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, and that it would shine in their eyes. Because what you’re trying to communicate to people is the unsearchable riches of Christ. What we’re trying to communicate to ourselves as we read the Scripture. Verse 9, “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” The mystery of the fellowship, that Jew & Gentile would be one body, that this whole plan from Eden to the flood, from the flood to Abraham, from Abraham to David, and to the Prophets, and to the Messiah being born in Bethlehem of Judea and growing there and going down into Egypt and then coming up and ministering amongst the people and dying on the cross and being risen again and then calling out of the sea of humanity one people for himself of Jew and Gentile, he says this mystery of the fellowship has been hidden in ages past, he says, verses 10-11, “to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifest wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So he’s kind of winding this up and saying ‘You know, the remarkable thing is in all of this, that God has called the church to manifest this truth to principalities and powers, that the angels don’t understand. You know, the angels watched the creation of the world, wherever they came in at--some day [in the way, way distant past] they were created, they looked around--here we are--and then they watched as creation was finished. Man, then was created [millions of years later, after the fall of Satan and 1/3 of the angels] in God’s image and likeness, higher than the angels. No angel, cherubim or seraphim is created in the image and likeness of God…There is greater beauty now revealed through God’s redemptive love, his grace was not seen in the original creation. The greatest beauty of God is that he would then take sinning rebellious man, first create him [in front of Satan, the demons and all the angels], and then purchase him back to himself with the blood of his own Son. And the greatest beauty of God was yet to be beheld. And the angels don’t understand that because there is no angel savior. No angel ever came and died on a cross for other angels. And it says, “they desire”--1 Peter 1:10, around there somewhere it says--“they desire to look into the things concerning the heirs of salvation.” They don’t understand. And now it says that God has seen fit that the mystery of the things he’s doing may be made manifest to principalities and powers through the church--you know, they’re catching on, those angels, as they watch us. That’s hard to believe, man. That’s really amazing, that they’re understanding more of God’s purpose and God’s plan with the nations and with Israel , along with the Gentiles, as they observe what God with the Holy Spirit is doing. How amazing it must have been for them. I mean, when they had Jesus in Gethsemane , and Jesus said to Peter “put your sword away! You know I could call 12 legions [of angels] right now—and they [the angels] were probably, saying “Yeah! Call us, call us!” You know, one angel killed 185,000 Assyrians in one night. Imagine what 12 legions could have done. They could have wiped out the globe in about 15 minutes. And they’ve been on hold for a long time now. They’re [the Romans] are beating him and pulling out his hair. They [the angels] don’t understand. But finally God’s going to say, “OK, go get ‘em!” and they’re going to have a picnic, that’s still ahead of us, that’s a great day. So read ahead in Ephesians. We’ll have to pick up here. Not a good place to break off, but in Ephesians there’s no good place to break.

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