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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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