ES008. Ephesians 3

1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—2 if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, 7 of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power. 8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The first few verses of this chapter reiterates what Paul has said before: there is a new creation; the Church, and we, as Gentiles, have now joined the Jews as one; something that none of the prophets of the Old Testament had foreseen. It was a complete mystery, an unknown. God surprising His people. I’m sure God has even more surprises in store for eye has not seen nor ear heard…that’s another reason to anticipate Heaven - there are going to be a whole lot more surprises.

Seeing, then, that the Church was not understood or seen before in the Old Testament it stands to reason that the things of the Old Testament do not relate to the Church. The Old Testament promises are hard to attribute to the Church. Of course, some can be but not all, those that can we can claim. And this we know about the character of God; what He says, He does.

And this HAS to be true doesn’t it? For, how can we trust anything God says if He does not keep His promises? How can we know for sure that we are saved? How can we sure that by putting in faith in Christ means that we will go to Heaven? How can we be sure that He won’t, just because He changed His mind, send us all to hell?

We know because it is one thing for us to deserve hell but it is another for God to go back on His word. God is not a liar and He does not change.

This means, that the promises made to Israel which in no way can be attributed to the Church must either have already come to pass for Israel or will yet come to pass. Let’s not forget that at no time is the Church called Israel or Israel the Church, there are three groups of people still on the earth today: The Jews, the Gentiles (non-Jews) and the Church, which of course, is made up of Jews and Gentiles.

God scattered the Jewish people through judgement and He will gather them again for blessing, a form of which we have already started to see in the reforming of the nation of Israel and they already are a blessing to the world through their fruit and vegetable exports, and then their technology which surpasses Silicon Valley and is the best in the world. And all this from such a small nation; a nation that irks the whole world and has more resolutions against it than any other Country at the UN, even when there are serious issues in other Countries for which they say nothing having no consensus but there is always consensus against Israel. Truly Jerusalem is a rock of stumbling.

We have to also remember that the surrounding Arab nations do not want the Palestinians either and it becomes a convenient political football. There are wrongs on both sides and we should speak out about all of it, but the wrongs are seen to be mainly Israel’s when the Palestinians and nation states like Iran do not even recognise the right of the nation of Israel to exist. We really should know our history before we attribute rights and wrongs in a conflict that has been going on well before the 1900’s. Today, history is being rewritten in favour of the Palestinians in a narrow sense of the word, a word, that is, Palestinians, before Israel existed were considered to be both the Jews and Arabs. Things are not reported truthfully or impartially, and this is no surprise for no history writing is for it is written through the lens of one’s politics and religion and experience to date.

In this passage and elsewhere Paul shows he has a real heart of compassion for the Jews but it is still clear that all have to come to faith in Christ and be joined together in the Church where being a Jew or Gentile is irrelevant.

Indeed, elsewhere Paul says:

Galatians 3:28 NKJV

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:11 NKJV

where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Today we can add to that list that there is no Black nor White, mentally disabled, physically disabled nor healthy. We are all one in Christ. We are what make up the body into a more complete image of Christ in God.

We are fellow heirs and partakers of the promises of God in Christ. These promises are of eternal life, to reign with Christ, to have forgiveness of sins , to receive the crown of life and receive rewards commensurate with the good works we have done as Christians. The Gospel is for all people to respond to. And Paul says that it has worked through him effectively bringing many people to Christ and still does today through the letters he wrote in Holy Scripture.

Paul is completely enamoured with the grace of God, not only grace that saved him but grace that put him into ministry for, he says, he is the least of all the saints. Indeed we all are grateful that we have been saved by grace.

8ff

Paul’s opinion of himself is very little. I wonder what would be said in this day and age of someone who declares so openly these things. We are all told to think positively, to love ourselves, to not put ourselves down. But Paul does not go along with this. He is completely reliant upon the grace of God. He thinks of himself as nothing, even less than nothing. Indeed he would point to his other letter to the Philippians and say that Christ made Himself nothing, how could he not do the same. For years I have heard that you can only love others if you love yourself taking what is said in the second great commandment: love your neighbour as yourself as an excuse to love oneself. I’m sorry, this is not what is meant. We naturally look after ourselves, naturally eat and drink and sleep, we naturally want good things - well, love others as you treat yourself. We naturally want to be treated with respect not with rudeness, with gentleness not harshness, with love not hate. Well, do to others what you want them to do to or for you. This is loving your neighbour as yourself.

Are we called to love ourselves? No. We are called to deny ourselves. To put off the old man, the flesh and put on Christ. We are all too self-seeking, all too egocentric, all too narcissistic instead of giving to others with no thought of self. Many of our issues go away if we start to do things for others. Our self-obsession has to stop. It is not all about “me”.

And that is the point of the Church, we are in it together, yes we are saved individually but then we are put together. We are to think together, to work together, to pray together. It is not a mistake of Jesus when He said pray like this: Our Father. Not my father but our Father. We are all in need of each other and we are to carry one another’s burdens. Together we are a powerhouse for God to make the Gospel known to the world for it is when we love each other we are known to be His disciples. We are not known as His disciples on our own but as a result of being together, learning together, breaking bread together, and praying together.

Not only are we declaring to the world the Gospel by being the Church but also to principalities and powers; to the unseen world rulers that their time draws to an end for a new power is going to take their place; the King of kings will reign and the church alongside. This has been the eternal purpose but only revealed in the last 2000 years. We all now have access to God, to His courts without fear or concern and we can come with boldness because of the confidence we have in Jesus and His saving work. His promises are sure. No doubt at all.

As a result there should not be concern for Paul and the fact that he is in prison. In the 80’s there was a phrase going around: Praise the Lord anyway! This is no glib saying but one that says that God is in control. God will work out His eternal purpose for nothing can get in the way of it for notice has been served. The Landlord is going to take His world back and the principalities and powers are about to be evicted. Indeed, they have already lost the deeds but they are hanging on for dear life but they know they are in a losing battle for the courts and judgement are about to begin. We should also note that despite frustration with politics or media we have to realise that our fight is not against flesh and blood but against these very principalities and powers.

14ff

Now Paul returns to his prayer that they might be strengthened by God’s Spirit in the inner man. We need to take note of what Paul is praying and to pray these things for each other. This prayer can actually be said verbatim, word for word for each person in the fellowship. We need not worry about anything in our lives for Paul is an example of one whose life was at risk in a worse situation than anyone here and yet he had confidence in God and so should we. He still finds it possible to pray these things for those whom he loves. And so should we.

He prays that Christ would live in our hearts by faith. We are told to guard our hearts and minds, to be careful what we let in for we need to let in only one, and that is Jesus. If we let Him in, then our hearts widen so that we love others as He loved us. And that is the next bit of the prayer: that we would know how all-encompassing is God’s love for each one of us and the more we realise it the more we want to live for Him in sheer gratitude. Fear is quite a motivator but it does not motivate anywhere near as much as love and we do not want to disappoint the One who has done so much, and He has done more than we can completely understand.

And though it is beyond comprehension we know it and experience it and get wonderful glimpses of it in our lives. God has not left us to our own devices, He has given us each other. We are the support mechanism that God has put in place for His people and we need to take our eyes off ourselves, the ‘me, me, me syndrome’, as well as the ‘woe-is-me syndrome’, and the ‘look-at-me-and-my-life syndrome’ and put have a different syndrome instead which is;

‘our eyes upon Jesus syndrome’, and the ‘Him, only Him, praise Him and look at Him and worship Him’ syndrome.

We need to encourage one another to have this attitude rather than the others; instead of being self-satisfied be God-satisfied.

As we do these things God fills us all-in-all and we can come more boldly making our requests known to Him and, you know what? He will answer us beyond our wildest dreams and it is far more satisfying than anything this world could give us. And then the fruit of the Spirit becomes more evident in the joy that makes up our lives. And the result of all this is that praise and glory goes to God, not just in the here and now, but forever. All because His power is working through us to achieve all that He has set out to do.

Let’s pray:

The Country Parson, The Temple A Prayer after Sermon

Blessed be God! and the Father of all mercy! who continueth to pour his benefits upon us. Thou hast elected us, thou hast called us, thou hast justified us, sanctified, and glorified us; Thou wast born for us, and thou livedst and diedst for us: Thou hast given us the blessings of this life, and of a better. Oh Lord! thy blessings hang in clusters, they come trooping upon us! they break forth like mighty waters on every side. And now Lord, thou hast fed us with the bread of life: so man did eat Angel’s food: Oh Lord, bless it: Oh Lord, make it health and strength unto us; still striving and prospering so long within us, until our obedience reach the measure of thy love, who hast done for us as much as may be. Grant this dear Father, for thy Son’s sake, our only Savior: To whom with thee, and the Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one most glorious, incomprehensible God, be ascribed all Honor, and Glory, and Praise, ever. Amen.

Benediction

Ephesians 3:14–21 NKJV

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

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