Christ Changes everything — Ephesians 2-3

0:02 Dear Lord, we just come to you and we appreciate the thought that you lead us. And I ask, Lord, that your spirit will guide and guide me and he you would use the words you give to to guide hearts here. I just pray that you would lead us as a body and pray this in Jesus name. Amen. We turn to Ephesians three and I'm going to read this passage through.

0:45 I have one through 13. When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles, assuming by the way, that you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles. As I briefly wrote earlier, God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me. As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ. God did not reveal it to previous generations.

1:38 But now, by his Spirit, he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets. And this is God's plan. Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the good news share equally in the riches inherited by God's children. Both are part of the same body. And both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Jesus Christ.

2:15 By God's grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this good news. Though I am the least deserving of all God's people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authority in heavenly places. This was his eternal plan which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.

3:12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence. So please don't lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored. So I have just a couple of stories I wanted to tell. Read a article in some news feed somewhere, and it said, world's oldest astronaut grieves after...

4:06 Grieves and wept after going out into outer space. And the story is that as he flew up, it was, I believe, the Amazon, Jeff Bezos, blew something offering. Went up. He was 95 years old. They went up and they went out into outer space.

4:25 And as they left earth's little encapsulation and everything and they went out into outer space, He looked out and he saw for the first time with his own eyes the kind of never ending blackness and darkness out there. And he expected some kind of experience like there was hope here. We're going to go out here and we're going to find hope. This is something humans can find hope in, space exploration. He said, he started to weep and cry because he looked out there and he saw deadness.

5:08 He saw just never ending dark coldness. And he looked back at earth and he turned around and he saw that big ball of greenness and life and beauty glistening there, the stark contrast to the blackness of outer space. And he thought this is where... He could see in that moment the life there in the contrast. And then he thought to himself, Well, that's my hope.

5:40 But then he thought, Well, everything's dying there. It seems like there's war and all these things. And he was not saved. And they said he came back and he wept. And he grieved for a long time.

5:56 And for him, his purpose was that he would protect the environment or something like that. When he gained a new perspective, it changed everything about the way he saw life, his own existence and everything else. Along the same lines, a song came to mind, my wife doesn't like it when I quote from it. A baby changes everything. And it's, you know, I won't sing the whole song.

6:58 So that baby changed everything, right? And the man that he became and what he did. And as a parent, everybody that hears that song is reminded of that time when they were in that waiting room. And there was a moment where after all that struggle, that baby presented itself. And everything changed after that, Especially the first one.

7:27 Right? The first one, I won't say that any... Is not just as precious with any more that you have, but when you go from not having a child and then you go and you see the reality Here's this baby, totally dependent. You know, it's crying and screaming and this little pink thing and you get to hold it for the first time and suddenly your brain starts churning. You start thinking a little bit more like, you might have been fearful before.

8:02 Like, can I take care of this thing? But now you're really... It's real. It's here. You're feeling it.

8:07 It's in your arms. Baby changes everything. Right? And so, Ephesians three:one-thirteen, this passage right here, he starts out, he says, When I think of all this, and that statement's a reference to the previous whole section. When I think of all this, so the beginning.

8:38 And as it was said, there was a lot of sublime truth. The first part of Ephesians is... The first three chapters are doctrine. So this is the beginning of the third chapter. And the doctrine is foundational.

8:56 It changes everything, you could say, for the second half, which is practical, the practical outreaching or the practical actions that he prescribes. And so, he refers back to that. And now he's kind of launching. This is the last chapter of doctrine in the doctrinal section. And he makes a statement.

9:31 He says, I, Paul, a prisoner. You get that part? Makes sense. He was in prison and this was... It's called a prison epistle, believe.

9:43 So he was writing this from prison. He says, of Jesus Christ. And you look at that part and you're like, oh, wait a minute. Jesus Christ? Yeah.

9:57 Of Jesus Christ. He's not a... For Paul, he doesn't call himself a prisoner of Rome. Anyone else would probably have said he was a prisoner of Rome. There was a Roman soldier at his house in house arrest.

10:16 There was Roman soldiers all along the trip from Jerusalem. You could have said he was a prisoner of the Jews, perhaps. Although he's never fully imprisoned, but it was why, you know, they they were certainly part of why he was imprisoned, first of all. But, he calls himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ. And I believe that this is really key to understanding this passage because immediately after this verse, he launches into almost...

11:10 Assuming, by the way. And he then continues. So he starts at this verse talking about this. And then he continues for another 12 verses in sublime, some of it repetition of the previous. So he's actually kind of repeating or alluding to.

11:31 So he started out by simply referring to all of this. Now in verse two, he's... He starts actually going back and repeating back through some of those first two chapters, and I'll and I'll get into that. But launches into this kind of aside from where he started out. So he started out, you know, and it's like, oh, was reminded by the way, you know, and he feels the need, the spirit guiding him to to further remind us of and then and further explain those things that he had already talked about for the most part.

12:24 There's a few other things that he doesn't, which we'll go over. And then the end of the parenthetical, actually the very end of my end of my section here, verse 13. So you could actually take verse one. When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ, for the benefit of you Gentiles. And then he ends.

12:46 So please don't lose heart because my trials here. I am suffering for you. So you should feel honored. The... That losing heart because of my trials here, is referring back to verse one.

12:59 The fact that he says he's a prisoner and he says it's for the benefit of you Gentiles. So a lot of this two, three, four, all the way through 12, he's explaining and trying to explain why they shouldn't lose heart. He doesn't want to mention this and then lose the focus here. He doesn't want people to forget all the beauty here. And yet, he says, Oh, I'm suffering or I'm a prisoner.

13:34 I don't have my freedom. Right? He says, No. Everything has changed here. So you don't have to lose heart because of my trials.

13:45 And essentially, I have this kind of middle passage. So it's a transitional passage. Chris Schroeder kind of... To finish off what he was doing, he needed to kind of go into my passage because it referred back to his. And Roger, I believe, probably will refer back to my passage because immediately, if you read the next verse here...

14:15 Printed out the whole chapter. It says, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father. So all of this that he's talking about, he refers back to. And then he launches into a prayer that's the preamble. It's kind of the leading into the actual practical section part of Ephesians.

14:40 So what we have here, I explain all this so that we kind of have I'm trying to give the outlay or the overlay here so that I can really show the emphasis. I believe the key here is really Paul's... The the key verse here is Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the benefit of you Gentiles. And the fact that his... All the truths leading up to this are encapsulated.

15:28 Paul essentially references them, the truth of that, and how it's found its truth in his heart and the meaning that he has by the fact that he identifies in this way. He identifies, like I said, not as what most people from the outside would identify him as a prisoner some other way. But he's a prisoner of Jesus Christ and for the benefit of you Gentiles. So we can look at that and if we're trying to apply it to our own hearts, for him, that was what changed everything. Right?

16:14 And so he could write and communicate all those, as it was described, sublime thoughts. I barely know what sublime is. But I believe it means a profound wonder. Or concepts or ideas that are profoundly wonderful. All these thoughts, which I think other people have mentioned, he has a lot of run on sentences.

16:45 He layers idea upon idea. And then he repeats himself. And then he jumps into this parenthesis, this whatever, 11 or 12 verses here in the middle of what he's saying before he can pray. You know, there there is there is Paul, if you remember, talks about this vision. He's had a special revelation and we'll go into that revelation as we go verse by verse through the parenthetical.

17:49 Like, profundity was so deep that I think, this is my belief, okay? This is my understanding. Feel free to feel free to say, but I believe that a lot of what we see in Paul's writing is that he has had Paul has a high intellectual ability, obviously. But he had these experiences that were way past what human language could describe. Human language, the language of humans describing three d space and time.

18:25 We use language, but we can only take language from our own experience that we've had. That's how we learn. We learn language as a kid and it's always from old experiences that we've had that we learned to attach words to. And so here Paul is trying to describe in words based on our own experience something that no one has ever experienced before. He's trying to explain this sublime truth.

18:49 This truth that is so expansive. And so he makes up words. He breaks the rules of grammar. He's really pushing language for what it can do. He he...

19:03 And sometimes you'll have to excuse him if in a moment something triggers his mind and he's... And he goes right into it and he starts... Because it's just too much. You can't stop. Yes, that use of language when you layer meaning upon meaning, your consciousness, an average human, can think of one thing at a time.

19:31 And here he is layering this sublime truth upon that sublime truth. And it all modifies. And how do you put that all into your mind? I think that the language he used was designed to reach our hearts, not just our minds. He wants us to understand him.

19:49 And it requires some repetition. It requires us to let our minds think through these things so that it can affect our hearts. I've talked about this before, but I... Since I'm since I'm talking about it here, I thought I would just throw this up really quickly, this little picture. And the soul could be divided into the things that we can think of, we can describe with words that we know, the things that we feel, and how that works out in everyday living.

20:40 A man could be described that way, if not the soul. Some people argue with me on that. The soul versus the man. But you see these things, these aspects at least, working out. And the mind is for truth here.

21:00 I put an equal sign here. The heart is for emotional experience and it seems to be an important part of how God's made us. Guard the heart or from it come the issues of life. And then you have action. The action, the way that works out is hopefully in holiness.

21:25 That God calls us to be like Him. Paul himself says that we should emulate Him to the extent that he emulates Jesus. We should be like him. And so Paul here is in a less than ideal condition. He's a prisoner, and yet he transforms that experience, that meaning there by saying he's...

21:59 By saying... By adding of Christ Jesus. Everything's different there when you add that. He's not a prisoner of Rome. He's a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

22:51 So many of us have less than ideal situations. And that is part of living in a sinful world in a broken body with broken relationships. For Paul, he was in prison actually on somewhat of a technicality, you could say. It was God's plan. And thus he could say he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

23:20 But, each of us... We talked about several difficult circumstances this morning even. Denzel announced it where Carlin's been suffering from health issues. And our sister, you know, is very sick. And alone makes things very hard, right?

23:46 But the question for any of us who's suffering with our health is what does that mean, right? How do we think of that in terms how does who God is change how we experience that? You could say state. What's our internal state of mind, heart and doing? Right?

24:18 So often we believe that the events that happen, you see that, events that happen, simply cause us to be a certain way. And we don't realize in terms of free will that we can have things on our mind that change this. And then it's not simply everything happening to us. And you know that if you go to Philippians four:eight. Bob, you wanna tell me what Philippians four eight says?

24:53 Philippians four eight... You've preached on this, I think. What's that? So you think you've preached on this. Right?

24:58 Yeah. So I I use Planter, p p l a n t e r. Whatever is pure, loving, affable, noble, true, excellent, and real, meditate on these things. Right. And so when we do that, there's a different meaning.

25:20 And inside us, our heart is affected a different way. I would say our state of mind, heart, and doing are those three things. All of those will change. For Paul, in the highest meaning we can have is one of who are we and who is God. That changes the most out of everything.

25:45 You think of the example of Joseph. An ordinary person for him, when he found himself betrayed and sold as a slave. The meaning that you get from that would, for most people, would be one of betrayal. But the higher level meaning would be that God is not good for most of us. But Joseph did not have that meaning.

26:17 He had a meaning in his heart and mind that said, God is good. And you know that because when it came to the point in time where he had an opportunity and he was being actively gone after and seduced by his master's wife, that he said those words. He said, and I'm exactly quoting it, but he said, How could I do this to God? I can never do this to God. I would never consider doing it to him.

26:58 And so we know that what allowed him to do the right thing there in most difficult of circumstances was what he believed about God. How he thought about God and how he thought about himself in respect to that. And so Paul, again, had every reason to say, God, why did you put me here? Why are you even keeping me alive here? You know he talks about like, is it better to stay or to go?

27:26 I forget which passage that is. He could be asking those questions and getting meaning. And it's not wrong to ask those questions. David did it a lot. Had asked God difficult questions.

27:38 Sometimes he would have hard conversations with God, but he was having them with God. Right? And in the end, David was able to see God as a good God even in the difficult circumstances. And understood him to be faithful through it all. And so here, Paul is a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

28:03 And I believe that because of the way this is worded, that that is like the identification that would be the equivalent. So in his life, he's identifying this way. And everything previous, all of those things are leading up to the fact that he can say that. They're leading up to that or they're connected to it. And so it's kind of, you could say it's like the hub of a wheel where he can reduce it all to, therefore, for me this means.

28:44 I know all these things about God. I know my status in him. Therefore, I can say that even in prison, I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles. And then he goes on to explain all these other truths as to why. And so I can say I'm a real estate agent for Christ Jesus.

29:11 I can say I'm a dad for Christ Jesus. You can say if you're a mother, if you're a sister, if you're a brother, whatever person that you could call yourself. Maybe not a prisoner, and it could be exalted or not exalted. But whatever you think you are, put of Christ Jesus, and that changes everything after it. And if it's in a state of disease, and I am someone who has cancer for Jesus Christ, if it's a state of exaltation, you know, I think of the verse, and I printed it out if I can find it here.

29:57 I believe it's in Galatians. Galatians, I think... No, it's Philippians. Philippians four eleven-twelve, Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to be abound.

30:24 In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. So whether we could reasonably say that, like, physically speaking, my title right now, my status is not of abundance or is of great abundance. That of Christ Jesus can be added afterwards. And that is what makes the difference. That's why he could he could do well.

30:55 He could abound. He could He could be fully satisfied. Because those truths were real to him. Yes, they were spiritual truths. But those sublime truths were so real that they came and affected him in a physical way.

31:15 They affected him in that point, in that time and now. And he... In the next verse, he talks about the fact that he was a steward. My version doesn't say that way, but we'll go on to that. So I'm going to go to verse two.

31:51 This is verse two. A special responsibility of extending His grace to you Gentiles. Other versions say it slightly different. They say a stewardship of God's grace. Essentially what he's referring to...

32:11 Well, he goes on to say it. As I briefly wrote earlier, God Himself revealed His mysterious plan to me. Other versions say, Made known to me the mystery. As you read that I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ. God did not reveal it to previous generations.

32:40 But now by his spirit he's revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets. And this is God's plan. Both Gentiles and Jews who believe in the good news share equally in the riches inherited by God's children. Both are part of the same body. When he means same body he means the church, the body that is the church.

33:02 And both enjoy the promises of blessings because they belong to Jesus Christ. And so what is the stewardship talked about in verse two? He goes on to explain the next few verses. And essentially it is this truth. It's called a mystery and the Greek word is mysterion.

33:27 Pardon me, I try not to use Greek words or ever talk about them because I know nothing about them. I was going to say I know just enough to be dangerous, but I know even less than that. I did read Mysterion specifically about and specifically the way it's used here has to do with a revelation that was previously unknown. And so the Gospel is alluded to numerous times throughout the Old Testament. But the Jewish mind was blind to it.

34:03 And the Jewish mind was blind to they had some things that they even really did understand. They did understand, many of them at least, that there would be this kind of that there was I mean, it's clearly prophesied that there was going to be a turning that the Jews would have some responsibility to be a part of bringing God's message to the Gentiles. That's clearly talked about in the Old Testament. But still there was just a sense with the Jews that of general understanding that the way the Gentiles would be saved would be by becoming Jews. Not through the Gospel.

34:56 So that was a huge revelation. And specifically, what this means is that, you know, what he talks about why it's so important, he talks about how with this revelation, Jews and Gentiles are now one in Christ's body. That was not something that was known at all. Perhaps there was some people that understood principles of that somehow. But that was a revelation that was given to Paul, and it talked about in chapter two here, how this gospel changes relationships.

35:48 And so I'll refer real quickly to this diagram that seems to come up a lot with me. But just the idea that you can imagine on one side is us, you, you and me, or you or whoever, and then the other. And so if I was a Jew, there's the Gentiles. And suddenly, because of this wonderful gospel, the distance between me and the Gentile or me and the other. Or if I'm the Gentile, I am a Gentile, obviously.

36:34 Me and the Jew. The difference between us is minimized. Suddenly says we're one. We're in one body. And so this is a wonderful thing.

36:48 And not only are we one, but we have access to all of those same benefits. We have access, which he goes on to talk about. So in being one, have access in a way that the Jews thought they had an exclusive right to. And yet, in doing so, they misunderstood God's plan of faith. Though I am the least deserving of people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to him in Christ.

37:27 In other places it says unsearchable riches. These are the things that we get that so often we pass over because they're too sublime for everyday life. The unsearchable riches. So no matter how hard Paul tries, he's gonna indeed, even what he's done is sublime. But we can't, in this mortal body, in this limited time frame, fully search it out.

38:00 But we try to, as we study His word and try to understand who He is and allow Him to affect our hearts. Was chosen to explain... This is verse nine. I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom and its rich variety.

38:26 And so here's just another step here. He's like, it's not just the riches you get that are unsearchable, that you have no possible way of ever understanding how deep and far these are. We talked about the unsearchable vast love. We sang about that and talked about it. And every week we go to meditate and consider and search the unsearchable riches.

38:50 But specifically, he's saying here that there's even more than what he gives to us, but that there's this higher purpose where as we're one in the church, we actually are being presented, and this is alluded to and talked about as well in the passage, I forgot where it is, about head coverings. Specifically, that part of the reason why we do what we do is because God is using us for spiritual purposes that we can't even begin to comprehend. It has something to do with the... How, I believe, the angels essentially are looking down and they need to understand something. And for some reason, with their limits, there are things we can teach them by how we act out and obey God and how we fulfill his plan that we can't even imagine.

40:03 So this is just a whole other level of mystery, you could say. He alludes to it, but he doesn't necessarily explain it completely. So he says, The unseen rulers and authorities in heavenly places. Verse 10, God might... ESV says, So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

40:29 I believe this is talking about the angels, not the fallen angels. But I heard someone say that it could be even the fallen angels. I'm not sure what he would want teach them. And this was his eternal plan, verse 11, which he carried out through Jesus Christ our Lord. Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confident into God's presence.

40:56 So this was his eternal plan. And it was carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord. All these unsearchable riches, all these things that are happening, it's a plan by God. It was eternally planned. It was planned outside of time.

41:37 We aren't just joined and have unity, but we have that same unity with with God himself as being part of the body. We can come boldly and confidently. You think of boldness and confidence. And that is a mystery because we're so far from him in many respects. Our sin has given us shame.

42:12 Paul said he was the least of all sinners. Right? And he lived with the memories. I think that the guilt was removed. But he could rightfully say that he was the least of all sinners.

42:29 And all of us fall so short. When we think about sublimeness, we have to look at that in terms of how far he took us from where we were and the wonder of that. And then to think that where I was in my issues, I can come in as a son boldly just like my kid would run-in and just walk right into my office. A lot of times I tell him to get away, so I'm not the best example. But God doesn't say that in his throne room.

43:10 He's... He... And and so there is that thought, that wonder that we can consider. So because of all this, we don't need to feel bad that Paul was suffering. Paul had a deeper purpose.

43:30 He was a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and he was useful to him. And he had these revelations that God had given him. And so for us, it is also the same thing. Like, we can apply these same truths to the suffering that's going to be entailed in our lives if it's not now. That these...

43:56 They're so important for endurance. They're so important for us as we also... And it's going be really important to remember as we start to focus on the doing part of Ephesians. We want to refer back to the fact that this all comes down, where the wheels, tires meet the road. It all happens where there's an actual transformation of understanding about who God is in our minds and our hearts so that we can act that out as God calls us to.

44:34 And so it's only, I would say, through an act of His grace that He brings us to that knowledge and understanding. And as we submit to that, as we continue to try to learn and understand. And as I said, the baby changes everything. Christ changes everything. Just pray that that will be the case.

45:44 We would see the wisdom of your works in us. And I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.