EPHESIANS | HOW GRACE WORKS - PART 3

Ephesians 3, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, on behalf of you 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.

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 holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.

The mystery is that the Gentiles are his fellow heirs,

members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace,

which was given to me by working of his power.

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints,

this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ

and to bring 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.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,

in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

So I ask you to not lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

for whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,

that according to the riches of his glory,

he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being,

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,

that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

may have strength to comprehend with all the saints

what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,

that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

according to the power at work within us.

To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

throughout all generations forever and ever.

Amen.

This is the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Well done, Grace.

Thank you, Jesus, for children who are smarter than me.

Well done.

Would you pray with me?

The Spirit of the living God,

fall fresh on us.

Reveal yourself, Lord Jesus.

Be glorified in these next few moments.

Use the limitations of my words,

the limitations of our understanding.

May your strength be made perfect in our weakness.

Thank you.

For calling us together today to sit under the teaching of your word,

specifically this word from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Gail broke up with me.

We were in third grade.

She was my girlfriend.

And I did everything I knew to do as a third grader,

to be a good boyfriend.

My parents even took us to Godfather's Pizza.

I wore my members-only jacket.

But she broke up with me,

and the reason she gave was,

you're not a country boy.

I'd heard my parents praying for the woman I would marry someday,

since I was a little boy.

And apparently, it wasn't going to be Gail.

I didn't have much of an imagination

for what it meant to be a boyfriend or to have a girlfriend.

But I knew something was wrong with this.

Surely this is not the way things were meant to be.

I didn't like that feeling of being rejected.

Even as a third grade boy,

even not knowing what it means to be a boyfriend or to have a girlfriend,

I just didn't like this.

Something was wrong.

Gail broke up with me.

I came, told my mom.

I cried.

I told my dad.

He said, get over it.

Fast forward to the summer of 1997.

I was in my 20s.

I had met the girl I was going to marry.

Her name was Valerie.

She was pretty, and she loved Jesus.

Two good things, but again,

not much of an imagination beyond,

she's pretty, and she loves Jesus.

And just like Gail, Valerie broke up with me,

in spite of me taking her out to eat several times

and wearing all my coolest jackets.

And just like Gail's breakup,

Valerie's breakup left me heartbroken and confused.

In fact, Valerie called me the summer of my junior year,

at Oral Roberts University and said,

hey, I think we probably need to stop seeing each other.

I was like, what?

Why?

She said, I'm engaged to be married.

Again, not a real big imagination

for what this whole marriage thing should look like.

I just knew this wasn't right.

And so I took my limited imagination before God,

and I just said, God, I'm not going to marry you.

God, this isn't right.

And thankfully, unlike my dad,

he did not say, just get over it.

In fact, he said, trust in me with all your heart

and lean not on your own imagination.

I kid you not, six weeks later, I'm in our cafeteria,

and a friend of mine is saying to me,

hey, Stephen, if you could date anybody,

at this school, who would it be?

Like, who, what's your type?

Now, this was a friend.

She was a girlfriend, and I was dense enough.

Again, no imagination, no imagination to know.

She was asking if she was my type.

I just didn't connect the dots.

So I answered the question honestly.

Well, no, she's not, no, no, not that girl.

She's not my type.

No, not that one.

Not this one, not that one.

And right then, a five foot 11 and a half,

gorgeous, dark haired woman who loved Jesus

with all of her heart, beautiful, loved Jesus,

and had godly character, walked across at the salad bar.

Her name was Ruth.

And I saw her, and I said, that's the girl for me.

That's the kind of girl I want to date.

That's my type right there.

And right then and there, I took a step back,

and I was like.

Oh, I've seen this girl around for a long time.

Why am I not dating that girl?

And the best I know how to explain this,

right then and there, I had what scripture calls an apocalypse.

A revelation moment where my entire imagination changed.

My whole worldview changed.

Everything.

Everything in the world was the same, but different.

Now I saw my world, my future being with a girl like Ruth.

It took me three years to convince her that she was in love with me.

But right now there's a ring on her finger and there are three kids in this building right now.

It's getting pretty serious.

From a biblical perspective, an apocalypse is when heaven invades earth and everything changes.

That's what happened to me.

The world around me didn't change, but my understanding, my imagination,

my worldview completely changed.

In a flash I saw what life could be.

And every sad thing came untrue.

If this is the kind of person God has for me,

then all the heartache was worth it.

The gales of my past were worth it.

The Valerie's of my past

were worth it.

were worth it. All the frustrations, all the struggles, the agony of unrequited love

was a light and momentary affliction. My entire world changed in that moment. And that was a

revelation, I think, from God. Have you had such a revelation from God about Jesus? Have you had

an apocalypse moment for who Jesus is, such that it reshapes the way you see your entire life?

Not only going forward, but somehow it makes sense of everything behind you. You stand in this place,

standing before God, and all of a sudden your imagination completely changes. Biblical scholars

say an apocalyptic turn is the arrival of something new and unheard of that

changes your life. And that's what Jesus did. He changed your life. He changed your life.

He changed your life. He changed your life. He changed your life. He changed your life. He changed your life.

He changes the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In other words, our imaginations themselves

are categorically changed. Biblical scholar Christopher Morse said, in a day when the word

apocalyptic is popularly used for the world news of cosmic proportions, it may come as a surprise

to discover that in the gospel of the New Testament, most decidedly in the testimony of Paul,

it is used precisely,

for the best news of all. An apocalypse, or an apocalyptic moment, apocalypse now,

is not bad news. It's not world coming to an end. It is death coming to an end, death dying death,

and good news coming, the good news of Jesus. Tim Mackey describes it this way. He says,

an apocalypse is a moment of revelation where the bond between heaven and earth,

becomes visible to you. Do you know that's the picture that Genesis 1 is trying to paint for you?

This apocalypse moment where the bond of heaven and earth became visible to humankind?

Do you know that throughout scripture, when people encountered God, whether it was Isaiah

being called into the throne room of God, and experiencing the presence of God, it's an apocalypse

moment?

His entire imagination changed. Throughout the narrative of the Old Testament, we see people

trying to get back to Eden, and often even taking good and bad into their own hands,

trying to get back into the presence of God. Not realizing that the God who created everything

is in pursuit of humanity. That God, the good God who created all of heaven and earth,

is in pursuit of partnership with humankind to bring apocalypse,

moments into humanity. Among other things, Ephesians is about the apocalypse or the revelation

of God's grace. As we've discussed in the past weeks, Paul has organized this letter into two

halves. In the first major movement, chapters one through three, we see the plan of God's grace.

What is God's grace? What's the content of God's grace?

In the second movement, Ephesians four through six, we see the power of God's grace. How it actually

works. Paul, in Ephesians chapter three, uses this word mystery. He's saying it was hidden.

The plan of God was hidden, but it has been revealed. So today, we're finishing this first

movement of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, talking about the plan of God's grace. But Paul

now takes a turn and he's talking about the plan of God's grace. He's talking about the plan of God's

grace. He takes a turn and makes it very, very personal. He talks about the result of his own

apocalypse, his unique role in God's big plan, and by extension, invites us to see our own role

in the plan of God's grace. And just like the whole letter of Ephesians is divided into two

major movements, has this two-part shape, each of the chapters thus far has had a very,

very similar rhythm, a two-part shape, like waves crashing on the shore, expressing to you

God's grace. So the two-part shape that we're going to explore Ephesians three through today

is this, apocalypse then and apocalypse now. Apocalypse then, the mystery revealed,

and what does it take for the mystery to be revealed now? In here,

in this space, and in our time, and in our age. First, apocalypse then. Look again at Ephesians

three, verse one. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and notice at the

beginning of Ephesians, Paul calls himself what? What does he call himself at the beginning of

Ephesians? Ephesians chapter one. Anybody remember? I, Paul, an apostle. Now, he flips the

script, and he comes to you as a felon, as a prisoner, boldly as a prisoner. Now, why is that

remarkable? Well, we have the curse of knowledge. We knew Paul traveled and was in prison for his

faith, but Paul was in, but Paul being in prison didn't mean the same thing to us as it did to

them. The readers of this circular letter would have wondered about this thing. How can Paul be

in prison? Because in that day and age, being in prison meant that the God, the God of the

gods, the Roman gods were more powerful than your God. That was the suspicion that you had. Paul is

going to address that in this verse, in this chapter, but he comes right out and says, for this

reason, I, Paul, a prisoner, not of the Romans, but of Christ Jesus, on your behalf, the behalf of you,

the Gentiles, assuming that you heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me

for you, how the mystery was, how the mystery was, how the mystery was, how the mystery was,

made known to me by revelation. Do you know what that word revelation means? It's the Greek word

apocalypto, where we get the word apocalypse. Paul says, the mystery was made known to me, to me,

by an apocalypse, as I've briefly written. Verse four, when you read this, you can perceive,

you can tell something has changed in me. Whether you knew me before or not, you knew, you can tell

that I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was

changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed. I was changed.

When I've been marked by this apocalypse, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ,

which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations, as it has now been apocalypsed

to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. I want to pause right here and remind you of

something that you probably already know. If you have a relationship with Jesus already,

it's not because you chose him first. It's because he chose you.

unless God revealed himself to you you would still be on the outside looking in you would be

completely lost and not even know that you're completely lost unless you have God revealed to

you you cannot know God there are two types of revelation that we see in scripture one is called

general revelation scripture says actually you can know God God can be revealed to you as you just

go about life in creation as you when you're at the beach you're looking at a beautiful sunset

or up on top of a mountain or when you look at the uh the way of humankind around you when you

see beauty and art it should there's general revelation the way that God reveals himself to

you you can connect with God God can lead you to him through those things now those things are not

God creation is not God but God can lead you to him through creation

heaven and earth are filled with his glory the second kind of revelation that we have is called

special revelation God has revealed himself to you through scripture through the pages of scripture

we believe that all of scripture is not just God breathed but it is God breathing one of the reasons

we gather every Sunday is to sit under the authority of teaching of scripture my words

my opinion cannot change you

but God revealing himself to you through scripture is the only thing that can change you

God has to reveal himself eternal life requires then an apocalypse

so where did Paul's apocalypse come from well we know the famous story of Paul formerly called

Saul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus but I believe that Paul's apocalypse happened

before the apocalypse happened so I believe that Paul's apocalypse happened before the apocalypse

actually happened because God revealed himself to us God had called Paul to Jesusары the Messiah

I believed that God revealed himself to us so I believed that God revealed himself to us

I believe that God revealed himself to us I believe that God revealed himself to us

and we also know that God crawl upon a mountain the egg as he carries a relay out over his head

of the earth and Murpheus was saved as an angel to immediately been called into this world we simply

imaginebur opposed plotted hasvan

sick Jesus out of hell castDel APPLAUSE

about doing Jesus-y things, great signs and wonders, enough to get the attention of religious

zealots opposed to the way of Jesus. And in particular, Stephen is a part of a group called

the Hellenists. Now, the Hellenists were simply Greek-speaking Jews, but in the Hebraic tradition,

they were part of the Jewish family, they were part of the covenant, but maybe a little bit

lesser citizens, maybe a little bit lesser class. The people who lived in Jerusalem and lived in

Israel and preserving the temple, they kind of looked down their noses at the diaspora. Even

though they invited them to come in, well, the same kind of thing happened in the early church

until a dispute arose around the feeding of the widows. And Stephen and Philip were named among

the leaders of this group of Hellenists. So now,

outsiders, kind of the first little concentric circle, the first rung of outsiders is invited in.

And Stephen is one of those. And not only is he preaching with power, just like Peter did,

who's the only other person we've heard a sermon from in Acts thus far,

Stephen preaches with power in what may be the best sermon in the whole Bible.

And then here's what happens. Acts 7, 54 says, when they heard these things,

they were deeply convicted. They had an apocalypse moment. They turned toward Jesus. Is that what it

says? No. It says they were enraged. They ground their teeth at him. They gnashed their teeth at him.

But he, I love that the Bible includes that little, that little note. They gnashed their teeth at him.

Someone had to have seen that. That's a, that's a detail that you have to witness. They gnashed

their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, he was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was

enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He was enraged. He

at the feet of a young man named Saul.

And as they were stoning Stephen,

he did a very Jesus-y thing.

He forgave his enemies.

He loved his enemies.

First he said, Lord, receive my spirit.

And falling to his knees, he cried out in a loud voice,

Lord Jesus, do not hold this sin against them.

And when he said this, he fell asleep.

And chapter eight, verse one, adds this little note.

And Saul approved of his execution.

You talk about a hard-hearted person.

You talk about the kind of person

that any of us would dismiss.

Not only would we dismiss,

we might pray imprecatory prayers for.

God, I don't know how this works.

Some people in the Psalms prayed for people to die.

If that works for this guy right here,

I mean, like, it would make sense, right?

Right?

Like, this guy's killing Christians.

He is persecuting Christians.

He could not be more opposed to the good news of Jesus.

And yet, Paul himself has an apocalypse.

You talk about grace.

You talk about unmerited favor.

You talk about someone being a gift who did not deserve it.

And not only did he not deserve it,

he was ill-deserving of it.

Right?

He might have been the least deserving of it.

In fact, he says so himself.

We get Luke's version of Saul's apocalypse

on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9.

But Paul gives his own version in Acts chapter 26.

So if you have your Bibles, flip there.

Acts 26.

Acts chapter 26, verse 14.

It says this.

Paul says,

He says,

And when we had fallen to the ground,

I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language,

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And then we get this little detail that we don't get in Acts chapter 9.

Paul says that Jesus said this to him.

It's hard for you to kick against the goads.

In other words, Saul.

Jesus says with a smile,

your conscience is bothering you, isn't it?

You've been thinking about me, haven't you?

Saul, why are you kicking against the goads?

Why do you think that is?

Well, I don't know.

Bible doesn't say.

But it sure seems to me that when Saul saw

and heard the apocalypse that's coming,

what Stephen was having,

that something happened to Saul in that moment.

Something he couldn't shake.

Something that haunted him in the best possible way.

Something that kept him up at night.

And the obverse effect of a guilty conscience

is that he doubled down on his sin.

The obverse effect of his guilty conscience,

the way he ran away from that voice

was to continue to persecute Christians

with more zeal and with more fervor.

But he saw that he was not alone.

He saw heaven overlap with earth

through the eyes and through the voice of Stephen.

And it had an effect on him.

A profound effect on him.

Maybe call it a pre-apocalypse.

A pre-awakening to Saul.

Then Paul goes on to explain that apocalypse moment.

Again, in Acts 24, or 26, verse 15 says,

I said to you, well, who are you, Lord?

And Jesus said to him,

I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

You know why Paul so identifies

that we are in Christ?

He so identifies that we are in Christ

because Jesus identifies that he identifies with us.

He didn't say, why are you persecuting Christians?

He said, why are you persecuting me?

I am the one you're persecuting.

Jesus says this,

I'm not gonna kill you like I think I am.

You had an apocalypse moment.

And in the ancient world, if you see God,

you're a goner, you're dead.

But Jesus doesn't say that.

He doesn't say you're going down.

He says, rise up.

Stand to your feet.

For I have appeared to you for this purpose.

To appoint you as a servant and a witness

to the things which you have seen me

and to those for which I will appear to you.

In other words, you had an apocalypse then.

You're gonna have another apocalypse now

and another one in the future.

Delivering you from your people

and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you

to open their eyes.

Doesn't that sound like apocalypse language to you?

To open their eyes so that they may turn

from darkness to light.

What happened in the Garden of Eden?

They said after they took from,

from the tree of knowledge of good and bad,

their eyes were opened and they saw good as bad.

They saw dark as light.

They hid from God.

Jesus says to Paul, you are gonna participate

in the kingdom of Jesus and my kingdom.

And by doing that, you're gonna turn their eyes.

You're gonna open through the Holy Spirit.

Their eyes will be open and they will turn

from darkness back to light.

But in the parlance of,

our modern Christian faith,

we call that being born again

from the power of Satan to the power of God.

That they may receive forgiveness of sins,

but not just that.

And a place among those who were sanctified

by faith in me.

Paul is saying, hey, when I saw Jesus,

Jesus gave me a gift.

When you see me in prison,

don't think of me as being down and out.

Think of me as being exactly where God called me to be.

I'm here because of a gift.

It is a gift that I'm in prison and I'm praying

and I'm writing for you.

Paul beats all I've ever seen.

I mean, you put him in prison, you beat him,

you put him in prison, he says, great.

I was just about to finish 3 Corinthians.

Maybe he didn't finish that one.

Back in Ephesians 3, we see the same words,

the same language.

Ephesians 3, verse 6 says,

this mystery that the Gentiles are our fellow heirs,

members of the same body,

are partakers of the promise of God

through the gospel.

Of this gospel, I was made a minister

according to the gift of God's grace,

which was given to me by the working of his power.

To me, though I am the very least of the saints,

this gift, this grace was given

to preach to the Gentiles

the unsearchable,

riches of Christ.

And to bring to light,

to bring to apocalypse for everyone

what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages

in God who created all things.

So that through the church,

through the gathering,

through the gathering of the haves and have-nots,

through the gathering of the old and the young,

through the gathering of every tribe, nation,

and tongue,

the manifold wisdom of God may be made known

to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

Paul says every time the local church gathers,

all of hell quakes.

The first sermon preached every Sunday

is not me standing on this stage.

The first sermon preached every Sunday

is you pushing back the darkness

by getting up, getting dressed,

getting in your car,

or getting outside and walking to this building.

Moving your body.

Moving your body through time and space.

Paul says that right there

preaches the gospel to the rulers

and authorities in heavenly places.

Don't you dare give in to the lie

that your local church gathering doesn't matter.

It matters.

It matters to eternity.

When you come sit under the teaching of Scripture,

when you add your voice to the course of worship,

it matters when you pass the peace.

It matters when you look someone in the eyes

and they can tell that you're happy to see them.

It matters when you look someone in the eyes

and they can tell that you're happy to see them.

It matters when you pray for someone.

It matters when you come to the altar and pray.

This was according to the eternal purpose,

verse 11,

that he realized when he was in Christ Jesus,

in whom we have boldness and access and confidence

through faith in him.

There it is.

So I ask, don't lose heart of where I'm suffering for you.

It's your glory.

So Paul is saying, never forget.

Never forget the apocalypse

that you and I are in.

Never forget that you and I have been brought into.

We've been brought from outsiders to insiders,

from being dead in our trespasses to being alive in Christ,

from being slaves to a cruel master

to being children of God.

Paul wants us to see that the plan of God's grace

was that we see Jesus for who he really is.

Jesus is reality.

Then it doesn't stop there.

Jesus is Israel's Messiah,

and Israel's Messiah,

and Israel's Messiah was never meant

to keep the goodness to themselves.

They were never meant to keep the grace of God to themselves.

God rescued them to take part in rescue.

God saved them to go be part of salvation.

God always means to bring salvation

to the whole world through those who he saved.

That's the mystery.

That means the haves and the have-nots,

the oppressor and the oppressed,

both the young and the old,

the able and the less able,

the extraordinary,

the ordinarily gifted,

and the ordinarily gifted.

That means the healthy and the wounded.

That means those who are rule followers

and those who are rule breakers.

All of us, all of us,

every single one of us are invited

to participate in God's plan of grace.

Helenus Stephen's apocalypse

led to zealous, pharisaical Saul's apocalypse,

and now Paul wants that apocalypse then

to lead to ours.

Now, which leads us to the second movement

of Ephesians 3, apocalypse now.

I want you to open up your Bibles

to Ephesians 3, verses 14.

And as we end, I want to invite our worship team to come up.

I'm just going to invite you to pray these verses.

This is one of the most powerful prayers

in all of scripture.

Paul can't help himself

when he thinks about the apocalypse then.

He goes right into talking about the missio Dei,

the mission of God,

and immediately starts participating in it himself,

and by extension, inviting us to participate.

Do you know, if you've had an encounter with God,

it's because someone likely prayed

for you to have an apocalypse.

Someone might not have used those specific words,

but if they prayed for you,

they were inviting heaven to come to earth in your heart.

They were inviting you to be able to see,

to activate your imagination.

And what happened when it did?

Well, what happened is this.

The sad things came untrue.

They lost their power over you.

The heartache, someday, Jesus says,

will wipe away every tear from your eyes.

Death.

Paul's revelation of the mystery of God in Christ

compels him to pray for us, the church,

and he invites us to do the same.

So this morning, why don't we do it?

Why don't we pray for an apocalypse now?

Why don't we pray for God to reveal himself to us,

to me, and to you now?

Pray for God to reveal himself to,

Santa Barbara right now. Pray for God to reveal himself to your neighborhood right now. Pray for

God to reveal himself to your family, your friends, the people in the concentric circles of your life

right now. Pray for God to reveal himself to the people you think are most outsiders, most

enemies, enemy to you right now. Use the words of Ephesians 3, 14 through 19.

Paul says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father

from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory,

he may grant you to be strengthened with power in his spirit.

In your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you,

being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints

what is the height, the breadth, the length, the depth to know the love of Christ,

which passes knowledge, that you may be filled

with understanding.

Amen.

All the fullness of God.

As we finish our time in worship together, I just invite you, you can come down and participate in

communion.

As always, we have carpets down front.

Come pray for an apocalypse moment in your life and in the lives of the people around you.

I just invite you to use the words of Ephesians 3.

verses 14 through 19, as you do.

Would you stand to your feet?

I'm going to pray to transition into this moment of worship.

Lord Jesus, we've gathered here together in your name.

Way back in the day, Isaiah came to a church gathering

not unlike this.

Somehow he was caught up into heaven.

He was caught up into your presence.

Maybe the last person he expected to see at church

actually showed up.

God himself.

Lord Jesus, you're no respecter of persons.

You did it for Isaiah.

You can do it for me.

You did it for Isaiah.

You did it for Paul.

You can do it for us.

Would you reveal yourself to us?

By the power of your Holy Spirit,

lead us to pray for the people

who need an apocalypse right now.

In Jesus' name,

let's pray and worship.