God’s Wisdom Displayed in His Church

Transcript

GR 2319
6/13/2021
God's Wisdom Displayed in His Church
Ephesians 3:7-13
Gil Rugh


We're going to Ephesians 3. Ephesians is a book that is about the church. If you really want to understand what the church is and what it is to be, you need to know Ephesians. It is not the only portion of the New Testament that talks about the church—we think of what we call the pastoral epistles, and they certainly address church issues. The foundational truth of the church is the focal point of the message of the letter to the Ephesians. We see that the church is something unique and special, something that had not taken place because there was no church in prior days to the time that Paul is writing about—what we call New Testament times, specifically starting in Acts 2. There was no information or revelation about the church until we get to the New Testament coming up in Acts 2. The book of Ephesians is going to talk about the church, and it starts at a foundational level. Something that we need constantly reminded of is that God is absolutely sovereign. He is sovereign over all, He has set His purposes and plans in eternity past before He created anything, and He is sovereign over everything that is taking place in the world of His creation down to today. Ephesians 1 reminded the Ephesian believers that they had been greatly blessed. Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” That expression “in the heavenlies” is going to come up again in our section in chapter 3 today, but it is the place of God's presence. It is heaven, where God manifests His presence among His creation most fully. He is omnipresent—He is present everywhere—but heaven is the place where that presence is manifested most fully and clearly. You'll note in verse 4, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” Verse 5 says, “He predestined us to adoption as sons.” These are things that happened before the creation. God sovereignly planned and ordained what would take place. Paul is particularly focusing on us; we have been part of God's plan and God's purpose from before Genesis 1. God had set it all in order, all in place. He went on to talk about what God did in planning our redemption and salvation and what He would do for us. So, we appreciate now in time when that plan is being revealed and worked out, and we understand and appreciate what God is doing.

When he came into chapter 2, he reminded us of what a remarkable work it was of God to bring His salvation to people who were so completely lost. This is a major obstacle for people—to realize how desperately lost they are. Chapter 2 opened, “You were dead in your trespasses and sin.” You had no spiritual life, and you were cut off from any relationship to God. That's the condition of people apart from the redemptive work of Christ. There are no exceptions. They are spiritually dead. That's why there is no response to spiritual things or spiritual truth except a negative response. People like that “walk according to the course of this world,” as verse 2 said. They are under the control, influence, and power of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Look at the world around us. We ask, what is happening? People are doing more irrational, foolish, and ungodly things. They pride themselves in promoting and practicing the very thing that God says He hates. They are sons of disobedience; their whole life is characterized by rebellion against God. It should not surprise us. It is simply, perhaps, manifested more clearly in certain days than others, but God said this was all of our condition before God intervened. It's not like they are so terrible, but we never were. Remember chapter 2 opened, “You were dead.” You formerly walked in this way. Verse 3, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh.” We “were by nature children of wrath.” There are no—and there have never been any—exceptions. That's the condition of every single person born in the human race since the days of Adam and Eve. We saw that in their first children. One son killed another. It didn't take long for what happened as a result of sin to manifest itself. But verse 4 brought the transition. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead.” Even when we were in such wretched condition, He intervened. “Made us alive together with Christ,” then that great summary statement, “by grace you have been saved.” And He not only saved us, but He also raised us up to new life and gave us a position in heaven where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Someday, we will enter that place and enjoy God's presence for eternity. Great verses, verses 8-10, “By grace you have been saved through faith.” How simple it is! God has done everything and provided it all. It says here it is as a free gift. You receive it by believing. That's the division in the world: those who have and those who haven't; those who have the new life that is found through faith in Christ and those who do not. That division exists everywhere in the world and in the church because not everybody who comes into a physical building has placed their faith in Christ. But when they do, the same transition occurs. So, we want to be careful. Much is going on in the world today. You wring your hands and say I can't believe that people have gone this far. What God has seen in our hearts, is what He sees in every heart. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. It ought not to make us so disgusted about them that we forget that we were like them. It ought to remind us of how necessary it is for us to bring the light of God's salvation to this world, to these lost. There are no more disgustingly lost than we were, and God's power of salvation is great enough to cleanse and make them new as it cleansed and made us new.

In verse 11, we began to talk about this new group which is comprised of those who had placed their faith in Christ. It is called the church. The remarkable thing that is new is that God was saving people in Old Testament times. Abraham lived 2,000 years before Christ came to earth, and yet Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness. People were saved in the Old Testament, and the work of God in the Old Testament began to focus on Abraham's particular descendants Israel. The you have the establishing of the Mosaic Law in the book of Exodus, particularly starting in Exodus 19, and the nation Israel became the focal point where God would manifest His work of salvation in the world. Some Gentiles were saved… We looked at Rahab in Joshua 2 in our study recently. She is a Canaanite Gentile, a non-Jewish woman, and a prostitute, and yet she is saved by God's grace because she believed in the God of Israel. She really became a convert to Judaism by believing in the God of Israel and the truth that God had revealed to and through the nation Israel. When we get to Joshua 6, we find that she has become part of the nation. So, there are Gentiles saved in the Old Testament. But what is unique is now God's work of salvation focuses in a full way on Gentiles. Pretty much all of us here today are Gentiles. We should be praising and thanking God for the truth that He has revealed through the Apostle Paul here. These are the days of the fullness of the Gentiles. God is working particularly among the Gentiles. Now, there are some Jewish people here saved, and some Jewish people in the world are part of the church because they have placed their faith in Christ. He is joining them together in one body, in one building, in one new man. That was in Ephesians 2;15; verse 16, a new building; verse 20,21. This is a new work.

In chapter 3, Paul wants to explain now how he knows this new truth. God revealed it to him. Verse 2 says, “You have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me,” a responsibility with God's grace. He made it known to Paul, then Paul was to make it known and implement it with the preaching of the Gospel. Verse 3, “That by revelation there was made known to me the mystery.” It's “the mystery of Christ” at the end of verse 4. It is something, verse 5, that had not been made known before. “Which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men.” It's important that we understand the biblical words with the biblical definition. I say that because part of what happens in the church is sometimes people begin to give new definitions to old words, sometimes biblical words; and that new definition opens a door to ideas and thoughts and teachings that are not biblical. For example, he tells us here that the mystery of Christ is something which in other generations, Ephesians 3:5, “was not made known to the sons of men.” God hadn't revealed it. “It has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets.” These are New Testament prophets here. That's a definition of a mystery. Now some have begun to redefine mystery to say it is something that was partially revealed in the Old Testament, and we are now getting additional information about. When you do that, you begin to lose the distinctiveness of the church as a totally new entity. What they are really trying to do is connect the church to the Old Testament and to Israel and now we are just getting further information. No. He says it wasn't revealed to prior generations.

What is it? Verse 6, “That the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” God is saving Gentiles, and not just one or two, but in large numbers—in fact, more numbers than Jews. This is the day of the fullness of the Gentiles. Remember he had said that as Gentiles, back in Ephesians 2:12, “you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” The Word of God was revealed to the nation Israel, the prophets revealed God's truth to the nation Israel, the Mosaic Law was given to His people Israel, and the covenants pertain to Israel (the promise of a land, the promise of a coming Messiah, and the promise of a kingdom). Jews are in the best position; Gentiles need to get over and believe in the God of Israel and become part of Israel. Now something is changed. We who were excluded are now not only included, but also are the focal point. This is what Paul is talking about.

As he moves on to talk further, in verse 7 he says, “Of which I was made a minister.” This is explaining that God revealed something to me that He had not revealed prior, and not to me only, but also to other apostles and prophets as we see at the end of verse 5. But Paul is the focal point. He revealed to Paul in a fuller and greater way truth concerning the church than He did to anyone else. Now be careful, he is not the first person. Peter was the foundation; he preached the Gospel in Acts 2 and the church begins. In that sense, he is the foundation because he preached the first message of which the response brought the establishing of the church. The Holy Spirit came down in power to baptize people into the body of Christ for the first time. Peter will be the one who brings Gentiles into the church in Acts 10, but for the development of the church and the full realization of what is going on, it took Paul. Paul didn't get saved until Acts 9. In fact, he says in 1 Corinthians 15 that the appearance of Christ to me was last of all, one born out of time. It was God doing a unique thing. In Acts 9, God told Paul that he would be a testimony for Him in carrying the gospel to the Gentiles, suffering many things because he was doing that. Paul is going to talk about that.

Paul says in verse 7, “Of which I was made a minister.” That word translated minister is simply the Greek word diakonos. You can hear it. Servant, that's related to the word doulos, not grammatically but in meaning. Diakonos, you serve. Doulos carries more the idea of servitude, a slave. But here what does he identify? I am a servant; I was made a servant. He doesn't say I was made an apostle, and he is not elevating himself in a self-serving way. I was made a servant and then he stresses here, “according to the gift.” Not the words here, I was made a servant according to the gift. What is a gift? It is something you don't deserve, you don't earn, and you don't work for. It is given to you graciously. Ephesians 3:7, “The gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.” I want to tell you how I know this information of the church. God very graciously did something for me in giving to me a gift so that it would work empowered by Him. It is according to the working of His power. These are words that get related. Even though they are different, they are related. The working, the activity, energy, but the enabling power for that activity… We are going to do something, but it takes the proper power to enable our activity to be effective. It's the working of His power.

He is talking about the gift of God's grace, which is not the salvation, but the outworking of that salvation and the gift of God's grace to enable him to serve in the realm of an apostle and to be a vehicle of new revelation. He's going to talk about spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4. Every single person who is a believer has a spiritual gift, which is a way for you to serve the living God, to be active, and to be empowered by Him to accomplish what He intends you to accomplish. There are no exceptions to that. The only exceptions are unbelievers who have not experienced God's saving grace and so have not received His gifting grace. Every believer could make a statement similar to Paul, only different because we are all gifted differently as parts of a body, as we'll see when we get to chapter 4. Paul's emphasis is it's all God's doing.

Remember back in chapter 1? This goes back before the creation of the world, that in creating, God sovereignly planned everything, and I was included in that plan. Believer, you were included in that plan and the role and the part. Paul is saying, I'm not saying I am special because I have received this. I have a unique part to play, and it is all a testimony of God's grace which He gave to me. And you know as we grow in Christ, you can tell if you are growing. Are you getting arrogant or are you getting humble? The more we realize the greatness of God's grace, the more we are humbled to realize. This is what Paul says. He did this to me, and there is an emphasis on that as it starts this verse. “To me,” but not to elevate me, “to me, the very least of all the saints.” Paul evidently creates a word here with the way he puts things together. We translate it “the very least of all the saints”, but he compounds this word least. One of the Greek commentators says the best way you can put this in English is to say the leastest of all the saints, but that is not a good English word. However, Paul makes this word. How do I say it? I was not only… I'm the leastest, the most least of all the saints, of the holy ones. Now we are all believers; we are all saints. We talked about that in chapter 1—the holy ones of God. This is not false humility. This is recognizing how undeserving I am that God would put… This grace was given to me, and it is magnifying God's grace because He takes the one least deserving. We say, I don't think Paul was the least deserving, but that's how he saw himself. We all have to do this. One thing I find that is helpful to me… You can have a critical spirit, and it is easy to see what is wrong in someone else. Then I have to stop and think, and sometimes I talk to myself. Some of you may think it may be my age, but I've been doing this for years. I say, Gil, think about God's grace and what He has done for you and what would you be apart from His grace. What has He done for you in grace? This is what Paul is saying. He’d been the recipient of such great grace and it enabled him to deal with difficult people, with people who were problems to him. And on and on. But I see them through God's grace, and first of all through God's grace as shown to me. What would I be apart from God's grace? What would you be? You would be dead in your trespasses and sins, you would be walking according to the course of this world, and you would be doing the things that the sons of disobedience do. But God was gracious. And, even among believers. Looking around, you appreciate God's grace in unbelievers and you realize, who am I that I should be included? This is Paul in Ephesians 3:8, “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.” And there are a number of places, but we won't turn there—1 Corinthians 15:8-9, 2 Corinthians 12:11, 1 Corinthians 1:15-16—where Paul talks about his unworthiness. I was given this privilege. That's the way, and we’ll talk about spiritual gifts, but you want to see your gift. It's a privilege for me to be involved in the body and have this part. It's different than someone else's, but this is what Paul says that this grace was given me, and it was to carry the gospel to the Gentiles in all kinds of persecution, suffering, and imprisonment. He is in prison when he writes this. That is part of my blessing. Why? I'm here because I was carrying the gospel, and my carrying it to Gentiles offended the Jews. They took me as anti-Jewish. Preach to the Gentiles…

And what is he preaching? The unfathomable riches of Christ, all that God has provided for us in Christ. It is immeasurable and unfathomable. It has no bottom; it has no measure. When we get to glory, we’ll say, I could never have imagined anything like this. It's incomprehensible. This is what we get. I mean, we have revelation of it in Scripture, but how does my mind that is so entrapped as it is in this present physical body, in this physical world, comprehend all that God has prepared for those who love Him? This is amazing. We get caught up in the mundane things of day by day. I've noticed that when I get on and check the news, usually in the morning, I did this morning before I came to make sure the Rapture didn't occur or something like that… It's amazing the way the world thinks. The world has a way of turning everything around to itself. I was just scanning over the news and read about a lady who was trying to kill her two little children. How terrible! They interviewed a lady who observed this happening, and she wasn't talking about how terrible it was that the mother was doing that. Do you know what she was talking about? How traumatized she was in seeing something like that. Everybody has a way today of turning it to ‘it's about me’. It's not about what was happening to the poor kids; it was about how traumatized I was about what was happening. Everything is about how I suffer. And the more you have, the more wealth you have, or the more position you have, it seems you can't be in Hollywood unless people have to know how difficult it is for you. I contemplated suicide because it was almost more than I could take, having a $15 million house and servants. I just was overwhelmed. We're all like that.

We have to be careful as believers. This is the beautiful thing of what Paul is doing here. This was done by God in me to do something for you, and how blessed I am. He is going to elaborate this. And what am I doing? Preaching “to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches.” That is something new, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches. Then in verse 9 he elaborates. “To bring to light what is the administration of the mystery,” and here is our word. What is a mystery? Something “which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.” One of the things people criticize us of, and I mentioned this earlier but I’ll mention it again… They say dispensationalists, those who believe the church is distinct from Israel is a new thing, think that Christ came to earth and preached a coming kingdom, but because He was rejected, God had to come up with a new plan—the church being the new plan because His old one was rejected. There is an element of truth in this, that this is new, but it's not new in the plan of God. It's new in the revelation of God. It's something He hadn't revealed before, but He planned this before the creation. That's why He is mentioned in verse 8, or it's stressed at the end of verse 9—this “mystery which for ages been hidden in God.” It's not that it has not existed, but God hasn't revealed it. He is the God who created all things, but He didn't reveal everything in that creation plan. He planned before the foundation of the world, as we saw in Ephesians 1, to create the church, but that plan would not be revealed until after His Son had come, had been rejected in the plan of God—as Isaiah 53 revealed would happen—had died, and had been raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. And so, in a sense, in the plan of God as it had been revealed there is a break because the Old Testament revealed the coming of the Messiah, His suffering and death, and it revealed His coming to rule and reign in glory; but it didn't reveal what happened in between. Yet, it was all part of God's plan. He just kept it hidden. It shouldn't be so difficult, and it shouldn't cause people to come up with strange ideas in theology to try to work it out. Part of that working it out is having to redefine mystery because it had to have been revealed in the Old Testament. Paul says it wasn't. It was hidden in God, and He is the One who creates all things. It wasn't hidden to God—of course not. He is omniscient, and we already saw in chapter 1 that's where Paul starts us out. You have to go back to the sovereignty of God, and that's a constant reminder for us as believers. All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. We may have some difficult days ahead as believers, but that's alright. They are part of God's plan. Paul is in prison when he writes to the Ephesians, that's not a surprise to God. That's not something that was new to God.

Some of you have read theology, as a sidetrack for here but I'll remember to bring you back. It came into evangelicalism, Bible-believing Christians, open theism. Do you know what open theism is? God does not control or know the future. He cannot know what is unknowable, so He doesn't know absolutely, finally, or for sure the future. A couple things they insert, such as He would have to know because He has told us, but the rest of it, God is so smart, so intelligent, and He keeps reacting to everything that happens along the way… Where do you get that in Scripture? You get that from men reading their ideas into the Word of God.

All of that here, we want to understand the church is unique. It's new, and not to God, but to us; not in the plan of God, but in the revelation of God. We got that, right? So it has been hidden in God who created all things. That's why, again, chapter 1 started out in verse 4 that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. Well, that means He planned the church because that's the whole point here—we are in the church. He planned that before the creation. The hidden things belong to God and the revealed things belong to us, Deuteronomy 29. God hasn't revealed everything to us, but He has revealed everything He wants us to know. He hasn't revealed everything He is going to do, but He has revealed everything that we need to know about what He is going to do. So, the church comes as something new. We are in a special place in the plan of God, which was planned in eternity. This becomes important, and this is what he is going to emphasize. We need to be functioning as He intends. That's why we are starting here. We won't get to his commands of what to do until we get to chapter 4, but if you don't understand what God is doing, then the commands just get put out there in a vacuum. This is the church, unique in the plan of God for this period of time from Acts 2 down to the Rapture of the church. It has been hidden but now is being revealed.

Paul's role in verse 9 is “to bring to light what is the administration”. We saw this word up in verse 2, “If you indeed heard of the stewardship.” It's the same word. It's basically the house law. It's the overseeing, the administering, or the stewardship of a responsibility. It could be used of a large household where someone is given responsibility of managing that. Or used in a different context like that. So here Paul is bringing to light this time where God is now bringing to light the administration—what God has planned for how His work of salvation will be carried out in the world during this period of time, its focal point, and how it will be conducted. This is different than how we work for nation Israel. We are not a continuation of the nation Israel. While we're studying Joshua, we're going to see a man did something contrary to the command of God, so they take him, his family, and everything he has out. They stone them to death and burn them. We don't do that in the church. That's why some people say God of the Old Testament… I was reading a person who claimed to be within the evangelical camp, and they said, well, that God of the Old Testament is different. He is not evangelical. So, there are differences you have to recognize. God entrusted to Paul the oversight and carrying out of this new work. Down in verse 9, we have the same thing. I'm bringing “to light the administration of the mystery,” that which had been hidden. That's what he says. “The administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.” So here is how God now is carrying out His work of salvation in the world. Now it is focused. How people have been saved has always been the same, by grace through faith, but the administering and carrying out of that has had different focuses, obviously. We see the difference between Israel and the church. Israel was an earthly nation. It was a theocracy operating under the commands that God had directly given them. It was an earthly empire, and there were instructions for them how to conduct their lives daily, how the Law was to be administered, and how executions were to be carried out. There was only one religion allowed, and that was the worship of Israel's God. If somebody brought in a variation of worship, they were to be executed. That meant if the parents had to execute their children, those children had to be executed. That's the way Israel operates, but not the way the church operates. The people in Israel were saved by grace through faith; the people before Israel were saved by grace through faith—before there was a nation Israel, before Abraham was called, then his descendants before the Law was given. So there is the difference. Here I am bringing to light what is the administration, how God now is conducting, and it’s a responsibility I have to now oversee and guide the way God is building. We have the pastoral epistles where Paul gives instructions on how the church, which is the family of God, is to operate and function now as a spiritual entity with a physical manifestation. That's what he is talking about here.

“The administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that,” the purpose in this, “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known,” note this, “through the church.” The church is a unique entity now. The church is comprised of all believers, but he is talking about the individual manifestation of the church, the local church. He is writing to the church at Ephesus. When we studied Revelation, in chapters 2 and 3 we saw Christ. He is the head of the church, He is the head of the body, and He walks around His churches and evaluates each individual church as how they are functioning according to His will and His instructions. So, the church is a manifestation; we are that manifestation. In the church, here we go, “the manifold wisdom of God,” the multi-faceted, multi-colored church of God. That's his word emphasized, multiplied. Remember Joseph's multi-colored coat? He had a multi-colored coat, and that's this word, multi-colored, multi-faceted.

“So that the,” multi-faceted, “manifold wisdom of God,” which is what is seen in the church with its diversity. All kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds, races, cultures, languages, and statuses so that “the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies.” We're talking about angelic beings. He doesn't limit it here, so this would include both fallen and unfallen angels. What they see as they observe our church is the multi-faceted, multi-colored wisdom of God in bringing people together with their diversity: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, whatever the race—red and yellow, black and white and brown and orange and green—whatever together. That's the purpose in the church, to be a demonstration of God's multi-faceted, multi-colored wisdom.

Something that infiltrated the church years ago… I was doing some studies by those who were promoting church growth and they called it the church growth movement. It was built upon the premise that people like to be together with people of their kind, so one of the ways you build a church, if you're going to build significant churches and large churches, is you have to bring together people of the same kind. One of the largest churches in our country and probably in the world, a very well-known church—Rick Warren, Saddleback Church. They have the books he’s written, well known… We have Saddleback Sam. That's the person who is the model of their church, and this is what they put out—Saddleback Sam because Saddleback is their church. We evaluated the kind of music the people in the community around listen to. Where were they in the social structure and financial structure? Those are the people we are looking to bring into our church.

Well, what about God's multi-faceted, multi-colored wisdom on display? This is the world. These are the divisions we see, and our country is fracturing over this. As you put more emphasis on it, the divisions become greater, not less, and we divide over all this—how much money you have, where you live... In Christ we are all one. Why we are brought together is because we have the same faith in the same Savior; we are built on the same truth. Everything else is insignificant. That's what the New Testament church was. Remember they emphasized they didn't want a Jewish church starting and then a Gentile church, even though that would have been easier. There were Jews who believed, then Gentiles believed. Well, let's have a church for Jews. That way, they can have ham sandwiches for church luncheons and Gentiles can... We don't get these things all mixed up, “let's make it as comfortable for people”. We are to be comfortable in Christ as either slaves or free. You know Paul writes to the church and gives instructions to slaves and the free. He'll do that before we are done with Ephesians. You don't get a church for slaves and a church for non-slaves, but what about the masters? Then they come to church and sit next to their slave. They are not equals. Yes, they are, because in Christ, none of these distinctions matter. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or free, male or female. That's not what divides us; we are brought together as a unity. That's what manifests God's salvation. We begin to break down with a good idea. We want to be as effective as possible, so let's start a church in the poor part of town and then poor people can go there, and let's start a church in a part of town because we have some people with this ethnic background, and they'll have a church for them and they like their own foods and they do dinners so they will be more comfortable there… The church isn't a comfortable place. It's a place where God is making people one who would never have been comfortable with each other apart from His grace. That church denied that. I realize back in the days, and I've mentioned this, you read evangelical theologians in the 1800s and you are embarrassed by what they say about racial divisions and so on and how it is part of God's plan. That doesn't come out of God's Word.

So understand what the church is because this is foundational. When you don't understand it, how did we get into the church growth movement? With the courses I would take, I had to read every book that had been written on church growth and the church growth movement up to that point and then write evaluations of each one. They all came back to that same emphasis—this is just the way you build a church. It may be the way you build a church, but it's not the way God builds a church. He builds it to demonstrate His manifold wisdom. That's the whole argument here. Paul is talking about how Jew and Gentile, which was the big racial divide here that we have to deal with, particularly among those who were professing faith... We looked at the Jerusalem Council and that. But we ought to be careful that we realize we are the church today. We may not have the same Jewish/Gentile tension, but we still have the same tensions to deal with. If we don't deal with them, understanding first of all what the church and what God is doing in building His church, we end up building our own church and then try to put God's name on it. And that is never pleasing to God, no matter how big it is, no matter how “successful” it is.

And you'll note who is learning here. The end of verse 10, we are manifesting this wisdom “to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” angels. Angels are looking at our church to see. Isn't it amazing because the angels have never seen fallen and unfallen angels brought together? There never has been any redemption for angels. The angels saw God's work in a unique way with the nation Israel in the Old Testament and those people and then some of the Gentiles that converted, if you will, to the God of Israel. But now they are seeing something totally new. Come over to 1 Peter 1. Peter was involved in this whole debate, remember, in the early chapters of Acts. In fact, through Acts 10 Peter is the key person. After Paul gets saved in Acts 9, he becomes the key person. But Peter is the one involved in preaching the gospel for the first time as the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and the establishing of the church in Acts 2. He is the first one who really carries the gospel to the Gentiles in Acts 10. He had to come to grips with these truths. Paul had to rebuke him; remember Galatians 2? Peter was doing alright but then when some more Jewish Jews—we'd say evangelical Jews—in other words, conservative Jews, come up from Jerusalem he slid back into his own ways because they were still uncomfortable eating with Gentiles. Instead of helping them understand what he learned from Acts 10 with Cornelius, he just went along with those Jews from Jerusalem so he wouldn't eat with the Gentiles when those Jews were there. Wait a minute, he's learning, he's learning. We're not going to have a Jewish church, but the Old Testament saints didn't understand that. Look at 1 Peter 1:10, “As to this salvation the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry.” They prophesied about the coming of Messiah, His suffering, His death, and His resurrection. They prophesied of His coming and ruling and reigning in glory, but they couldn't put it all together because do you know why? When you read the Old Testament, it's just like my two hands—His coming to rule and reign and His coming to suffer and die. Just like that. How can that be? Either is He going to come and suffer and die or is He going to rule and reign? When Jesus came, the Jews rejected the idea He would suffer and die, saying we're only open to a Messiah who is going to come in full glory and establish a kingdom for us. Period. Well, God hadn't revealed everything in His plan. Yes, He revealed He was going to suffer and die, and you have to believe that. He is going to rule and reign, but you'll have to wait and see how He is going to work it out. That's where we don't want to get into trouble because we decide we'll fill in what God hasn't revealed. Well, we can't. They couldn't do it; the prophets couldn't do it. “They made careful search,” verse 10, “seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the suffering of Christ and the glories to follow.” They couldn't put it together. Be careful you don't reject it because you can't put it together. I believe in the responsibility of man, and I believe in the total sovereignty of God. Put it together for me. I can't, but I believe both are true. God has to put it together. It's not that we have to put it together. Our responsibility is to fill in the blanks. No, it isn't. Our responsibility is to teach the Word and to believe it. “It was revealed to them” verse 12, “that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now it has been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—” note this, “things into which angels long to look.” Do you know what this all indicates? God hadn't revealed to the angels His eternal plan either. Angels aren't God, even though they can be gods in the small sense of authority and responsibility, entrusted, and as Lucifer is called the god of this world (small “g”), but they are not omniscient. The angels only know what God has revealed to them, and He hadn't revealed to them this truth. How is that going to be resolved? What is going to happen? They are now observing in this church and other churches around the world and down through history how God is working, “things in which angels long to look.”

Come back to Ephesians 3. We are making known to them these things. That's why it is so important. Paul writes that even the angels are observing what is going on. We can take church casually and we think well, you know. This is what happened in Israel. It didn't become as serious as God intended it for them. We have church and we're the body of Christ, I know. It just becomes something not that focal, not that serious. Angels are watching. How are we doing? Are we demonstrating what God says in going to happen in a true church? It doesn't say we make it happen, but when we are functioning, we ought to be doing what God would have us do, empowered by Him, functioning as we should. This is what is manifested.

“This was in accordance,” Ephesians 3:11, “with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It's not new; this was His eternal purpose and He just carried it out. It took the coming of Christ to now enable the rest of the plan to be unveiled. It's interesting how God does it, He left out a middle piece—that time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. From the Old Testament, you go from the first coming to the second coming. Remarkable. If you don’t have a mug from Sound Words, you better get one because then you’ll know. Why would God do that? I don't know. Ask Him. He might say, none of your business. He does what He wills, doesn't He? This is what Paul says—it’s by the grace of God. He gifted me. I'm not in this to give God instructions. We're going to see that with the angel of the Lord. Joshua says to Him, are you on our side or the enemy's side? The angel of the Lord says no. Are you on my side or the enemy's side? No. This was in the eternal purpose of God, so for whatever reason in His plan He chose not to reveal it. He could have revealed it to the prophets, that here is what is going to happen after the death of the Messiah. He chose not to reveal it. So, the Old Testament prophets were left to struggle with how He can suffer and die and rule and reign. But you better believe both because both are true.

“This was in accordance with the eternal purpose,” verse 11, “which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” Boldness, confident access through faith in Him. We can go to the very presence of God, and we're welcome. We don't have time to go there, but you can read Hebrews 4 where it says, let us come with confidence to the throne of grace to receive what we need. Not with cockiness, but with confidence, humility, knowing we are received. Jesus Christ is our High Priest, and He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf as the one mediator between God and men. So, I can come, and I come, Father, not because of my worthiness but because Jesus Christ has done for me what I couldn't do for myself. I come to ask You to bring the desires of my heart.

And so Paul can say in Ephesians 3:13, “Therefore I ask you not to lost heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.” Do you know what this does? It puts everything in perspective. I'm in prison, that's part of God's plan. Do you know why I am in prison? I've been preaching the gospel to you Gentiles. I offended the Jews in doing that, so they stirred up the Romans to arrest me. You know, Paul doesn't get into a “poor me, it's all been unfair, if it weren't for those Jews who stirred this up I wouldn't be in prison, if they had followed the Roman system and do what their own laws tell them…” No, this is all part of God's plan so that you Gentiles would hear the gospel—through tribulations, through trials. Don't lose heart at my tribulations. If we see a believer suffering, we sort of can get discouraged, especially when he is a person like Paul that is there. Well, that's all right. My tribulations, same word, thlipsis, Jesus used—be of good cheer, in the world you have tribulations, but I have overcome the world. Paul hasn't lost his perspective; God is still in charge. I am in prison, but God is in charge. That means my being in prison is part of God's plan because my preaching the gospel so you Gentiles could enter into the glory of the salvation Christ provided and all the unfathomable riches of Christ become yours, it's all for your glory. God works all things together for our good and His glory and ultimately, we'll share in the glorious things He has provided. That's what we are as the church, that's where to function. We don't want to lose perspective.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches You have provided in Christ, unfathomable riches. Lord, You have given us a glimpse, a taste, but the overall wonder of it all is yet for our future. Lord, may we be clear of the wondrous privilege that is ours to be Your church in this place, in this day. We give You praise for other churches, but we realize our responsibility as a local church, manifesting Your multi-faceted wisdom in bringing us together, knitting us together as one, as a body, as a building, unified in our faith in Christ, in our commitment to Your Word, in serving to bring You honor. Thank You for this time in the Word. Bless the day before us. We pray in Christ's name, amen.