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Ephesians 5:15-21

Intramural football illustration
--Junior year at SU, played on a scrub flag football team
--We had some surprising victories, and made the playoffs
--Had one makeup game from a rain-out, but we didn’t think it mattered, because
we were already in the playoffs
--Some of our best players who had big tests the next day didn’t show up, we
played half-heartedly, did silly plays [HM on 2nd down w/plenty of time]
--Actually a close game, but we lost; didn’t care
--Next day, our name was scratched out on the playoff bracket and the team that
beat us was put in—turns out the game was actually the deciding game for PO
--We went to have fun at the game; they played to win. Our focus was wrong.

In the last few weeks we have been looking at the texts in Ephesians in which Paul tells us how we are to walk—that is, how we are to live our lives. Paul is emphasizing two things—(1) that we who embrace Jesus as Lord have been brought into a new, eternal community called the church, and (2) the way the rest of the world lives flies in the face of how the church is called to walk.

So Paul tells us, “Look carefully how you walk,” and gives us three contrasts to explain this—three sets of statements that are “not this way, but that way.” Let’s start over in verse 15: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” So the first way we are to walk is “not unwise, but wise.”

Walking wisely could mean a full range of things, but thankfully Paul clarifies in verse 16 that he is primarily concerned with the way they use their time. Let’s look closely at his argument. He says we are to make the best use of the time because the days are evil. What does it mean that the days are evil, and how does that shape how we use our time?

The language here is clearly metaphorical. Paul is not saying, “Look out for Tuesday, it’s an awful wicked day!” He is simply referring to the times in general. Another way to understand “evil days” is “corrupt times.” Ours is an age where the old humanity is still alive and kicking, Satan is still deceiving, and sin still permeates family, community, and political life. We need no convincing that we live in corrupt times.

But how is that connected to making the best use of our time? I have always assumed that Paul’s argument involved the fact that time is so short. And Psalm 90:12 affirms that life’s brevity is a concern, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” But Paul gives us another motivator for wise living—the times are corrupt.

Here is what I think Paul means. The society in which Paul and the Ephesians lived as well as the society in which we live is geared for distraction. You can spend your entire life doing legitimate things and never deal with the core issues of life. I don’t think boredom is even a possibility anymore in America. If you have enough Internet access, TV stations, DVDs, novels, magazines, woodworking, auto repair, or home improvement projects, sporting events, music lessons, and social engagements, you can blow through 80 years of life and never give an hour to thinking about God. And what’s worse, the bent of our society is to convince us that filling up our schedule with these things—to the neglect of God, family, and church—is a wise use of our time.

This is why Paul’s first words in verse 15 are “look carefully!” He’s saying, “Watch out! Beware! You live in corrupt times that would sway you to use your time unwisely. Don’t give in—be wise in your time management! Spend your days living for eternal, not worthless pursuits.”

To use the example of my football game, Paul is like the coach on the other team who tells his players, “Now, I know those guys are playing like this game really doesn’t matter. I know they’re running half-heartedly, trying goofy plays, and not watching the clock. But this game really does matter! Don’t let them fool you; play hard because it counts!”

I wish I had a list of things I could give you to say, “This is wise, spend your time doing this; that is not wise, don’t waste your time doing that.” But this is not that simple of an issue. You could have two guys regularly going to the same driving range; one guy is there because he can’t get along with his wife and doesn’t want to work at his marriage, and the other guy is there because he wants to build a relationship and share the gospel with the guy who can’t get along with his wife. For that matter, you could have people who come to church but don’t have God and eternity branded on their sight, and whose church activities are, eternally speaking, a waste of time. So I can’t give you any lists this morning—just a standard: are we using our time in a way that focuses on eternal things? Is the Word central to our lives? Is building relationships to advance the Kingdom a priority? These are the questions we should be asking. Let us be wise with our time, because the days are evil.

These corrupt times lead to Paul’s second set of contrasts in verse 17. “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” It sounds like Paul is repeating himself, since “do not be foolish” seems like the same thing as “do not be unwise.” But there is a slight difference in his focus between the two commands. The first deals with how we use our time, while the second deals with how we understand our times.

In order to make this clear, we need to understand the phrase “the will of the Lord.” We often understand God’s will as it pertains to specific situations—“I believed it was God’s will for me to marry Rachael,” or “If it is God’s will, we will close on our house on time” or as we say in the South, “The good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.” Now, of course God cares about these things and is intimately active in our lives, but this is not how Paul is using “the will of the Lord” in Ephesians. He is using it to refer to God’s redemptive activity in the world.

Turn back with me to chapter 1, and let’s look at three places where the word “will” is used. Look at verse 5: “In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.” Then verse 9, “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to the purpose, which he set forth in Christ.” Finally, verse 11, “[we have] been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

These verses make it clear that God’s will is his blueprint—his plan to redeem for himself a people—the church. So Paul’s admonition to “understand what the will of the Lord is” is a charge to understand our world through the lens of God’s plan of redemption. Think of how we define headline events as opposed to normal every day stuff. The world defines what should make the headlines by way of dollars, popularity, and glamour. The Superbowl, the Oscars, a U2 concert, a Hollywood affair—these make the headlines. But what about when a mother prays for hours for her wayward son? What about the businessman who catches a vision for God’s glory and moves to India to see the gospel spread? These are the events that will be remembered a billion years from now—these are the real headlines. Paul wants to reorient the way we look at our world so that Kingdom things become most significant and Hollywood is revealed to be the hollow trend that it is.

So we have seen that as God’s new community we are to be careful to walk in a way that is not unwise but wise, eternally-focused in time management, and not foolish but understanding God’s saving activity in our world. Let’s look Paul’s final contrast in verse 18. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Let’s focus on the negative phrase first—“do not get drunk with wine.” Paul is not as interested in making a statement about drunkenness—though he obviously sees it as sin—as he is in providing an example of the direct opposite of being filled with the Spirit. Thankfully Paul gives a reason why we are not to be drunk with wine—“for that is debauchery.” Now “debauchery” is not a word we use often, so if you were wondering about its precise meaning, it is “unrestrained, self-indulgent behavior.” It could be the party scene or getting drunk in the quietness of your home. But the point is that there is no value in drinking a fluid or putting a drug into your body that will only cloud your senses and leave you with a hangover and a desire for more. It is worthless. Profitless. It doesn’t accomplish anything in the long run.

If that is not how God’s new community is supposed to live, how are they? They are to be filled with the Spirit. This is not the first time we have encountered the “filled” or “fullness” language in Ephesians. In 1:22-23, Paul tells us that God “put all things under [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” The church is the fullness of Christ’s presence in the world—we are here to display what he is like. That is why Paul prays in 3:19 that we be filled with all the fullness of God. Likewise in chapter 4 we are told that ministers are given to the church “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

What we see in these verses is what we see in 5:18—it is the Holy Spirit that works individually and corporately in the church to fill them up with the fullness of God. The Spirit is the one who works in and through us to convict, edify, and nourish the body. We are not to be stuck in worthless activities like drunkenness that never accomplish anything. We are to be filled with the Spirit—allowing the Spirit to work powerfully in our lives so that the body might be full of God, and in turn, display who God is to the world around us.

I want to insert a parenthesis here. We’ve talked about “being filled with all the fullness of God” often in Ephesians, and to be quite honest, we still beat our heads against the wall and say, “What does that mean?” I wonder if it might be helpful to use the phrase, “he’s full of himself” as a starting point. You know people like this, don’t you? They always talk about themselves and their accomplishments, and are consumed with others thinking as highly about them as they do. Well, we want to be a people who are not full of ourselves but full of God. We want our highest commitment to be right thinking and right worship of him, and we want others to think about and worship him well. End parenthesis.

Now, how does this filling happen practically? Paul gives us three ways in which the Spirit does this work of filling us to the fullness of Christ. Each of these three has a beautiful combination of the horizontal and the vertical—relating to one another and to God.

First, verse 19 says, “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” When we gather to worship corporately, we are reminding each other of how great God is. We pray that the Spirit would use us to reignite a flame in a brother or sister’s heart for the majesty of our King. At the same time we are ministering to one another and focusing the content of our worship to God.

Next, verse 20 says, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The one-another, horizontal aspect is not explicit here, but think about what causes our hearts to erupt in thanksgiving to God. Sometimes it is spiritual blessings like salvation and joy and peace. But part of the “everything” for which we are to be thankful is one another—the blessings God has given us through relationships in the body.
Finally, verse 21 says, “Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is actually a hinge verse to the sections on husbands and wives, parents and children, and masters and slaves. In the original it reads, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Aaron will be preaching on this section next week, but for now it is significant to note that the instructions for relationships among believers all fall under the heading of “be filled with the Spirit.” Being filled with all the fullness of God is not an ecstatic, mystical experience that requires the right music and lighting. It is a practical, sometimes hard, Spirit-driven pursuit of right relationship with God and right relationships with one another. We will not shun dramatic encounters with God in prayer and worship. But we will also seek to show the world what he is like through our daily relationships.

These three things—worship, thanksgiving, and relationships—are some of the ways in which the Spirit is working in our midst to mature us into the fullness of Christ. So let us not live our lives in wasteful, worthless, profitless pursuits. Let us be filled with the Spirit so that we are a community full of God.

Brothers and sisters, we were born with a bent to waste time. We were born with a bent to emphasize the sensational instead of the spiritual. We were born with a bent to debauchery. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Let us look carefully how we walk.

Ephesians 4:17-32

  Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self,* which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
  Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

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In this morning’s text Paul addresses the issue of ethics—what is right and wrong in how we live our lives. But as we learned with the Terry Schivo case, and are learning with numerous explosive issues in America, different people gain a sense of right and wrong from different perspectives.

Thankfully Paul gives us a framework in which to understand how we are to live our lives, much beyond “this is good, do it” or “this is bad, don’t do it.” I want to spend the bulk of our time and mental exertion on understanding Paul’s framework for ethics, then simply hit the highlights of the commands that naturally flow from that.

I see the framework Paul sets up not only in this morning’s text, but every time I drive to seminary and church. As I drive east on Thomas toward Phoenix Seminary, I am at one point between two buildings that represent two entirely different worlds. On the south side is a large “Gentleman’s Club,” whose sign promotes its main attraction, while on the north side is a church, donning the cross of our Lord. Our own church building is only a stone’s throw away from a “Metaphysical Center,” housing a psychic who relies on demonic forces to advise people. This contrast exists in the worlds of radio, television, movies, magazines, Internet, books, blogs, and fine arts—two opposing sets of assumptions, philosophies, allegiances, and ethics, with one underlying difference: God.

Where is God in the picture at these neighborhood buildings? Those who pursue pleasure at the strip club are pursuing pleasure apart from God, while many come to church to find satisfaction and fulfillment in God. Those who consult a psychic are seeking life direction with no reference whatsoever to the Almighty, while we come to church, I hope, with hearts submitted to the Sovereign Lord who promises to direct the paths of all those who trust him. These are two realms, two societies, two kingdoms, two humanities mingled in the same city, neighborhood, and sometimes in the same house.

These two humanities are the focus of Paul’s exhortations to the Ephesian church. For the sake of continuity, I am going to talk about these two realms as the “old humanity” and the “new humanity.” And the core issue that distinguishes one from the other is the question of relationship to God. Look with me at verses 17-19 as Paul describes the old humanity, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”

Before Paul even mentions the issue of behavior, he addresses the issue of God. The old humanity is tragically described by the phrase, “alienated from the life of God.” And it comes naturally, doesn’t it? When Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, they were initiating alienation from God. They gave their declaration of independence to their creator, and in that act they cut themselves off from the one true source of life.
This is the distinguishing mark of the old humanity—I am at the center of my world. My decisions, attitudes, and behavior are all centered on what I want and what I think will make me happy. I set myself up as God, having told the true God that I want nothing to do with him.

Now, to bring this much closer to home, let’s not make it sound like strip clubs and psychics are the only places where the old humanity exists. It’s easy to look at a Hitler or Stalin or the terrorists that attacked our country four years ago today and think, “those are the ones who are darkened in their minds, hardened in their hearts; they are the old humanity.” But what do we do about a family member or neighbor or coworker who enjoys gardening, takes care of his or her elderly parent, attends the symphony, reads Dostoyevsky, and maybe even attends church occasionally, but doesn’t give the first thought about God in how they live their life?

At this point we have to look carefully at what Paul is saying, and be reminded that the central issue at hand in distinguishing the old humanity from the new humanity is relationship to God. It is not how helpful to society one’s actions appear. Many atheists have improved our quality of life. But God is the Creator of all things and therefore the rightful King of all. All those who reject him as King and set themselves up as ruler of their life—whether dirty old man or disaster relief worker—are in the realm of the old humanity.

But over and against that old humanity is the new humanity. Read with me verses 20-24: “But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

I have to admit that as I was studying this text, one nagging question in my mind was, “How am I going to teach the church how to put off the old man and put on the new man? It sounds good, but how does it work practically?” Thankfully as I spent more time in the text, I realized that the question itself misses the point of the text. Look carefully at verses 20 and 21—do you see the tenses of the verbs there? You learned Christ, you heard about him, you were taught in him. These are all past tense verbs. In other words, Paul is talking about the Ephesians’ conversion.

So does that mean that when we lead someone to Christ we have to lead them through this spiritual change of clothes? Absolutely not! It is in retrospect that we understand all that happened when we embraced Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure by faith. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t take biology class until 8th grade, and even then all the details about how babies are born didn’t make sense. In the same way, most of our understanding about what happens at our spiritual birth doesn’t come until we mature in the faith.

Understanding that putting off the old man and putting on the new man happens at conversion still leaves the question, “But what does that mean?” As we explore this question, remember that all three of these components—putting off the old man, being renewed in our mind, and putting on the new man—are contained in one act of conversion, much like a single explosion contains a series of chain reactions but is really one event.

When salvation through faith in Christ is offered to a person in the old humanity, both repentance and faith are required for that person to accept the offer. Repentance is turning away from the world in which he or she is Lord of their life and faith is trust in Jesus to forgive their sins and to be Lord of their life.

Easy enough, right? Wrong. The old humanity is not ready to give up so quickly. Remember the story of Lot in the book of Genesis? Two guys show up one night and say, you’d better gather your family, because the LORD is going to destroy Sodom. When Lot spread the word to the young men who were engaged to his daughters, and told them to leave the city immediately because destruction was coming, what did they do? They thought he was joking! “No way we’re leaving Sodom,” they must have said, “What’s wrong with this place anyway?”

When we invite people to embrace Jesus as Lord of their lives, we are telling them that the country where they are citizens is going to be soon destroyed, so we invite them to be a citizen of Heaven—a place that will endure eternally. We are at the same time offending them by talking so negatively about their home and loving them by offering them an eternal home with God.

The transition of loving your home to abandoning it for a new home requires a serious change of mind, doesn’t it? That’s why in verse 23 Paul says that we were renewed in the spirit of our minds. That is, in the old humanity our minds were darkened, ignorant, hardened, and stuck in a perpetual cycle of futility—continually seeking pleasure and guidance in places that only offered imitations of the real thing. But then in the midst of that cloudy mess, something happened. Our minds changed. All of the sudden, we saw our way of life to be the corrupted, worthless death that it was. And the offer of life in Jesus looked incredibly precious. And we said, enough with this old humanity—I’m going to embrace Jesus and the new way of living with him as Lord! So we see that putting off the old man, being renewed in the spirit of our mind, and putting on the new man is what happens at conversion—it is the leap from the old humanity to the new humanity.

Let me reiterate that the key difference between the old humanity and the new humanity is the question of Lordship. Rule. Or, as Rachael and I taught our 2 and 3 year olds in Sunday School, the central question is, “Who is the boss?” Is Jesus the boss or am I the boss?

This question helps us segue into the next section of our text because if I am the boss, and alienate myself from the life of God, then my own interests and desires are going to be central to everything I do. But if Jesus is the boss, then I am connected to the life of God, and I am necessarily part of the community of people who are connected to God.

The old humanity is a collection of self-seeking, isolated individuals whose existence is, in the end, hollow, futile, and tormented. But the new humanity is a collection of people where individual identity is actually discovered in love for God and love for other members of the new humanity. The old humanity thinks “I,” while the new humanity thinks “You [È] and we [ÁË].”

For this reason Paul launches into a series of commands regarding life in the new humanity. But the sheer fact that our citizenship has been changed does not prevent us from living like we did in the old country. So Paul lays forth the way this new country lives—not as a means to get connected to God, but as a standard for those who are already connected to him through Christ.

As we look at verses 25-32, note that each one of these commands is grounded in community life. They could all be summarized by the question, how will my words, thoughts, attitudes, and actions affect other members of God’s new humanity?

Paul has already set us up for this in Ephesians. In chapter 1 he talked about us being adopted into God’s family. Well, when you are adopted into a new family, you not only gain a new set of parents, you also gain new brothers and sisters. And it is assumed that you live in a certain way for the good of those brothers and sisters. Paul has also, earlier in chapter 4, given us the picture of a body, where the body only functions properly when each member does its part. The foot can’t decide to go on strike simply because it’s having a bad day, because that action affects all the other members of the body. No single body part can think of itself as a self-contained identity. It acts out of submission to the head and for the good of the entire body. And so it is with God’s new humanity.

Let’s look at verse 25: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Why do we strive to be truthful in what we say? Because we are all members of the same new humanity. We have been initiated into God’s society, and this is a society of truth, not falsehood.

Next, verses 26 and 27: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Obviously this is a sermon in itself, primarily around the question of whether it is OK to have righteous anger. Here is my short answer: I don’t trust myself to discern what the line is between “righteous anger” and “sinful anger.” James tells us, “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” I only know one man who knew what pure, righteous anger is—the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Beyond that issue, the main point of this text is that the devil gains leverage in corrupting our sweetness of fellowship with one another through anger. I don’t confess my anger to my wife merely because it keeps me from sleeping with the dogs but because we are part of God’s new humanity, and when unresolved anger exists, we cannot enjoy the life God has created in Christ for us to enjoy.

Next, verse 28: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Again, this is not Personal Morality 101. It is Community Life 101. We work rather than steal, not only because stealing would be detrimental to others in the community, but because by working we can provide for others in God’s new community. And, while we are still in an age when old humanity and new humanity are mingled on this earth, we extend this mercy to those in the old humanity, both because it is our way of life and because we desire for them to come to Jesus and join the new humanity where he is Lord.

Finally, verses 29-32: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

This is too dense to give full treatment in our remaining minutes, but let us walk briefly through this. First, notice in verse 29 that not only are our words to be truthful, they are supposed to be helpful. The standard here is much higher than good over evil, the question is, “Will what I am about to say benefit this person?” This is a good question to put on a mental sticky note in our brain—does this fit the occasion? Will these words impart grace?

Verse 30 talks about not grieving the Holy Spirit. Paul has told us earlier in Ephesians that the Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance. He is the guarantee now that God’s promise to save us from the final judgment is true. And he enables us to live this new humanity lifestyle, so when we act maliciously toward one another, we are grieving the Spirit that God has placed in our midst and in our hearts.

The Father has set the pattern for forgiveness and patience with us, offering us reconciliation even when we did not deserve it. So verse 32 tells us to show this same kindness to one another—not becoming easily frustrated with each other, but being tenderhearted and quick to forgive. The example the Father has set for us reaches its apex in Christ, who suffered on a Roman cross in order make forgiveness possible, both vertical and horizontal.

As we close let me encourage you that the day is coming, when Jesus returns, that doing these things will be as natural as breathing, and for eternity we will dwell in perfect harmony with God and one another.

Challenge the church: read verses 25-32 every morning this week. Marinate your minds in this text, and allow the Spirit to transform any individualistic tendencies to community thinking in relation to how we speak and act toward one another.

Ephesians 3:1-13

Rachael and I want to thank you for the way you have welcomed us to Phoenix and to Whitton Avenue Bible Church. From help unloading the truck to a large basket full of practical goodies you have made us feel at home and like family. We are very thankful to be here, and look forward to getting to know you all.

As you get to know me you will discover various quirks mingled with general goofiness, but one particular habit I have that drives Rachael nuts is my propensity to interrupt myself. It’s not that I—even though sometimes I might—seriously, though, you shouldn’t—well, let’s just say my mind works faster than—not that I’m extolling my mind—faster than my mouth.

Even though this habit of mine drives my wife batty, I take great comfort in knowing that I am in good company, as this morning’s text shows. The apostle Paul begins his sentence with “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—” then he goes off on a rich, weighty self-interruption. Then look at verse 14: “For this reason…” and he finishes his sentence this time with a beautiful prayer that Stevo will open for us next week.

So what is it that made Paul interrupt himself? Read the words with me again, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—”
If you read Paul a certain way, you might get the impression that he is saying “Hey, you Gentiles, this is all your fault! It was because of you that they threw me into prison!” Now, it is true that Paul was put in prison by zealous Jews because he preached to the Gentiles salvation by grace through faith, apart from the works of the law. Yet the last thing Paul wanted to do was make the Ephesians feel guilty about this, so he goes to great pains—12 verses’ worth—to convince the Ephesians not to feel bad about his situation. Verse 13 sums it up best: “So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.”

So how does Paul put the Ephesians at ease about his imprisonment on their behalf? Better yet, how did Paul think about his imprisonment? How would you if you were Paul? You may be relieved to know that I have never been in prison before, but if I were, I think I would ask questions like, “Was it worth it? Was the crime I committed worth the consequences? Are there some things that are move valuable than my freedom?” These must have been the types of questions that Paul was asking himself, because his explanation to the Ephesians went straight to the heart of what got him imprisoned in the first place: his gospel ministry to the Gentiles.

Asking questions like “was it worth it?” introduces the issue of scope. And
Paul’s understanding of the scope of his ministry was crucial to how he coped with suffering and persecution. Paul had a Rocky Mountain-sized view of his ministry. I assume most of you have seen the Colorado Rockies, either in pictures or in person. We had the privilege of coming through Colorado and New Mexico on our way here from Minneapolis, and it we enjoyed a spectacular sight as we traveled south on I-25 with the Rockies to our right. And it’s that kind of grandeur—like a range of gigantic mountains—that Paul saw in his gospel ministry to the Gentiles.

I want to look at three words in this morning’s text that explain why Paul had such a grand sense of scope of his ministry: mystery, gospel, and grace.

Mystery

The first aspect of Paul’s ministry that stood as tall as a mountain in his mind is this word, mystery. Read with me verses 2-5, where Paul’s self-interruption begins, “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 his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

The word “mystery” sparks different connotations in different minds. Some may think of Agatha Christy novels or Perry Mason episodes—whodunits where the true murderer or thief remains a mystery until the sleuth puts all the evidence together and nails the culprit. For others mystery might call to mind points of intrigue or fascination, like UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, or intuition between twins. But when Paul uses the word “mystery,” he is referring to something that was hidden that has now been revealed. A key verse in understanding the concept of mystery occurs earlier in Ephesians. Listen as I read Ephesians 1:9-10, “making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

From Old Testament times God made it plain, specifically in the prophets, that he was redeeming a people for himself and that he would one day renew the earth, where his people would dwell with him forever. What was not plain was the manner in which he would do this, and now that has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. God became man, dwelt among his people, died for his people, and was raised from the dead, initiating a new creation, a new humanity, and one day, when he returns—a new heavens and new earth. Jesus is the center of the mystery—the plan that was hidden and has now been revealed. He is the one through whom God is accomplishing his eternal plan.

This morning’s text deals with one aspect of God’s plan, specifically, God’s plan to bring Gentiles into his covenant community. Read verse 6 with me: “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

From our vantage point of history we have a major disadvantage for feeling the incredible shock and weight of what Paul is saying. Most, if not all of us in this room are Gentiles, that is, we are not Jewish by birth. And many of us are descendants of generations of Christians. Being a Gentile and being a member of God’s Covenant community are not at odds for us.

But put yourself in the shoes of a first century Jew watching this unfold. For over two thousand years worshippers of Yahweh had one common ethnic identification: Jewish. For a Gentile to be a worshipper of Yahweh required that he be circumcised, obey Kosher food laws, observe Sabbath, along with all the other commands in Torah. But then this Jesus character shows up on the scene, challenges the Rabbis’ understanding of the law, and the next thing you know, the very Gentiles that you were taught to avoid are worshipping your God, using Jewish titles like Messiah, and calling you brother or sister. In today’s terms it would be like coming to church next Sunday only to find the sanctuary full of Middle Eastern men and women wearing traditional Muslim dress, sitting on the ground, and chanting prayers to Jesus. We might be excited about them coming to Christ, but we would certainly want to set them straight on how to do things around here! In short, uncircumcised, pork-eating Gentiles being a part of God’s covenant community was, for Paul’s day, a historical novelty.

There is another aspect of the mystery that gives it a grand, mountainous scope. Look with me at verses 9-10: “and to bring to 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 in the heavenly places.” This is one of the more astonishing verses in the Bible. When God chose to unveil his eternal plan, he didn’t send a memo to Satan and his minions or to the angels for that matter. He decided that he would allow the formation and growth of the church to tell the story. So when Peter saw the Spirit fall on Cornelius’ family, it was as much news to angels and demons as it was to Peter. The “rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” had no edge over humans in knowing what God was up to in sending his Son to earth. The church is the trumpet through which God said, “I am opening the covenant doors to all nations, not just to Israel.”

Do you see the grandeur that Paul saw in this? He knew that he was at a key turning point in history—not just the history of Israel or the history of religion—the history of the world. It was like the moment Guttenberg invented the printing press, or the first 12 seconds that Orville and Wilbur Wright kept an airplane in the air, or the moment it dawned on somebody to move the concept of a computer internet from the world of science and academia to the coffee shop and home. These were huge turning points in history, and these men felt the weight of what they were doing. But Paul wasn’t looking at a molehill of technology or politics or sports—he was looking at the Rockies of an eternity-impacting ministry: God’s covenant blessings and promises, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the unsearchable riches of Christ—ALL given now to the Gentiles! This for Paul was a jaw-dropping vista which made imprisonment a very small thing.

Gospel

The next mountain peak Paul was beholding from his prison cell is that of the gospel. Recall that verse 6 tells us that the mystery of Gentile inclusion happened “in Christ Jesus, through the gospel.”

How do the “mystery” and “gospel” relate? The gospel is the means by which the mystery takes place. In other words, the mystery is God’s plan—now made public—to include the Gentiles as part of his Covenant community. The way he carries out that plan is through the gospel, which is the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins, rose from the dead to give us new life, and is returning to complete his new creation work.

For that reason, the significance of the words, “in Christ Jesus” cannot be overemphasized. It is in Christ Jesus that Gentiles become fellow heirs along with Jews, in Christ Jesus Gentiles become members of the same body as Jews, and in Christ Jesus Gentiles partake of the promise along with Jews. And not only this, it is in Christ Jesus that God is creating a new humanity and will recreate this earth and will establish a place of eternal harmony between God, his people, and his creation. All of this happens through the gospel—all in Christ Jesus.

I may add redundancy to my list of quirks by pointing this out, but let me make sure I keep one point clear. The reason Paul was in prison was because he preached to the Gentiles that they could be right with God through faith in Jesus Christ—not circumcision, not Sabbath observance, not being Jewish—only through the crucified and risen Messiah. This message infuriated Jewish religious leaders of Paul’s day, and when he wouldn’t let up with his preaching they incited a mob against him and would have had him dead if the Romans wouldn’t have stopped them and arrested Paul.

But Paul did not despise his imprisonment because Christ was precious to Paul. The gospel was sweet to Paul. And if loving Christ and preaching his gospel meant prison for Paul, then bring it on, because Christ is eternally glorious, and prison is short and easy if you are standing on the brink of and eternity with this Savior.

Grace

The final mountain peak we will explore in this morning’s text is that of grace. Usually we hear the word grace used in reference to our salvation, like the reference in chapter 2 that we are “saved by grace through faith.” One of the things grace means is “gift,” which we certainly believe our salvation is, but Paul uses “grace” in this context to refer to his ministry. In other words, he views his gospel ministry to the Gentiles as a gift that God gave him. Look again at verse 2, “assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you.” Now look with me at verses 7 and 8, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the 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.”

One of the basic rules of Bible study is that if the author repeats something, it must be important. This is a prime example. Three times Paul references the grace that God gave him. One time he uses redundant language to drive home the point. If we inserted the word “gift” for “grace,” which would be in line with it’s meaning, the middle of verse 7 would read, “the gift of God’s gift which was given to me.”

For Paul, being in prison for preaching the gospel is like having to pay taxes on a house that was given to you. Sure you have to pay some property taxes, but you were given a house! Free! A house! Taxes are a small, albeit unpleasant, consequence for an extraordinary gift. For Paul, prison was a similarly small thing in light of the magnanimous gift of gospel ministry.

This is probably a good point to compare Paul’s attitude toward the gospel ministry to our own. Do we view the gospel as message of cosmic proportions—the means by which God will fulfill his plan to reconcile all of creation to himself? Do we view the gospel in mountain-range magnitude, realizing that the gospel affects commerce, nature, foster care, entertainment, social justice, parenting, and just about everything else of any significance? Or do we view the gospel in a narrow, individualistic, compartmentalized way as if the gospel ends when I don’t have to go to hell?

How do we view gospel ministry? Do we, like Paul, view it as a gift to be cherished at all costs—even imprisonment or execution? Do we feel the unspeakable honor that God would make us his ambassadors to our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and even to the unreached peoples of the world? Does it baffle us why God would entrust to us a message so precious, so eternally impacting, so valuable as the gospel? Can we say with Paul “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes”? Can we say it at the cubicle, the barber shop, the political rally, the parent-teacher meeting, or to the guy who asks us for five bucks at the gas station?

How do we view God’s saving activity in groups of people that aren’t like us? Do we extend the same flexibility that was shown to our Gentile ancestors? What if God began a massive spiritual awakening in the homosexual community, and dozens of born-again, former homosexuals visited our church? What if God ignited a revival in the homeless population and they chose our church to attend? Is our vision of God’s eternal plan wide enough and high enough and grand enough and glorious enough to embrace people who aren’t like us but follow our Savior?

Why this is here...

Initially I set up a blog account to be able to comment on Justin Taylor's fine blog. But then I thought, why not post semon texts and audio links for inquiring friends? So here it is.