June 16, 2020 Brian Newman Ephesians 3:1-13 Men’s Study guide Quick Review 1:1-14 Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus probably about 5 or 6 years after he had been there. He writes while he is in prison in Rome. He reminds them of identity – who they are (we are) in Christ. We are blessed in the Beloved of God; that divine relationship in which God exists. We are forgiven, adopted, chosen – enveloped in God’s purpose for all time, which is to unite all things in Christ. 1:15-23 For this reason, Paul continually gave thanks for them and for what God has done in Christ, and that the Ephesians would know the hope to which they had been called in Christ – the fullness of Him who fills all in all. 2:1-10 And then Paul reminds them (us) that we were once dead in our trespasses, without hope in God and by nature children of wrath. But God made us alive in Christ, saved by His grace, not by anything that we do, but by His free gift of salvation. Not only that, but we are His workmanship created in Christ for works that God has prepared beforehand for us to do. 2:11-22 Therefore, Paul writes, remember that you gentiles were separated from God and alienated from Israel – God’s people. But in Christ, God unites both Jews and gentiles; 1 outsiders become insiders as God builds His Church, His people, on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. We, God’s people, are being built into a dwelling place for God, by the Spirit. 3:1-13 Now Paul is about to close in prayer, saying “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father…” but he interrupts himself first for 13 verses. It’s almost as if Paul remembers that it’s been a few years since he’s been to Ephesus and that there may be some new people that aren’t familiar with his story. So he writes in verse 2: “assuming that you have heard…” and then continues to explain. Today we’ll consider his interruption. Read the text Paul is a prisoner of Christ on behalf of the gentiles. God called him to this task by making him an apostle, though he considers himself the least of them. The mystery of Christ has been made known to him by revelation, and his mission is to preach this Gospel of God’s grace – the unsearchable riches of Christ – to the gentiles. Because through the Church, the uniting of Jews and gentiles, the multi-faceted wisdom of God is made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm. The redemption of creation, the transformation of broken and sinful lives into wholeness, and the glory of God revealed in that process working in His people, the Church, is not just for our benefit, but to show His glory in all the heavens – in all of everything. This is so big, Paul expresses, that he understands his small part in it as totally worth the suffering. He concludes in verse 13: “I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” This is all a big deal, he says, don’t forget that! 2 We can break this passage down into three areas to consider: Paul’s identity and purpose, The Mystery of Christ, and then the Gospel. We’ll look at these one at a time. I. Identity and Purpose Paul’s identity was as a prisoner of Christ on behalf of the gentiles – That was God’s calling on him. This is what Jesus himself said about Paul’s calling: This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. (Acts 9:15-16) Throughout the time of the early church in Acts, there was tension between the Jewish believers and gentile believers. In Acts chapter 15 the apostles and elders met in Jerusalem to sort this out. They concluded that God includes gentiles in His plan of redemption, referencing the prophet Amos 9:11-12, and that they should not impose the law of Moses on them, but instead encourage them to abstain from idolatry, sexual immorality, and from blood. Even though this pronouncement was made, there remained such tension over this matter that years later, after Paul had been to Ephesus on his third missionary journey, he went to Jerusalem where he was attacked by a mob of angry Jewish believers. They had seen him with a Greek, a guy named Trophimus from Ephesus, and assumed (wrongly) that Paul had taken him into the temple. Anyway, you can read about this in Acts 21 & 22, but long story short, Paul ends up in prison, in Rome. While in prison he writes this letter to the Ephesians. I’m sure he used his time to reflect on all these things; it certainly shows in the letters he wrote not only to the believers in Ephesus, but to those in Colossae and Philippi as well. 3 Prisoner sounds harsh; like punishment. But that is in stark contrast to everything he has described about life in Christ. It’s a great and powerful irony, considering how we are blessed in the beloved. Paul was a follower and imitator of Christ to the point of suffering. He describes his calling as being a prisoner, but it’s in this identity and purpose that he is fulfilled as he dies to self and lives for Christ. His life and calling were inside out from how he began. Remember he was a highly educated Pharisee who took his religion so seriously that he hunted down these heretical Jesus followers and put them in prison. When he calls himself a prisoner of Christ, it is with poetic irony. He had died to his original life plans and submitted himself to Christ. He understood the big picture such that his sufferings were put into proper perspective. He exhorts us to do the same. II. The Mystery of Christ When I say mystery, we all tend to think of a certain genre of stories and perhaps these characters (Agatha Christy or Scooby-Doo or Father Brown). When Paul uses the word mystery in the New Testament, it has a slightly different meaning – in this case it means a hidden secret or the wonder of how something works without understanding the details. Some versions translate this as the divine secret or God’s secret plan. It’s different than unmasking a villain or solving a crime. It’s more about the marvel and wonder of something beyond our understanding. Smart phones are like this; we know they work somehow, but if you grew up with mechanical things, you look at a smart phone in awe and wonder because it has no gears or much in the way of mechanisms – it’s mysterious. In a much bigger way, the mystery of Christ is something that God 4 had in place before humanity – that as Messiah, He would be born of a woman, fulfilling the Genesis 3:15 promise; that he would come through the line of David, from Abraham and winding in genealogy through Judah & Tamar, Rahab, Ruth the Moabite, the evil king Manasseh, and all the way to Joseph and Mary. All the kinds of people He came to save were in his human heritage. The mystery is that though He was the creator of all, He humbled himself as a man – as part of creation. The maker of the universe entered humanity as a helpless baby. He ministered to His people, healing the sick and diseased, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, throughout Galilee and Jerusalem, as a homeless Rabbi followed by the dregs of society. To quote one of my favorite songwriters: “Birds have nests foxes have dens But the hope of the whole world rests On the shoulders of a homeless man You had the shoulders of a homeless man And the world can't stand what it can't own And it can't own You 'Cause You did not have a home"1 God’s plan is to unite all things in Christ. He does this with the Church (Jews & gentiles). Our passage today tells us this mystery is made known through revelation (vs.3) revealed to the apostles and prophets by the Spirit (vs. 5). Mystery is made known through the Church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (vs. 10). When we speak of God, we refer to the tri-unity of Father, Son, Spirit – the divine relational being who is sufficient in and of himself as one, existing and preexisting beyond time. This God created the cosmos, the universe, all things seen and unseen – 1 Rich Mullins, The Jesus Record, 1998 5 to demonstrate His glory. In that glory is salvation for all creation. This is “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 (Eph. 1:9-10). And this mystery of the unifying of Jews and gentiles as one in the Church, resulted in Paul being put in prison. This doesn’t sound very unifying. Paul’s suffering was the result of dis-unity in the Church.