Good morning Calvary, are you ready for the word of God. We will be looking at Ephesians 3:1-13 today. As you find this passage in your Bibles I want to confess to you when I began my ministry over 28 years ago, I was clueless. I had no idea what ministry involved. I did not really know all that was involved in being a Christian.
As I look back over those 28 years of confusion and misgiving, I wish now someone had been honest with me about this following Jesus. I remember my Sunday School teacher, and she was a sweet lady, saying, when you become a Christian Jesus takes all your troubles. What she did not say was, yes Jesus takes your trouble, but that does not mean you don’t have to work them out.
How about you, did you know what following Jesus would involve for you. That you might lose friends, that you might be criticized, you would have to suffer as a Christian.
That was not a part of the conversation I had before I signed on the dotted line. But I have learned in the last 28 years, there is price to pay to follow Christ.
So would you like to learn what the real cost of Follow Jesus is?
O.K. look with me at Ephesians 3:1.
3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles-
Let’s stop right there. Paul said he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
Now he is not using the word prisoner is some metaphoric way, like I am a prisoner in this job, or I am a prisoner to by marriage. NO! He is really a prisoner, chained between two ugly Roman guards. He knows the pain of the steel shackles cutting into the tender flesh around his wrist and ankles. He has felt the metal against flesh until the friction burnt this skin raw.
But, I don’t believe the restraints were his greatest pain.
As a pastor, his greatest pain was the separation from his church.
He knew that young couples were getting married, but he could not take part. He knew children were being welcomed into the church, but not by their pastor, because he was in prison. The people he loved. The people he had led. The people who were closest to him, were cut off, separated, isolated from him.
He had to have felt disconnected, detached, removed from everyone he loved. Can you feel his pain in those words “the prisoner of Christ Jesus.”
But in the midst of the isolated, the separation, the detachment, a note of victory is still sounded.
Listen again, “the prisoner of who.” Yes, Paul understood it was Nero the Imperor who had placed him in prison, but he knew Jesus was still in charge. Paul understood Nero might thing he is large and in charge, by compared to Jesus, Nero was a small blemish on the face of history.
Paul truimply declares, I may be in prison, but Jesus is still in control, I may be down, but I am not out. It may be dark now, but the Son, S-O-N is still on the throne.
Paul understood something, I did not when I came to follow Jesus, that is, the is a cost to follow Jesus.
For Paul it was a major financial and physically cost. He was beaten and left for dead. He had to go without meal, he was ship wreaked and thought lost at sea, and here he is waiting in prison to be executed. Paul understood all to well the cost of following Jesus.
I want you to know there is going to be a cost to following Jesus. Friends you have might consider you crazy. Co-workers might harasses you. If family member might turn their backs on you. There is always a cost to following Jesus.
Jesus cautions us to count the cost.
Luke 14: 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
As we look into the heart of Paul the first thing he would say to you today is, PREPARE TO SUFFER.
Not do we see Paul suffering in this text we see something else.
Look at verse 2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.
Did you notice Paul said they had heard about God’s grace. You see everywhere Paul went he was telling about the grace and love of Jesus. He just could not keep quite.
Even when he knew it would get him in trouble, he just kept talking about Jesus. He called the mystery.
Now for you and me the mystery brings up images of CSI technitions working their way through clues until they unveil the criminal. Or Agatha Christie’s Mrs Marple seemingly blundering, but all the time purpose questions the reveal the culprit.
But that is not quite what Paul had in mind when he talked about the mystery. In the Bible, particularly in the book of Ephesians, when mystery is spoken of, it is spoken of as something that was previously unknown, but now has been made known because God has revealed it. And what has God revealed? You are going to love this. In a world filled with speculation about who God is, and what God wants, Paul said we don’t have to guess. Jesus came down from heaven to show us who God is, and to tell us what God wants.
But it is hard to know how to talk to others about God. We don’t know what words to use. We don’t know how to start the conversation? What do we say after the conversation is started?
Because is it challenging to talk about our faith, during September and October we are going to a seminar on Wednesday nights at 7:00 starting the second Wednesday in September to learn how to talk about our faith walk called Contagious Christians. Plan now to attend.
We as the church are called to tell others about who God is and what God wants. However, we are called to truthful and honest. Anything short of truthfully and honesty is an affront to God, and a slap in the face of Jesus.
We are called to be proclaimers of Grace, but never at the expense of truth. Because without Grace without truth is it a dangerous deception.
But, Terry, some people may be offended if we speak the truth.
Remember, has Paul not been speaking the truth, he would have never landing in prison. I think it you were to ask Paul, he would said Truth trumps everything else.
Mark Driscoll in a sermon in 2002 said, “You need to know that when you speak the truth, it will attract some and repel others. The Puritans used to say that the same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay. That some people—the story of Jesus will melt their heart, for others it will harden it. That some will love and you and some will despise you for telling the truth.”
As we are looking into the heart of that great pastor Paul I think he would say to us,
PREPARE TO SUFFER
PROCLAIM GRACE AND TRUTH.
But Paul is far from finished. Look down at verse 7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.
Notice what Paul calls himself, a servant.
What does it mean to be a servant?
The dictionary defines a servant as: an employee who serves somebody else, especially an employee hired to do household tasks or be a personal attendant to somebody.
No one really wants to do that, if we had you choice we would rather be served, then serve someone.
This is not a theme that is widely valued in our day. We live in a service-based economy where our goal is primarily to obtain enough wealth to pay other people to do things. We pay someone else to fix our car, to mow our lawn, to cook our meals. Our goal is to pay someone else to watch our kids. Our goal is to pay someone else to do the things that are laborious, monotonous, and difficult. That’s the world we live in. Your goal is to afford servants. You and I go to a restaurant. Someone cooks the food. Someone brings it. We eat it. Someone picks up the plate and they take it back and someone else cleans it. That’s the world we live in.
Servants are often devalued. But Jesus said, “I came to serve and not to be served.”
Paul understood the power of serving. Listen to Philippians 2
“Our attitudes should be the same as Jesus who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but He emptied himself, and He took upon Himself the form and the posture of a servant.”
Paul says, “I’m a servant. I’m a servant.” It is something that we as God’s people relish in. It is a great joy. In the kingdom of God, the last will be first, and the humble confound the strong, the weak shame the wise, and it is the simple who completely overwhelm those that are educated beyond their intelligence. And that’s the way it works. Paul says, “I am a servant.”
Again as we see into the heart of Paul, the Jesus follow, Paul the pastor, Paul the missionary, Paul the leader, and Paul the teacher. He would say
PREPARE TO SUFFER
PROCLAIM GRACE AND TRUTH
PLAN TO SERVE
This morning how much better our churches would be if we all of us took off the rose colored glasses, and
PREPARE TO SUFFER
PROCLAIM GRACE, YES GRACE, GRACE LACED WITH TRUTH
AND EVEYONE OF US FROM PASTOR ON DOWN PLANNED TO SERVE.
