Outline
I. Introduction
II. Transition
a. CIT: Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles.
b. CIS: The Apostle Paul became the embodiment of Romans 12:1.
c. Paul preached the living word alive in Him.
III. Exposition
a. The Gospel is best expressed when embodied.
i. Live the Word.
1. Live up to highest principals of the Gospel: humility, repentance, sacrifice, worship – not legalism.
ii. Preach the Word.
1. Christian Pastors and non-Pastors alike must live the word to earn any credibility to preach the Gospel.
b. In Paul’s preaching and living he displayed as he developed the theology of the new life that we have in Christ.
i. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. II Cor. 5:17
ii. If anyone is in Christ he has a new standing.
iii. If anyone is in Christ he is not in the flesh.
iv. If anyone is in Christ he is dead to the flesh.
v. If anyone is in Christ he is dead-alive to Christ.
c. The believer is to be a living sacrifice.
IV. Conclusion
“The Unsearchable Riches of Christ,” Part-4, Ephesians 3:8
Introduction
Is there any virtue of less esteem in the Church today? Is there any human character trait less sought than that of a willingness to sacrifice? In the Church today the adage is get not give; layup not lay out; save up store up stock up secure your supply not sacrifice. The Gospel is centered on sacrifice.
God gave His Son and His Son gave His life and seeing the immensity of the treasure that is Christ and the futility that is this world, we sacrifice all to follow Him alone. The Gospel is centered on sacrifice not security.
The man of God of the 19th century, C.H. Spurgeon, once said, “I will not talk to you longer; for what, after all, brethren, can religion cost us compared with what our salvation cost our Lord? What is it to go forward if we compare it with the glory that is beyond? A pin’s prick, that is all; and then you will be in heaven. Oh, to stand amongst the glorified!—to hear the Master say, “Well done!” One might die a thousand deaths to get those two syllables, if there were nothing else—“Well done!” He went on to say that “That religion which costs a man nothing is usually worth nothing.”
Transition
Plainly these are truths that the Apostle Paul understood well. In this the fourth sermon in this sermon series, we’ll pause from expositing the text which the Apostle penned in Ephesians 3:8 in order to take a look at an inherent reality of Paul’s preaching. Paul’s preaching was effective most significantly as a consequence of his willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel.
Paul is loyal to the proclamation of the Gospel message to a level far beyond mere sentiment. He became the very living sacrifice that he speaks of in Romans 12. In other words, the Apostle Paul preached the living word that was alive in him.
Preaching of the Gospel must come through an embodiment of the Gospel message. The Apostle was a prominent Jewish Pharisee with Roman citizenship. He was very well educated, having been trained under the prominent Jewish teacher of the law, Gamaliel.
He was from a very important and posh city called Tarsus. According to all of the standards of humanity then and now Paul was an Important man; a man to be listened to and to be respected.
Yet, none of that was ever going to be able to persuade people to listen to Paul’s presentation of the Gospel, no matter how eloquent, passionate, or well-spoken he may have been. The Gospel went forth with Paul first because of the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. Second, because he became a living sacrifice.
CIT: Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles.
CIS: The Apostle Paul became the embodiment of Romans 12:1.
Paul preached the living word alive in Him. He was apprehended, arrested by unsearchable riches of Christ when Christ encountered him on the road to Damascus. That is why he was able to later write “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 ESV)
Paul became the living breathing example of the message God gave through him in Romans 12:1. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1 ESV) So should we.
Exposition
The Gospel is best expressed when embodied. Any Christian who wishes to proclaim the Gospel must live the word. We must live in the word but much more profoundly we must live the word. This is not to suggest that through legalistic obedience to the law we will be saved or be used of God to serve.
Living the Gospel must be understood as living up to those highest principals of the Gospel which endear us to God and man: humility, repentance, sacrifice, worship – not legalism. Paul lived the Gospel not in the sense that he never committed sin, had the wrong state of mind or lived in harmony with everyone.
Indeed, it was Paul who parted ways with Barnabas over a disagreement. Paul was in every way human and the point of this message is not to deify him.
Paul became a living sacrifice and that was the foundation of the effectiveness for his ministry. In Acts 14:19 the Bible records the depths of Paul’s willingness to become a literal sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel of Christ. “But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.” (ESV)
Paul primary central concern was that Christ may be lifted up in him and that God may be glorified. His own safety and comfort were not at the center of his focus.
The beauty and worth and majesty of God in Christ and Christ in him and each one of us was central to Paul’s lived-preaching. No Christian man or woman, pastor, missionary, evangelist, or lay person alike, shall have power in their preaching and telling of the story of Christ to any greater extent than to that extent that they are willing to sacrifice for Christ!
Pastors and non-Pastors alike must live the word to earn any credibility to preach the Gospel. In Paul’s preaching and living he displayed – as he developed – the theology of the new life that we have in Christ.
Paul preached and lived the truths that if:
1. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 the Apostle writes “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (ESV) The idea of being a new creation harkens to the original creation in Genesis and looks forward to the hope of Christ return and our being completely transformed in the twinkling of an eye into the perfect likeness of Christ.
In fact, the idea that Paul is conveying is of the believer being recreated in Christ now by faith in spiritual terms and later in the return of Christ in immediate material terms. Friends, there is a day coming when this corruptible failing feeble body will vanish and we shall be like Him in a new glorious body eternally.
Let us not over spiritualize the Christian message so as to lose the very real and lasting truth that Christ who went away and when He returns we shall be caught up in the clouds with Him and shall be transformed!
I Thessalonians 4:17-18, speaking of the return of Christ to crush the armies of anti-Christ at the end of the days of this broken and bankrupt epoch of human history, after the dead in Christ rise “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (ESV) The Christian life is a life of the miraculous not the mundane!
Our spirits have been recreated in Christ we are a new creation with new hopes, new power, now love, new perspective, and a blessed eternal hope of His return.
2. If anyone is in Christ he has a new standing. G.E. Ladd put it this way. “The new life means righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom.14:17). There is encouragement in Christ (Phil. 2:1) and in humble service (Phil. 2:5). The peace of God guards the hearts and minds of those who are in Christ (Phil. 4:7). Paul can be content in every kind of human situation in Christ (Phil. 4:13).
The apostle was content in every situation because he understood that he had a new standing. Those whose focus is upon the things of this world will never be content with a lack of the things of this world. Those who are consumed by a love for the world will always be swept away with cares for this world.
In other words, contentment in this world can never come from this world. The pilgrim passing through a difficult passage on his journey gains his strength from his memory of or hope for his destination. The apostle was a stranger in the stranger in a strange land. He had hope in worldly trial because his hope had nothing to do with this world! The apostle understood that:
3. If anyone is in Christ he is not in the flesh. Upon receiving Christ as Lord, my friend, our status changes from world citizen to kingdom citizen passing through this world! If we are in Christ we are not in the flesh. This life we live in the flesh is rubbish; a shadow of the life to come!
Every person is in either one realm or the other. You are either in the flesh or in the spirit. There are carnal Christians and spiritually inclined unbelievers to be sure. But the spirit of Christ either dwells within you or it does not.
Have you received Christ! Has the Holy Spirit broken into your life? Are you born again? If so, live a life in keeping with your salvation. We are not in the flesh. Our primary allegiance is not to this world.
In Romans 8:9 the apostle writes “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” (ESV)
4. If anyone is in Christ he is dead to the flesh. Galatians 5:24-25: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” (ESV) If we had spiritual eyes to see, how many of us in the spiritual realm carry the body of a dead man, strapped to our side for an unwillingness to die to the flesh?
Perhaps you recall the movie of the 1980’s “Weekend at Bernie’s,” where two young men are invited to spend the weekend at their boss’s posh beach villa. They arrive only to find Bernie dead. They don’t want to miss out on their weekend so they put a pair of sunglasses on him, strap him to their side, carry him around, set him up on a golf cart, and generally parade a dead man in order to enjoy some semblance of their weekend on the beach in a wealthy man’s home.
5. If anyone is in Christ he is dead to the flesh and alive to Christ. Entanglements with this world would be far less commonplace in the Church were we to get view our life as but a means to glorify God in our bodies which are simply the pilgrim’s clothing that we are presently wearing as we travel through this earth.
Christian, are you a living sacrifice? Have you responded to the grace that has been poured out upon every child of God in Christ with the offering of this life to God in return or have you received like a selfish child with no regard for the giver of the gift, only for the gift itself?
I like the way that the James Vernon McGee put it. “By an act of the will we place our total personalities at the disposal of God. This is our "reasonable service," our rational service, and it is well-pleasing to God.”
Conclusion
Our short but robust little dog Martha the Pug is a great source of enjoyment for our family. This is not at all because she is such a wonderfully loving companion nor because she is incredibly playful. Our enjoyment of her comes mostly from what seems to be a rather stubborn and incredibly lazy personality. At no time since we have owned Martha have I ever been able to tell Martha to go outside and had her obey my command. In fact, I normally have to shoe her out of her dog bed then follow her to the back door occasionally shoeing her in the direction of the back door. In fact, she is so stubborn that she very often makes a dash for it just as we get to the door and make me chase her back around through the living room once or twice before finally going outside. That dog has so seldom ever obeyed a command and what’s worse is she even sometimes gives me a little sarcastic snort and what I am convinced is a roll of her bug eyes as she disobeys.
What type of Christian are you? Are you the suborn kind that the Lord has to poke, prod, elbow, and nudge to get you to do anything for His Kingdom or for His Church? Is the only time you get motivated about doing anything for God is when you are pretty sure you are going to get something good for you out of it? Later in Romans 12 the Apostle writes “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” (Romans 12:11 ESV)
The Apostle Paul’s preaching was effective because he lived out what he preached. More specifically, he became the very living sacrifice unto the Lord that he asked others to become. He embodied the Gospel. The Lord is calling each one of us, pastors and non-pastors alike to do the same.
Do you want your religion to be effective? Do you desire for your church attendance to make a difference? Do you desire to be used of God?
Do you desire a deeper prayer life, a more effective ministry, a more authentic walk with the Lord? If so, die to self and become alive to Christ. In Galatians 2:20 the Apostle writes “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (ESV) Let us pray. Amen.
