January 9, 2005 Ephesians 3:2-12
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. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Fellow Believers Living in the Light,
It saddens me greatly to know that about half of our congregation is missing from worship - often despising the Third Commandment - on a regular basis. Jesus was so saddened at the fact that His fellow Jews were not coming to Him that he cried, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Mt 23:37) When people didn’t respond to His offer, Jesus wept. But He also told His disciples in Luke 9:5, “If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.” The message God wanted to send was clear. “I want you, but I don’t need you.”
Think about that message in your own life. Does that offend you? Do you regard your being here as something you should be patted on the back for, as a wonderful sacrifice you are making for God? When you serve as a teacher or bring your kids to Sunday School, do you think to yourself, “I hope they appreciate me,” or do you say, “it’s a good thing I came to church today”? This goes well beyond church. The children you have, the house you own, the job you work - do you look at these as things that you have earned, burdens you must bear? All too often we look at life from OUR side of the coin. We think about the sacrifice WE are making to come here - we are taking to raise our children - WE are having to remain faithful to our spouse. Because of that, we live life with an attitude that God somehow owes us some gratitude for all of our hard work.
Here’s news for you. God doesn’t owe you a thing - not one ounce of gratitude for being here. I want you here and God wants you here, but God doesn’t need you here. Don’t think that God owes you some thanks for having gotten up to worship Him on a Sunday morning when you were so tired. What kind of arrogance is that? God owes YOU - the same person that has sinned against Him every day of your life - thanks? The very fact that you have come here to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ should fill you with a sense of awe and privilege - that God would allow you to even come here.
That’s what Paul is emphasizing to the Ephesians - to get them to understand and appreciate the very fact that they were even called Christians. Epiphany is about the coming of the Gospel to the Gentiles - the Wise Men from the East. This was an awesome and wonderful privilege for them and for us. I pray that this portion of Paul’s letter will give open your mind to what a privilege we have to call ourselves Christians and enable you to say -
It’s Good Lord to Be Here
I. Better than the old days
Imagine if you came here this morning and we said at the door, “I’m sorry, you’re not a Jew, you can’t come in here. You need to be from the chosen race. You’re just a Gentile dog. But we will let you sit outside and have someone else come in and pray for you. How’s that?” I would imagine that most of us would leave in a huff and tell everyone around, “don’t go to THAT church. They only allow Jews inside!” This was NOT God’s attitude toward the Gentiles in the Old or the New Testament. Yet God looked at the Gentiles as a danger to His chosen people. When the Israelites entered the Promised Land - he wanted the Gentiles living there to be COMPLETELY driven out or killed. He warned His people not to intermarry with them, so they wouldn’t be led astray by their religions. More often than not, the Jewish people often referred to as “goyim” or “uncircumcised fellows,” probably something like when we say, “a bunch of heathens.”
Again, this doesn’t mean that God didn’t care for the Gentiles or want the Gentiles. When you look up the word “alien” in the Old Testament - you can find law after law that showed great concern for the aliens living among them - even allowing them to participate in the worship and follow the Jewish laws - living as the Jews live. Throughout the Old Testament history Gentiles were intertwined in their history. The Gibeonites lived among the Jews as water carriers. (Joshua 9) Rahab’s family was allowed to live with the Israelites and became a forerunner to the Savior. Ruth had a book written about her life as a forerunner to the Savior. Isaiah wrote, “nations will stream to your light.” And Jonah, though reluctant, embarked on a mission to the Gentile city of Nineveh. However, most of these stories are anomalies. Throughout their history - the Gentiles were more often known as either aliens or enemies of the Jews. In addition to this - they were NEVER allowed to lead in the worship services - that was only for the Levite Jews. Instead of reaching out and going TO the Gentiles, the Gentiles were supposed to come to the LORD as they were attracted by the completely different LIFESTYLE and completely different FAITH of the Jews.
II. Better than the New Testament days
Even the arrival of Jesus didn’t change matters much - not at first. It starts out promising, as the Wise Men were some of the first to come and see Jesus - before the very priests in the temple. But when Jesus was anointed into His public office, He can be found primarily preaching to the Jews. When the disciples found Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman - a half breed - they were surprised - and so was SHE. When a Canaanite woman came to Jesus to have him heal her demon-possessed daughter, Jesus initially even said to her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) Even the disciples were supposed to go primarily to the JEWS. All of the leaders of the early Christian Church were Jewish except for Timothy who had a Gentile father and Titus. If you look at the Bible it isn’t until Acts chapter EIGHT that Philip goes to the Samaritans, Acts chapter TEN that Peter gets the vision to go to Cornelius’ house, and Acts chapter ELEVEN that some inadvertently start telling the Gentiles in Antioch. As a matter of fact, Paul’s official sending off to the Gentiles isn’t until Acts chapter THIRTEEN. This is when things finally seemed to change.
Even then, whenever the very mention of reaching out to Gentiles was suggested or followed through on - listen to the response that the Jews had to such a thing, first of all with Jesus -
Luke 4:24-30 “I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. . . . there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff.
Now listen to how they reacted to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles -
the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
III. Enjoying the full revelation of the mystery
Even though a majority of the Jews in Paul’s time wanted nothing to do with us - here we are, worshiping a Jew and following the words of a Jew. Why do we do this? We have been revealed the MYSTERY of this seemingly Jewish religion. Paul wrote, 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. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. Those words in vs. 6 are incredible. In the Old Testament, even the believing Gentiles would still be called aliens in Israel. The Israelites would say to their daughters and sons, “you can’t marry him or her.” You could never hope to be chosen as a priest, because you wouldn’t have been Levite. You would never completely be at ONE with the Israelites because of your skin color. The revelation from God was that when Jesus came and fulfilled the Law, that barrier no longer existed. All of the laws of the Old Testament - the circumcision - the Promised Land - the Jewish race - were no longer needed when Jesus died and rose from the dead.
Therefore Paul called Gentiles not only co-heirs and co-sharers in the promise, but co-members of ONE BODY. It doesn’t matter what race I descended from. It doesn’t matter whether my last name is Goldstein or Schwartzkopf. It doesn’t matter if your grand daddy was baptized and confirmed in this church or you’ve been a member for two days. The gospel lumps us all together under the title of “saved sinners”. We are all covered under the same blood. Actually, we are closer to God than the Old Testament Jew was. The Old Testament Jew was known as a citizen. We are elevated to the terms of “sons, priests, and kings.” It’s just as if we were going into a movie. It wouldn’t matter how tall you were, how skinny you were, how tan you were. All that matters is the ticket. We’ve all got the same ticket in Christ - which says - admittance to all! In the book of Revelation John describes not just a vision of Jews in heaven. Instead he says, After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
The revelation of this underlying plan of God to reach out to the Gentiles was so secret that Paul said, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Even the angels - the rulers and authorities in the heavens - didn’t realize God’s whole plan to include the Gentiles until it all came to fruition. As the angels saw how Paul was now reaching out to the Gentiles, they then realized how wise God really was. Now they could say, “aha!”
IV. Feeling the privilege to serve
Since many of you grew up in the church, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but to Paul and the Jews and Gentiles of his time - this was huge. He said to the Romans, “you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree.” (Ro 11:24) In other words, he was stressing to them how UNNATURAL it was for them to be called children of Abraham - sharers of the Gospel - especially with their heathen upbringing! So Paul warned them and said that the Jews, “were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. (Ro 11:20) Arrogance comes before God and thinks, “God should be thankful that I’m here. God should appreciate the sacrifices I make in getting my kids to church. I hope the church appreciates how much money I give to church. God needs me - He wouldn’t dare to cut me off - because I’m just too important to Him.” Fear says, “God, I don’t deserve to be here. I was just a wild branch, growing out of control and condemned to die. Yet you brought me here in baptism, grafted me into your tree, and gave me the privilege of being called a Christian. You can make everything work without me. So I thank you for the privilege of being called a child of Abraham - even though I’m not a Jew - through faith. I thank you for involving me in your ministry.”
This was Paul’s attitude toward His own ministry. Even though he was a Jew, he was a persecutor of Christians. Therefore instead of approaching his ministry like a modern day Jonah, he said, I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. Even though that preaching led Paul to being persecuted and imprisoned and eventually most likely beheaded, Paul looked at his call to the Gentiles as a privilege. He gladly went about his duties courageously, because he knew in his heart that he didn’t deserve such a title as apostle - yet God gave him it nonetheless. No matter what the Jews thought about it or threatened to do about it, he had the call from God to preach to the Gentiles. Therefore, he accomplished his tasks with freedom and confidence - knowing that God called him to do so.
Sometimes when I invite people to church they say, “oh, if I went to church the roof would cave in!” What they’re insinuating is that there’s no way God would let them into church after all they’ve done. They don’t think God would want them after all they’ve done. The truth of the matter is that no matter how long you’ve been away - what you’ve done wrong - God still wants you here. He wants you to climb into the wounds of Jesus and completely bathe yourself in the blood of Christ. Through that blood - God doesn’t want you to only fear Him. Like Paul said, In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Like Paul, you also have been called. Even though you are a Gentile, even though you were born dead in sin, God called you to faith through your baptism. He called you to faith through the Gospel. You belong here - not because of what you’ve done - but because of Christ did for ALL of you. What a privilege it is for us to know that we - once dirty and stinking goyim - are a part of God’s plan of salvation - saved by the same grace that the Jews are!
Out of all of the people in the world, God could have chosen the priests in Jerusalem, the regular worship attenders throughout Israel - the few faithful - to come and worship the Christ after He was born in Bethlehem. Instead, God chose to reveal this to the Wise Men - the Magi - who lived hundreds of miles away - to know about it and see it before His own sheep in Israel. All this to see a Little Boy.
What was God’s message through this? Out of all the people in the world - God came from the skies and opened our eyes to the Star of Bethlehem. Instead of riding camels, most of you rode in heated and cushioned cars just a few minutes to get here this morning. You may have had to battle to get up. You may have had to struggle to get your kids out of bed. These are sacrifices you made. Yet when we get to the house in Bethlehem, and see that little boy Jesus - who makes all of us equal children through faith - and eliminates our sinful past - it makes us grateful to be here. It makes us say with Peter and James and John, “it’s good Lord to be here, enjoying the full revelation of the mystery - that we once dirty Gentiles are included in your plan of salvation of the world.” Amen.
