Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, good evening, everybody.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Man, it is.
It's just a blessing. It's just a blessing to be here, you know, not any more than any other time, but it's just.
It's just so good. It's just so good.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We're going to be in Ephesians chapter.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Three tonight, if you want to start turning there.
I.
I don't know the last time I preached. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Matthew.
I'm not anything here. I just get to teach sometimes.
So I'm blessed in that way.
I am. I'm blessed in that way.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: That's just. That's all I am right there.
I do need you to bear with me tonight as we dive into this passage I taught through Ephesians for the first time, I don't know, eight years ago or so.
And it was at a time in my life where just every. It seemed like every word was just rich and full of deep truth that I had application from. And, man, I grew so much in that season, teaching through it in a really small group with just a couple guys who were in a similar state, ready to grow.
And, you know, I was looking back through lessons and notes and resources, and this passage didn't stand out to me then the way that it has this time. And so, you know, we know that the Word of God never returns void, right?
And so I can tell you firsthand just the richness that I've gotten out of it this week, the not new revelation, but the new understanding of His Word and my role in this world.
So tonight, again, just bear with me.
We're going to dive deeply into some hard considerations. We're going to look at the will and wisdom of God.
We're going to look at his eternal workings and plans.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: We're going to consider angels and demons and the church, and we'll consider how all of these things impact us and what our responses should be.
So let me pray before we jump.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Into the Word, just to settle my.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Own heart and my own mind.
So, Father, I ask that you would.
Lord, I ask that you would speak.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: God, I just ask that you would give us the truth of your word and nothing else.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: God, I do thank you for this.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: Past week.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: The trials and the toils, God, that you have seen fit to come into my life.
Lord, I thank you for your word, and I thank you for the difficulties that it holds for us, the tensions, God, because I know that you give us those because you love us.
So, Father, I ask again that you would just Reveal yourself to us.
Speak your word to our hearts. Holy Spirit, move, sharpen us and grow us.
Lord, more than anything, just be glorified tonight I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
Yeah. Last week, Steve finished up with a beautiful quote from Charles Spurgeon that just sums up the heart of man. Really, I didn't write it down, but it was a charge to believers that if you had encountered Christ with your heart, then your mouth or your hands would speak it. And Steve really pointed out it can be your hands, you can write letters, but you need to communicate Christ to the world.
And that's such a challenge, not a difficulty. It's such a challenge to the church, right to be the church.
And so he closed with that charge that all believers then are ministers of the Gospel. And we're going to pick that right back up in chapter three, I'm actually going to read verse seven, and then eight through 13 is what we're going to be looking at tonight.
It says of this Gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power to me, though I am the very least of all saints. This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ 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 was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him.
So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: I don't have a long introduction.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: I don't have witty stories to bring us into it. I just have what the text says.
First thing we're going to see here is that ministry in the church can be witnessed by two preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to the nations and bringing to light what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God.
Paul uses this awesome language. Paul, he knew some words and he used them.
He says, the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ. That's what he's called to preach.
He's called to preach that to the nations, to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. What are these riches? We already know. We've gone through them.
Ephesians 1 lays them out just in verses 3 through 14.
Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
Just listen and tick them off in your own mind.
What blessings, what riches you hear just in these few verses.
Even as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before God in love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has I lost it.
What?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Don't talk to me.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: To the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, 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. In him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were first Jehovah Christ might be to the praise of his glory in Him. You also, when you heard the word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Did you hear how many things just right there that Paul has laid out are the riches that we have in Christ and these things he preaches to the nations. Paul doesn't lose sight of his appointment here.
You know, I think the word he chose to say riches is really interesting because that can be translated in any language.
You can show up in any culture and say, you know, what is richness here? What is something that's going to satisfy your greatest desires? That's what a richness is. That's what riches are, right? But not every tongue, not every tribe, not every culture has words for gospel or salvation or redemption, right?
Consider the audience.
Revelation, chapter 5, verse 9, 10 shows us who it is.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: It says.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: And they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals. For you were slain and by your blood. You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Do you hear?
Paul knows who he's Going after. And he uses words that are going to get them, that they're going to understand, right? So he says, I'm going to explain the riches of Christ to the world.
To the world, not my brothers, not the people who live next door to me, but to every tribe, every tongue, every culture is going to get this. That word Gentiles. That's what it means. That's what it means. It speaks to everybody in the earth, right? So the Gentiles are this group of people, every tribe, language and nation.
And Paul is called, just as we are in Matthew 28, to make disciples of all nations, right? Paul is very tactical here. He's very tactical here in the language that he uses.
And so what is he going to explain?
He's going to explain the plan of the mystery hidden in God.
We know what the mystery is. Steve handled that really well last week. The idea that this people group who weren't originally chosen, who weren't originally set apart, right? The non Jewish, not the descendants of Abraham, right? That anybody else outside of that group, anybody else who was not already part of the covenant with God could be saved, could enter into that covenant relationship with him.
Right? Ephesians 3, 6 sums it up, says this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
We know what the mystery is. But what's the plan?
What's the plan? Why?
Well, we've already seen that too.
We've already seen that too. Ephesians 2, 13, 18 tells us that only one part of it is that we are going to be reconciled with God, right? And that in that reconciliation we'll have access to Him.
So part of the plan of bringing these people into a relationship with God is that they would have access to him.
Ephesians 1, 9, 10 tells us that God has purposed to unite all things in Christ.
I read it a second ago, I'm going to read it again.
It says, 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.
So what's God's ultimate plan?
Why does he reveal this mystery? Why does he establish the Gospel outside of the covenant he has with Abraham?
Because he's going to unite all things in Christ.
If we don't think the blood of Christ is sufficient for all, what does he need to do?
What more does he need to do to save anybody?
So we see that God's plan for the mystery is that all things will be united in Christ and under Christ.
But I wonder why we need to know this plan. Why can't God just carry it out and carry us along in it and let us grow and learn to love him and worship together and evangelize the nations? Why can't he just let us do these things that he's commanded? Why does he have to reveal his purposes to us?
Do we need to understand Him? Do we need to understand his plans? And I think Scripture teaches us that there's tension.
There's tension. And we won't understand God fully until we see him face to face. And then those riches will be unsearchable. They will never be diminished.
They'll never be diminished. We will draw and draw and draw from that well, and it will never go down.
I tried to come up with this example of, you know, unreached places on the earth. And they don't exist because we have satellites, you know, and this radar that penetrates through tree coverage and all this. And so the only thing that people said is undiscovered is the ocean. And I was like, well, that doesn't count because I can't breathe under the water.
So I'm not going down there.
I think I would go to a jungle. I don't want to go into the ocean. I don't know what's in it. So, you know, that's this picture that I was trying to paint in my mind with just what is something that's unsearchable?
What's something that we can't discover enough, right? And people make the joke. I was born too late to explore the earth and too early to explore the universe.
So here we are with just this picture of Christ's love and who Christ is. It's unsearchable.
So, moving to this next idea, and I think we're going to camp here for just a little bit.
God reveals this mystery in his divine plan to incorporate the church in his eternal works. While we're yet dwelling on this temporary creation, while we're here, he's incorporating us into his eternal works.
And you might say, how?
How is God doing that? Well, we're building up the kingdom, right? I mean, we preach the gospel, right? We're not performing miracles, but we're trusting God to take his word that we're speaking and living and carrying with us and perform miracles and save souls and bring dead to life, right?
God uses the church to do that. But Paul says here in verse 9.
To bring to light for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things? Verse 10. So that through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Maybe a not so brief, but an aside, right?
That phrase, rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, it speaks to angels and demons. Speaks to angels and demons.
Actually, mostly demons.
Looking through scripture, you see these words used together a lot. You see them used separately. And when they're used separately, they're not speaking to these spiritual forces, speaking to the. To the power and authority that God is giving to man on earth.
But when they're used together, there's two times that it doesn't apply. It doesn't apply. And one, Paul calls Titus to be subject to earthly authorities. And then the other time, it's actually a shift, and I think it's God saying In Revelation chapter 12, there was this power and authority on earth, and now it's Christ.
But we see throughout Scripture that this picture is of demons. It's of demons, okay? And there's a lot that we don't know. There's a lot that we don't know. There's a little bit that we do know. We know First Corinthians 15:24 says, in the end, God will destroy them.
God will destroy them. They. They will not exist anymore. There will be no power. There will be no authority opposing God.
Colossians 2:15 says that Christ disarmed these authorities and these powers with the cross.
It actually says that he triumphed over them and he put them to shame.
And man, that's been so fresh in my mind.
It's been so fresh in my mind. What do we have to fear?
Christ has put these powers and authorities to shame.
We read in Ephesians 2 that before salvation, we were following the prince of the power of the air, we were following Satan. We were chasing after him. And what he craved and what he desired is what we crave and desire.
And then Christ turns and says, I've put him to shame.
I've taken away his tool. I've taken away death.
First Peter 1:1012 says that the angels long to look into the things concerning our salvation.
They long to look into things concerning our salvation. It's not that God's withholding from them. It's that they don't experience God the same way that we do.
All right? So there's a lot that we don't know, but what we know is Christ is king and he has redeemed us from Satan and he will eventually destroy Satan.
So everywhere in Ephesians that Paul uses this. He uses this phrase four times. He speaks very specifically of.
Well, I'll just. I'll read it.
He. He speaks of rulers and authorities. He's speaking about these cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That's right out of Ephesians 6:12.
So Paul uses this phrase over and over again. And then at the end of the book where he's called us to unity in the body, he says, you've got a task, you've got a task. And this is what opposes you.
Listen to those words again. Cosmic powers over this present darkness.
Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Don't miss the weight of this passage.
There's a very real and constant presence of the enemy in our world. And God commissions his church to first contend against spiritual forces of evil. The prince of the power of the air, the accuser, Satan, and those angels who have fallen in their submission to him.
And two, to reveal to those entities the wisdom of God and all of his intricacies and all of his beauties and purposes and fulfillments.
I mean, he says it right here. So that through the Church. That's us.
That's us. That's me.
That through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
We are the outworking of God's wisdom.
Not just that we would be saved, but that the multitude of scenarios that we find ourselves in, the things that we love and crave in our death, in our spiritual death, that they wouldn't hold us back from the gospel, right? It paints this picture that in salvation in the church, Satan can't speak, he can't open his mouth, he can't fathom what's happening.
It shuts him up.
And that at the name of Christ, man, the hairs on the back of his neck would stand up.
It's this idea that God has put the church together to reveal himself in the fullest sense to Satan.
I mean, that's weighty.
That's weighty. If you call yourself a part of the church, if you claim Christ, man, we have these two things that we have to carry with us. We have to contend against these forces.
And we do it by offering God glory in revealing his wisdom.
What's really crazy. What's really crazy is that verse 11 says this was according to the eternal purpose that God has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This meaning that Paul became a minister by God's grace and through God's power.
That Paul was called to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles. That Paul was called to bring light in the mystery of this unification of different people who are hostile to God in different ways, but all dead in their sin. That he would bring them to life and bring them together.
That the Church would participate in revealing the manifold wisdom of God to these demonic forces. All of these are according to the eternal purpose that God is working. When I say the eternal purpose, I mean the reason.
The reason that God is working, right?
These are in no way reactions to history.
This is not God saying, oh, man, I've got to fix this. I got to shore that up. I got to figure out how to get that down the road.
God didn't pour grace out on Paul because he was ravaging the Church.
God didn't decide to bring Gentiles in the covenant because Israel was wicked.
God did not decide to combat Satan because sin came into his perfect creation. God had seen and planned to see these things through and correct them and bring vindication. Eventually, in eternity, God will set things right.
And right now he has commissioned us. That might be the best word. He's commissioned us to participate in that eternal plan.
God has set this plan into existence before existence ever existed.
I couldn't think of better words. I don't Even more, He counseled and he toiled. As much as we can say that God toils over something, right? He counseled and he toiled over this plan to establish the church, to pour out grace on sinners and to call them into a loving covenant relationship with Him. These things are according to his eternal purposes.
They are hitched together.
They're hitched together. It's not that they're similar. They are linked together.
They're in perfect alignment.
So what do you think Paul thinks about God's eternal purposes?
I realize now I should have put it on the screen, but for me it's just right here.
Back in Ephesians 1:11, 12, we see here the purpose of God, that is according to the counsel of his will.
Listen to this. It says in him we've obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
So objectively, we can see that God is taking action, right? He's taking action. He's purposed and it's in alignment with what he wills. But even more than that, in God's will, there's Some sort of counsel.
There's some sort of consideration that he holds within himself. And he's taking counsel with himself in a sense, and seen fit to put that plan into effect. So it must be a good one, right?
I mean, if God's going to consider it.
Ephesians 1, 5, 6, just above this, it says, he predestined us for adoptions of sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.
According to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.
We see here that the will of God once more, and the purpose here, what we've been saying is the reason for something, the purpose of something.
It's actually a different word.
And since we've been doing Greek, let's keep doing Greek. We'll keep that trend up this week. The word is eudocia. I don't ever say that right in my mind. So I wrote out phonetically eudocia.
And so I think that I'm reading out the English Standard Version. I know a lot of us have that. And I think that this is a poor translation here in verse five, right there, where it says, according to the purpose of his will. That word is actually eudocia, and it means to have a kindly intent or to have a satisfying action. Most other translations say something like according to the good pleasure of his will.
Right? So we see here that God has a will and he acts according to it.
We see that in his will he takes counsel with himself, and that in that council he is in no way displeased with what he's planned, and he's in no way displeased with how that plan is executed.
And he doesn't regret and he doesn't second guess, but he's utterly delighted in his eternal purposes.
So how does Paul feel about God's eternal purposes, man? He's delighted.
He's delighted. He. He has taken the time to consider before time existed.
He's taken counsel on himself, and he set his will into action in creation for the story of redemption of you and me, of our kids and our grandkids, of Abraham and his line, of Paul and Silas and Timothy, right? You see, God's plan is not as it comes.
Here's a brief paraphrase of one commentator. He said it like this. He says, if we trace back the eternal purposes of God, according to which all of this was done, we come to the will of God, which has in it the counsel of God, seen in verse 11, and the good pleasure of God seen in verse 5, which yields a purpose. Verse 9, the purpose yields a plan.
And the plan is it says here is worked in Christ Jesus our Lord. So this eternal purpose, which comes from the will and counsel and good pleasure of God and yields a plan of God, then gets worked out in Christ.
So why does Paul walk us through all of this? You see, we take passage by passage. And I think sometimes we can forget that this is a letter, that the Church would have sat down and read this out loud to each other two or three times and heard it read and passed it on.
I think first, God is not making up history as he goes along.
God's not making up history as he goes along. He's acting according to his eternal purposes. He does not change.
He does not change.
And he has no fear.
He has no fear that his plan will be thwarted. He has no fear that his plan will be carried out properly. He has no fear in the decisions that we make because he knows the power that he holds.
I think also that God is not reacting to any influence. He's foreseen these authorities, these demons. He's foreseen the work of Satan.
He's foreseen sin coming into the world.
Sin did not take God off guard. He's not a sinner, and he's not evil. He's God. Nothing can surprise him.
And he's taken all things into account.
He's worked them out in his good pleasure.
And last, like I said earlier, God has included you in his eternal purposes.
So you church brothers and sisters who come from every tribe and tongue and nation, who might think you are insignificant, right? You might think you're just the toenail, the body.
Listen to this.
You're part of something so vast, so deep, so high, so eternal.
This is glorious beyond measure.
And it cannot be stopped.
So what are the implications?
What does this passage bring into our hearts and our minds? Right? Let's just look.
While we were temporarily separated from the Father, we've been granted boldness and confident access to Him.
We've been granted boldness and confident access to him through the blood, the torn flesh and the cross of Christ.
But those three things, and I use those three things, we will say the blood and the cross, easily, right? And I think that Paul says here, in verse seven, he says of this gospel, and he says, this gospel, but where did he share the gospel? Just above that, in chapter two, verse 13, he says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For He Himself is our Peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.
Colossians 1:20 says that by the blood shed on Christ's cross he made peace.
I think Paul very clearly, I said it earlier. He uses words, he uses them for a reason.
I think that we can forget that the death of Christ is an actual recorded historical occurrence.
Man, we can get this picture of the Gospel and say, that's some theoretical thing that saved me from my theoretical sin.
Like we also, when we reflect on our hearts, we know that our sin is in no way theoretical, right? And the Gospel of Christ is a true fact.
He died on the cross for our sins. He raised from the dead. Days later he ascended into heaven and is now physically seated by the Father ruling.
I think Paul uses in the flesh here just for that, that little thing. This is a real thing that actually happened.
Verse 15 keeps on says, by abolishing the law of commandments, expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
In Colossians 2:14,15, I referenced it earlier. It says that Christ took the dead of our sin and he nails it to the cross.
And Paul finishes this discussion of the Gospel. He says, and he came and he preached peace to you who are far off, but not those of you who have access and peace to those of you who are near, but still those of you who don't have access.
For through Christ we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
So what is this implication? We have boldness and confident access to the Father.
Us who were once aliens, who were once dead, we were far off, we were near.
But Christ has granted us access.
And what does he say because of that?
Verse 13, I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is your glory.
So we don't lose heart.
We don't lose heart.
We stand before these authorities and these powers, right? This present darkness, we confront it with boldness.
We speak the truth of Christ with boldness. We fall on our knees and go before the Lord and we enter his throne room with confident access.
In this church in Ephesus, it was made up of Gentiles, right? It was made up of these people who weren't a part of the covenant.
And they were the means by which demons and heavenly authorities would see the wisdom of God. And they were partakers of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
And because of the afflictions of Paul, came about because of their behalf.
And Paul's imprisonment is to their glory.
Right? They should rejoice in this. They should rejoice in what God is doing. They should rejoice in the confrontation that's happening on their behalf.
And we should do the same.
So I'm going to close. I'm going to close with this.
I'd call myself a skeptic.
We were talking about the other night.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: I'd call myself a skeptic.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And it's not always good, you know, not a skeptic of Christ.
But that's one word that's used in modern culture to identify somebody who doesn't believe. Right? That's what the word means, a skeptic.
So you who would call yourself a skeptic of Christ, are you an enemy of the living God?
Are you following the prince of the power of the air, the deceiver, the accuser who is right now defining our culture?
Will you see that Christ has broken any grip he has?
That in Christ you have freedom and you have peace by his blood, by his blood, by his torn flesh, by his cross. You can have this relationship with God and you can have freedom from sin.
I said it before. Colossians 2 says that Christ took the debt of our sin and he cancelled it.
He cancelled it and he triumphed over Satan and over darkness, and he's put Satan and his demons to shame.
Will you turn to Christ and live?
Will you take up the eternal purposes of God?
Will you help to reveal the manifold wisdom of God to the world, to the dead and dying world?
And brothers and sisters, do you want to have a glorious role in the redemptive history?
Be the church, carry the boldness that's granted to you, man. Work it out in the world and with confidence speak Christ and glorify Christ and work for Christ and live your life that's reconciled.
So that the darkness would see the wisdom of God and that the darkness, seeing the wisdom of God, would turn and repent and glorify Him.
See, that's the goal. The goal isn't that we would be the shining lights. That man, look how smart God is. No, the goal is that God would be glorified.
You're part of something that's tremendously great and eternal and it's unstoppable because it is the will of God. And our God is in the heavens and he does all that he pleases.
Father, we praise you and we thank you and we ask that you would be glorified as we meditate on your word this week, and as we sing songs to you, and as we fellowship together, and as we read and study, and as we seek your face, God. And as we live our lives with Christ before us.
God, I ask that you would be glorified. I ask, Lord, that you would challenge us with trials.
God. And I ask that you would supply us with more than we need to overcome.
Father, you are so good in ways that we can't understand, and your wisdom is so good in ways that we can't understand. And yet we reveal it.
Father, help us to search out the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Help us to share those with the world.
Father, I ask that you would stir us up in your spirit.
Call us to obedience.
Lord, we love you. Amen.
