so so so so So, so so That's okay, I got plenty of them. I might. If you really need it. Let's take our hymn books please and turn to page number 244. Let's stand and sing that song. What a friend we have in Jesus. What a thrill it is to carry everything to God in prayer! Oh, what peace we often forget! Oh, what faithless faith we wear! ♪ All because we do not carry ♪ ♪ Everything to God in prayer ♪ ♪ Half of trials and temptations ♪ ♪ Isn't trouble anywhere ♪ ♪ We should never be discouraged ♪ take it to the Lord in prayer. ♪ With the Lord up there ♪ ♪ Precious Savior, still our refuge ♪ ♪ Take Him to the morning prayer ♪ ♪ Who by Christmas might forsake thee ♪ ♪ Take Him to the morning prayer ♪ David, would you lead us, please? Thank you, Lord, for the friendship that we can depend on in you. Friends and foes may come and go in our own personal lives on this earth, We know assurance through the word of God and through past experience that you will always be with us and you're willing to bear our burdens and take them upon yourself. So tonight as we share prayer requests and pray together as a body of believers, we pray that we will rest assured in the friendship and the assurance that we have our salvation sealed in heaven. Bless our time of fellowship and our reading and study of the Word of God. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. There's a number of praises that we've shared this week already through our prayer chain. His leg's doing better. It's not good yet. Well, I guess it's better. It's good compared to what it was. So it is gooder. How's that? It's a lot gooder than what it was. And they did send him home and there's been more progress made. So just pray that now this next round of medicines will finally clear that up. And so he can just get back at life again. So just keep praying about that and praise the Lord Armin made it to California safely and Jason and his friends made it back to the States from Japan Safely and just so many things that we can be thankful for who would have something they'd like to add to this tonight Yes, sir all the way in the back Okay Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Monty. Kimberly. New job and new pay. You said that like it's better pay. Oh, she's happy. That's a praise. Amen. Praise the Lord for that. Good. Someone else. Yes, sir. Larry. I just can't praise the Lord enough. He's been so good. That's all I can say. He's just been so good. Amen. Yep, that's right. Yes. Another answered prayer. Something we're praying about. And Joe made it to the airport and back. Slept the whole way, but you made it. OK, very good. Is there anyone else with a praise? Well, let's go ahead and look at some of these requests that we have in our bulletin. Remember Spud? He's going to have some surgery done on Friday of this week. And we had sent out an email prayer request for Teresa Frost's son. I'm not going to try his age, because I heard two different ages. I heard 39 and 49. But either way, her younger son, he's younger than I am. So he's a young man. How old, Cheryl? 49. OK. Oh, he's a young man then. Yes. He had had a stroke. But he's doing much better. They think the danger is over. And there's going to be some therapy now generate and restore the movement in his lower limbs and things. So just be a prayer about that. The crisis has passed. And thank you for praying. Thank you for praying. We'll just we'll just lay claim to that being the reason for the success there. We can do that, can't we? That's right. We can. So thank you so much for praying. Anyone else with a prayer request that they would like to remember tonight? Yes, Jennifer. Davis. She was in the hospital for a while. She doesn't come home Saturday evening. Please pray that she did get better. Okay. And please remember the ward family. I saw some of you at the funeral visitation tonight. Funeral service will be tomorrow at 11 o'clock at Hopewell Baptist Church. And if you don't know, Where that is, go to Pena and head south on 51. And then when you get out there in the country, you'll see a white church surrounded by fields. That's it. Just stop right there. Probably a bunch of cars there too as well. So just remember them in your prayers, please. Anyone else? Yes, Sandy. I want to make sure no one thinks it's shady. But our daughter from Mississippi, my son called me today, and they don't exactly know what's wrong, but she's in a lot of pain. And they've done about every test they can do. OK. All right. So sure. Not sure yet. OK. Let's remember Sandy's family member having some medical difficulties right now. Shania. I've got two things. Okay They don't fully know what she told me is like her neck Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, praise the Lord. She's all right. Yeah, that's good. Someone else. Yes, Leslie. Okay. Right, right. Leslie's asking prayer for some some heart issues and the doctors are trying to figure out what's going on there. Linda, Well, Shawn and I have got to take off. Both of us have to take off work tomorrow to address some very, very serious issues with Carson. And I just pray for strength, and courage, and calm for all three of us, and especially strength for Carson. He's very emaciated. He's lost over 100 pounds. And I know it's going to be tough. He's going to need that strength, and he's going to need the Lord with him. That's been his hope, and what he's clung to all this time, despite all this hardship and illness he's been going through. But just pray for calm, strength, and courage. OK. No irrational or ready. Sure. Sure. It's a hard thing. Okay, Linda is asking prayer for family matter that's going to be taking place this week and just praying for some sensibility, some peace and calmness as they address the issue. Larry. Prayed for a lady named Sally. Her original name's Loretta, but they called her Sally. She's in her early 80s. During the Christmases, she'd rather dance than she'd rather her discipline and do her readings and all kinds of stuff. So I always help her carry stuff back out to her car. She sent me a $10 gift certificate in the mail, and I sent her card back. I put a gospel tract in it. So we just prayed she'd read the tract. OK. All right. Very good. Anyone else? Yes, Betty. Unspoken. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and set those. Mary. Yes. Please be in prayer for us. We're going to travel tomorrow night and we should be traveling back on Tuesday. So just be in prayer that we have safe travel going to Mississippi back. All right, Wilsons will be traveling. Let's set those to the side as we're doing that, preparing them for our Bible study. I have a prayer request that I would share with you. I'm not sure how to say it, so forgive me if I just kinda stumble along here through this. This past Sunday night, we had a visitor here with us, a young man that no one in here had really ever seen before. And he came in after the service started, sat there in the back row just off the aisle. So most of y'all didn't even know he was here. And even still, you don't even know he was here unless you got phone calls Sunday night. But he, I don't know how to describe him. I've been wrestling with this all week. He sat there very quietly and listened the entire time. And when we left the invitation, during the invitation, I walked down and while someone was praying, that was, I walked down there and introduced myself to him and he just kind of stared at me. And I did get his name out of him. And then I sent John back in to talk to him and still kind of the same response. I know there were other individuals that tried to connect with him as he was just sitting in the lobby afterwards. And just a stare, it was like there was nothing there behind those eyes. And afterwards, then we kind of had to encourage him to leave the building because we were all leaving. And I guess the word that I would put on him was troubled. Was there something physically wrong with him? Was he on something? My experience with the sheriff's office, the rest of his physical movements were not hindered in any way. His speech wasn't slurred. His eyes weren't bloodshot. His pupils weren't dilated. There was just nothing there. And that's why I say he was troubled. Mentally, was there something wrong with him? Maybe. I don't know. I mean, no one in here does. Spiritually, was there something wrong with him? Possibly. Here's this young man, as I described him to you, and he shows up at our church just as the service starts, sits in the back row, listens the entire time. Why was he here? That's a question I kind of rebuked myself with afterwards after I went home last night. I didn't ask him, why are you here? Why did you come to church tonight? And something brought him here. And we can't forget the spiritual side of this world, folks, when we meet people that are different. I remember I had a young man at my last church grade school. If you had seen this man Sunday night, it was as if it was this young man growing up. There was just nothing there. He was a walking zombie. Because of the ADD medicine that the school and his mother had him on, there was just nothing there. And he was a good kid. Other than that, but he was being controlled by the substances that the doctors were putting into him. You know, I say that to ask you to do this. Pray for Nico. That was his name, Nico. And I also say that just to remind us, as I was reminded later that night, when people come in these doors here, we don't know why they come in other than God brought them here. And I had to remind myself Sunday night, you know, the young man sat here and paid more attention than others who were sleeping. I kind of laughed about that. He didn't cause any disruption. He didn't physically, he didn't threaten any physical harm to anyone. He didn't break any laws. He just stared and it made us uncomfortable. But yet God brought him in here. So I am praying, I hope this doesn't bother you, I am praying that God brings Nico back. There's something that his soul needs. And God brought him here. And if he got it, He got what God brought him here for, praise the Lord. But if he didn't, I hope God brings him back so that he can get whatever it is that God intended for him to get here. So please pray for Nico. I would really like to see him back here again. So let's take our Bibles tonight, if you would, and open them up. I'm a little behind here, let me get my notes pulled up. Okay, yes, Ephesians chapter three. We're gonna be looking at the, not verse by verse, word for word, the first 13 verses here, but that's a section that we're going to be looking at in context tonight. Now, as we go into this next chapter, Paul's going to let us know, he's going to let us in on one of the greatest mysteries of all time. It's like an ancient secret that you're finally going to get to understand what it is. It's a secret actually that for thousands of years was known only to God. Only God knew this secret. And it was hidden from all of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, hidden from all of the priests and the prophets back in the Old Testament. They didn't know what it was. And now Paul is revealing this ancient secret. The mystery here was that there was to be a new creation, a living temple. Keep it in context. All they had known up until this point was a physical building, that kind of a temple. A new creation of a living temple. in which God would live in this new living temple instead of in the stone temple behind the Holy of Holies, right? He's going to live in this living temple to carry out his message of salvation to the world. Now, the temple, of course, is us. We understand that. Because we're on the backside of the mystery, the secret. He's going to live in us so that we can have a good life and we can overcome our deficiencies in our life and on and on. No, that's not why. God's choosing to make us his living temple to live within us so he can carry out his message of salvation to the world through us. If we are into Christianity for what it does for us, we're into it for the wrong reasons because it's not about us. It's about being saved so that yes, we'll go to heaven and our personal sins and the penalty has been removed, but now God can use us as a living tool, a living temple, if you will. Ephesians chapter three and verse one, there's our first verse. For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. Now let's just look at this introductory verse to this chapter here. As Paul begins to write about the mystery, he says, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Now it's interesting, does anyone remember where he was when he wrote Ephesians, anyone? He's in prison, where? In Rome, okay? He doesn't address himself as I, Paul, the prisoner of Nero, although he was. What's the significance here of this one little phrase? He realized this. If we could just grasp this fully and just pray and go home tonight, this would be worth it all. He realized that his Prison experience, we'll put it that way, was a part of God's plan. He wasn't a prisoner of Nero. He wasn't in the hospital with cancer. He wasn't... this, he wasn't that bad thing in life. He didn't view that as that way. He realized that his prison experience was a part of God's plan. It was during his prison experience, let's remember this, that he wrote the prison epistles, or what we refer to as those. And we all have benefited from the prison epistles, right? When we, like Paul, have problems, We have to remember our suffering may be for the benefit of someone else. Sometimes we boost ourselves up, encourage ourselves as we're going through a big, bad, ugly thing in life, thinking, well, God's gonna have something good in it. All things work together for good, so I'm just gonna wait till I get through on the other side and God's gonna bless me somehow. He may not. He may have you going through that rottenness just to be a blessing to someone else. Oh, whoa, is that how we feel about it? Remember, I'm nothing. I'm just a tool for God. And he's gonna use this tool for so far 50 years, 60, 70, 80 years, 90 years maybe, and then I'm gonna spend the rest of eternity with him, enjoying being his son in heaven. Right now I'm a tool. I'm also a son, but I'm a tool being used by him. And sometimes, you know, I've done this illustration before. If your tools could talk, if your tools could talk when you're making them do some of the things that you make them do, right? We have to remember that. So with that introduction, Paul now explains the great mystery of the ages, beginning with this. Number one, the revelation of the mystery. Paul writes here in verse two, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you word. Now we're gonna pick apart some of the words here, just so we understand it. that word dispensation it means administration like like that of a household it means house manager in that sense if you have heard the administration the manager of the grace of god which is given to me to you word. Romans 15, 16 says it this way, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Now, Romans 15, 16, how does that explain the administration given to Paul? It's a question there in your notes. Here's the answer, Paul is to be the manager of the giving of the gospel. That's what he's saying in these verses here. The giving of the gospel, that act of giving the gospel, Paul is to be the manager of it. God has entrusted all of us with that responsibility. All of us. Now, because of that, let's look at another few verses on the screen. 1 Corinthians 4, verses one and two. It says, let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ, the stewards of the mysteries of God. We're the managers of it as well. Verse two, moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. So, by default, because we're Christians, God says, okay, it doesn't matter what your spiritual gifts are, or what your talents or your abilities are, all of you are to be ministers, administrators, managers of the giving of the gospel. Every single one of you by default. Some of you have different gifts, talents, and abilities, but you're all responsible to do this. And as verse 2 says, it'll be required of us that we be faithful in the giving of the gospel. What does God require of us? The answer to that question, we are to be wise managers of it. The mystery that Paul refers to is actually, that word, the Greek word is, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it for you. It refers to something that cannot be understood or discerned by natural knowledge, but it's revealed only by divine revelation. The mystery, here it is, that the Jew and the Gentile believers would become equal in one body called the church. Totally foreign idea all through the Old Testament up until this point here. Now Paul continues in verse four, whereby, When ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. Knowledge means this, to bring together, whereby when ye read, ye may understand or you may bring together these things in the mystery of Christ. Paul is putting together the pieces of a puzzle for us, putting together to make a picture so that we can understand this new mystery, which when he is saying these words to these people, it was a mystery. It was a definite puzzle. Let's look at the first piece as an example. In Genesis chapter 12 and verse 3, the mystery was hinted at when God said to Abraham that all the people in the world Would be blessed through him God said that to Abraham all the people would be blessed through him and it wasn't understood by anyone in the Old Testament, but the mystery is actually verse 6 verse 6 of Genesis 12 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." Can you imagine how they must have read that verse and wondered, what does that mean? It was all a mystery to them. But then put the piece into the puzzle that we find in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 29, and if ye be Christ's, Then are ye Abraham's seed. Ah, pulling in that piece from Genesis. Then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. The answer to that question there is if I belong to Christ, then I am Abraham's descendant. The mystery is that in Christ, there's that phrase we find in Ephesians, in Christ, Gentiles, us, are spiritually equal with Jews. In Christ, all the differences are eliminated. In Christ, we are all part of the same body with the same promises and the same spiritual status as anyone else that is in Christ. Christ even prayed for openness or prayed for oneness in John chapter 17 and verse 11. Christ prayed that we would all be Okay, let's move on in your outline there. Number two, the declaration of the mystery. So we're going to go back to Ephesians 3 verse 7. It says, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God and who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now, Paul calls himself here a minister, okay? It's the Greek word diakonos, or diakonos. It means a servant, a waiter. By the way, same word we get the word deacon from. It means to be a servant, a waiter, someone to run errands. We all have a responsibility to serve, to make known the mystery of God, to make the gospel known. Sunday school, passing out bulletins, greeters taking up the offering, inviting people to church, handing out tracts. fixing things at the church, cleaning up, driving a bus, the list can go on and on of all different ways that people can serve just here in this ministry. There is no such thing as little insignificant ministers. in God's estimation. I hope that it would be that way at this local church as well. No such thing as little insignificant ministers. Only two types of ministers here at Grace, hopefully. Faithful or unfaithful. Because that's how God looks at it. Which one are you? Paul was able to declare the mystery because of, as we saw in verse 7, the working of, it says, his power. Working means energy, okay? That means that God energizes us to do his will. Paul was able to He declared the mystery because of the working of His power, okay? That's God's energizing of Him to do what God wanted Him to do. Whenever there is something God wants us to do, He gives us the energy and the ability to do it. I've told you before, when I first went to Bible college, I just got saved. I'm in this personal evangelism class, a whole semester long. First thing we had to do was to give a three to five minute speech of our testimony. I gotta talk for three whole minutes about God stuff? What? How can I do that? But God gave me the ability to do that. Three minutes and 13 seconds, I think. And then I went Genesis to Revelations. Boom, I covered it all, right? I never thought that I would stand behind a pulpit and preach. It never crossed my mind that I would do that, or could do it. But God doesn't ask us to do something, he doesn't give us the energy, the power, and the ability to do. Now, what is one thing he has asked all of us to do? Give the gospel. And he expects us to be faithful. Why? Because he says this, not only have I given you the command to give the gospel, but I've also given you the power and the ability to do it. That means I have no excuse when I don't give the gospel. None of us do. Paul expresses this dependence on Christ by saying verse number eight. Remember, grace is something that we don't deserve. Verse eight again. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given. What was the thing that was given? The power, the ability to do what God has asked him to do. Paul is saying, that's an amazing grace that God has given me. That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. After writing about the revelation and the declaration of the mystery, Paul now moves on to what's going to be our third point, the motivation for the mystery. The purpose for the mystery is that the people of the New Testament might see the beautiful picture of God's mystery, we might call it, of redemption. Which those in the Old Testament couldn't see. They were sacrificing bulls and goats and sheep. they couldn't see what we see in the New Testament, this beautiful picture of redemption. Luke chapter 15 and in verse 10, it says there, the angels rejoice when people come to Christ. They rejoice and they get excited about it. Why would the angels rejoice over that? You ever wondered that? Why, just take 10 seconds and wonder about it here tonight. Why would the angels rejoice over someone getting saved? In the end times, after the great white throne judgment, what is it they're going to have to do? Cast people into hell. I would be rejoicing for everyone that gets saved if that was going to be my job. Think about that. All of this, according to verse 11, is according to his purpose. It says, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, also, in understanding the mystery of the ages, we can understand verse 12 as well. Look with me at that. in whom Christ, we're in Christ, in him we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Folks, it is only in Christ, through faith, that we have the privilege of entering God's presence. You know, when you watch television, you watch movies, and there's a tragic moment in the storyline, and so sometimes the actor or the actress will just pray to God. If they're not saved, God's not listening. They have no right to enter the presence of God. Only we do, as Christians. Whoa, that makes us special. No, it doesn't. Because the only reason I can enter the presence of God is because of the grace of God that reached down and saved me. That's an incredible truth. for the church, because in the Old Testament, remember the high priest could not enter into God's presence except for one day a year, and then he did it only in fear of his life, because if there was any dirt on him at all, he had to go through this bathing ritual, confess sins of him and the nation before he went into the presence of God, and if he missed one, or had a smudge on him, God would strike him dead. No one, now, if that was you, okay, do you think you might have an all-night prayer service and not fall asleep, okay? We're talking serious stuff here. And oh, the bath that you take is gonna be the best bath you've ever taken, because you're gonna make sure you are completely physically clean and all prayed up and prayed everybody else up. And then, as you walk behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies, Can you imagine the high priest sticking a toe behind the curtain first? Let's just try this out. Oh, not very confident, right? What does God say that we can do to the throne of God? We can enter the throne room of God with confidence. Not disrespectful irreverence, but confidence because of God's grace. The mystery of the ages is that God always intended for Jesus Christ to be our high priest. And because he is, we can approach God with confidence to receive mercy and grace. Now folks, you may not be an apostle, a preacher, an evangelist, or a teacher, but God will give all of us opportunities to tell others about the mystery of the ages. He'll give all of us opportunities to speak the gospel. It may be directly, it may be indirectly. When you try to expose people to the gospel, God will give you the courage and the ability to do it. If we are not faithful in sharing the mystery, then we betray a very sacred trust that God has with us as his children, as his ministers of the gospel. Because of the awesome privilege of being entrusted with the knowledge of the mystery of the ages, the last question there in your notes, what responsibilities do you have and how should they affect you this week? Spend some time answering that question tonight. Let's stop here and go to some prayer time.