As you see in your bulletins, we're focusing on Ephesians chapter 3. If you're using the Bible in the pew, that's page 977. Rejoice in God's desire for your salvation. And we'll see it in two parts, as you can see in the insert, the stewardship given for us, the mystery revealed for us. So Paul has come off in chapter two of Speaking of our redemption, how we were dead in our trespasses and sins, how we were raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenlies, how we are his workmanship. And then he basically goes through the same history, this time talking about it in terms of our alienation from God and our alienation from his people and how we've been restored to God and made one people so that now, as he says in chapter 2, 19 through 22, we are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are fellow citizens. In fact, we're the temple, the holy temple in the Lord. the dwelling place for God by the Spirit. So amazing chapter two of where we were, what God did for us, and who we are now. I say that because this is how Paul comes into chapter three, for this reason, right? For this reason, the things I have been saying, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, and I'm gonna put this out right from the beginning so that we understand what's happening here. He has a digression that lasts through verse 13, okay? One through 13. And you can see in verse 14 on that page, for this reason. And in that prayer, Paul prays that they might know the fullness of Christ's love. So before the digression, this would have read, here's what God has done for you in Christ Jesus and who you are in Christ Jesus. For this reason, I pray that you will continue to grow and know this unsearchable love of Jesus Christ, okay? That's the flow of thought. You see what God has done for you. You see the amazing love he has had for you. I pray you will continue to know that love and the unsearchable love of Christ. But there's a digression. As he speaks of being a prisoner on behalf of you Gentiles, this wonderful digression as he talks about his ministry as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And we'll read verses one through seven. Although in the ESV, the paragraph breaks at verse six, actually one through seven is one sentence. And so we'll take through verse seven. Okay, a little extra explanation, but I want you to know where we are in this chapter. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. That's the reading of God's word. Let us pray. Lord, We pray as we come to your word for your spirit to work in our hearts through this word. or we think of later in Ephesians where Paul says, be filled with the Spirit. And in the same place in Colossians, he says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, showing that these are part and parcel of the same thing of being filled with the Spirit and for the Word of God of Christ to dwell in us richly. And so Lord, by your Spirit, may this Word of Christ dwell in us richly, that we will bear fruit in all of our lives. We pray this for your glory and honor. Amen. So our words this morning are salt and light. And then the second one is piano keys. And then the last one is a transport. Salt and light, piano keys, transport. It would be amazing thing if say you're in your 20s, let's just say for the sake of argument, you have a brother and a sister and they're also in their 20s and you all three get this communication from an attorney you've never heard of who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. And he summons you to, or his law group summons you to come to his office a particular day, particular time of the month, and they are gonna pay for your way to come. to meet with him, which is probably good news that they're paying your way to meet with this attorney. And so when you meet with the attorney, he begins to read to you a will from a half-brother of a grandfather, your grandfather, who you didn't even know had a brother. And this half-brother had no children. He was incredibly wealthy. And each of you hear that you're being given 65 million bucks. You're all like, oh yeah. That would be remarkable. And one of the things you would be saying is, wait, wait. This is for us? This is ours for us? He, I wouldn't even know this guy and he gave it for us, right? Well, that's the sense here and why I've entitled these points, a stewardship that was given to Paul, but it was given for us, right? these treasures of the gospel given for us, this mystery that was revealed to Paul and the prophets and apostles was given for us. It's for our benefit. And I hope that we will go away today enriched in our hearts by what God has given to us. It's interesting in Colossians 127, which is a sister epistle, a sister letter, very closely related to Ephesians. Paul speaks of the stewardship from God given to me. for you, the stewardship from God given to me for you. And notice how he puts it here, the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you. So a stewardship given to me in Colossians 127, here, a stewardship of God's grace. And then in verse seven, as we read, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace. So grace is given to Paul. He didn't deserve this privilege, this awesome privilege of conveying this good news, but the grace given to him was for the Gentiles, for us. And Paul here describes himself as a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles. This stewardship had landed him in prison. This stewardship had landed him in prison. This stewardship would eventually be his death, this responsibility of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. And one commentator says Paul's spiritual captivity to Jesus, he belonged to Jesus, he called himself a slave of Jesus Christ, had actually now made him a prisoner for real. And it was on behalf of you Gentiles. And you may recall that this began as Paul. A zealot Jew was taking off for Jerusalem to Damascus to throw people in prison who belong to Jesus Christ, who named the name of Christ. And you will recall, as he's going on the road to Damascus, a light flashes from heaven. He falls to the ground. Some painters in depicting it have him fall from a horse onto the ground. Not quite sure, it doesn't say. Either way, he hit the turf. paralyzed basically, and he hears the voice, why are you persecuting me? And he says, who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. And no doubt at that point, Paul's like, at least, uh-oh, you're right. I'm persecuting the one who is Lord over all who has struck me down and is speaking to me from heaven. Or maybe he thought far worse words than that. And in that moment, like his whole life, his whole purpose, his whole reason for being was just torched in the revelation of Jesus Christ to him. So he's taken on into the city, he's blind, and a guy named Ananias, not the Ananias in chapter five, who was dead because he lied about how much money he made by selling a piece of land, but this Ananias has, God speaks to him and says, Ananias, I want you to go, it's on, the street named straight to a guy's house named Judas, different Judas, right? And he says, he is gonna see a vision of a man named Ananias, Ananias is gonna come and anoint him. And of course, Ananias is like, Lord, no, I know who this Saul is. He's a bad dude. He is evil toward your people. And I love how he's informing God of these things. You need to think twice about this. Don't you know who you're talking about here? I don't need to be doing this. This is a wrong path, God. As though God said, oh, oh, that's right, that's right. Saul's a dangerous person, right? But of course he goes, but this is what God says to Ananias. He will be an instrument, a chosen instrument, who will bear my name to the Gentiles and to kings and to the children of Israel, and I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake." Interesting call to serve him. I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake. But what's fascinating about this, isn't it? that the one who was persecuting, the persecutor, is now going to be the persecuted. A little change in endings there. the one who was trying to snuff out and destroy the name of Jesus Christ in the very call that God gives to Ananias about Paul, at this time Saul, he will bear my name. He's trying to snuff out the name of Jesus, but now he will bear the name and he will so bear that name that he will suffer for that name. And that's what Paul is talking about here, this stewardship of God's grace that has brought him into prison. Paul says here in verse one and two, and in verse 13, where he says, I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is your glory. And in Colossians one, he speaks of it in this way, that I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's affliction for the sake of his body, that is the church. That is Christ's afflictions, not afflictions that will bring atonement, but afflictions that belong to Christ because he is the head and his body must suffer and fulfill his afflictions in order to win people to Christ. See the parallel? In our suffering to make known the gospel, we imitate our Lord Jesus who suffered so that a gospel could be proclaimed. And of course, brothers and sisters, we have to ask, well, what about us? What is our part in this? in joining in the suffering of Christ's body for the sake of the world to know Christ. And do you think that you are called as part of that? Do I think I am called as a part of that? Is that how you see yourself? Is that how we see ourselves as a church? And in what ways is God calling us to sacrifice? Maybe not with imprisonment at this time. Maybe not with our blood at this time. Though some of us still may go forth as missionaries for such. But even let's assume we're going to be here in Hattiesburg. What is our suffering look like? What is our financial sacrifice? What is our time sacrifice? How are we using ourselves and giving ourselves away in a way that can be described as sacrificial that we might win our community to Christ? John Piper and others have spoken of how without martyrdom, the world will not be one for Christ. The gospel will not go forth at all places in the world without martyrdom. It's interesting in Matthew 5, where Jesus in familiar words says, blessed are those who persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. What are the next words? For you, are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Brothers and sisters, I would suggest to you, just as with Paul, we cannot be salt and light if we are not also in some way, though we may not be outwardly persecuted as Jesus says here, perhaps we won't be reviled or perhaps we will be reviled in many ways. The church is reviled in America, sometimes for its holiness, other times for its foolishness and hypocrisy. but we are salt and light as the sacrificial saints for Jesus. And you cannot separate those. It sounds good to me, I love, I'm salt, I'm light. Are you willing to be salt and light, Darwin? Are we willing to be that? And I say, you will be, Because as we've seen, chapter two, verse 10, you are God's workmanship. You are God's workmanship created for good works, for love. You're created to be salt and light, no matter the cost. You're created to sacrifice yourself for one another and for a dark world. That's what it means to do good. To do good is defined as Jesus says, here's a new law, not the 10 commandments, I give you a new law. Here it is, love one another as I have loved you. Sacrifice for one another and for others as I have sacrificed for you. He has set the benchmark and then he is making us his workmanship. And Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3.18, that we are being formed into the image of Jesus from one glory to the next. So I would say to you that it's a for sure thing if we're his people, that we will be salt and light and we will live sacrificially. And we have to begin to ask, what does that look like for me? What does that look like for us? Because we have a stewardship of God's grace that's for others. There is a grace to us for one another and for the world. Our grace for this community. Do we see it as a grace? You see? Do you see that not as, oh God. And I have that reaction. One more burden, one more thing I have to think about. One more thing I'm not doing, right? But I hope you'll see it as this. This is a grace given to you. This is a mercy and kindness of God to exalt you to the position of those who would convey the light and beauty of Jesus Christ by word and deed to this community. That is a grace given to you for others. By the way, just anticipating what's coming, we have grace for one another. As he says in chapter four, verse seven, you probably just look across the page or look on the page. He says, grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. And in this context, he's talking about the grace God has given to each of you for one another. So God's grace is not just one spigot, you know, and just one thing poured out, but it's more like this broad, wide shower and the grace falls on all of his people, but that grace is meant for everyone else. It's like, instead of all the food being given in one place, the food is spread out to all over the community and now we're to share that food with one another. You have grace that must be shared. with the congregation. That's why you cannot separate yourself. You cannot be absent. You cannot be disconnected because God has given you grace for us. You are treasure for us and us for you. Well, we'll talk more about that. Belonging to a church means to plug in, to begin to get involved, to begin to see how God would use you, to ask, what are my abilities? What are my desires and joys? How do I serve? You know, the survey was taken years ago. It's a broad worldwide survey of churches asking different questions. And one question was, what makes you happiest in your church? And that was the specific word used. What makes you happiest in your church? And the answer was, for my gifts to be used in the church. That was it, surprising maybe. That my gifts are used in a church. Now that's a challenge for us as leaders. It's a challenge for everyone who participates. It's a challenge for us to find that joy in using the grace God has given to us, the stewardship of God. And as Paul speaks in verse seven, by the working of his power, I believe that we have the working of God's power in our congregation to bear these gifts of grace for one another and for our community. because we are the workmanship of God. Well, Paul also speaks here of this mystery that's revealed for us, beginning in verse three. And in this revelation, you can see his His concern, and probably John Calvin brings this out more than anyone else, but his concern for demonstrating the reality of this revelation. This mystery is made known by revelation. He speaks of this in Galatians 1 of how, no man showed me this gospel. It was revealed to me from God. If you take all of the statements in scripture about this revelation, you have to bear in mind ultimately what we have, and this is how Calvin puts it, we have men coming to us, these apostles, this word, have men coming to us when we're at enmity with God and they are assuring us of the goodwill of God toward us. That's a big thing. To come to us with this message of forgiveness and reconciliation and fellowship with God and an inheritance from God, and the question could be, well, how do you know this? Why should I believe you? And Calvin of all people says, that's a big question. That's an important question. How do we know these men are from God? How do we know what they're saying is true? But there again, it's like, for real? God has goodwill toward me? He wants to do good to me? He has come in the person of his son to die for my sins? to be with him forever? And so these statements that God has revealed himself, but it's not just revealed himself to Paul, but he says he's revealed himself to all the apostles and all the prophets, that is New Testament prophets, who made known and explained what had happened in Christ Jesus. As he says in 1 Corinthians 15, there were multiple witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. And he said there were even 500 witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. And he says, most of them are still alive. You can check it out, right? And Peter, in writing in 2 Peter, he says, I'm not telling you just tales. He said, we were there on the mountain when the voice came down and said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. So you have these people firsthand testimony. And then along with that, you have their miracles that attested, as it says in Hebrews chapter two, God came alongside and attested through the miracles. These are my men proclaiming my word that has been revealed to them. But the other testimony, you might say, is that these people all were willing to suffer to make known this truth. They weren't hucksters. Hucksters don't wait around and suffer for something. They get out of Dodge if they can't make any money. And so Paul's talking to the Thessalonians as he's rehearsing just a couple of months later, what happened when he was among them. And he said, you know that we suffered in Philippi before you, this is all in what's now Northern Greece. He said, we suffered in Philippi and we came and spoke in Thessalonica And we were bold to speak to you. And he said, we weren't deceiving. We weren't out to make money. We spoke from the heart and we suffered again. You see the testimony of those who suffer, the testimony of Paul being in prison, willing to shed his blood and lose his life for the sake of this gospel. So it assures us indeed that God has our goodwill in mind. It's so opposite of a health and wealth approach that our leaders are those that make a lot of money and have big homes, not that our leaders are those who suffer the most. This is interesting. We were one of the first, it may have been the very first trip we took to Rhode Island, where we go every fall. And this was years ago. And we were meeting a man who lived down the lane. And this area is pretty bereft of the gospel. New England in general, you know, has this condition. And this fella had never been in a church. He didn't know anything about it. Now, he interestingly made piano keys for a living, okay? He made them out of calf femurs. Couldn't make them out of ivory, obviously. He made him out of calf femurs. I don't know how, what happened there anyway. But I was asking him about it and he said, well, I have a kind of problem with cashflow. He said, I sell my piano keys in Europe. He said, and I need money to get to Europe, but I can't get to Europe unless I have money. I need to get, so he said, It's a hard thing. And then he turned to me and he said, it's like what you do. You stand up and speak. And if people like it, they give you money. I thought, well, yeah, I guess. If they really didn't like it, they would not continue to keep me for sure. Either for good reasons that I'm not preaching the gospel or for bad reasons, they don't want to hear the gospel. On first thought, I thought, that's crazy, that's not what I do. And then I thought, well, there's some hidden truth to that, isn't there? But you see, the gospel has its integrity in part because like their Lord, these men were willing to lay down their lives so that this gospel might go forward. so that you might have this gospel. And bear in mind, you've only heard the gospel. I've only heard the gospel because these early believers were willing to die for this gospel. I know the gospel only because blood was shed for the sake of Gentiles. That's part of why Paul is in so much trouble is what he said about the Gentiles. That you don't have to be a circumcised Jew to say, no, you Jews must have Christ just like the Gentiles must have Christ. You're just as lost in yourself apart from God's mercy as these raging pagans are lost And both of you in Christ must be joined together as one people, a new people in Christ Jesus, total equal basis, whether you're circumcised or uncircumcised. That was a hateful message, but they proclaimed it so that the Gentiles could believe in Jesus Christ. So ultimately we could believe in Jesus Christ. And we saw in chapter one, verse 10, where the mystery Paul declares is this, that in the fullness of time, God will unite all things in Christ. And so Paul is saying here, this is my slice of that mystery, that final mystery in which all things will be united in Jesus Christ. I have this slice of the mystery that I proclaim Christ in such a way so that everyone that when it takes place, the laws, barriers are removed and Jew and Gentile are united in one people to form the temple of God. This is an anticipation of that final unity that will usher in the new heavens and the new earth. So the unveiling of the mystery. And it seems like when he says this was unknown to those who lived in the past, you mean unknown to Isaiah, unknown to the psalmist? Didn't they speak of the Gentiles coming? Didn't they speak of the nations coming? But it seems that always it was anticipated that the nations would come and they would join us Jews and they'd be a part of us as Jews. And that's why, as I've said before, I'll say it one more time just to drive this in, that the Jewish rabbi who heard about the evangelistic group, Jews for Jesus, said there's no such thing as Jews for Jesus. And Peter and the early apostles in the early days would say, there's only Jews for Jesus. That's all there will ever be. The nations will come and they will become Jews with us. And we'll all follow Messiah together. And it took God's radical work of pouring out the spirit on uncircumcised Gentiles. And they spoke in tongues just like the apostles did in Pentecost to teach them, no, Gentiles, Gentiles. Blood has been spilt that you and I might know Jesus Christ. And we talked about the S-Y-N words. In our language it's S-U-S-Y-N. There are three of those in verse six. Fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers of the promise. So as we saw those last week, three times in 19 through 22, three times again, you're with the people of God, you're with the people of God, you're with the people of God. And brothers and sisters, if he spilled his blood and martyrs have spilled their blood, that you might know the gospel so that you might be incorporated into the body of Christ. You cannot, must not be satisfied with a bare appearance on the Lord's day with God's people. and not be bound up with God's people and growing with God's people and fellowshipping with God's people. We are the vehicles, the transports of God's grace to one another. Jesus has died so that we would be incorporated into each other's lives. He didn't die so that you would be a little piece off here, hardly ever relating to the body of Christ. That is not the purpose of his death. He's the purpose of his death with all of these with words in verse six and verses 19 through 20 of chapter two. It's to be bound up with one another in real friendships, in real fellowship that affects one another, that encourages one another, that builds one another up, that comforts one another in grief and suffering. And I believe that we more and more and more will become that. And that we will manifest We, individually and as a body, we are his workmanship. We're created to do good for one another. And by his grace, that's what we're gonna do and that's what we're gonna be. Will you begin asking, Lord, what would you have me be and do for these people that you've joined me to by your blood? Let us pray. Oh Lord, thank you for the grace given to each one of us, the grace given to us for one another, the grace of belonging to each other, the grace of interdependence, the grace of being built in together, growing together, comforting one another, encouraging one another. exhorting one another, setting an example for one another, praying for one another, worshiping with one another, ministering the gospel with one another. Oh Lord, make our lives bear the mark of this great word with, with, with. May we see the fulfillment of your death in our lives in the body of this church. We pray this for your glory and honor. Amen.