We're looking at the book of Ephesians tonight, Ephesians. And as we begin, let me direct your attention just to the first couple of paragraphs of Ephesians chapter three. Ephesians chapter three, we'll read verses one through 13. In this passage, Paul refers to the gospel as a mystery. And when we think of mysteries, we think of Agatha Christie or some other kind of whodunit. We think of suspense, not knowing how things are going to work out. The word mystery in the New Testament has a whole different meaning. It refers to things that you cannot learn by experience or from observation. They are not things of the natural world. Mysteries are things that we know only because God has chosen to tell us about them. Mysteries are things that God reveals by his spirit. And Paul tells us that the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ is such a mystery in this passage. Hear the word of God. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that has been 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. The 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. To me, though I am the very least of all the 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. And so I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. Amen, so far God's word. Why does Paul in this passage tell us that Jesus is a mystery? And the good news of Jesus's salvation is a mystery. And the good news that God has sent his son into the world to save Gentiles as well as Jews and to incorporate both parties into one church is a mystery. And why does Paul tell us in this passage that the church is the manifold wisdom of God so that rulers and authorities in this world can know what God really wants to do? That also, Paul tells us, is part of the mystery. In fact, if you read the book of Ephesians as a whole, you'll find that it is a book about this gracious mystery of the New Testament. Paul talks about how for ages and ages, God withheld certain amounts of information from people in this world, but now he has revealed it, and he has revealed it through Christ, and he has revealed it through the preaching of apostles like Paul. God has told us, Paul says in this letter, things that he didn't tell people who came before us. We are stewards of a great and glorious treasure that God has entrusted to us. And it is our duty to proclaim this good news to all kinds of people and to seek to win them to faith in Jesus Christ. Uh, Paul pictures the gospel, the good news as a kind of treasure chest, uh, that is so valuable and so infinite in its riches that one can give it away all day long, every day, and never exhaust the glories of God's grace. The rest of this letter is a kind of explanation of this mystery. And the book of Ephesians is one of the best loved of all the New Testament books. I have to admit that when people ask me, what's your favorite book of the Bible? I'm always reluctant to answer that question because I feel, you know, the Holy Spirit's inspired all of the Bible and it's all God's word and it's all God's truth and it's all profitable. So who am I to pick out a book and say it's better than the others? But I think if you were trying to answer the question, what's a good book to study deeply so that I can understand better what the New Testament is all about and get a good handle on what God is doing in the world in Christ, then I think you could very easily answer the book of Ephesians. If you wanted to take six chapters in the Bible and say, I'm going to really focus on these six chapters and I'm really going to try to wrestle with them and come to grips with what they reveal to me about God and about Christ and about salvation and about the church and about my duties to other Christians and what it means to live a Christian life, you could probably do no better than to devote your attention to these six chapters. It's that wonderful and powerful a book. The first chapter of Ephesians is one of the best loved chapters in all of the New Testament, especially verses three through 14. In our English Bibles, these verses are often divided into several sentences because English teachers tell us that long run on sentences are not good. And in fact, they're one of the seven deadly sins that can cause you to flunk English composition 101 when you start college. But while long sentences aren't a good English grammar, they're very acceptable in Greek grammar. because Greek grammar is very structured. Every sentence has one big main clause. And then it's very acceptable to have a number of secondary clauses to follow that main clause. And you can list as many as you want to. And in the Greek New Testament, you sometimes find sentences that run on for line after line, after line, after line, after line. Not because the writer is a poor writer, but because he's a good writer. Ephesians 1, 3 through 14 is like that. It's all one long sentence in the Greek New Testament. And it's a wonderful sentence. It's a doxology. It's a song of praise to God. And it's a song of praise to the triune God for the wonderful blessings that he has given to us as Christians through his son. Verse three begins, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, or as some English versions translate it, praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the focus of the doxology. We want to praise God, but what are we praising him for? We are praising him because he has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Not just some spiritual blessings, notice, but every spiritual blessing. When God sent his son Jesus into the world, Paul says, everything that is truly good, everything that is necessary for our salvation, everything that is for our eternal welfare, God gave to us in Christ. We say, that's nice to know. But what are these blessings that we received in Christ? And so Paul begins to give us all these little secondary clauses where he explains what these spiritual blessings are. In verse four he writes, even as he chose us believers in him, Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we believers should be holy and blameless before him. Here's the first blessing Paul says, before God ever even made the world, he had determined that he was going to save for himself a people. And he chose, he selected, literally he elected the very people that he was going to bring to faith in Christ. that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Before the world was even made, God was determined that He was not only going to forgive sinners of their sins, but He was going to work in such a way through Christ that He would actually make them holy and blameless as Christ is. If you ever wonder what the goal of your salvation is, Paul tells you, God sent His Son into the world that He might make you holy and blameless. You might wish it said rich and powerful. You might wish it had said healthy and happy. But God says, no, that's not my goal for you. My goal for you is to make you holy and blameless. I want to work in such a way that you will become pure, that you will become faithful. And if we've read the book of Acts correctly, we see that God has the same purpose for Paul. And sometimes in order to make Paul holy and blameless, what did he have to do to Paul? He had to put him in prison. He had to let him endure all kinds of trials and sufferings. He had to put Paul in tough spots so that Paul would learn to trust the Lord and to cast his cares upon the Lord, knowing that the Lord cared for him. Paul understood though, that the goal of salvation is not to make me get everything I want, but the goal of my salvation is for God to make me everything he wants me to be. and what he wants me to be is holy and blameless. Then there's another clause. 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 blessed us in the beloved. So not only did God choose us before the foundations of the world to be holy and blameless, verse four, but verse five, he also lovingly predestined us, he predetermined our destination, our end, and the end of the story for us is that we who trust in Christ are going to be his family. We're going to be his sons. Now, if you have the English Standard Version or something, and it says sons, it may have some little footnote that says, or sons and daughters. Or you might find some English translation that says, to make us his children. And I guess that's fine in one sense, but Paul is very clear here when he uses the word sons, referring to all believers, males and females. Women would say, well, why would Paul want to call me a son of God? Because the firstborn son got the double blessing. The firstborn son received the double share. of the riches of the family. And when Paul writes about how all of us, male and female, who believe in Christ are going to be adopted as sons of God, he's saying more than just simply we're going to be in his family and we're going to be heirs of his riches, but also he's trying to point out the fact that we're going to be special heirs of his riches. We're going to receive this great portion of God's love. He's going to treat us all as if we were number one sons because he loves us. And that's the comforting part of this passage. It would not be very helpful to us in some ways, I suppose, if we learned that God wanted to make us holy and blameless just because he thought we needed it. But instead Paul says he's making us holy and blameless because he loves us. It's in love that he predestined us to be adopted as sons. And he has done this through Christ. And he's done this because it was his will, not because we wanted it, but because it was his purpose. And he has done it in such a way that his glorious grace is praised because our blessing is in Christ, the beloved one. Then in verse seven, another phrase, In him, Christ, we believers, 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. So God has chosen us to be holy and blameless. He has loved us unto adoption. He has also in Christ forgiven us our sins through Jesus's blood on the cross. And he has done so not because of anything in us, Paul says, but because he is rich in grace, because he has infinite compassion and favor toward his people. We may be very well unworthy. In fact, we are all unworthy of this salvation. But God doesn't save worthy people. He saves those who are unworthy. He sent his son into the world not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And as Paul wrote to Timothy, this is a saying worthy of all acceptance that God saves even the chief of sinners. God has done all this, Paul says, lavishing upon us, richly pouring out on us all wisdom and insight. And verse 9, making known to us the mystery of his will. A mystery that is, again, according to his purpose. A mystery that he has, again, set forth in Christ. A mystery that is a plan for the fullness of time. The mystery is that not only is God going to save a people for himself, but he's going to unite all things in Christ in heaven and on earth. The plan of God in Christ is not just to change a few isolated souls here and there around the world. God's plan in Christ is to change the whole world and to bring a total end to sin and death and to make all things new in Jesus. Remember, it's still one long sentence in Greek. So when we come to verse 11, we have just another clause. In him, in Christ, 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 the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. And in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believed in him and 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. Same themes repeated here, but you'll notice that there's a slightly different emphasis. Here, we are to the praise of God's glory in Christ because God has given to us the word of truth, the gospel, and he has sealed that word of truth to us with the gift of the Holy Spirit. So we, as part of God's mystery of revealing things in the New Testament age, are the recipients of God's own message. We need to understand that the good news about Jesus Christ is, as Paul wrote to the Galatians, not something that man thinks up. It's not something that Paul was taught by some other human being. It is something he said that God himself gave me. It is a revelation of God. It's a mystery. And the mystery of God is that he loves sinners and that he is saving sinners through Christ. And the mystery of God is that he saves sinners through the proclamation of the word of truth. The message of the gospel is, as Paul wrote to the Romans, the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. So that what Paul writes to the Romans and emphasizes here again is that God is known and revealed by the reading and the preaching of his word. That's why Christians have always not only clinged to the idea of having Bibles and reading them and studying them at home, But because as Paul wrote to the Corinthians and first and second Corinthians, it's through the preaching of the gospel that God builds our faith and feeds our souls and comforts us and restores us and renews us because the gospel is this word of truth. And not only is the gospel itself true, Paul adds, but also God has given us the Holy Spirit who takes that word and seals it to us. Now, maybe when you were young, somebody gave you some of that. old fashioned stationary or note cards. And you were able to write your card and put it in the envelope. And then they gave you the little piece, a little wax and you stuck a match to it and you would melt the blob of wax over the back of the envelope. And then they gave you a little brass signet that had maybe had your initial on it or something. And you would press it into the hot wax and you would seal the envelope with your initials. And you probably did it because you thought, well, that's cool. You know, not all my friends have anything like that. And, you know, it was probably some great aunt or somebody who gave it to you thinking you would really like it. And you thought it was cool for a while. But in New Testament times, the way kings, would demonstrate that something was a genuine article that a document really came from the King. They would take wax like that and apply it to the bottom of the document. And the King had a Royal Signet ring. And he would put that ring into the wax and leave the impression on it that said, This is from the king. Only the king has a ring like this. And so when you saw the wax, it was a sign that this was from the king, but even more, it was sealed as being from the king. It had the king's seal on it. And the seal was a confirmation or something to authenticate the document. It was something to demonstrate that it was really, really genuine. We have cheap imitations of that nowadays. Just a few years ago, notary public still used embossed seals. Now they have a cheap stamp, but it's still the idea of it's genuine because you've had it notarized. You've had a seal put on it. And Paul says, we know the gospel is true. because not only is the message true, it has come to us from God, it is the word of truth, but also it is true because God has given to us the Holy Spirit who seals us and who is the guarantee or the down payment or earnest, you could translate it any of those ways, he is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. We won't see the fullness of our salvation until Jesus comes back and makes all things new. But in the meantime, God confirms to us the gospel through the spirit working in the word so that when the Bible speaks as believers, we hear God speak and the Bible feeds our faith and it encourages us. And it doesn't do this for everyone. just for believers because the believers have the sealing power of the Spirit. Perhaps that sounds mysterious to you. And it is, it is a great mystery. It's something that we wouldn't know by nature. It's something that we know only because God has revealed it to us. and we know it's true because it's in the Bible. But also through the sealing work of the spirit, we know probably there's more to it than just that. I don't know how many of you can remember the time when you were converted to faith in Christ. Some people have very dramatic conversion stories, other people don't, I understand that. But a lot of people can say, well, you know, when I was 13 or when I was 22 or when I was 44 or whatever, I heard the Bible like I'd never heard it before. It was as if God were speaking to me. And I'd heard the same message preached by the same preacher from the same Bible in the same church a hundred times before. And it was sort of like water off a duck's back. It just went right by me and didn't do a thing to me. Didn't do anything for me. I thought, yeah, okay, fine. And then there was that one day and it was no longer just a message from God. It was a message to me from God. And all of a sudden I understood that I was that sinner the Bible was talking about. And I understood that I needed to put my faith in Christ, that only Jesus could save me from myself, from my sin, from the devil. And on that day, it was like a veil had been lifted. It was like the fog had disappeared. and I could see the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and I put my hope in him and God saved me from my sins. Now, there are a lot of people who have testimonies like that, maybe you do. The question is, what made the difference that day from the days that came before? And Paul's answer was, you might have heard the word of truth before. But on this day, God in his grace sealed that truth to you by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit took root in your heart and he began to work in you And every day since then, he has been confirming the truth of the gospel in your life. And he has seen you through good days and bad days. And he reminds you that he is the guarantee of the salvation that you will one day know in its fullness when Jesus makes everything new. If you were around when we were looking at Romans 8 on Sunday mornings, You remember how Paul talked about the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God and the Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of believers. confirming the gospel to them, teaching them, picking them up when they fall down, restoring them when they feel like they're about to lose their hope. And the Holy Spirit keeps bringing the believer back and back and back and back and saying, you know that you are a child of God now. You know that your sins are forgiven because God has nailed them to the cross of Christ. you know that God is going to bring you to heaven because he has promised to do so. And he cannot and will not do anything less than that. And so in these verses, Paul is singing this song of blessing of doxology to God. It's praise to God the Father for having prepared our salvation. It's praise to God the Son for having accomplished that salvation, and there is praise here to God the Holy Spirit for having applied that salvation. But all the praise and the glory belongs to God, as Paul reminds us throughout the whole passage. After that, Paul gives a brief prayer of thanksgiving for the Ephesian Christians, and then talks about how he trusts that God will continue to help them grow and he will continue to enlighten them. It's a wonderful prayer. We're not going to stop and look at it in any detail tonight. But after that, Paul comes to one of those passages in the Bible that every Christian seems to love. Ephesians 2, 1-10. Usually we focus on this passage because of verses 8 and 9. one of those memory passages, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. We like that. We like to sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And we like to hear that my salvation is rooted in the divine favor of God. It is because God graciously, freely chooses to love me. It's unmerited favor as we usually describe grace. Salvation is the gift of God. Even the faith we have, Paul tells us in this verse, is not our own doing. It too is the gift of God. All the praise belongs to God because everything is of God's doing. And those are two wonderful verses. But you cannot really grasp how great these verses are if you don't look at all 10 of them. Because in verse one, Paul describes you before your faith in Christ as dead, not sick, not hurting. I've heard many of an evangelist picture the unbeliever as somebody out drowning in the ocean, longing for someone to throw him or her life preserver before he dies. Paul gives a more Desperate picture here. He says, you were dead. You were dead in trespasses and sins, not dying, dead. And when you were in this state of spiritual death, you walked following the course of this world. You walked following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience, unbelievers. And among these sons of disobedience, we all once lived. And our unbelieving life was full of the passions of the flesh. It was a matter of carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And during those days, we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind." Pretty black picture of human existence, isn't it? And Paul's not using hyperbole here. He's telling the truth. people who are outside of Christ are dead to God. They have no feeling for God. They have no love for God. They are not seeking God. There is no one who is righteous, not even one. Go back and read Romans 3 again. So if we were dead and we were all wrapped up in the things of this world, how did we get from there to being children of God and walking in the light? What did we do? And the answer is nothing, because dead men don't do anything. Dead people have to have things done to them. And so Paul writes in verse 4, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ. The day you became a Christian was a day of resurrection. It was a kind of little Easter. God took a sinner who was spiritually dead and he raised that sinner from his grave and made him alive together with Christ. The story of Jesus standing at the tomb of Lazarus and saying, Lazarus, come forth in a physical resurrection is a story that has been told millions, perhaps billions of times down through history spiritually where God has said, Tommy, come forth. Sally, come forth. Jack, come forth. People are moved from the kingdom of darkness and the sons of disobedience into the kingdom of light and to the children of God because God raises the dead. It's nothing less than a miracle when anyone becomes a Christian. And this miracle is based on God's being rich in mercy, verse 4. It's because of his great love with which he loved us, verse four. And it is because he is gracious, verse five. But not only did God raise us up with Christ, but Paul says he also seated us with him in the heavenly places, say, I don't figure that out. I don't remember ever going to any heavenly places. I don't remember being seated there. Well, this is a good place to stop and look at the phrase we've seen dozens of times already in Ephesians. Paul talks about things that happened to us in him, in Christ, or in this verse, in Christ Jesus. Look at the references there. Well, for example, back in chapter 1 in the doxology we looked at, verse 3, he has blessed us in Christ. Verse 4, he chose us in him. And then we have been blessed, verse 6, in the beloved. Verse seven, in him we have redemption through his blood. And it goes on down through there. In this particular passage, God has shown us mercy in Christ. He made us alive with Christ. He raised us up with him. He seated us with him. He seated us in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. All of this is Paul's shorthand for what Christians down through history have generally referred to as the doctrine of union with Christ. You and I are saved because we have been put into this binding, indissolvable relationship with Christ. We have been joined to Christ. Not in a spatial, temporal sense, but in a spiritual and eternal sense. And by that, certain things have taken place. Some of them we understand well. We, for example, believe that when Jesus died on the cross, our sins were atoned for there because we were somehow theologically united to Christ and he represented us there and his death became our death. So much so that when we sing that old spiritual, were you there when they crucified my Lord? We can say, yes, I was there. I mean, I wasn't born then, but I was there because that was my sin that Jesus was dying for. And Jesus was accomplishing my salvation there. My salvation was being purchased in him, in his work where he was. But not only, Paul says, were we saved in him in his death on the cross, but we have also been raised up in his resurrection. And when Jesus ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God, we were still joined to him. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the father and has the name above every other name and is king of kings and Lord of lords. Yes, that's true, but there's more to the story than that. I am there as a believer in him so that his glory guarantees my glory. His triumph guarantees my triumph. And even in heaven, Jesus is still thinking about me and praying for me and serving me and helping me and feeding me and encouraging me. And that's what Jesus was talking about in that famous passage in John 14 about going to heaven where the father has many mansions. And he said, I'm going there to prepare a place. What's the next phrase? For you. so that where I am, there you may be also. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to come back and receive you unto myself that where I am, you may be too because we are joined together. We are united. We are one. I am your savior and you are my people. And my covenant with you is an everlasting covenant. It cannot be destroyed or dissolved. And so Paul writes the Ephesians and he says, look, you were once dead in trespasses and sins and you were a child of darkness and you were doomed to destruction, but God in grace reached down by sending his son, Jesus Christ. And he not only made you alive together in Jesus's resurrection, but he also took you to heaven in Jesus's triumph. And he has given you a place at the heavenly table in Jesus's session. And Jesus' victory is your victory. Think about that next time you sing a hymn like, all hail the power of Jesus' name. Because you're not only singing about Jesus' glory, Paul tells us we're singing about Jesus' glory because it means that I'm going to be saved. Because Jesus is glorified, I have hope. It's very practical doctrine to think about. Go to the funeral home and you're there for the visitation and the casket's open and you look and you say, what? That's it. By nature, that's all we can see. We don't know what lies beyond the grave because none of us have ever been there. I mean all kinds of philosophers and theologians and everybody can tell us what happens to people after they die, but there's a real sense in which we don't know anybody in Smith County who's ever died and come back and given us any kind of authoritative statement on what death is like. But by mystery, by revelation, God has told us that there is life after death because he raised Jesus from the dead. But even more, the spirit seals to us the truth of the word when the Bible tells us that all of us who believe in Jesus are raised up in him. And so when I see the story of Jesus's resurrection in the New Testament, I have great hope and comfort and joy and blessing because I know that if Jesus is raised from the dead, then I'm going to be raised with him because he came to save me. And I am joined to him. I am united to him. I am in him. And as long as Jesus is in heaven, then I am sure of heaven. Now, at that point, you have to pause and take a deep breath. because it's pretty easy to get arrogant and proud at that place, I suppose, and say, God has loved me with everlasting love. He chose me before the foundation of the world. When I was dead in trespasses and sins, he made me alive together with Christ. And he raised me up with him and seated me with him in the heavenly places. Oh, how special I am. And it's at that point that we come to verses eight and nine. where Paul says, you do understand, it's by grace that you are saved through faith. And even that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God so that not one single Christian anywhere in the world can boast and say, well, I just got what was coming to me. You know, God knew how good I was. It doesn't work like that, does it? I can remember as a probably a fifth or sixth grader somewhere in that area hearing a preacher say, you know, there is one prayer you should never, ever, ever, ever, ever pray. Lord, give me what I deserve. Give me what I've got coming to me. Why do you never pray that? Because if we all got, if any of us got what we deserved and what we had coming to us, we would receive nothing less than eternal condemnation and the judgment of hell. that we are saved, it's not because we're good, it's because God is gracious. That's the point Paul's making here. We have been saved by grace through faith, and even that faith is not of ourselves, it's the gift of God so that not one of us can boast. You do understand, Paul goes on to say in verse 10, we are his workmanship. In other words, God is the worker, we are the ones who are worked upon. We're the workees. God is the craftsman, we're just the pots that he's making. And then Paul says, and you do understand that God is working in you, in Christ Jesus, there's that phrase again, so that you can walk in good works, which he prepared beforehand for you to walk in. God saved you to be holy and blameless, we read in chapter one. He saved you to walk in good works. Notice the order, it's very important. Paul is not preaching here that God saves people who do good works. He tells us instead that God saves people to do good works. It's not the good works lead to salvation. It's what? Salvation leads to good works. God raises us up from our spiritual death and makes us alive together with Christ and gives us his grace and gives to us his word of truth and bestows upon us the confirming power of the spirit so that we can learn how to Walk with God in obedience and faithfulness. We're not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. That's a mystery. Paul says, you don't learn that by studying physics or math or science or medicine. The world tells you that God helps those who help themselves. The world tells you that God's going to bless good people and God's going to curse bad people. But the mystery is that God saves sinners and loves sinners. And that God frequently pours his greatest blessings on those whom the world considers unworthy and outcasts. Because salvation is by grace. not by works. In the last part of chapter two, there's another great mystery. Uh, it is the mystery that in Christ, God is saving. Jews and Gentiles. Now that may not make a whole lot of difference to you, but it certainly was a big issue in Paul's day. You'll remember when we were working our way through the book of Acts, that Paul would go to the synagogues and he would preach that God was going to save the Gentiles and the Jews would kick him out of town and try to kill him and do all kinds of things to him because Jews did not like Gentiles. It was the common attitude of Jews in Paul's day to believe that they were God's special chosen people, that God lived among them, not among the nations of the earth, that God had given to them the sacrifices and the prophets and the priesthood and the temple and the law and the traditions of the fathers and the covenants and all of God's good gifts were for Jews because God thought Jews were special and God was going to save Jews and no one else. And so when Jesus came and started hinting that the kingdom of God was a lot bigger than just Israel. In fact there were a lot of people in Israel that weren't in God's kingdom and there were people who weren't in Israel that were in God's kingdom. It confused people sometimes and it angered them at other times. But when. We come to Acts chapter 10 and Peter sees that vision of the unclean things. You remember coming down on the sheet from heaven and God says, what I have declared to be clean, don't ever call unclean again. And Peter realizes that God wants him to go to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. And Luke says, you know that Jews didn't go into Gentile homes. Because Peter understood by mystery, by revelation, that God was going to save Gentiles as well as Jews. And then Paul comes along and he gets this commissioning to go out and preach the gospel to Gentiles and to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And so imagine what it would be like if You lived in a society where everybody on one side of town was a God-fearing, flag-waving, true red, white, and blue American and loved being an American and was patriotic and faithful and everybody paid his taxes and everybody kept the laws and all the neighborhoods were clean and all the children were above average. And as Garrison Keillor would tell us, and then on the other side of town, everybody else was of some other ethnicity. And the and the They were communists in their thinking, and they were atheists, and they beat their children, and they didn't work, and everything was falling apart, and the yards were ugly, and there was constant problems with crime, and poverty, and violence, and all these kinds of things were over on the other side of town. And a stranger came to your town and looked and said, Well, there's a big difference between what's on this side of the tracks and what's on that side of the tracks. What did you folks do different? And you'd say, well, see, I guess God just really loves us. We're special in God's sight. Look at how he's blessed us. And those people over there, well, God obviously doesn't like them, because you know those whom God blesses, they have good, easy, happy, healthy lives. And by nature, that's the way we tend to look at things, isn't it? But the mystery, Paul tells us here, is that God is going to work to build a kingdom through Christ for all kinds of people, not only for those on your side of the tracks, but for those who are on the other side of the tracks, and those people that you used to try to shield yourself from and say, I don't want to be like them. I don't want to live next to them. I don't want to have to work with them. I don't talk like them. They're not my kind of folks. Paul says, you need to understand that Jesus Christ is building a kingdom of the thems as well as the us's. And those people that you long thought were alienated from God, they were far off from God, in this new age, they're going to be brought near in Christ just like you are. So Paul says, Verse 11, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hand. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, here's our little shorthand phrase again, 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 made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, the Old Testament age things. that he might create in himself one new man in the place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both Jews and Gentiles to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. And so then you are no longer strangers and aliens. Those were titles that Jews would have applied to Gentiles. But now you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. God is building one church. And this one church is going to be a worldwide universal church. It's going to be made up of all kinds of people, privileged, unprivileged Jews and Gentiles, people who were raised knowing something about God and people who were raised knowing nothing about God. The mystery of the gospel is that God is going to incorporate all these people into one body. And that's a mystery. We have a hard time figuring out sometimes how the church that we see, the church we see is a little local body of a couple dozen folks in Smith County, Mississippi, because those are the people we visit with all the time and we worship with, and that's where we see baptisms administered and where we see the Lord's Supper administered and that's where we sing and pray for each other and know each other by name. We have a hard time figuring out sometimes that the church is much, much bigger than us. And that there are Chinese brothers and sisters. There are Arabs who are brothers and sisters. Lo and behold, there are Christians in Cuba. And there are Christians in South America and in Samoa and in every other place. And we're all part of this vast kingdom that Jesus is building for himself. We may never know their names. We may not be able to speak their language. We may not understand everything they do in worship this side of heaven, but they are part of the church. Sometimes people raise the question, why do we recite the Apostles' Creed You know, it seems sort of same to us. We do it all the time. And that's true. And I know Jesus warns us against vain repetitions, but they don't have to be vain repetitions. If we understand what we're saying and we're truly saying, this is what I believe. But one of the reasons I think for reciting the Apostles Creed is because of that phrase, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Catholic with a little c, not capital C. We're not talking about the Roman Catholic Church. We're simply talking about the fact that there is one body of Christ down through the ages that stretches around the world and that every believer in Christ, whatever his language, whatever her denomination, whatever generation of believers she lived in, They're part of this kingdom that Jesus is building. And the church that Paul was preaching to in Ephesus is part of the same church of which I'm a member today. And sometimes Jesus's church is able to worship in big cathedrals and sometimes it worships in storefronts and sometimes it worships in catacombs. But the church is one church and everybody in that church gets there the same way. They were raised up by Christ from spiritual death. They were saved by grace through faith and that not of themselves, it is the gift of God. And every true believer understands that. Now very quickly, From this, Paul draws several deductions. In chapter four, he tells us that there needs to be unity in the body of Christ. If Jesus has one church, then we all need to walk with one character. We all need to be gentle with each other. We need to be patient with one another. We need to be bearing with one another in love. We need to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all. What Paul is telling us in verses one through 16 is first that Because there is a holy Catholic church, a universal singular church, it is a big deal to disrupt the peace and unity of that church. You better think a whole lot before you create a stink in the church of Jesus Christ. Don't go in there just trying to ruffle feathers because you think it's fun to ruffle feathers. better realize that Jesus has one church and he wants all of his people to walk together in unity. I understand sinners are sinners and sinners are going to do sinful things and sometimes churches get divided and sometimes it's an embarrassment to the gospel and so forth but what Paul wants us to understand in chapter 4 is that we need to pursue unity. as a goal. Everybody who joins this church has to take a vow in front of the congregation. And one of those vows you took, in case you forgot it, is that you will pursue the peace, purity, and unity of the church. When you become a member, you say, I didn't come over here to start trouble. I didn't come over here to get things done my way. I'm not going to always threaten to pick up my ball and go home. I joined to be a part of the body and I will do my best to walk humbly, faithfully, and in unity with my other believers. Now, that being said, Paul also tells us in this passage that God gives different gifts to people. Not all of us are going to be apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds and teachers, according to verse 11, but we all are to work for the building up of the body of Christ, verse 12, until the church is mature and speaks the truth in love and grows up in every way to Christ the head. We have different gifts, but all of us have one goal. And the goal is to make the church mature. Remember one church around the world. So we can't even say my goal is to make our little congregation mature. We have to have bigger plans than that. We have to be mature so that we can help other people become mature. and we have to walk faithfully with Christ, but also help other brothers and sisters who are trying to walk with Christ. All of this leads Paul then to say, beginning at verse 17 and going down through the end of chapter five, that God wants you to walk as a faithful disciple in these good works that he has prepared for you to walk in. And there are lots of things here, but let me call your attention to just a couple of them. First, if you have the English Standard Version, there's a heading over chapter 4 verse 17 that says, the new life. In other words, God calls believers to walk, not as they used to walk, but as Jesus wants them to walk. It's pretty easy to say, well, you know, that's not the way I grew up. And I think Jesus' answer to that is, who cares? It doesn't matter how you were raised and how you used to live. Jesus says, you're a member of my church. You were saved by my grace. You were saved to be holy and blameless before me. You were saved to walk before me in good works. I'm telling you how to walk. You walk according to my new life. Put off the old ways, put on the new ways, Paul writes. Then in chapter five, he tells us that we are to walk in love. So we can't even just do the right things. We have to do the right things for the right reasons. We have to have good motives as well as good actions. Paul talks about speaking the truth in love. Handy verse to remember when you wanna know, should I say this or shouldn't I say it? First one is, is it true? And second one is, are you saying it because you really are concerned about the welfare of your neighbor? And you want to see him grow and be blessed of God. If you can't answer those two questions, don't say it. All right. Then, uh, the third thing that Paul, um, brings out here is that Christians, because they are sealed with the spirit, uh, are going to have the Spirit's help in their lives. And the Spirit's going to help them, verse 19 of chapter five, by addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart. The Spirit's gonna put a song in you. When we were in Louisville, we had a choir director who was a graduate of Juilliard, and she was a wonderful lady. She died recently, but she, would love for the congregation to sing that old song. In my heart, there rings a melody. But she would never just let you sing it. In my heart, there rings a melody. She would put a little of her own personal enthusiasm in it, as well as her Juilliard training. And she said, that R has to be rolled. You know how it is. And so you have to sing, in my heart, there rings a melody, so that it sounds like it's ringing. And she says, You know, that's the way that God made us. He put a song in our hearts. In my heart there rings a melody and it ought to sound loud when you sing it because it's the work of the Spirit. The Spirit also makes us thankful, verse 20. We give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul says the Spirit also makes us submissive. Where the spirit works, we don't always have to have our own way. Where the spirit's working, we can defer to other people for the sake of unity, for the sake of helpfulness, for the sake of just being Christ-like servants. And if you think that Paul is just throwing that phrase in there, you're wrong. I don't mean to be so blunt, but that's just the way it is. Because look at what Paul then does. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Verse 21, wives submit to your own husbands. Verse 25, husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. He submitted his own desires. He became submissive and gave them up for the sake of his church. Chapter six, verse one, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. What's he encouraging them to do? Submit. Chapter six in verse five, slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. So even if you're a slave who wants to be a slave, but even if you are a slave, show the spirit of submission. because that's the spirit of God. God made us to be willing to sacrifice, to wash the feet of others. God made us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And so if we have no spirit of submission and service, then we don't have the spirit of God. And then there's that final section where Paul reminds the Ephesians, this is gonna be hard work. They're gonna be, assailed and assaulted from every side. The world lives by nature, not by mystery. The world is going to tell you, this is how it ought to be done. This is the way everybody else does it. And to walk with Christ is going to require you to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. But rest assured that God has given you everything you will need to stand firm. He will give you a complete armor, a full panoply. And he will enable you to stand against the schemes of the devil. And even though you wrestle against flesh and blood and rulers and authorities and cosmic powers and present darkness against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, it sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it? The fact is that with the whole armor of God, you will be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. God will see you through it. He will give you everything you need. He will give you truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace. He will give you faith. so that you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. He'll take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. He gives you prayer so that you can pray at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. And he will enable you to stay alert with perseverance and to be kept unto eternal life because you are his workmanship. And you have been called to walk with him but also to be saved by him and to live with him in his kingdom. He who began a good work in you, Paul writes to the Philippians, he will also complete that work. He will not sell you short. When Jesus promises you eternal life, he will give you nothing less than eternal life. Now, as my father would have pointed out, when you look at that whole armor of God, You'll see that you've got a breastplate, a shield, and a helmet, and shoes, armored shoes, and a sword. And God has given you everything you need to stand and fight. But there's nothing to protect your backside, so don't run. Don't flee from the fight. That's when you're unprotected. Stand in there, walk with Christ, endure, suffer if necessary. Let him do his work, perfect work of making you holy and blameless until he brings you safely to heaven. Remember that Paul wrote this from prison. Let's pray.