At this time, I invite you to open with me to the New Testament and the Epistle of Paul, the Apostle to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 1-13. That's Ephesians 3, verses 1-13, which can be found on page 977 of the Church Bible. This will be Christ and His Church, part 28. In this third chapter of Paul's letter, We have taken in his presentation of himself as the Lord's prisoner, his words on the stewardship of grace, and the main thing carrying him through this digression, what he wants to elaborate on, namely the mystery revealed concerning believing repentant Jews and Gentiles together on the same footing making up the church. This is what our focus would be two weeks ago at this time. However, we're about to be reminded of how Paul has this tendency to show the likes of us the wide-angle lens in terms of the size and scope of what he is saying, of all that it pertains to. With that said, then, let's go ahead and give our strict and undivided attention to it, for this is the reading of God's holy, life-giving Word, inspired, infallible, and inerrant. Again, Ephesians 3, verses 1-13, with special attention being given this morning to verses 10 and 11. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, 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 and 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. 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. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. Amen. Let the one who has ears to hear hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. Brothers and sisters in Christ, I don't know about you, but I have mixed feelings about angels. On the one hand, it is good to emphasize the realm of the spiritual and supernatural, including these celestial creatures and their God-given powers. We can at times be a bit wrapped up in the material world or a bit rationalistic, not taking into account that there are things beyond us, other dimensions that, though unseen by the naked eye, are part and parcel of reality. They're influential. They matter. On the other hand, Almost all the time, our culture's talk of angels, its fascination with them, can be a bit excessive when we as Christians would redirect everyone's gaze to God and to be primarily fixated on Christ, his anointed one. Or it can be quite the sentimental thing, judging from TV shows and Hallmark cards or even the fare you find in so-called Christian bookstores. Or still further, it can be rather superstitious, with all kinds of beliefs regarding angels that are unbiblical, or at least speculative, going beyond what scripture says. For instance, while the angels are meant to serve those who are to inherit salvation, as Hebrews 1, verse 14 puts it, it's not entirely clear that each human being, or even each believer, is assigned his or her own guardian angel. And to top it off, I doubt the average popular take on angels wrestles with what Paul says about them here, taking stock of it. Coming to Presbyterian, Paul is broadening our horizons and expanding our vision when he refers, in Ephesians 3, verse 10, to the rulers and authorities, sometimes translated as principalities and powers. Now, not everyone takes this to mean intelligent beings of the angelic variety. Some maintain that something earthly is in view, namely the political structures of human society such that they are not only informed of something but redeemed as if through this means and to this degree the kingdom of Christ comes in the here and now. And while I get it that such is a hotly debated topic, I'm not going to spend this sermon evaluating that sort of hope. Along with most, though, I would counter that the activity Paul has in mind in this particular case is neither directed towards earthly governments and their leaders, nor is it redemptive in its nature. Angels are the ones in the foreground, and they are being served notice, no more and no less. Sticking to what he says here, Paul locates them in the heavenly places. With this understanding backed up by what he has already cited back in chapter 1, verses 20 and 21, when he speaks of Christ's reign from heaven over all rule and authority and power and dominion. And most especially by what he will say a little later on in chapter 6 when he teaches on our struggle against such heavenly armies. Again, he employs rulers and authorities and other language which is the same or similar, and which he adds is not a struggle against flesh and blood. With that last passage cluing us into how not only are holy angels in view, but those who are adversarial, enemies of Christ and his people, in other words, fallen, unholy angels. In short then, Paul's message, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that we need to take to heart can be summed up like this. Because of Christ and what he is pulling off in the church, the display of God's wisdom, we are to live for his glory, a glory to be acknowledged even by the angelic hosts. The theater is not just our hearts and lives, Not just our generation, not just the nations, not just this physical world, past, present and future, but it is cosmic, inclusive even of the angels. All will bow before the living and true God. All will give the triune God His due. All will praise Him, even the angels. Not only will God's children lovingly adore Him, And not only will the rest of humanity, suffering His judgment for their sin, even while continuing to despise Him, admit that He is holy and just, righteous and true. And not only will the good angels love and worship Him, but the evil and wicked spiritual powers that be will, once more, while hating Him, still, nevertheless, have to confess His total victory. This is what Paul is driving at in verses 10 and 11 when he announces that the mystery of Christ and his church has been revealed so that through it 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. A God-centered, God-exalting purpose, you see. It's all about Him. With a call extended towards those like ourselves to be and live as disciples of Jesus and thus experience His everlasting joy as we participate in these things, contributing to and serving this great end, this wonderful goal. Under two headings, let's explore these things when it comes to the audience before whom God is doing what He is doing in the church. The church in union with the Savior. First, the holy angels in the audience. The holy angels in the audience. Beloved, Paul is saying that they are checking it out, as it is made known to them, the wisdom of God in Christ and His church. We already have a clue from 1 Peter 1, verse 12, when it comes to the promises of old being fulfilled and the good news of the gospel, that angels long to look into these things. It captivates their interest. They marvel over it. And putting that together with what Paul is writing about here, we could say that they are utterly captivated by what God has done in Christ and what he is doing in the church. And that's saying something when you grapple with how wise these angels must be, having, among other things, beheld God's creation of this visible world, as Job 38 verse 7 at least suggests, stirring up the angels to shout for joy before the morning stars that the Lord hung in the sky. It must have been quite the learning experience, everything from the galaxies to the smallest subatomic particle. everything from their beauty to the physical laws by which they operate. But Paul dares to say that it's the church that above all shows off before the angels God's manifold wisdom or his many-sided wisdom with it being inseparable from how all his attributes are showcased, really. He demonstrates both his holiness and righteousness, and yet also, at one and the same time, his grace and mercy, his covenant love. He will neither simply express his love and forgive everyone and let bygones be bygones while ignoring justice, allowing sin to go undealt with, just sweeping it under the rug, nor will he just care about his holy righteousness and therefore do nothing other than set the bar and expect us to jump over on the strength of some righteousness of our own when in point of fact we in our debilitated and depraved condition could never make it. Instead, He satisfies both His righteousness, His moral integrity, and His love, His heart to reconcile sinners unto Himself. He sends His own Son in the incarnation, so that as the God-Man, He might both maintain and uphold all of the Father's perfect standards, and unleash His love for needy people like ourselves. We see it at the cross, where God serves His justice. as the righteous requirements of the law that sin be punished are met in and through the death of Christ. His righteousness justifies us, and the flip side is true as well, as His sin-bearing takes away the guilt of our sin. So that God is both just and justifier of the believing sinner, as Paul spells out in Romans chapter 3. It's also at the cross that he unveils the depths and fullness of his atoning love. As for the sake of his love as well, Christ would shed his blood and die for sinners. As Paul teaches in Romans chapter 5, just as he does here in Ephesians in chapter 1. His own love was moving and motivating the living and true God. Apart from God's wisdom, a creature or creatures with creaturely reason and wisdom, such as human wisdom, could have perhaps concocted some sort of salvation. But we know from the errors and heresies that men have taught that it would merely envision a salvation that would major in God's justice only, while distorting that justice. or His love only, while perverting that love. But not a salvation like this, like we know in the Word of Christ, which pleases God and reveals Him in His totality without pitting His characteristic traits against each other, or favoring one over against another. And the holy angels know it. Furthermore, they see the supremacy of God's wisdom in that His salvation not only forgives sin, but transforms, setting people free in vital union with Christ from both sin's penalty and sin's tyranny. Recipients of His grace know redemption, as Paul celebrates in Ephesians 1, which means liberation, finally, from sin in every way, including one day its very presence. They are thus made alive in Jesus as he exults in, as we have seen in Ephesians 2. Saved not by their own works, but saved for good works. As God's grace trains us to live godly, self-controlled, and upright lives in this present age, as he adds over in Titus chapter 2. Creaturally, human wisdom would have come up with something different. Indeed, this is what it still tries to do. A salvation which takes away from God's glory, a salvation which preserves human glory in such a way that it cuts in and encroaches on God's territory, propping up man in some fashion, like in legalistic works righteousness, even if salvation were in some tiny measure reliant upon human willingness or something we were to do or bring to the table, that would be part of the hinge. Meaning we would still be able to some degree pat ourselves on the back, safeguarding our pride even before the Lord. Or like in lawlessness, or licentiousness, which talks up divine grace, as in cheap grace, as if God's grace exists so that we continue in sin, uninterrupted, with impunity. I like to sin. He likes to forgive. It's a great relationship. Such that human selfishness remains intact, never overthrown, certainly not eradicated at all. When God's actual grace in the Lord Jesus rescues us from both traps, the ditch of legalism on the one side of the road and the ditch of lawlessness on the other, keeping us on the narrow way, in which God gets all the glory and we are put in our place and enabled to worship Him wholeheartedly. by the Spirit, being sanctified as well as justified and adopted in Christ. And if that's not enough to stun the angels, there's even more. And this reference to God's wisdom, which is manifold, is something of a glimmer of it. It could be translated many colored, implying many hues and shades like you find in a prism. And it ties in with what Paul has been unpacking in Ephesians chapter 2 and further expounding upon here, the brilliant diversity found in the unity of the church, as all colors and kinds are included. Every ethnicity, every nation, every socioeconomic group, every age, both males and females, and so on. starting with Jews and Gentiles being brought together in peace and harmony, as people are reconciled to God in Christ vertically and to one another horizontally. This is not the way of man-made wisdom, which, if it knows God's salvation in Jesus at all, still wants to bottle it up and keep it, so that One people or people group acts as if it has ownership of it, as if they have a right to it, as if everyone else is to be kept on the outside looking in. Israel all too often fell into this in Old Testament times, leading right up to Christ and the apostles. And the tendency has emerged, recurring again and again throughout the age of the Christian church. We're not immune to it. with a clarion call always needing to be heard and obeyed, that we reflect what God has done and not walk inconsistently with how the barriers and divisions have been broken down and toppled at Calvary in the power of our risen Master. For this too puts the spotlight on God's manifold wisdom, such that the angels sit up and take notice, being awestruck. And yet, angels can't process it the way we can and should. They don't know what it is to be forgiven, to put their relationship with God to the test such that he passes with flying colors in Christ, proving to be unbreakable in his sworn commitment to his own. For the angels have never sinned. So they don't know love like this, which catapults us to the highest point in all the universe, seating us with our Lord in the heavenlies and granting us a destiny in which the angels will be looking up at us as we are with the Son of God to occupy that mediating position between our Maker and everything else He has made. If it takes the angels' proverbial breath away, How much more should it impact us? Maybe this is why these pure and sinless angels are arguably at least never described in scripture as singing. Though that observation runs counter to how they are often depicted, especially at Christmas time. My point is not to doggedly assert that, though, or to suggest we shouldn't sing carols which mention in their lyrics singing angels. I have no problem with such poetic license. Rather, what I'm trying to underscore is this, that we are the ones who have been loved with an everlasting unfathomable love, which is simultaneously holy and righteous. We are the hell-deserving sinners who have been gifted by sheer grace a title to heaven, who have been made right with God and with one another. We are on the receiving end as these are made ours, as we are wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, as we are brought to repentance and faith in Christ. So we of all creatures, are the ones who are chiefly to sing of it, to sing His praises and excellencies with heartfelt gratitude and ardor, devotion, and love and worship, including His wisdom, which trumps that of men and that of angels as well. First, the holy angels. in the audience. Second, the fallen, unholy angels in the audience. The fallen, unholy angels in the audience. Church, given that Paul, given what he and the New Testament say elsewhere, this might be who Paul mainly, primarily has in mind. The background is the fall and the promise of rescue and triumph over the tempting serpent in Genesis chapter 3, and along with it, the behind-the-scenes action in heaven recorded in the book of Job. Again, human judgments and assessments come to mind. As soon as Satan and those who joined with him rebelled, why couldn't God have right then and there annihilated them? Perhaps averting the fall of humanity in the garden and its many tragic and ugly consequences. Who knows? It's a thought that may have even crossed the minds, with all reverence, of the innocent, unfallen angels, without it ever degenerating into impatiently putting God in the dock, as happens with many humans in their sin, in their unbelieving and incessantly demanding questioning of Him. So what was God up to? Well, theologians have attempted to articulate something of an answer with the Latin words Felix Culpa, meaning happy fall. As Augustine would put it, later to be echoed by Aquinas, God determined it better to bring a greater good out of evil than not to permit any evil at all to exist. Because God would work it for good, to bring about the best possible world. Because he would all the more be magnified in his holy, righteous love, overcoming our shaking of our fists in his face, and as it were, our goading of him to cease and desist from such love and instead swallow us up in entirely justifiable hatred and wrath. And we would never know the security of being loved with a love like that, that is unstoppable and unshakable. But Satan and his minions would have to go down through it all for us to really consider it a happy fall when all is said and done. And this was God's gospel promise. In the hearing of Adam and Eve, spoken to the snake, that through the seed of the woman, a coming future deliverer, he would be made to bite the dust. though the seed himself would be wounded in the process. Think the cross, and root to the empty tomb, and the ascension of Jesus Christ, and his sending of the Spirit, not to mention his comeback, his second advent. But for it all to be validated, there had to be evidence of God's redeeming work in the hearts and lives of his people. And this is what Satan, as the accuser, the prosecuting attorney, would bring up In the precincts of the heavenly law court, as we take in through Job chapters 1 and 2, after the Lord points out righteous, blameless Job, and then gives this adversary some rope to instigate Job's suffering, wave upon wave of loss and misery and affliction, with this being the question, do God's children, his servants, united to the seat of the woman through faith, really live repentant holy lives in which they honor and praise him, seeking to live obediently before him. Do they do so even when you send intensified pain upon them, when you take away earthly comforts? Job would be a test case, you see, the paradigm. And while he wouldn't be perfect, while he would have his prolonged dark night of the soul, he would hang on tenaciously to God, being true to his words in the wake of these things, in his refusal to sin against God, to bless his name no matter what he sins. His vindication, you see, would mean God's vindication. in the vindication of His saving, sanctifying grace. Which means, as Christians, following Jesus, we are called to endurance when we are put through the ringer. That we might display something of God's wisdom and serve to shut up the enemy. As we, with Job, look to the greater Job, the true Job, in Christ. However, there's a new wrinkle as Paul applies these things in Ephesians chapter 3. He is most assuredly stating how the enemy rulers and authorities are shown up, but in an even further and more comprehensive way in and through the church. You see, Satan and company thought they could say, believers only live for God when he first bribes them. They scratch his back when he scratches theirs. It's always tit for tat, a quid pro quo sort of thing, if you prefer more Latin. Not so according to what God has done in and through Job. And yet there's another form of slander these wicked powers have up their sleeve. That is, if they can point out some aspect of God's creation that will still be ruined by the fall. Which is why it's important to affirm the renewal of everything, including the resurrection of the body and a new heavens and new earth, as Paul and the New Testament writers so vividly set forth. It's not just a partial redemption of the soul, of the spiritual realm, but without it also being bodily, material. Still, if the devil and his cohorts could find some part of humanity that is untouched, were excluded, they could have the last laugh, even when being thrown into the everlasting lake of fire, which would be the case if, say, salvation were restricted to the Jews or to one people group or to certain people groups and not all people groups. But it's not bound or limited in any way with the church radiating and shining and beaming forth God's manifold, variegated wisdom as every kind of person is reconciled to Him. Every nation and class of men and women and boys and girls. Racism, you see, isn't just a social justice level issue. It's an attack on God. It's an attempt to contradict his plans and purposes in Jesus Christ and the church. So much is at stake when we sing, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. For God has willed to make room for all comers with his heart's desire to be realized that countless numbers from every tribe and tongue and so on, be powerfully called and drawn in and enfolded into the church through repentance and turning in faith to his Son, our Savior, whom we are not to withhold from anybody." Universalism is wrongheaded and unbiblical in the sense of the claim that all individuals, without exception, will be saved. But universalism, in the sense that Christ is for the whole world, that every kind of person in every way is to be represented in his kingdom, that this is and will be reflected in his church is spot on. Meaning, we don't want to be in any way out of sync with these things, which unfortunately we are at times. Like to the degree we are ever stingy when it comes to God's grace, finding ourselves wishing to hoard the riches, and maybe unwittingly keeping certain folk out of Christ's church, or making it hard for them to join. Even if we're, on some level, sensitive to it, and resistant to things like out-and-out prejudice, we don't want to be giving team Satan from his diabolical spiritual armies to those people on earth who are lost and under his sway, any false ammunition, as ultimately they are and will be confounded, unable to find any trace of God's old creation, unaffected by his new creation in Jesus. with 1 Corinthians 15, verse 28, inevitable, where Paul says this, when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. Which means we ought to be seeking to be aligned with the Lord on all these fronts. Being supporting actors and actresses in the drama the unfolding story, and not subversive ones, which begins to take place when we bring to Christ our sin, our need. As I have, as every believer here has, have you taken that all-important step as the Holy Spirit enlightens your mind, moves your heart, and frees your will? though we may be misfits spiritually, morally, and possibly in other ways too, He fits us in, washing away our guilt and corruption. He recreates us by His grace and power, which is a little reminder, telling us that no one is beyond hope outside of His reach, which moves us to open the door of the church community. It's worship, it's fellowship, its relationships, its intimacy, to anyone and everyone we can, in order to introduce others to Jesus, no matter who and what they are, because it didn't matter who and what we were. That'll keep the powers and principalities from making noise. That'll tie their tongues. First, the holy angels in the audience. Second, the fallen, unholy angels in the audience. Dear brothers and sisters, this manifold wisdom of God presented in Christ and the Church is infinite. Holy angels are amazed. Fallen, unholy angels are blown away, silenced. Satan himself kicked out of the divine throne room and from before the great tribunal by our advocate and defense attorney on high, by the Lord Jesus. In every realm, his magnificent victory appears. And no one can gainsay it. Not when all is said and done. Let it encourage you, as it does me. Let it lift you up, that you might defy it when it is insinuated that your life and salvation in Christ don't matter. That the Church, including this Church, is insignificant and doomed to a meaningless obscurity. No, let us rise up and bear a testimony to our King, to even what He is making of us and His Church. I remember The weeks and months leading up to our wedding when HVAC was being installed in the church building and the sanctuary was covered in scaffolding. Don't worry, my bride-to-be and I were told, for soon the scaffolding will come off and the mastery of that Byzantine-style architecture will be made apparent and plain for all to see. at 10th Presbyterian Church. And it was. We are given insight into what the last day will reveal. Something angels, holy and unholy, fallen and unfallen, are already seeing and taking in. By means of God's Word and the faith it begets and grows, exercised in the God we know in Jesus Christ, we too have an inkling. We are made to view it, to recognize it. It's an epic thing we are getting to participate in if we belong to our Lord and His Church, the most glorious thing ever. Amen.