1. The first clue that reveals the mystery of the
church is the steward of the mystery (3:1-5)
2. The second clue that reveals the mystery of the
church is the content of the mystery (3:6)
3. The third clue that reveals the mystery of the
church is the minister of the mystery (3:7-9)
4. The fourth clue that reveals the mystery of the
church is the wisdom of the mystery (3:10-11)
5. The fifth clue that reveals the mystery of the
church is the heart of the mystery (3:12-13)
EPHESIANS 3:1-13
I don’t know about you, but my life is full of mysteries. I don’t know what it is, but there are just some things in this world I can’t explain. I can’t explain why I have several single socks. They come off my feet in pairs. They go into the clothes hamper in pairs. I’m fairly sure they go into the washer in pairs. But something happens when they go in the dryer. You remember Rod Serling from the old Twilight Zone shows? I fully expect someday to hear his voice as we open the dryer. Life is full of mysteries. Why does the car only break down when the weather is bad? Notice that your battery never dies when it’s 80 degrees and sunny. It’s always rainy, cold or snowy. Or why is it that when you drop your toast in the morning, why does it always land jelly side down? Those kinds of mysteries are frustrating, but they’re a part of life. In our passage this morning, Paul talks about another kind of mystery. Except, even though this mystery is a part of life, it’s certainly not frustrating. It’s a mystery that’s a blessing that was revealed to him by God. A mystery that he was severely persecuted for and eventually died for. During the past several weeks as we’ve looked at the first two chapters of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians, we first saw the person and work of Jesus Christ. Who He is and what He’s done for us. We then saw who we as believers are because of who He is and what He’s done. We who were once dead in our sins have been made alive with Christ. Most recently, we started to see who we as the body of believers are because of who He is. The middle wall of partition is broken down and we are made one. We are built together for an habitation of God. Here in our passage today, Paul continues by talking about the mystery of the church as revealed to him by God. God revealed the mystery to Paul. Paul revealed it to us in his letter. We, in turn, are to reveal it to others. As we look at this passage this morning, I want each of us to recognize the revelation of the church’s mysterious nature. And, like Paul, may that recognition drive us to passionately minister its gospel. In order to do that, we’re going to discover five clues that reveal the mystery of the church. The first clue that reveals the mystery of the church is the steward of the mystery.
EPHESIANS 3:1-5
The steward of the mystery. A steward is a person whom God entrusts with something. A steward is a trustee. Because God is the creator of everything, He owns it all. But even though He owns it all, He entrusts us with certain things. He calls us to be faithful stewards. God entrusted Paul with a mystery. In verse 2, he calls that mystery “the dispensation of the grace of God.” Don’t get hung up on the word dispensation. If you’ve ever used the Old Scofield Reference Bible, it lays out a theological system called dispensationalism. That’s not what Paul is talking about here. The word dispensation comes from the same word we get the word economy from. It means managing a task or job. It’s the same word that’s used to describe managing a household. So when Paul talks about the dispensation of the grace of God in verse 2, he’s talking about this new, unique way that God has managed or administered His grace. Paul is telling them that this new, unique way God has chosen to administer His grace is the mystery. The mystery of the church. And God has entrusted him with that mystery. Up until Paul, the church was a mystery. All throughout the Old Testament, God dealt almost exclusively with His chosen people, the Jews. Even when we get to the Gospels, they show that Jesus’ ministry on earth was primarily directed at the Jews. But then they rejected Him. John 1:10 says of Jesus, “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” He came as a Jew to Jews, but the Jews rejected Him. Jesus told a parable about this very thing to the Pharisees who were rejecting Him. Keep your place in Ephesians and turn back to Matthew 22:
MATTHEW 22:1-10
Because His chosen people rejected Christ, God began a new mysterious work. A work that back in verse 5 of our passage in Ephesians, Paul said was unknown in the past. The mystery hadn’t been known in the past, but was now revealed to Paul and the other apostles and prophets. They passed the mystery on to others and to us because they wrote it down. It was revealed to them by the Spirit and they wrote it down in Scripture. Paul and the other apostles and prophets were faithful stewards of the mystery. But since the mystery of the church has been passed to us in Scripture, it becomes our responsibility to be faithful stewards as well. 1 Corinthians 4:1-2 says, “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” We are required to be stewards of the mystery just like Paul was. We are required to be found faithful with what God has revealed to us in Scripture. The first clue is the steward of the mystery. But if the mystery is the church, then what is the church? How can we be stewards of the mystery if we don’t know what it really is? What is the content of the mystery? The second clue that reveals the mystery of the church is the content of the mystery.
EPHESIANS 3:6
The content of the mystery. The content of the mystery is mostly what we’ve been talking about the past couple of weeks. That the wall that divided Gentiles and Jews is now gone. Because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, all believers are fellow heirs with Him. In other words, we are all kin. We’re all related. When we become part of this wonderful mystery called the church, we are adopted into the family of God. We are all brothers and sisters in the same family. And as fellow heirs, we’re all entitled to the same inheritance. If you are part of His family—part of the wonderful mystery called the church—He is preparing your inheritance for you right now. If you’re saved today, we’re all fellow heirs and we’re all adopted into the family of God. But here on earth, families don’t always get along. What makes the family of God any better than that? Because verse 6 tells us we’re not only fellow heirs, we’re of the same body. That’s why the church is such a wonderful mystery. Israel was (and is) God’s chosen people. But God never provided a way in the Old Testament for them to unite in one body. They were heirs of the covenants and could be considered family in that way. But no where are they ever said to be of the same body like the church is. Now, because we’re of the same body, does that mean we don’t disagree? We all have opinions and feelings and desires to see things go certain ways. Most of the time we’re convinced that we’re right. But when we submit ourselves to the Spirit of God rather than the spirit of our opinions and feelings, we begin to act like the body we are. We begin to partake of His promise in Christ. You see, the mystery of us all being the same body is that we have to be Christ like. And in order to be Christ like, we have to empty ourselves. Like John the Baptist said, “I must decrease that Christ might increase.” One body can’t have multiple selfs. If it does, it is schizophrenic and needs help. The body of Christ—the wonderful mystery of the church—can’t be schizophrenic. There’s no room for more than one personality, and that’s Christ’s. If the church isn’t acting like one body, you need to check yourself. And if you find your self instead of Christ’s self, you need to empty yourself. The content of the mystery is that the church is the unified body of Christ. But now that we know what the mystery of the church is and we know that we are charged as stewards of that mystery, what are we supposed to do? The third clue that reveals the mystery of the church is the minister of the mystery.
EPHESIANS 3:7-9
The minister of the mystery. One of the things that concerns me about the church today is the idea of the pastor as THE minister. Look at what Paul says. He says he is A minister. And why does he say he is A minister? Because God, by His almighty power, gave him that privilege. He gave him that privilege just like He gives everyone in the church that privilege—not just the pastor. If you have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, God has empowered you to be His minister. He has given you the responsibility to pass on the wonderful mystery of the church to other people. In other words, by God’s grace, He has given you the responsibility of spreading the Gospel. He’s given you the responsibility and He will give you the strength to do it. He will give you the strength to be a witness for Him, as verse 7 says, “by the effectual working of His power.” The same power that spoke the universe into existence will give you the grace to be a minister for Him. But what kind of minister should we be? How should we act if we’re going to be ministers? Should that be a source of pride? One of the worst ways we can witness to folks is from a position of pride. And attitude that says, “look at how good I am.” Or, “look at how bad you are.” Look at Paul’s ministering attitude in verse 8. Paul understood the humility of ministry. He remembered who he was before Christ saved him. He understood that without Christ, he was a dead sinner just like the worst person on the planet. He also realized that everything he was, was because of Christ. His love. His grace. His mercy. Once again, Paul’s humility showed his emptiness of himself. Humility is a powerful witness to the world. As a matter of fact, I would contend that arrogance and pride have done more to hurt the church’s witness than almost anything else. You see, when we are arrogant and boastful, the world looks even harder for us to mess up. That way they can call us liars and hypocrites and charlatans. But when we are humble like Paul. When we don’t brag on our righteousness. But instead, when we brag on God’s grace. When we brag on Jesus’ righteousness. That’s when we’re being effective ministers of the mystery. That is part of the mystery after all, isn’t it? How God can take a frail, broken vessel like me and use me for his glory is certainly a mystery. And how God can take a church full of frail, broken vessels like me and you and change this community is a mystery. But it’ll happen if we let it. It’ll happen if we do what Paul said in the last part of verse 8 and verse 9. If we preach the unsearchable riches of Christ and make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery. That word that’s translated fellowship is the same exact word that’s translated dispensation back in verse 2. In other words, we can change this community and impact the world for Christ if we humbly preach Christ to people and demonstrate to them the wonderful mystery of the church. Demonstrate by showing them the unselfish, self-emptied love we have for each other. And showing them the unselfish, self-emptied love we have for God. Right after the Last Supper, Jesus told His disciples in John 13:35, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” We will not be able to impact anybody for Christ if we don’t demonstrate love for God and love for each other. It’s that simple. But if we do, what an impact we can have. Look at the impact Paul had. And the same God that empowered Paul will empower us if we let Him. We are to be ministers of the mystery. But why? What is the purpose of it all? As we said, part of it is to impact the world for Christ. We tend to think of the world as the big picture, but that’s not the biggest picture. The biggest picture is the eternal councils of God. The fourth clue that reveals the mystery of the church is the wisdom of the mystery.
EPHESIANS 3:10-11
The wisdom of the mystery. The word order in these verses seems awkward, but Paul is saying that God has shown His manifold wisdom in creating this wonderful mystery called the church. It is part of His eternal plan. And His plan is for the church to show His manifold wisdom to the world. But not only the world. By God’s grace, the church will show His wisdom to, what verse 10 calls, “the principalities and powers in heavenly places.” The wisdom of the mystery is that our audience is a whole lot bigger than we might think. God has chosen the church to demonstrate His character to all of creation—seen and unseen. The church is engaged in a battle of cosmic proportions. We are on the witness stand, standing as character witnesses for God Almighty. How nearsighted and self-centered can we be to think that some little internal conflict or issue we might have is worthy of wasting our time and energy. Or worse yet, how is it worthy of spending our time as witnesses to God’s character. Is God’s manifold wisdom made known though us? Is it known by this community, much less by powers and principalities? The wisdom of the mystery is that God’s wisdom and character is made known by His church. So, we’ve seen who—the steward of the mystery. We’ve seen what—the content of the mystery. We’ve seen what we’re supposed to do—the minister of the mystery. And we’ve seen why—the wisdom of the mystery. Finally, we’ll see the how. The fifth clue that reveals the mystery of the church is the heart of the mystery.
EPHESIANS 3:12-13
The heart of the mystery. The steward, the content, the minister, and the wisdom don’t really mean a whole lot unless we have the heart to follow through. First, we have to have a bold heart. But before, I said we are supposed to be humble. Is it possible to be both humble and bold? Of course. Jesus was. Paul was. John was. After Pentecost Peter was. It’s possible, because the kind of boldness Paul is talking about doesn’t come from ourselves. It’s not being brash and braggadocios. Boldness doesn’t say, “Look at what I’ve done.” It says, “look at what Christ’s done for me.” And boldness says it anywhere and everywhere—no matter what the circumstances. There are people all over the world being arrested, killed and tortured every simply for proclaiming the name of Jesus. That’s boldness. Being a witness no matter what the cost. But we not only have to have a bold heart, we have to have a confident heart. Once again, confidence and humility seem to be contradictory, but they’re not. It’s all about who your confidence is in. Paul says that we access God with confidence through faith in Jesus. God has given his church a powerful tool called prayer. It is by prayer through faith in Jesus Christ that we have access to the very throne room of God. We can access that throne with confidence. Confidence that He hears us. Confidence that He will mould our will to His. Confident that He will answer us in accordance with His will. A bold heart, a confident heart, finally we must have a courageous heart. There was a reason Paul had to tell them in verse 13 not to faint at his tribulations. When Paul wrote this, he was in prison in Rome. That was just the latest in a string of tribulations Paul had been through. He’d been beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, jailed, and left for dead many times before. But he never quit preaching the gospel. We live in a wonderful country. But if things continue the way they are going, we’re not too far removed from persecution. If not us, then the next generation or the next will experience it. That’s our kids or our grandkids. So tell me, if they don’t see us show enough courage to witness to our neighbor, how will that prepare them to show courage in persecution? To us, the church is no longer a freshly revealed mystery like it was to the Ephesian Christians. Many of us have been around churches for a long time. The question is, have you just been around churches, or are you part of the church? Are you part of the body of Christ? Are you a faithful steward of the mystery of the church? Are you a humble minister of the mystery of the church? Are you bold in your witness? Are you confident in your prayer? Do you show courage that will stand in the face of persecution? Where do you stand today?
