b-9 Pauls Mystery stated - part 2

So we're not quite done with Paul's statements about the unity between the Jew and Gentile here, but we're wrapping that up, I think, this week. That's a generalized statement because as soon as we pick up on 14, he's going to pick up on a similar theme, but it's not identical. So this morning, We're going to take a look, we're going to focus predominantly on 7 through 9, but let's start in verse 6. So Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 3, starting in verse 6, to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power. to me the very least of all saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things and then because this is another famous Pauline run-on sentence we're going to close with a semicolon in the English and you'll have to wait till next week to find out what happens in verse 10. So Paul is continuing on this discourse of the unification of the two groups from the Old Testament and he's introduced us to the church as a critically new entity and he's going to link those into the mystery of the Messiah and the mystery of this time period as we look at that in more detail.

This is an administration that nobody had anticipated. When you read about the Jews in the Gospels, the four Gospels that we have, how do the Jews view the Gentiles? Worse than dirt. The Jews weren't looking forward to this really cool idea of being unified under the Messiah. That's not something that they perceived. It's not something that they were looking forward to.

And I think Paul was probably a primary example of that when he was Saul before the road to Damascus. It was an unexpected group out of an unexpected Savior through an unexpected identification. So this morning we're going to take a look at Paul's further expounding upon the special ministry he's been given to the Gentiles. And as I was thinking about this, this kind of reminds me of a sales pitch.

And I don't mean that to speak less of something. Not all sales pitches are wicked or evil, right? They're not for manipulation. How many of you ever bought something because it actually did what it said it did? Anybody? Every once in a while I buy something and it actually works like the label and I get a little excited and I might even tell somebody about it because it actually did what it said it was going to do. So Paul is telling us about something that's doing what it said it would do.

The problem is that nobody knew that it was going to be coming. This is like a giant technological breakthrough. Nobody knew they needed an iPhone or a smartphone until it came out. So the idea here is that Paul is telling them about some things and he's justifying it.

We said from our previous lessons he was justifying to the Gentiles through identification that they were part of this new group. He was justifying to the Jews through citing the Old Testament in chapter 2 starting in verse 11. And then he's talking about identification. Then he's talking in chapters three, one through six, he's talking about this mystery that was given to him, which would have been a surprise to the Gentiles who were part of the mystery religions, because the mystery religions had their secrets, right? We don't tell anybody. That's why it's a mystery religion. And Paul's going, we got a mystery too, but it's not a secret. Here it is. He's exposing the mystery to the outside world.

So Paul says, the gospel of which I was made a minister. So Paul was made a minister or servant of the gospel. Another way that that word could be translated from the Greek is servant. One possible translation is like a waiter. And I think that maybe that's going a little too far. I don't think that's quite Paul's purpose with the gospel. But the idea that you'd be a servant with the gospel is an important element of this. How many of you think of ministry when somebody says they're a pastor or an elder and you think, ah, this is a high power position?

There are places where that might be true, but I would say that in general, as I've grown up in the church, I've observed that being an elder or being a pastor usually comes with the appropriate cowboy boots or galoshes to handle all of the gunk you gotta walk through with the sheep. So Paul has been given this apostolic authority and he's going from church to church with his cowboy boots on, dealing with the junk that they're dealing with. Paul was made a minister of the gospel though. The focus isn't on the junk that happens with the sheep. The focus is on the gospel and that he has this responsibility.

And so I wanted to jump back, those of you who were in the 2nd Corinthians class with us the last Sunday School series, this will be familiar and maybe if you've been reading through the Bible this will be familiar also. But let's jump back to 2nd Corinthians 11 and let's read verses 23 through 29 together. And if you get there first, go ahead and read out loud please. 2nd Corinthians 11, 23 through 29.

Christ, I speak as if insane. I'm more so in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers.

I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? He continues on, and I just decided to stop at some point in time.

It's part of a longer epistle. But the thing is that when Paul says he's been made a minister of the gospel and as an apostle, this is not a mild undertaking that you would just do for fun. Nobody goes on just a little bit of an adventure Apostleship. So Paul has this special ministry that he's been given. And the one thing to highlight in 2 Corinthians is that he's not done. He's only part way through his ministry and that's his list. It keeps going. It doesn't get better. I'm just going to say it.

So Paul has been given the ministry that involves preaching the gospel and establishing the church. And the stewardship comes with a purpose. It comes with authority, sure, but it also comes with a submission to authority as well. Paul went where the Holy Spirit said he was going to go. When Paul was blinded, who was sent to him? Does anybody remember who was sent to Paul to pray for him?

Ananias. And what did God tell Ananias? Besides, don't worry, he's not going to kill you, because that was a concern. What else does he tell Ananias about Paul? That he was chosen, he was a chosen vessel, and that I will show him what he must suffer for my name. So Paul knew this, and he went willingly, he went obediently.

That's quite a challenge when we think about it. Sometimes, and I'm going to say this, it's hard for us to identify with this as generally well-off Americans. I don't mean that about finance. I mean that we have great medical facilities we have access to.

I don't think anybody in this room is homeless, but if there was some kind of financial need, we could often come together and we understand these things. had a calling he was called to that is not typical for for most believers in the American church and so I think it's sometimes we read it and we feel a little disconnect but it's something where if God shows up to you on the side or in the middle of the road and you go blind because of it you're probably going to have some attention in your pain okay so Paul says he's been given this ministry he's been made a minister of the gospel he says according to the gift of God's grace In our own lives do we view grace as a gift or a burden? Now at Holly Hills I hope the answer to that is really obvious. For a gift rather than a burden.

How many of you have ever seen grace as a burden? Have you ever heard of grace as a burden? If you misdefine grace, grace becomes a burden. And I want to call that out because I think it matters. If you define grace incorrectly, if grace is just a covering for sin and it's only there for when you need a band-aid for your boo-boo, that makes grace a burden. And that's a big deal. When you run into people who are legalists, those people see grace as a burden.

It's a misdefinition of grace. So that's why we want to make sure we have a proper biblical working definition of grace. And I think we find almost every element of our working definition of grace. Grace is the unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. That's our working definition.

We find almost all of that in the book of Ephesians. So let's take a quick look at this list here because I think it's important for us to see that Paul gives us that rich definition in this book. It doesn't come from Chafer, it comes from Paul. Starting in chapter 1 verse 6, Paul says it brings God praise and glory each time it is expressed.

That's actually outside of our working definition of grace. So maybe we need to even extend our working definition of grace. It doesn't limit our definition, it's just a response to the definition. In Ephesians 1-7, grace is the way we are redeemed. Grace is where we have the forgiveness of sins. In chapter 2, verse 5, it is the means of our salvation. Of course, most everybody was here for our discussion with the chapter 2 summary. Almost everybody picked one of the two verses that talked about how grace was so important. It's a key doctrine for us as believers. We know we need it.

In chapter 2 verse 7, grace is going to be shown to us for all eternity. We're going to continue to learn about grace. We're not going to continue to learn about mercy, but we are going to continue to learn about grace. In chapter 3 here, it is to be taught explicitly. Paul, I think it's important that we remember to teach grace.

If we don't teach it, people walk away with the band-aid for the boo-boo definition, and that's insufficient. And it is given to us in accordance to the measure of Christ's gift, which was infinite. Let's jump forward to Ephesians 4.7. I think it's worth calling this out with just a little bit more weight. Paul writes, But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift.

So when someone asks you, can you lose your salvation? I think we all know we're supposed to give the answer, no, right? We go, yay, we should all celebrate that we can't lose our salvation. And I think we should celebrate that, and I'm not belittling that. But why? It's super important for us to be able to answer that question. Why can we not lose our salvation? Tom? I do want an answer.

When you look at the very nature of God as being infinite, ever was, is, or will be, unchanging in character, anything that he has to say about dealing with sin has an infinite capacity in what he did through Christ. Okay, that's a good answer. Christ paid the price, which can never change, and he was the only person who could do it because he was God. Right. And we accepted it by faith, which cannot be changed. That's a good, thorough answer. Roger, what would you add to that? God is maintaining the relationship. Some people think that they're maintaining the relationship with God. Who's maintaining that relationship? It's not us. We're doing a terrible job. We're doing a terrible job.

So the thing I think that jumps out at me at this 4-7 and why I want to emphasize it is it's according to the measure of Christ's gift. What was the measure of Christ's gift? Total. It was the total and adequate and complete work of Christ on the cross.

If I have a measuring stick, I'm having to rebuild some stuff in my house right now due to the excitement we had with the backup and the plumbing, right? So we've got to measure all kinds of things. Drywall, wood, everything's got to be measured now. And what's funny is that all those measurements are linked to a limited subset. We can imagine infinity, but we don't know what infinity is, because it's there. And everything is a subset of that. In this case, Christ's measurement is equivalent to the infinity. Can you outspend it? Can you out exceed God's grace?

And the answer is no. It doesn't matter which sin we have committed. Like Paul said, he was part of trying to be an accomplice to murder of the Christians. He was there holding the coats while Stephen was stoned. It doesn't matter what sin we will commit. That's always the difficulty, right? People always want to come up with the sin that Jesus didn't pay for.

I really offended some people, this was years ago in Texas, I really, really offended them when I said that if Adolf Hitler, before he died, had accepted the gospel, Jesus' death was sufficient for that. And they were like, okay, you crossed the line. I thought Grace was good, but you went too far. But I didn't go too far. God went complete. It's not too far. It's complete.

And so Paul here in Ephesians 4.7, it's according to the measure of Christ's gift. The grace is sufficient. It's adequate.

And the last one on our list here, our words should express its impact on us. And we'll jump to 4.29 because I think since we haven't already gone over these, we're going to read the ones we haven't gone over yet. The ones we've already gone over, we'll I'll trust you to go back and double check my work. 429 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear."

And I think that's an interesting thing. Our words should reflect the grace that we received. So Paul has talked about grace here. He's been given this ministry according to the gift of God's grace. And that ministry not only takes on and understands the grace, it passes it on. It doesn't stop with Paul. So as Paul writes in a moment about being the least, consider the power he's writing about that liberates him to minister due to the gift of God's grace.

And this is kind of a restatement of the earlier question, how does God use grace as a motivator instead of as a burden? How is grace a motivator? This is going to show up as a really long quiet part on the recording and the recording guys are going to think something went wrong with the technology. So I'll answer that since there seems to be a little bit of uncertainty maybe or nobody wants to volunteer an answer. Grace is a motivator because it removes the burden. It removes the demand and the legal response. And it opens the door to relationship. And when relationship is why we're doing things, our motive changes. It's responding in love. It's responding in grace.

And I think that's really important for us to understand because if Paul was responding with legalism to the gospel, which obviously he didn't. He did when he was under the law. He responded with legalism. We're going to wipe out all those things. oppressively. That's why Paul says that the law is a school mastery.

But instead, if grace is the motivator because of relationship, if you find a treasure that is infinite and you can share that treasure, you want to share that treasure and that relationship. Here's God. This is the God of the universe. Let me tell you about him. And that's the gospel and grace intertwined, that Paul was excited to share the gospel and was motivated by it. And that can apply to us in our own lives.

Steve, did you have a thought? Just as a tack on to all that they're referring to, verse 4-7, the measure of Christ's gift, it looks like Ephesians 4-3, might be related to that too. It says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed to the day of redemption. Can you draw out more specifically what you're thinking on that?

Well, we were saying, to build on what Roger was adding, God maintains the relationship. And this just seems to be a further indication that the Holy Spirit has sealed The relationship to redemption. Some people have turned that in a different direction, so I just wanted to make sure I was understanding what you were saying. The grieving of the Holy Spirit, sometimes people say that's how you lose your salvation.

That's not what Paul is saying here, and I agree. Not only is grace an infinite gift, but we are sealed, so we can't lose it because we have His seal. And who can break the seal? Only the recipient. And who's the recipient? the Father. Who is the sealer? Christ. And He's sealed with the Holy Spirit. So the transaction is done and we can't break the seal. We don't have the authority to do so. But thanks for calling that out, Steve. So Paul continues on here.

He says, which was given to me according to the working of His power. And which power is Paul referring to here? the working of his power. This thing happened, it was given to him. Which working of power was given to Paul? It was the Holy Spirit. I think we could probably argue that this is Paul referring to the powerful introduction he had to Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. And that God inaugurated his ministry in a very intense and powerful way. according to the working of his power, that Christ said, okay, I'm giving you this ministry, and he did this powerful thing. It's atypical, right? How many of you have been on the road to anywhere, it doesn't have to be Damascus, and Christ showed up and blinded you?

It's a very unique, remarkable event that inaugurated Paul's ministry, and made it something unique and special. But it was something that Paul recognized that it was something that God was doing and God had initiated it and God was empowering it in his ministry. It started with a supernatural event and it continued with a known level of intensity as recorded in Acts. Paul's stewardship and ministry were destined for trials and suffering, but because God had chosen him, equipped him, and sent him, Paul went knowing it was in accordance with God's power which was eternal. Paul's perspective was not today, or tomorrow, or next week. Paul's perspective was eternal. because he knew that God's plan was eternal and he was part of it. Is that relevant to us? Can we have an eternal perspective?

I hope the answer to that is yes. It's easy for us to get distracted by the flashy lights that go on now. Or maybe, and I hesitate to draw attention to it, but maybe you have one of these devices that vibrates all the time and flashes lights at you and says, look at me! Look at me! Right? And that's not evil by itself, by the way. I'm not saying that about technology.

But the thing that's funny is that it's amazing how much technology tries to draw our attention to the immediate, to the now, and draws our attention away from the eternal. But Paul, because he knew that this ministry was given to him because God had said at a time of an intense power expression, I'm calling you and I'm going to do this thing in you, he went in obedience and it set his perspective on being eternal. And so even for us today that sort of thing is relevant. The way I've got this worded as a question here is, how does knowing God's eternal plan change our mindset on life events? How many of you have had a life event that you can't explain God's use for? Anyone?

I've got some. I have some, I won't lie. When our first miscarriage happened it really hurt and we said how can how can God use this and then the second one happened and we said okay really how can God use this and then the third one happened and we said okay God we know you're going to use this and what's difficult about that is that while you know I don't go yay we had miscarriages I have seen the Lord use that in his ministry in the body when other people have miscarriages where we can come alongside and comfort. I don't like it. I don't celebrate it.

But it is a reality in our life. Every difficulty that has come in my walk with the Lord has not come, and this is anecdotal, right? This is just me. But every difficulty that has come has come in light of an eternal plan. How many of you have sins in your past that God has used? That's the twist on the end of that question, right?

So here's the thing, when Romans 8.28 says God can use all things, we usually put a filter on that, right? We say, except for this thing. That's garbage. And yet I've seen God use past sin so that I can say, hey, I understand. I send that way too. I understand addiction. I understand whatever the thing is. And then where does God take that?

I hope my answer for this, and I hope yours is similar, is Galatians 5.16.

What does Galatians 5.16 tell us? If we walk by the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.

So even sin, which Satan would like to use for guilt and laying on burdens, God says, I got this. So even the things we want to tell God He can't use, He can use. So Paul, because he has an eternal perspective, knows that the trials are in God's hands. He knows that the good stuff, that's in God's hands. And he knows that even the things that he wished he'd have done differently If you're not sure if Paul had wrestlings with that, go back and reread Romans 7. God can use.

And so if we have an eternal perspective, our mindset is focused on God's plan and not just our immediate circumstance. So Paul says, to me this grace was given the least of all saints. So Paul, knowing by specific revelation what grace meant, was able to understand the richness of the gift, which was undeserved, and able to see that God's love crossed the boundaries of sin fully and completely and poured out mercy and poured out grace. So why was Paul the least of the saints? This is really important that we kind of understand why he's doing this. Tom?

He actually quoted himself that he was that, exactly that, because he persecuted the church of God. He viewed his persecution of the church as not being something that he wanted to put on your CV. He put it on his CV, which is kind of the funny thing, right? He's like, this is how big grace is, right? He had to grow into that. He did.

Paul calls himself the least because he saw his own past as a persecutor of the church as a humble start. But on top of that, he was given a position of service. So not only did he have a humble start having come out of persecuting the church, but he was given this position of service.

Let's take a look at 1 Timothy 1.16. I'm going to jump there if you want to follow along, you can. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life." And so here's Timothy, and he looks at himself as the least, and he says, God has used me as an example.

I said Hitler earlier, right? But people in today's culture are so ignorant of who Paul was that they don't recognize that those aren't far off as examples. If you're a murderer, are you a murderer? Which kind? Let's get picky about it. Paul says God is not picky about it. That's how grace works. Let's turn this on its head. What does Romans say about sin? How many sins does God let pass? If you just commit one, you're good, right? That's close enough.

Why does Paul go through the error of legalism and the error of trying to obey the law in Romans? I remember I was in Mike's study of Romans. He's done it a few times, so I don't know which ones you might have been in, but I've been in a few. And he talked about this. He argues sequentially, so that if you're a legalist, you have no answer. If you're trying to go outside and say I'm a Gentile, you have no answer.

So that when you get to Romans chapter 4, Abraham is saved by faith. David is saved by faith. And he goes, listen, it doesn't matter which side you're coming from, the only way to salvation is through faith. So Paul is least of the saints. And he's making an example of himself. Abraham was held up. Abraham was an example and everybody thought it was just because he was special Abraham and God saved him because of one thing he did. Was it because he circumcised himself? No. He had faith. He believed, right?

Sorry, I just got real quiet there. And I realize that some people have said I should not do that. So Paul is responding. He's an example. And Paul's writings are full of humbling circumstances. We just read 2 Corinthians 11. And we look at the book of Acts, and we see as Saul, he was holding the coats. And in other places, he's self-deprecating just like this. And yet, he doesn't leave the attention on Paul. Where does he leave the attention?

On Christ. And so, you are going to be stunned and totally shocked by what comes next. Because he says, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. Paul says, listen, I'm the least. This was given to me and I'm the least. But where does the focus go? Not on Paul. It goes straight over to Christ. Before we jump to that section, let's ask this one question that's here.

When we share our testimonies, do we do so for self-aggrandizement or for other reasons? Why do we share our testimonies? So that someone else will understand. So that someone else can understand. When we testify, are we testifying to ourselves? Are we testifying about who God is? I think it's important on occasion to be able to share our testimonies with one another.

How many of you have heard those testimonies where you're like, man, that guy was a biker selling drugs while he was killing people, and you've met those people, right? I used to be a ninja for the armed forces, and then I did this thing, and I went out, and you're like, oh man, I can't believe what that person was saved from. See, the funny thing is that my testimony sounds boring to that, right? And so you go, well, mine's not that good. You just don't want to follow that person, right?

Let that person go by themselves one Sunday, and then I'll just get up and say, okay, I was saved as a kid, and as a teenager I walked in sin, and then I repented, and I'm happily married, and everything's been beautiful, rainbows and unicorns. But the reality is that when Paul is sharing his testimony here, what he's doing is he's saying, not I but Christ. And so he says, I'm the least of the saints, and it's not for the building up of his own flesh, or as a psychological reverse psychology thing.

If we're using the sales pitch mindset, it's like, oh, hey, I'm not very smart. You don't want to trust me, but you should try this product on your carpet. Let's pour some grape juice on it, and it'll clean your carpet, right? And so he used reverse psychology to do this. That's not what Paul's doing.

He's being humble. He's being honest. and he's declaring the richness of God's grace. So now we'll continue on with what he says here. "...to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ." So having already established the contrast between the Jews and the Gentiles in the church, Paul focuses on the calling of his ministry, of which we are benefactors, to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ. to the Gentiles. So the question I've got there is, do the Jews also need to understand the unfathomable riches of Christ? Yeah, just as badly. So I have, as a supplement, and maybe everybody's got one attached to their handouts, this is the unfathomable riches of the believer in Christ, and it's a trifold I formatted it this way because then it fits in your Bible.

For most people it doesn't matter what size it is, but it's small and it's easy to fold up and stick and put away. But the thing about this is I like to keep these readily available. I actually have a digital version of this on my phone so that I can talk with people about it when the occasion arises. I happen to also be able to quickly look it up on Google to send people links.

There's some on Holly Hill's website and various other places. The Unfathomable Riches is a totally different Sunday School class. I think my dad's teaching that in the other room. And there's a whole series that has been done multiple times. I know Roger and I co-taught that with Bob and Kurt years ago. But the thing is that the Unfathomable Riches of the believer in Christ are what? How would we define this in kind of a useful way? It's the believer's position in Christ.

Are they all truths that you necessarily have to wrestle with every day? Not necessarily, but there's a lot of principles in there that what God does is He teaches us about them through our lives. The appropriation becomes obvious over time. How many of you have understood truths about grace from a Sunday school class or from your own study, but then one day in your life the Lord showed you a depth to that that you never realized before? I wish I could say that was rare, but quite often every time I meditate on it I go, oh, nope, there's a cooler nuance to this than I had imagined before. But the idea of these unfathomable riches is that they are unfathomable. There is no measurement where we go, ah, we reached the bottom.

How many of you know who Samuel Clemens is? Mark Twain? Mark Twain was his nom de plume, his writer's name. And it came from being on river boats. A twain was a measurement of the rope. And they would go so deep And when they had exhausted their rope for depth measurement, it was unfathomable. They couldn't go so far. Tom? Well, I guess in that same minor technicality, Mark Twain meant 12 feet down, exactly, and that's well above and beyond what the average steamboat had to put up with and hoped for. For depth. It's for rocks, shoals, and other stuff if you got that deep. Yeah.

But the idea is that the measurement of unfathomable, you know, a fathom was a measurement, the unmeasurable nature of it in Christ is because Christ's gift, we looked at 4.7, right? Christ's gift is beyond measure. It's infinite. And so the unmeasurable or unfathomable riches of Christ is a series of principles that are true of us in Christ that God continues to use to teach us throughout our whole walk with Him.

Paul was just called to give that message to the Gentiles as his predominant audience. So the Jewish recipients of the gospel were divided. How many of these stories, as my dad's been teaching through Acts, how many of these, and I want to say story, they're factual stories, right? Sometimes story means fiction. But the factual retellings, how many of these ended well? Where the Jews responded and the Gentiles responded and they all came together and they celebrated God's rich life.

Usually it's a minority. And the Jews are angry because he's declaring Christ as God. Well, that's heresy in their mind, although obviously it's not. And the Gentiles are mad because he's almost always, Paul comes in and cuts into business. I don't know what it is. But he's like, hey, your cults are wrong. And they're like, that's not going to work for me. That's my income. So these ideas come and they build. the ministry that Paul had, the Jews needed to respond to the Gospels still.

So they needed it, the Gentiles needed it. So why does Paul need to share these truths with the Gentiles? What's the background of the Gentiles? How much did they know about the Old Testament? Pretty much not a lot, right? Very little, if they knew anything at all. Remember, the Jews were often, by obeying the law, separating themselves from the Gentiles. The Pharisees were the most evangelistic, so they may have talked to the Gentiles some.

But Paul needed to share these truths with the Gentiles, because they just didn't have an understanding. So Paul, as was emphasized in Acts 17, when Paul was at the Areopagus, Paul gives them an entire worldview. He doesn't just give them parts and pieces, he gives them the whole worldview. Because they don't have a framework to deal with this. If you read about Greek philosophy and Greek religion, and I consider that to be an important part of my education, was to actually kind of understand those things.

What you find is that these philosophers made who the center of truth? Themselves. Right. Mankind. Humanism says, I am going to make me the center of all truth. Whatever I can determine is true is true and whatever I can't, I can't. Well, that doesn't work very well when you've got 8 billion people on the planet. So what we've got today is postmodernism, which is that you come up with your own truth, but it's truth with a lowercase t and it's just whatever works for you.

Right? Postmodernism. Everybody doesn't understand everybody. That's postmodernism. I can't understand what it's like to be you. Therefore, I can never really understand you. The irony of that is that I'm using words that you understood that communicated that. So Paul is reaching to these Gentiles, and I don't know why the printer printed an extra bullet point there, but it did.

So he's reaching to the Gentiles, and he's given them a God who was unchanging and moral. The Greek gods weren't that way. The Roman gods weren't that way. He gave them a need for salvation that was faith-based. What was salvation in the Gentile and secular worlds? Most of them didn't believe in eternal life. They didn't believe in the gods as being unchanging or moral. He gave them a rejection of secular thinking that rejected God and His truth.

So if man is the center of truth and you take man out of the equation, you've got to replace that with something. And in this case we have a God who is specifically giving us truth. And fourth there, He gave them a worldview that had eternal life because they didn't believe that necessarily.

So then Paul continues and he says, "...to bring to light the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things." And so there's the Mousterion, again the moose. What is a mystery in the New Testament? We kind of glanced on this last week but let's circle back around and answer that. Something previously unrevealed. There we go. Something previously unrevealed. And here's the problem, and I'm going to call out the error of Reformed theology is often that they can see in the New Testament the New Testament mystery revealed in the Old Testament, because they know with hindsight, oh, well, we all could see it.

Jesus was coming. We just go back. Look, read the Psalms. They had to know Jesus was coming this way. Because they often say, oh look, these things, I can reverse engineer it from the New Testament, therefore the mystery is sometimes neutered. And not everyone does that in Reformed theology.

I've just seen that as a thing that has happened. But let's take a look. I've got seven here, although actually people have put more thorough lists together. I wanted to just focus on these seven. A really good study could be done on this. but this is just a sub-part of our class, so I had to be terse here.

So the first mystery I've got here is Christ is speaking to his disciples in Matthew 13.11, the mystery of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. Those terms are used kind of interchangeably. But Jesus said it is given for you, and he's speaking to his disciples, to understand the kingdom of heaven.

But the Jews who were around them did not understand it. But that was the first use of mystery there at this point in time. The second one is the partial hardening of the Jews' hearts until the fullness of the Gentiles believe. Romans 11.25. And that's a hard one. Paul did not like that mystery. He loved the Jews. He said he wished he could give his own life if all of Judaism could be saved. But God had revealed to him that the Jews are going to harden their hearts partially so that the Gentiles can believe. And that's a tough mystery. I'm going to tell you right now, I don't prefer it, but it's revealed by God. So I get to believe it. The third mystery is the mystery of the rapture. And I think that's pretty awesome.

How many of you are looking forward to the rapture? If you don't raise your hand, consider raising your hand, because we all should be looking forward to it. I remember until I got married, I was like, I really want the rapture to happen after I get married. And then I was like, I really want the rapture to happen after I have kids. But I've taken care of those things, so the rapture can happen any day now. As I've aged, I've realized how naive that was. I just was young and optimistic.

So the mystery of the rapture, that was not revealed and understood prior to the New Testament. We don't find the full understanding or full doctrine of the rapture, and that Christ is going to come for his bride. That's a key element, because they didn't understand that Christ was going to have a bride. The fifth one, we've been taking a look at the fourth one, the mystery of the church as a unified entity. So the fifth mystery is that the church is the bride of Christ. They didn't know that Christ was coming. They didn't know that Christ was coming and going to have a bride, and they didn't know he was going to receive his bride through the rapture.

So these are interrelated doctrines, right? And number six, Christ in us, the hope of glory. I'm going to jump to Colossians 1, 26 and 27 and read that, because I think it's pretty awesome. Uh... 25 and this sounds familiar to what we've been reading. Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God that is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now been manifested to his saints to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory. So they didn't understand the idea of Christ and then the hope of glory.

How many Old Testament saints were filled with Jesus Christ upon believing? Necessarily not, because John the Baptist was just given a unique gift from conception just about. That was the only almost exception. So the Holy Spirit indwelled John the Baptist even in the womb, right? Elizabeth is pregnant and John the Baptist kicks because The Holy Spirit made it known that the mother of Jesus was there.

That's a really cool story. I love that story. The thing that's amazing as we look at this, in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit indwells many saints. Saul, David, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. In fact, Saul goes and runs with the prophets and prophesies, which is really a bummer later on when he loses his kingdom, because he just walks away from what God has commanded. But the idea of being indwelled by Christ and Christ in you was a mystery. Hey, the God of the universe indwells you.

That's not an Old Testament doctrine. That's a new revelation. And seven, the mystery of godliness, which again is tied to Christ and what he did. So while this list is worthy of a lengthy study, and is one we should definitely do, I'm not sure if that's like we do like a quarter of the different studies as a Sunday school one, it's key to understand that Paul was explicitly calling these truths out so they were no longer mysteries.

And God didn't hide them. He says they were hidden in God from ages past, right? God did not hide them to deceive. but because his plan was to bring about a blessing that would fulfill a specific set of prophecies about his son and ministry. Jesus is going to bless all nations. It's prophesied in the Old Testament. But they didn't anticipate all of what that would mean. So God is revealing his truth. He's revealing these things over time. But they're given in a way that would be a surprise. And we're going to skip the next question and kind of wrap up here.

Israel expected a Messiah that was to be reigning. And I don't know how many of you remember this, but my dad sat down with a rabbi several years back. And the rabbi said, when the Messiah comes, we're going to ask him if it's his first or second coming. Man, that's going to be an embarrassing question when it's the Second Coming, right?

That's a pretty big deal there. Rather than investigate and find Christ's fulfillment as scriptural, they've rejected it because of tradition. And that's a sad place to be. That's part of that mystery there, that they've hardened their hearts on some of those things. But in conclusion, the unfathomable mysteries of Christ are part of the rich New Testament doctrines that we get to be recipients of, as well as stewards of. And we minister to the world around us the sweet gift of the gospel, as well as the worldview that carries truth, eternal life, and an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father. We don't hide the mysteries, we proclaim them boldly.

Any other thoughts on that? I know that was a lot and I just jammed through that last little bit there. You mentioned that you would suspect that the Jews would be asking Christ questions. What if they see Jesus back as the reigning Messiah? What about these? So the good news is that we know exactly what's going to happen.

But the rabbi was saying, we're going to ask him. And it was like, well, it turns out, you're probably not going to need to. But the scars are in bodily form, showing that Christ's crucifixion was legitimate. We don't have any reason to indicate that that won't be an answer or not.

Let's close in prayer. We'll migrate to the sanctuary. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the chance that we have together in studying your word, and thank you for the unfathomable riches that are part of who we are in Christ. Thank you for the revealed mysteries that they're no longer mysteries, but things that we can understand and grow in and be stewards of. Pray for opportunities to share the gospel and love and teach as your ambassadors awaiting your return. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.