What keeps you going? What’s your go-to? What’s your secret sauce?
When we were leading teams to Slovakia, it was Heinz ketchup. We carried it around with us - cuz you could put it on just about anything and make it edible. I do think if we were still doing that now I’d be taking a bottle of this - [sweet baby rays]
But actually we’re asking that question on a deeper more fundamental level today. What picks you up when you’re down? What helps you keep going when the going gets tough? When things don’t go your way? The way you hoped? Or do you even have something that helps you, something you turn to when discouragement rears its ugly head?
If we fast forward to the end of today’s passage, we see that Paul wants the people who are following Christ in Ephesus to not lose heart. He wants them to keep going, whatever their circumstances. When things don’t go their way. So Paul takes this entire section to unpack some of what keeps him going. What kept Paul going? What was his energizer bunny? Would you like to know? Let’s talk about that… [3.1-13] Paul understood three things…
He understood God’s grace, how much God loved him, all He had done for him in Christ. Three times Paul mentions this gift of God’s grace, this undeserved favor which God had given him. And he understood that he in fact deserved none of it. Not one drop of God’s favor. He calls himself the very least of all saints [8]. Of all the people God could have chosen to use, of all the people God could have shown favor to, Paul saw himself as the least deserving of all. But more than that, he knew that he was a steward of God’s grace [2]. Grace is not meant to be hoarded but shared, passed around. I will bless you - AND you will be (a) bless-ing.
Which brings us to Paul’s new identity. He calls himself the prisoner of Christ Jesus. He saw himself as being Christ’s prisoner - OF Christ, and FOR the nations.
The word for prisoner here refers to someone or something who is bound, tied (or possibly chained) up. It can refer to a donkey or to a bundle of sticks or to one held prisoner. The one thus bound is under the direct control of that which has bound them/it. Contained, no longer free. Paul of course was well acquainted with this condition in real life, and if this letter was indeed written while Paul was in Rome, he would have been a prisoner for years at this point. But it is more enlightening to consider who Paul holds responsible for the binding and their reason for doing so. So notice what he does not say here - he does not say that he is a prisoner of Rome, or of Caesar, or of the Jews who in fact were the ones most directly responsible for his imprisonment. No, he is a prisoner of Christ, and this works on two levels. In all likelihood, Paul is in prison or under some kind of house arrest in Rome at this time, but he sees the big picture, and knows Who is ultimately in control of the situation. It is neither the Romans, nor the Jews. Whether in prison or free, Christ is in control - He’s got this. And Paul knew that if he was literally in prison, it was because Christ had a reason for him to be there. It was part of His gracious plan for Paul’s life. But wait - there’s more. Paul was bound by Jesus in a much more all-encompassing sense, such that were he to find himself free from any physical bonds, his heart was forever bound by Christ. He at no time saw himself as being free and self-determinant. He had been bought with a price, and was no longer his own man, not at all free to go and say and do whatever wherever and whenever he pleased.
1Corinthians 6:20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Yes, Paul was imprisoned when he wrote this, but he had been a prisoner ever since he surrendered his life to Jesus. But Paul was no begrudging prisoner. This was not hard time. He was bound by grace. A prisoner of grace. Of Christ. His was the response of gratitude.
2Corinthians 5:15 …He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
Paul gives us the reason why he is imprisoned as well - for the nations. Of course he is referring to the Gentiles, and that includes every other nation and people besides the Jewish one. But both the cause and the purpose for him being bound is because he is called to carry grace, the Good News about Jesus, TO the Gentiles, to the world. He was doing that all throughout Asia and on into Europe, which is what stirred up the Jews to try to get him arrested and killed in the first place, but (don’t miss this) he is still doing it! Still going! He is leveraging his imprisonment, making the most of it and every opportunity to help advance the Good News among the Gentiles. No pity partying or navel-gazing here. He’s in prison, house arrest - or even chained up. So what? If I am in prison, or wherever I am, so what? I’m in the hospital - really, so what? It is not about me. Whether free and healthy or sick or in prison, God’s got this. This - whatever this is - can and should ultimately lead to an opportunity for me to tell my story about Jesus to someone. I may not have a calling with a scope as broad as Paul’s, but I am to be just as much a steward of grace as he was, representing the One Who sent me to those around me wherever and in whatever circumstances I am. Even if someone is out to get me, life has not singled me out. I am not a victim. But neither is life mine to spend as I please. Remember that all things are from Christ and by Him and for Him. When we leave Christ out of the equation in essence we become practical atheists. He is behind this and in the middle of this and orchestrating this, all for the nations and for my neighbors, those who do not yet know Him. So I can fairly say that I am whatever I am because of Him - I am His prisoner. Or should be. Whatever hand I may think life has dealt me, He is the Dealer - AND He is the House. In reality, I am ALWAYS playing with house money. So I am not just a cancer patient - I am a cancer patient of Christ. I am not just a doctor treating a cancer patient - I am a doctor of Christ. I am an orphan of Christ. I am a widow of Christ - I am His widow. I am His teacher, lawyer, engineer, coach - whatever I am, wherever I go, whatever I do, I am His. The response to grace is grateful surrender. All this is for Him. for the nations. Prisoners of Christ - that’s what we all are - or should be. Have I surrendered yet? Have you?
See ours is the fallacy of freedom. We want to be free to do what we want. And when things don’t go our way, the way we planned or hoped, we can lose heart. But true freedom is found in surrender, surrendering to the One Who made us and knows the plans He has for us and Who died for us to bring us back by grace.
So Paul understood God’s grace. AND He understood God’s power. Both in its direction, and its magnitude! Oh yeah! v 7 - according to the working of His power. And the full magnitude of this limitless power was being directed at Paul - in and thru him. This is the power which raised Jesus Christ out of the dead. We are talking about the power of our almighty God Who created all things (v 9). v 11 - this was in accordance with the eternal purpose which God carried out in Christ. God’s eternal purposes can and will never be frustrated. Nothing is too difficult for Him. He will bring it to pass, whatever “it” is. According to the working of God’s power. To fully accomplish the work which God had given Paul to do. And this same power, the same omnipotent God is at work in us! [1.19!!!] I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength. But to the point, God’s unfathomable power is unleashed through surrender. I can’t do this. Not in my own strength. [AB Simpson - pg 40]
But Paul also understood his hyper. Yes, Paul had a hyper. [1] For the sake of. [13] On behalf of. That’s the word in the Greek - hyper. For the sake of you Gentiles, he says. On your behalf. Paul was a prisoner, yes. In some kind of chains or bonds. He had lost his freedom, yes - but he was still free to live into his hyper - which he did with all power God put at his disposal. This hyper was his raison d’être. His reason for being. His over-arching why that kept him going. It got him out of bed in the morning and it got him up off the ground and it got him out of his comfort zone and out of the confines of the threefold-self and into the lives of his neighbors and the nations. Because it flowed from the eternal purposes of almighty God.
And this is what we saw last week. God’s plan, His eternal purpose which He is bringing about through Christ - which was a mystery but now has been fully revealed - is that the Gentiles, the nations, the peoples of the earth - they’re in. They were far, now they’re near! They are part of God’s plan. They're included in this thing called glory. The unfathomable riches of Christ for all the nations. Paul says, everything I am doing, all that I’m going thru - it is for YOUR glory [13]. I am a prisoner of Christ, I am all in for this - so that you Ephesians and ALL the nations can enter in to glory. This is God’s manifold, multicolored wisdom - all that He has done and is doing is proceeding according to His eternal plan. [not like Palpatine]
Let’s camp out here for a moment. The manifold wisdom of God... [10] the manifold wisdom of God. How ‘manifold’ is it exactly? Poly-poikilos in the Greek, it means many-multi-colored. Used only here in the NT, the root is used in the LXX for Joseph’s coat of many colors. Beautiful, fascinating, glorious, mind-blowing, unsearchable, inscrutable - far beyond the capacity of finite man to even comprehend (see Paul’s mind blown…) Unfathomable.
Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
Layer upon layer upon layer of beautiful, many-colored wisdom, God’s knowledge and His ability to apply it is inexhaustible, never waning or wavering or failing, always and forever infinite, glorious and unfathomably creative. He knows the name of every star in the universe (since He made them), He knows every hair on the head of every person on planet earth (since He made them), He knows every thought in my head and every word I speak before I speak it, He knows every single thing that has ever happened, and every single thing that ever will happen, and some suggest that He even knows every possibility of what could happen. But wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge, and this too God possesses in vast and beautiful infiniteness, multi-layered and many-leveled and breathtakingly beautiful. What’s more, He gives it to His creatures - to you and me - and that generously. Wisdom comes to us from God Himself and from His Word. The relative morsel of wisdom He bestowed on Solomon made that man the wisest person who ever lived, amassing for him vast amounts of wealth and power and huge tracts of land. But this is about God’s wisdom on display in all it’s wonder, a beautiful tapestry of color. This is certainly true of creation, where God out of His manifold wisdom has OUT OF NOTHING made indescribable beauty and fascinating complexities. An evening sky; the human eye; flowers and birds and trees in the fall - a wondrous cavalcade of flora and fauna (too many to mention); the daughters of eve; the way of a man with a woman - who could ever imagine all these things, much less engineer just one of them for real? Man, for all his pomp and posturing, can merely try to study and explain it all and at some point perhaps he sits back and marvels (or scoffs - haters gonna hate). This is the manifold wisdom of God on display, and it is now on display through the church, the body of God’s people. On display now at a church near you! Or should be. [v 10]
Let’s try to get our minds around this - the glorious breathtaking mind-blowing many-colored wisdom of God that we see manifested in all its splendor throughout the entire universe is now being shown off THROUGH THE CHURCH! This church, the church of Jesus Christ, the worldwide assembly of those of truly follow Him, and the localized expressions of this Body - this is now providing a glimpse into the mind-boggling wisdom of our amazingly creative Creator. The glimpse apparently is primarily for angels, those rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, and no doubt they are amazed, but we here on earth also get a glimpse. We’ve certainly seen less-than-stellar beta versions of God’s people (1.0 - Adam’s wicked descendants were destroyed in a global deluge, 2.0 - Noah’s haughty descendants were deposed in a global dispersion, 3.0 - Abraham fathered a nation repeatedly indicted by their own prophets for being stiff-necked, half-hearted, self-righteous xenophobes). But now we see that what God has been working towards through all of created history has been to ultimately gather to Himself a many-colored multi-ethnic assembly of least-of-these faithful worshippers who freely humble themselves in His sight and whom He is transforming by His now-indwelling Spirit to be able to truly devote themselves to loving Him, to loving one another, and to loving their neighbors and the nations. Prisoners of Christ! In the end these will have surmounted seemingly unassailable obstacles of sin and pride and of opposition and persecution and of language and culture and geography to reach and bring in a vast multitude which no one will be able to count. And ultimately we will clearly see that it all was God’s doing! No sweat. And it was His idea from the beginning! Mind blown…
And so this is all being underwritten, if you will, by the unfathomable riches of Christ. The unfathomable riches of Christ - God sending His only begotten Son to earth to die on the cross in our place and demonstrate to the fullest degree just how great His love is for us. Grace. And this was what God revealed to Paul and the other apostles and prophets and was making known through the church - that the nations (ALL of them) were part of God’s people, part of the body. Part of God’s family. v 6 - Same inheritance. Same body. Same promises. They were included. All the multitudinous millions upon millions of them. Good news! And somebody needed to tell them. Paul was all in. And it got him out of bed in the morning. Even when he was chained to it. Prisoner of Christ. He understood God’s grace. He understood God’s power. And he understood his hyper - God’s manifold wisdom and his part in it. Question: what’s my part? What’s your part?
And so v 13 - he asks these believers in Ephesus to not lose heart. Keep going yourselves, he says. Don’t become discouraged. Don’t lose your courage when life tilts sideways. The word literally means, evil in. Evil in. In place of courage and love poured out, evil in. Evil in. Evil in is what stops you and me from doing good, whatever good God has given us to do.
Luke 18:1 Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.
Galatians 6:9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
2Thessalonians 3:13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good.
So what is the secret? What is the secret sauce that keeps us going? Paul says, my trials are for your glory. Ultimately it is a vision of glory. Made possible by the unfathomable wisdom and grace of almighty God, wrought by His limitless power. What keeps us going is a vision of glory. And a heart surrendered to that. To breathtaking goodness. To love and grace. Something beyond, something far greater, far more far reaching than my immediate circumstances. A view beyond the horizon. And how do we do that? We zoom out. We need to zoom out. And elevate.
[earth pic]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvE5bBYShY - 2:40-4:08]
When you’re neck deep in alligators it’s difficult to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp. Sometimes we just need to zoom out, step back, and gain (or regain) some perspective. We need to remember God’s grace in Christ, what He did for us on the cross. We need to remember and tap in to God’s inexhaustible power. And we need to embrace our hyper. Our reason for living. The reason why God has left us here. For some of us, we need to surrender to that. I am not here for me. It is not all about me. It is all about Jesus. Making Him famous. All for Jesus. Prisoners of Christ - just like Paul-the-prisoner...
Ephesians 3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles — 2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; 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, 7 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. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.
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