Latest / Accidental Bible Scholar / Ephesians 3:1-13
Transcript
- Jeff Ward: Okay, welcome back to the Accidental Bible Scholar podcast. We're glad you're still listening. We're glad you're here. couple of admin items. Remember to subscribe, like, comment to our podcast, wherever you're listening to that. We've added a podcast to ⁓ this to Amazon Music, if that is your forte. It's available there as well. If you have any questions, comments, criticism, we even take that. please email us at contact at accidentalbiblescholar.com. So you can find us there. If you have questions, we'll entertain those to the best that we can. say we, Randy can a podcast. might do some short ones, quick Q and A kind of thing on a and do from my house and his house. We've kind of... figured out how to do that and we can answer some questions if you have them and maybe get that out in a fairly quick manner. And we're excited to do that. Upcoming, today we're gonna do Ephesians 3, first part of Ephesians 3, I think, and 3 4 and we get into 5 and 6. They're phenomenal. Rainey's gonna talk in chapter 5 about marriage, parenting. I've sat through those lessons from him. They are awesome. then Ephesians 6 talks about spiritual warfare. So a lot of good things coming, Randy. I'm excited for us to get to release them. without further ado, let's talk about Ephesians 3. All right. Ephesians 3. Here's what we've learned so far in Ephesians 1 and 2. Just let me list the stuff that the Bible has told us that's to us in Ephesians. I mean, as a result of salvation, Jesus and his work on the cross and resurrection and his ascension. But we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. We've been chosen. We're holy. We're without We are before him in love. We've been adopted as sons and daughters. Grace has been lavished on us. ⁓ We've been redeemed by His blood. We're forgiven of all our sins. ⁓ a secret of which we'll talk about more today. A secret of God has been revealed to us. That's the gospel. We are own possession. We belong to Him. We set our hope on Christ and it's to the praise of His glory. And ⁓ we spent some talking about the praise of His glory there. We're marked with a seal. In the prayer that starts the second part of chapter one, talks about, he prays for us to have spiritual wisdom, spiritual revelation, spiritual knowledge or knowledge of Christ. Our eyes have been enlightened or opened. We are called. We have a wealthy, rich, glorious inheritance. He has demonstrated and makes us understand his power by the resurrection and the power that raised Christ from the dead. That same power placed Christ at the right hand of the Father. And then we learn in Ephesians 2 that we are also in Christ, that we are also at the right hand of the Father. So coming out of that, we're going to go into chapter 3. there you go. Cool. Why don't you read the first three verses if you're ready? Can I say, go back? You know, click back 30 seconds, listen to those again. Yeah. They're powerful. What if that well, go ahead. What are you to say? if they're real? What if they're true? Those are the kinds of questions I like to ask myself. Yeah. We talked about earlier. Okay. Just what if that's true? Yeah. And you go, well, of course it's true. Yeah. But we need to kind of step back and ask ourselves these rhetorical questions that reinforce them. And you go, because it's easy just to read through those and go, well, yeah, those are. Someday, you million years from now that those will be true or yeah those in the great buy and buy You know and but no these are real And so just go what if that's real and what if that's true and the next question I like to ask myself is what if I believe that? What would change about my day-to-day life if I believed all that if I believed I was a son? Truly believe that I was a son of the father the creator of the universe And I'm a brother, a joint heir, side by side heir with Jesus Christ, the King of the world, the King of everything. if I really believe that I'm seated at the right hand of the Father right now in Christ and He is in me? Those some questions that help us stop and not just read through this stuff and just go kind of past us. We go, wait a minute, the Creator said that, therefore it's true. Therefore, I need to pause and think through that. if I can't fully comprehend it, at least start that process. And then what's great, and we've talked about is make sure if you don't understand it, you ask the Father, ask Jesus. You have the person of the Holy Spirit who's joined as one with your spirit, ask him that question. And sit quietly and wait for him to answer. And if he doesn't answer in a few minutes, then go about your day, because he will answer you. If you are his sheep, his sheep hear his voice. It's John chapter 10. So expect to hear his voice. And he knows you got questions. He knows your brain's about that big. It's not even that big compared to everything else, right? We have tiny mind, and I want to talk about that at some point here in Ephesians. I don't think today, but. But we have a tiny mind. So how do we comprehend it? We comprehend it by faith. We understand by faith from the heart, not from the mind. But anyway, that's maybe for a few from now. But you've before, hey, so you you God, I don't understand this. Or can you explain it? Sometimes that delay and sometimes the answer comes when you're not really expecting it, right? Mowing the grass or you never know. like, yeah. OK, I get it. He probably answered me when I first asked. was just too busy and too cluttered and all that kind of stuff to hear. But then my brain gets out of the way because my brain is mowing the grass or driving a car or thinking through some hard problem. So I got my brain and I got it busy over here so it can't block what my spirit is to talk to me. And then I go, oh, now I can, wow, that was really loud. Oh, it because my brain was put over here. You know busy doing something else and my spirit was able to now finally get room to tell you know to say that so That's you know, I've been thinking today. It's not I don't think most time it's that guy goes Well, I'm gonna tell him yet. I'm gonna wait three days or I'm gonna wait, you know, four hours or whatever Maybe you saying get your intellect out of the way. Yeah, let's move this. He answered it. I just can we go. Okay, when's he gonna answer? Can you imagine him answering and you go, okay, I guess he doesn't want to answer today. And we go on about our business and he probably kind of just chuckles at himself and goes, okay, well, I'll wait till his brain is occupied and then I'll shoot it in there so loud he can't go stop him. That's true. That's very true. And then, you know, these things, you know, what changed? think you've asked that question before and the answer is what changed? Everything. Everything. We're brand new. Yeah. Yeah. Everything changed. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Did you want me to read the verses? Okay. Three, one, three, three. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, that by revelation the mystery was made known to me as I wrote before briefly. All right, so he starts off with for this reason, then he's going to talk about the stewardship of God's grace, and then he's going to talk about the revelation of the mystery. So we'll just take those. this reason, it's really, he's talking about the whole previous two chapters. I specifically then if you, lot of people think if you go back, it's this idea that we are building up, or we are the building up of the Holy Temple, this church, which now Gentiles are full participants of, we are fully part of. of the Jewish inheritance, Israel's inheritance from Abraham into this new covenant. We're full participants. And for this reason now, he's launching into some more in-depth talk and eventually in the second half three, a prayer that we'll look at here a little bit. But he said, he said, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, it was given to me for you. Stewardship of God's grace. went, Larry, that I go, well, you know, don't know that I've ever thought of stewarding God's grace. Paul's that he has made a steward of this grace. And specifically, he's talking about the gospel, but he's talking about this mystery or this secret. And this and secret we'll talk about in depth here in just a minute. But God's grace, what is God's The word there is charis. It's a very rich word in the Greek. Hebrew word is hased and other words that would mean grace. Here's why I went and looked it up. It means freely given, undeserved favor. So freely given, undeserved favor. And we think a favor is just somebody giving you something that's good. And certainly that's But there's other things that are associated with it. It is initiated by God. So God's grace is initiated by him. It also indicates blessing, which we... We obviously heard in verse three of chapter one, it also comes with strength and transformation. It's not just like a favor is like, okay, I want to give you a gift. You know, open this present. ⁓ ain't that cool? This is a grace is transformational. Grace changes who we are. And just like you talked about, everything has changed. Well, that whole thing can be placed into the category of God's grace being lavished on us. The Hebrew word for to lean into, it means to stoop down to hear and to pay attention to. It's the creator of the universe leaning into believers. It's leaning into the church. He's not up there aloof waiting for us to find our way to him. He has leaned into us to the point that he became a man. He became a man so that he could die a death that would change everything for us. I put here is the power of a new creation. It's the authority of being a son or a daughter. It's grace is our prayers being heard and answered. It's our words being accomplished. It's our actions and our motives, heart, all the way through our mind and our body aligning with this new identity. By grace, we are righteous. We are right before him. We are forgiven. We are holy. We are empowered. All this would fit under the under the heading of grace. And Paul's saying this was the secret and a mystery given. And I've been steward of that. And so my next question is, so what does it mean for Paul to steward this and this grace, this favor, this God leaning into us, this message of good news? What does it mean for Paul to steward it? And what does it mean for us to steward it? And for Paul, it'll out here. a little bit there and in what he's saying, talking about this made known to me as I wrote briefly, he's saying you've heard about this mystery. part of him or the main part of Paul Stewarding a well is getting the word out. know, and certainly Paul went on, you know, to a great degree of hardship, you know, three different missionary journeys that he traveled throughout the, you know, Asia and Europe and the Middle East. And And revealing that and braving persecution and hardship. mean, hardship just those days, you know, they didn't get in a car and have gas stations and places to buy food, you know, and along the way, you know, he had to, provide for himself along the way. He had to have a job. ⁓ made tents, you know, he walked everywhere. and then he would come in and he had a system that he went through to get the word out started in the synagogue. And then he went to the, usually the, the business center of the, you know, the town square, if you will. And he was stoned and persecuted in all these different ways. And for us, I put it to the same thing. For us, we need to live ⁓ out this says. That's how we're steward his grace, is that we live from the power of sin. Romans chapter six, maybe we'll do a podcast just on Romans chapter six. But says like 10 or 11 times in there, I think about we are free from sin, but we act like we're not. And in there it says, reckon yourselves free sin. So act like it, and we don't. But to be a good steward of it, we would live free of sin. When I say free of sin, I'm not talking sinless perfection, but I am talking about a ⁓ of excellence that you're not defined by sin. And, uh, or your day to day life is not at all defined by sin. Yeah. And if you do stumble into it, you quickly come out of it. Your motives are that you, that you stiff arm it because all the things about sin, know, um, we talk about using God's authority to accomplish it a little on earth as it is in heaven, uh, courageously exercising the gifts of the spirit. There is a demonic, arrogant stronghold in the minds of many believers in the West that are against the gifts of the spirit. And it is so it takes courageous takes courage to exercise it because you're going to get a lot of it will come in your way from religious people Yeah, I put here, you know, can come from it starts probably most time Persecution if history is in the occasion starts inside the church and then it goes to the outside, you know Jesus same thing It was the Jewish religious elite that started this process of his crucifixion at least in from a natural standpoint, right? Yeah I'll it here, loving and forgiving as we've been loved and forgiven. Loving others as we've been loved, forgiving others as we've been forgiven. Ephesians 432, we'll get to that here in a couple podcasts. But yeah, I'll put it here, to steward God's grace is to actively step into everything that God says is true about us and says that we can do and to be a mature co-laborer with Christ. If we're not moving toward that, we're not stewarding God's grace well. I'll put here, here's some other examples of poor stewardship. Not believing what God says about you or says that you can do. I guess that's just the negative of what I just said. Many of us will use, see our eyes, we see God's word and they don't match. I wanna say see our eyes. We see the world with our ⁓ eyes or five We read something different in God's word and do not steward God's grace. means that we take God's Word and we dumb it down so it matches what our five senses see. And that's just not what the Bible is about. The Bible truth and it's reality. And when you see a verse that you go, that's too good to be true, stop. What if it is true? How would it change your life if it is true? And bring what you perceive as reality up and match it with the Bible's perception its declaration of reality. That's faith. It takes faith to do that. We understand by faith. Hebrews 11.3. So you understand by faith. Don't dumb it down that you don't need faith. You need faith to understand this. I guess a better way of saying it is what I wrote down. Reinterpreting scripture to make it match our five senses. That's it. We're going to see in a few podcasts about Paul says, He about us growing up into Christ. He also talks about us maturing into the full stature of Jesus Christ. Wow, what a statement to be in the full stature of Jesus Christ. That's what I'm talking about here. What we'll do if we'll read that, we'll go, ⁓ well, you know, I can't do what Jesus did, so I'll do that. Jesus said you can do what he did, right? John 14, 12. let's not bring that down to our level. Let's try to, by the power of the Holy Spirit working within us, And by the faith that he's authored and finishing in us, let's go to try ⁓ to rise to that truth instead of dumbing it down. And I think that's what, that's the difference between being a good steward of grace and not being a good steward of grace. And then the next thing he introduces, which he also did in chapter one, and we didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, we're gonna spend a little more time on it here. He talks about this revelation of mystery or. sunbursts and the sunnings ESV calls it a divine secret. And when we hear mystery or secret, you get all antsy sometimes because they're very, they in mystery and secrets, right? Well, this secret has been revealed to Paul and the apostles and the prophets, and then they've made it known to you and I by the Holy spirit. Okay. So that's when I'm talking about secret and ⁓ revelation. That's our time out, but he's gonna keep talking about it, so we'll come back to it here in just a second, probably more than you want. But anyway, are you ready? Any questions? Four through six. Great. When reading this, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not disclosed to people in former generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, namely that through the gospel, the Gentiles are fellow heirs. fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus. Okay. So, I mean, I start off with this in verse four, he says, you be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. So Paul is sharing his insight and are to understand it. It's so awesome and we can't see it with our eyes, so we got to understand it by faith, okay? It goes beyond intellect. But our intellect certainly participates. We just don't want our intellect to be blocking it. It's not required to go through our intellect and be able to put it into English or put it into words. So he's given this. I put it, we have the privilege of understanding this as well. He understands it. And it's interesting here, he'll say, he said that this up until now has been hidden from man. But it's also, we'll read it little bit, it has been hidden from the entire spirit realm too. So all of creation, this revelation or this mystery or this secret, God kept to himself until Jesus showed up. And I'd say until Jesus died and was resurrected and ascended, until all that has happened and you go, oh, and then there's this revelation of the secret that's been in God's mind for eternity past and is now being revealed to us. So just looking at this, what is... at least in these verses, verse six, what's the divine secret? It is that Gentiles, the non-Jews. Fellow members of the body. members of the body. Fellow partakers of the promise. Fellow partakers of the promise. So this promise that was given to Abraham and his now applies to us. that we are fellow heirs. So just as Israel is an heir to the promise and to everything the Lord has. So are we. So Gentiles Jews have been brought together and made one. I think Colossians talks to that, Romans 3 talks to that, Romans 3.23 that we all have memorized that we all fall short of the glory of God, all of sin and fall. All there is both Jews and Gentiles if you look at the previous couple of verses there. So the context is, and then this wall of partition that's been removed. from us. Romans 1 or 2 talks about that. It actually says we are the circumcised. We are the Jews in a spiritual sin. We'll read here in just a minute, Galatians 3 and 4 talks about us being the Gentiles, our real life descendants of Abraham. Now, how can that be? That's he said. We have been grafted into that, a wild branch, grafted into the olive tree that is Israel. That's us. That's Gentiles. ⁓ this divine secret because it had been hidden forever that we would get a chance, the Gentiles would get a chance to participate in this. And now there it is. But everything that came to Abraham and Israel has been given to the Gentiles. I got Galatians three here. I'll just read it so you don't have to flip to it. But verse seven in Galatians three says, so then understand that those who believe are the sons of Abraham. We, if you believe, if you're a believer, you are a son of Abraham. and or daughter. Daughter, it leaves it, this particular, the NET, leaves sons and doesn't do sons and daughters because one, that's what the text says. But two, sons back in that idea has so much more privilege when it comes to heir and it comes to authority and comes to power. Well now, you and I, our wives, our kids, men and women are sons of Abraham. We have that authority. that comes with being a son in in the Galatians and Paul's mindset when he was writing it. So we've been sons of Abraham. Well, I don't feel like a son of Abraham. Yeah, you're a son of Abraham by the work of Christ. And then we skip to go to verse 24 and read through about verse 29. says, thus the law had become our guardian unto Christ. So the law was in effect as a guardian to bring us to Christ, unto Christ, so that we could be declared righteous by faith. So Now that the law is gone and now that Christ has come, we are now declared righteous by faith. I keep reading verse 25, but now that faith has come, ⁓ now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. So we're no longer under the law. We've discussed that a bunch. Hebrews eight and others. in Jesus, you are sons of God through faith. So there he's explaining what he talked about in verse seven. that is by faith that we are now sons of God or sons of Abraham. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. So we are clothed with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female talking about, the male or female talking about we're all sons. For all of you are one in Christ Jesus. So we are one. That's Galatians. Paul's gonna talk about unity here in a minute. in Ephesians, but Paul talks unity a lot through his letters. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise. Why am I making a big deal? Because Abraham was given this spectacular promise that he is God's. He does belong to God and everybody would be blessed through his. descendant singular. But just think about for a Jew like Paul to write that, that's a massively bold statement to write because the Jews are very jealous of their relationship with God. It's very unique. It essentially what defines them as a Jew and they're still favored race, if you will. Certainly as you read the Bible and read Revelation, but we are now included in that. But for him to be talking about in this form, that's terribly offensive to a Jew that would read this. he was breaking through some barriers there to Galatians at the time, talking about trying to tear down these walls that they were putting up. And he's saying, Jesus Christ has removed the walls between Jew and Gentile. So him write that as a massively bold statement. Yeah. Let's go look at, just did, I just listed out all the secrets and the mysteries. There's probably, I think we could say one secret and one mystery of God and it is the gospel. But as we read, I just went and go, well, I want to know all the facets of that. The gospel. I think of it as a diamond and it sparkles at all different angles because there's so many different things associated with the gospel. know, fellowship, communion, righteousness, holiness, answered prayers, doing the work of Christ, co-labors, I mean, all these things. So I'm well, what's his mystery? Ephesians 1, 9 through 10, we already talked about that, but he talks about that God has made known to us a mystery of his will. What is that? To unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and on earth. Ephesians 3, we just talked about this, that the mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise. And Colossians 1, 26, 27 talks about this mystery has been hidden for ages and it is now revealed and the mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Later, the next chapter in Colossians 2, verse 2 to 3, that we know we have this knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ himself. and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and all the treasures of knowledge. And then Romans 16, 25 to 26, the revelation of the mystery kept secret for the ages is now disclosed. The gospel is now revealed to all nations leading to obedience of faith. 1 Corinthians 2, 7 to 8, about being in the importation of a secret and hidden wisdom of God. And that is the revealing by the Spirit that Christ crucified. Ephesians 5, we'll look at that here in a few weeks. The mystery is profound. talks about the marriage of a man and a woman pointing to the there, the mystery of Christ and the church. This union between Christ and his body is displayed in the union between a husband and wife. Colossians 4. God may open the door to declare the mystery of Christ. He's asking them to pray for him. And this message of Christ is redemption in his work. Let's 1 Corinthians talks about that we will not all sleep. So there's this transformation at the resurrection. Anyway, that's just some of verses that I found that equate to, that describe this secret or this mystery. would be, I think, accurate to say it is the gospel, but specifically, you know, it's Christ in us. It's Christ crucified. It's these three things that we talked about. We're heirs, of the body and protectors of the promise of Christ Jesus. anyway, pretty awesome stuff to think that we've been grafted ⁓ into nation of Israel that we read about in the Bible. And that actually a descendant of Abraham because of the work of Christ. All right. You're going. Yeah, man. How about seven to nine? OK, I became a servant of this gospel according to the gift of God's grace that was given to me by the exercise of his power to me, less than half. Excuse to me, less than the least of all the saints this grace was given to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten everyone about God's secret plan, the mystery that has been hidden for ages in God. who has created all things. He's still talking about revealing or enlightening us to this mystery, gift of God's grace, this that is now revealed. So he's continuing what we've been talking about. He talks here about he has now become a servant of the gospel according to the gift of God's grace through the exercise of his power. We know the story of Paul, right? And he's on the road to Damascus. So is there any doubt that, and Jesus appeared to him while in heaven, boom, know, blinds him with the light. And you're like, okay, yeah, I think we could classify that as a gift being given by the exercise of God's power. He says he's a servant by a gift. We don't think in those terms, but we need to. ⁓ The that I his servant as a gift from him. We think being servant is kind of an obligation that we had to. because of where we are in life, where our socioeconomic level is, you I need this kind of job or this kind of whatever in some countries, you know, a true slave, you know, but he says, I am a servant of God as a gift of God. And that's the way, no doubt, I'm sure most many people listen to that's the way they see their, their servant hood to the Lord is that it is truly a gift when you're serving him. And then in eight versus eight and nine, He goes through what's the of the gift. So he was given this gift. He says, to me, less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given to, and there's a couple of twos, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. So first of all, to ⁓ So that's his purpose of the gift. He wasn't given it to keep it to himself. He was given it to do the work of an evangelist, the work of an apostle, the work of a prophet. these different things. A teacher is what he says that he is. And we'll get to that in chapter And to enlighten concern. Well, it started in chapter of Ephesians and he keeps using these words. Like here he says, concerning the unfathomable riches of Christ. The unfathomable has been fathomed, ⁓ has been revealed. He's saying this fathom, know, it would be to plunge the depths and figure out how deep something is. This is deep, you would never reach the bottom. But we have, but we now know it's been given to us. This one of the prayers for me and my family is that we may know the unknowable. I ⁓ pulled that of the end of Ephesians three, we're talking about this love of God is unknowable yet prayer is that we would know it. This same thing, these unfathomable riches of Christ. But Paul is saying, hey, we can do it. And he's talking about this secret that been hidden for ages. to proclaim and enlighten. I wanted to talk about this enlightening and proclamation here for just a second. Many churches today, the marketing on their, you know, that's my term, marketing is heaven. How you get to go to heaven? Say this prayer and you can go to heaven. Do this, you can go to heaven. Eternal life begins the moment you confess Jesus as Lord. John 17, three. Yeah, John 17, three Romans 10, nine and 10, right? Eternal Jesus is eternal life. Everything, all those things that we just talked about in chapter one and two are yours in Christ. You are an heir now. This chapter stuff we're talking about. We are heirs to the promise. We are heirs. We're part of the body of Christ. All that. Jesus is eternal life. put here, is our salvation. He's wisdom, he's truth, he's the way, he's peace, he's love. John said we touched eternal life. So. I think that's important to understand this because like you said earlier, said everything has changed. So our Bible study, our prayer life has changed. Now it's no longer trying to gather information. It's about knowing a person. It's about knowing Jesus Christ. It's about figuring out what his will is and then we accomplish it through praying, speaking or doing. Our views of others have changed. Now as I see somebody else, I see that, yeah, they're built, they're made in God's image and they are dearly loved. and in need of redemption if they're not a believer. If they are ⁓ believer, then they need lots of grace. When they mess up, they need grace from me. They don't need judgment from me, right? View of I am totally free to love others. I'm going to about this right now then, because I'm going talk about it several times. But I didn't wake up today to be loved by my wife. I didn't wake up today to be loved by you. I woke up today fully loved with a cup running over so that the love of Christ spills out of me to you. I woke up today to love you. I woke up today to love my wife. That is such a powerful way to live. And I'm not saying by any stretch that I do it 24 seven, but it's such a powerful way. You do you understand? You cannot emotionally abuse me. You cannot offend me. You cannot do anything to me because I am, if I am plugged into the love of Jesus Christ. And we'll talk about that in our next session. But if I'm plugged in loving Jesus Christ, am to love you. I don't need anything back from you because ⁓ all needs are met in Christ. Actually, we'll about more on that. But that's what this gospel, this enlightenment, this secret reveal does for us. Let's go to verse 10 if you're ready. Verse 10. Okay. Just verse 10? Yeah. The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church, the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. a huge statement. This is another purpose. You we've been talking about, I ask what's the purpose. Well, enlightenment and we talked revealing this mystery. But here, this thing was hidden from everybody. Everybody in the spirit realm didn't see this coming. That's crazy. Yeah. It's just like, my goodness. Paul tells us in another place that they wouldn't have crucified Jesus Christ had they understood this. Right? The demonic. Yes. They basically brought their rope to their own hanging. They just didn't know it until it was too late. Colossians talks about 2, 14, 15, talks about their shame because of that. Yeah. I've often wondered, you know, Surely they kind of had an idea not to... crucified Christ because they should have known the answer. They should have. But it was that I guess it's hidden. It is hidden. mean, if they'd have known. It was hidden even though it's written down. Go read Isaiah 53. Right. It specifically spells out all that. Right. Many of the Psalms, Messianic Psalms, they just couldn't comprehend a suffering Messiah. Right. They couldn't comprehend a Messiah that would die. Right. And I think the The demonic thought the same thing. These things were hidden from them. We could see that it was hidden from. The Pharisees had the entire Old Testament memorized. They had Isaiah 53 memorized. They just didn't comprehend it. It didn't make sense to them, so they just skipped right over. That's what I'm encouraging us not to do. When God says you're righteous, for years I just skipped right over. What does that mean? Keep going. And then I started to ask, what if that's real? What if he meant to write that? What if that's true? What if I believe that? Yeah. I've asked him these words we talked about earlier in this session. So yeah, they had no idea. It was truly a secret to them. Yeah. They thought, dude, huge mistake. God should have never become a man because now we can kill him. Yep. And they did. And it was like, yeah. And then he rose again and now he's ascended. Right. And you're like, ⁓ And now they know they're defeated. They're not locked up. If he's in sixth, we're gonna get to spiritual warfare. I've heard some people say, Satan's defeated. He is defeated, but he's not locked up. And we'll talk about that a little bit. We still have to deal with him. And the New Testament is very clear on that. But we deal with him from a position of victory, not trying to attain victory. We are there to enforce the victory that Jesus already did. Let's see, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realm, this multifaceted wisdom of God. mean, Paul just keeps throwing these adjectives in there that are mind blowing, right? These beings in the heavenly realms are the same heavenly realms from chapter one, verse three, that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. So I mean, let's just throw that out there. Because of the work of Christ, not only was this multifaceted thing just revealed from an informational standpoint, They now work for us. They're now under our feet because they're under Christ's feet and we are in Christ. And he has given us all authority. Matthew 28, 18, I think, and beyond. So all these things from Ephesians 1 and 2 are realities that they did not see coming. David tells us that we were created a little below the angels, not When God became a man, and you believe that, mankind got an upgrade. Now, the new creation is above the angels, not below the angels, as we're seated the right as everything's becoming. who are these beings? Are these the good guys or bad guys or both? These are probably both. I mean, there are thrones and principalities in kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of ⁓ Satan, rulers and And we've seen that in other things. in other verses that we'll maybe we'll look at here when we get to Ephesians 6. to display God's multifaceted wisdom that brings glory and worship to his name and to who he is. Let's look up a few verses. Okay. You wanna look up those first two Romans 11, 33, 36? And 1 Peter 1 12. I'm gonna go to 1 Corinthians. All right, so when you get it, wait a Not yet. When you get it, because I know you go, you take guys fast. Romans 11, 33, 36, when you get it. Okay. the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how unfathomable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who has first given to God and that God needs to repay him. For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever. Yeah, unsearchable, all these words that we that describe him. but has been revealed to us. still unsearchable, but we have gained such knowledge and wisdom into that by the of Christ and by the gospel. I just to this out. That's just another way. mean, what I'm talking about here, that they were so, this was so beyond anything that any of us could have comprehended. Any being, any thinking, being with a mind in creation, any person would be, I think the right definition of that. And if we're using philosophical definitions is person was totally blown away by The only ones that were blown away was God himself, the Trinity. They were not away, but they were the only ones. and they just kept doing their plan. They kept doing their plan and then boom, Christ is dead. Christ has risen. Christ has ascended. Here we go. And the gospel is now released to everybody. And here's the thing, there's no undoing it. I mean, I've been trying to comprehend that. There was a physical man named Jesus who was God and they... and they hung him on a cross with nails and wood and he bled and died and quit breathing and it can't be undone. There's no going back. Right. Sometimes I go for war. I go you did it. I cannot believe you did it. Yeah. What were you thinking? Right. To give up everything for me to give up everything for us. And it can't be undone. Yeah, it cannot be undone. It is done and now we rest in it. are forgiven by his blood. We have been made righteous by his sacrifice. We are justified by his resurrection. It is over and over and over. It's complete and finished. Okay, first, you got something to say? I can't talk and you're the When Jesus said, destroy this temple and I'll raise it again in three days. You just think what? Obviously no one understood or someone would have said. Don't kill him. Yeah. No. Yeah, I know what's gonna happen. Yeah some demon, know Didn't had no clue they're probably what you're talking about. Yeah, cuz it's so crazy. Yeah went right over their head and Now it's all revealed I want to tell you one one quick thing Satan is the father of lies Many of us many lie obviously And forget the reference, I was reading it just last night. But it basically says, this is a severe paraphrase, is that basically if you lie, you can't know the truth. So the father lies, can't know the truth. His very lying the men and women that follow in this footsteps, their very lying shields them from the truth. See, God didn't have to hide Isaiah 53. It's hidden in plain sight. He didn't have to hide the different prophecies about crucifixion in the Psalms and other places. He didn't to hide his plan because a liar can't see the truth. A liar cannot the truth. and got hit in plain sight. Okay. All right. First Peter one 12 when you're Oh goodness. I know, man. You're like asking me to now do it on the first Peter one on the fly. Well, we're all watching. Speed. Okay. They were shown that they were serving not themselves, but you in regard to the things now announced to you through those who proclaim the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sin from heaven, things angels long to catch a glimpse of. Okay. The they there is, is the people watching this happen. The beans, the persons, not people, persons what's happened. Even now, this still blows their mind. The angels are still trying to figure out this church thing. For some reason, the God of the universe that they know and seen with their eyes and worship and the demons have rebelled against, they can't figure out this church thing. They go, what did he just do? God became a man, God died, and now out of that birth, the church blows their mind. They're still trying to figure it out. Even, I mean, I think both the good guys and bad guys, you know, I think both are trying to. All right, 1 Corinthians 2, 7, I'll read that one. Okay. me go back to 6. Now we do speak wisdom. Paul's talking about that he didn't, that he is speaking the wisdom of God to these Corinthians when he first ⁓ Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age or of the rules or the rulers of this age who are perishing. Instead, we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery that God determined before the ages for glory. This mystery in this wisdom is for our glory. There's so many references to things about our glory. I'll come back to that because I just can't let that go. In 8. None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. That's what we talked about earlier. But they're liars, so they can't see the truth. don't know what the truth was coming out of them. Plus it was hidden in God until it unfolded, right? So, mind 1 Peter 1.12 tells us it continues to blow their mind even the angels. They're still in the kingdom of God. They're still in kingdom of light. I wanted to say this, that God determined before the ages that it would be for our glory. Our glory. hear this statement and it's probably coming from a good place, but it's just wrong is that God will not share his glory. He made us in his image. He made us in his image so that we could bear his glory. And so it's our glory. and there's multiple places to do that. And I say that not to make us arrogant. ⁓ it should, ⁓ should homeless deeply is for his glory. But it, but we are co-laborers and we are bearers of that glory. we're, we show that glory. St Corinthians three 18 says we, as we behold his glory, he moves us from glory to glory. So we can even We can even be that's that's that beholding his glory is one of the main ways that you become like Christ. I think it's John us later that when we see him, we'll be like him. That's not just with our eyes. We can see him now in his word. And as we see him, we become like him. That's why we're looking for Jesus and we're focused on Jesus in his word. I have a quick story about our glory. I'll is my dad played college basketball. I played high school basketball. My dad was a really good basketball player. I was at the time thought I was a really good basketball player. Right? Well, I would, I I never, I never was able to school him in basketball. I mean, I was a senior and playing my best game and he was out of shape he come at me on the court. And one, never the ball. So getting to it crazy. He shot layups ⁓ at will. I never the ball. And when I got done, when he got down his layup, I felt like I'd been beat up. I'm like, dude, surely you found me in there somewhere. Nope. No fouls. He was just, the ball went in the hoop and, and I had, was bumped and bruised. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. He was playing at a level that I had never played at because he knew things that I didn't know. And I was trying to learn them and I just couldn't. And, uh, so he was. Even, even when I was at my best, he was a far better basketball player. And certainly his resume was far better. They won some national level tournament at his, his senior year college. And, but you know, and I got several awards as a basketball player throughout my whole career. You know, we'd have awards banquet and you can get these awards. Never once did dad go stand up when they announced me to give some more award. and go, he doesn't need that. I'm better than him. How dare him? You like blah, blah, blah, blah. He never did that. Because he shared my honor was his honor. My glory was his glory. He cut off my glory because I was his son. Same thing with Jesus Christ. Same thing with God the Father. He shares his glory with us. That's what verse seven would tell us and several others. Go look it up and you'll find just plug in glory to your. Bible search app and you'll find that many times this new covenant brings glory to us. That's part of stewarding his grace well is to believe that understand that I host his glory and understand that as I walk and co labor with him as I speak into his creation as I pray as I do as the body of Christ that these all bring glory back to him. and I share in that. And that's why 1 Corinthians 7. That's a little side note. You won't see that on your bill. That's good. So anyway, let's go. Well, let's go to Chapter 13 and we'll be doing this one. They will pick up the second half of Chapter 13. I mean, verse 13. Ephesians are you reading? How about verses 11 through 13 in Chapter 3? Why don't we do that? Yeah. Why don't you read that instead of Esther? All right. 11 through 13. This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access to God by way of Christ's faithfulness. For this reason, I ask you not to lose heart because of what I'm suffering for you, which is your glory. ⁓ we said your glory again. I not mean include that in there. ⁓ well, Paul did. Anyway, enough on that. So this the Lord had this secret that was accomplishing his purpose. He had a purpose that was an eternal purpose. Eternal goes in both directions. It's forever in past and it's forever in the future. That's what life is. This is an eternal purpose that before our brains trying to even comprehend infinite time in reverse. But he had this that he was going to accomplish this to Christ Jesus our Lord, and in whom we have boldness and confident access to God. That's a... That's a crazy idea that we can come boldly before the throne of grace in our time of need that we might receive. Because of your faithfulness. Yes. No, Christ's faithfulness. Christ's faithfulness. Because of Christ's faithfulness. Because of Christ's faithfulness. Some of them will say because of faith in Christ. Yeah. The Greek, there's no difference, no way to determine that. But yeah, what I just quoted too is Hebrews 4.16. Yeah. To come boldly before the throne of grace in our time of need that we might receive mercy. Yeah. Confident access. If you're struggling to believe you're righteous and you're holy as a gift and that it's done, well then if you're struggling to believe that, then you're struggling to believe that you have bold, confident access. A sinner comes before the Lord and they'd be vaporized. It'd be worse than hell. It'd be worse than hell for a sinner to be brought into the presence of the Lord. That's why people go, well, God wouldn't send anybody to hell. Where else is he going to send them? They're not fit for anywhere else. the work of Christ, he has made us fit to come before him. He has made us right, made us righteous, made us holy. And we can now come before him blessed with every spiritual blessing in heaven and around boldly and confidently. We have access to God 24 seven. What about that as a part of grace that we need to steward well? Many of us we and many of us probably every day go through or most of us, maybe all of us every day go through portions of our day where we're completely unaware that we are in its presence. Right. just wanted to pause on that for just saying as we're finishing up here, but God pursued us. pursued solution to our sin. And he is infinitely infinitely compassionate, infinitely forgiving. I put here God's righteousness and holiness required him to go to great lengths, to go to extreme measures to reconcile us to him. But don't miss the best part. He did it. It was a great cost, but he did it. All of his holy requirements, all of his righteous requirements were met in Christ when he became our sin. St. Corinthians 5, 21. He became sin and we became righteous. And when he became sin, God poured out all of his wrath, all of it. There's none of that. Romans 8, 1, there's now therefore no condemnation for those who were in Christ. All of our sin received its just punishment in Christ. That's why Hebrews 10 talks about our conscience is clear. Our conscience demands justice and justice has been done. So we live with a clear conscience, no consciousness of sin. There's no more punishment left. No more punishment. He exhausted it all. Exhausted all. When it got done, there was nothing left. and was all in his son. And Hebrews 10, 15 and 17 says, we have one witness. Yeah. The guy, the note taker was there. The Holy Spirit bearing witness that our sins have been taken away. Yeah. Hebrews 15 and 17. He was on that for a while. Yeah. All these we can, you know, this. I put it, are free from the curse and finishing. I said this whole thing, we are free from the curse. We are free from judgment. We are free from condemnation. We are free from wrath. We now have free and unfettered access to the throne room of the universe where the King of Glory is seated. amazing thoughts, try to comprehend just a little bit of that. You can spend the rest of day to comprehend just some small part of that. Anyway, we've been talking or I've been talking or you've been talking. You've been talking long enough. it's time to we'll next time. We'll come back and we'll start with verse 14. Which is where Paul starts one of his other prayers. And we'll talk about talk about the prayers of Paul and doing them us and for our family. Yeah. Talk about that in the next section. ⁓ Awesome. All right. Thank you, Randy. You're welcome, sir.