Ephesians 3:8-13
Confidence & Courage
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8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Eph 3:8–13.
Transcript
Welcome to God’s Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.Sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life.
Please go ahead and turn over in your Bibles with me now to the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3, and you can open up there in your Bible app or in the Bible in front of you. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 3, and this morning we’ll be looking at verses 8 through 13. Ephesians 3:8-13, “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable richness of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Christ Jesus; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's Word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Let's pray. “Lord, we thank you so much, Father, for this day and we thank you for Your Word. God, we pray that You would, by your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see. Lord, we pray that You would open our ears that we might hear. Lord, we pray, Father, that You would bless us and that You would apply these things to our hearts, that we would not just be hearers of Your Word, but, Father, that we would also be doers. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Well, if you're following the news at all you know that there is a massive problem right now in America. The Coronavirus is causing a whole lot of people a whole lot of problems. And it's causing a whole lot of people fear. But this week, just yesterday on our Facebook page, we shared a picture of one young woman who, just a little bit north of us, for some reason, decided even though there were active Corona cases, more Corona cases in her town than anyone else, there is a shortage of nurses. And what did this young woman do? She volunteered to go in for extra shifts. She volunteered to put on extra personal protective equipment. She volunteered, she mustered up the courage to do this. And you might ask, “Why? What is causing some of these people to have such courage in the face of such danger?” Well, for this woman, there's a real confidence and courage in Jesus.
And so the question for you today is, how can you have confidence and courage? How can you have confidence and courage? And that's one of the things that Paul is talking about here in Ephesians 3:8-13. And so, what is the first place Paul leads us to for confidence and courage but we have confidence and courage in grace. Look with me at verse 8, “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Paul is an apostle by grace, of grace. Paul has a confidence in this grace that God has poured out upon him. Paul knew, in his own life, he had once been a sinner and God had made him a saint. He had once been self-righteous and now he was Christ-righteous. It was Paul who was then Saul who was made an apostle. He was the least, not just of all the apostles as he says in First Corinthians, but the least of all the saints. See, Paul, in his early life, when he was a Jew who was persecuting the church, hounding the church, going after the church, trying to suppress the church, but when grace entered, oh, and that's where we spent all week last week, when grace entered, everything was changed.
And now we find in Paul there's a confidence in this grace. There is a confidence in this grace that leads to courage in his life. And Paul specifically says about this, he says that it is the unsearchable riches of Christ. This does not mean, the unsearchable riches of Christ, doesn't mean that somehow you can't know the riches that he's talking about. That's not what it's saying. The idea here is that it's a reservoir of grace so deep that you could never sound the bottom of it. The idea here is that God's love is, we're going to get into later in chapter 3, is so wide and so high and so deep is the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is that you could never exhaust the love and grace of Jesus Christ. You can have confidence if you are in Christ that God's grace is upon you.
And this idea of the manifoldness of God is what Job talks about. Job uses the same peculiar word in Job 9:10 when he talks about God's power and he laid up the constellations, it was God who put the stars in their place, it was God who made everything and His manifold wisdom. And here it's the manifold grace of Christ. Oh, how unsearchable are His ways and how wonderful are His doings. And this is what Paul is getting at in Philippians chapter 3. See, Paul wanted to know Christ. Paul wanted to know God's grace in Christ. Paul was willing to give up everything that he might gain Christ. Paul was willing to put aside everything and he might know Christ. Brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ, by faith, you can confidently say this grace is yours. And if that grace is truly yours, then with that confidence you can then live with courage. You can live with gospel courage with grace-filled courage your entire life. When you come before God and you confess your sins, you know that He is gracious towards you. When you are interacting with your spouse, you know that grace is the marker of your relationships and you can live in the courage of that grace.
But it's not just the confidence and the courage of grace, there is also confidence and courage in God's teaching. See, you can have confidence and courage in God's teaching. Look with me at verse 9, “and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Christ Jesus.” There's a weird phrase here that I think would be, in the New King James version is translated, “and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery,” I think it would be better translated, “enlightening everyone of the mysteries.” The word here is photizo. We get our word photon, or light, from it. Paul came to bring the lights to the eyes. Paul came teaching of the grace of Jesus Christ. Paul came reasoning from city to city from the Scriptures how Jesus was the Messiah. Paul came with an apostolic ministry of grace to bring light into the world. Paul came with this gospel light, for indeed it was Jesus who Himself said that He is the light. “I am the light,” is what Jesus says about Himself in John chapter 8.
And so, we see something happening here in history. Before things were shrouded about in a dark mystery how the anointed one was ever going to come, there was a mystery, a fog, just little glimmers. But when Christ came, light came, and the mystery decreases. And as the New Testament goes on, the fullness of Christ is shown more and more and more and there's more and more and more light, until the point that we can see Jesus Christ is the very Son of God. See, this was Paul's desire for every Christian is that you would know the Light, that you would have confidence in the teaching that he is giving you.
And I don't want you to get too bogged down. See, there are many times when we come and we see big Bibles and we think, “Man, there's no way I could know all that.” Brothers and sisters, you will never exhaust the depths of the knowledge of the riches of grace in Jesus Christ. But there are simple gospel truths that you can know. There are simple truths, so simple that children can have faith. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There are simple gospel truths that you can have confidence in, that if you confess your sins, He, Jesus, is faithful and just and will cleanse you from all your sins. There are simple gospel truths that you can have confidence in your life in today that He who has begun a good work in you will bring it about unto the day of completion. There are simple gospel truths that you can have confidence in in this life that He who is in you is greater than he who is in this world. There are simple gospel truths that are light to the eyes and honey to the soul and we can we can chew on them and think about them and they'll be sweet our entire lives and you can have confidence that God's grace, if you are one of His people, if Jesus is in you and you are in Him, if Paul has been talking to your heart this whole time, then you can have confidence that this light is yours. There is a confidence we have in the light of the gospel. And that that confidence we have in Christ gives us courage for life today. See, you don't need to know everything in the Bible. We want to study God's Word. We want to meditate on it. We want it to be on our lips day and night. We want to have it as a frontlet between our eyes and we want it to be on our hands. We want it written on our hearts. We want God's Word, we want all of it, but we're never going to exhaust it and it's beautiful. But, Christian, with just the gospel truths that you have in the clear statements, you can live your life with gospel courage. You can go out of your house and when you talk to your neighbors about Jesus Christ, you can have courage. When you go out and you are talking to your family members about Jesus Christ, you can have gospel courage, if Christ is in you and you are in Him. We should have confidence and courage in God's grace and in His teaching, but we should also have confidence and courage in God's wisdom.
Look with me at verses 10 and 11, “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The manifold wisdom of God has been revealed. This idea of the manifold wisdom of God was used at that time in the first century, when this was written, they used this idea of manifold as like a vase. And in that vase, there were lots of multicolored different flowers.
When my wife and I ran a wedding photography business, our favorite thing, one of our favorite things to do was just take pictures of the flowers. There was all sorts of different flowers and arrangements and we were always amazed by how florists could add in a little bit there and add in a little bit here and we could tell that so much thought went into this and when it was all together it was so beautiful. But if you turned it a little bit it looked a little bit different. Now, I probably lost some of you guys there, but I've heard you talk the same way about other things that have manifolds. I've talked to some of you who like to work on trucks. And when I come to you and you want to talk about a truck, I mean we could talk about a whole number of things. I remember meeting with a guy and we had just gotten a pop-up camper and I was trying to think about the different types of hitches there were in three different types of class and what class we needed for the specific trailer that we were going to pull and then what was the gross vehicle weight rating and what were all these different things. And the people I was talking to could tell me exactly, “well this and that,” and they would be able to tell me, “but see you really want to use this type of bolt because this type of bolt is the strongest bolt to make sure that your hitch is going to stay in there.” And then if we want to talk about more about cars, amazing the manifold complexity.
Well, God's wisdom is like that. I mean, we can we could stare up into God and we can think about who He is and we can search into the Scriptures and plumb the depths of His riches, of His wisdom, and we’ll never cease being surprised. There's always more to learn about God. There's always more. There is always a new facet of God's love that in a different season in our life, some of you are experiencing this right now. For some of you, you haven't known this type of loneliness before. And God is showing you what it means for Him to be the one who will come alongside you. For some of you, the weight of anxiety and of worry has never pressed down upon you as it has now. In God's Word there is comfort in Matthew chapter 6 and in Philippians chapter 4 is more real to you now than it ever has been. God's Word and His providence brings light to the situations in life and we are to live our lives with the confidence in His wisdom.
I remembered meeting with a Jewish person one time and as I was telling her about the Bible and God was working in her heart, it was amazing to see her start to understand the wisdom of God. It was amazing, she was going through the book of Genesis and all of a sudden, things started to make sense. Then she picked up the book of Hebrews, and all of a sudden, God's wisdom in the Old Testament made sense to her, because she finally understood what all these types and shadows were pointing to in Jesus Christ. It is the wisdom of God revealed. And when we know this wisdom in Jesus Christ, you can have confidence in your life.
The verse that's really interesting here is that we can have courage in the preaching of the gospel. You can have courage in the preaching of the gospel. This is what Paul says in Romans 1:16-17 when he says, “for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.” Paul is able to have courage because he has confidence in the wisdom of God displayed in Christ because it was God who had this plan forever and it's in the church that the preaching goes out. It's in the church that something amazing happens. The church's existence is a note to Satan that his kingdom has an end date, that the terminus is coming and that he will no longer, forever, rule this world. He will no longer be the one who holds sway over man, but Jesus Christ is living and active and He's winning people over to Himself by His sovereign work.
That's pretty amazing! Have you ever thought about that when you come to church? Let me ask you, when you come into church, is that the best day of your life? Is it the easiest on Sunday morning to get up early in the morning? Especially if you have kids, have you ever noticed that Sundays it's like you don't know what is in them but there is something different about your kids on Sunday morning that you're just like, “Man, I don't know what's in these kids but we are late again!” Of course, you are! Of course, you are! Do you think this world wants you to be watching this sermon right now? Do you think Satan is happy right now? I was just talking to another gospel minister this past week about a challenging situation in my life and something that I felt like was Satan attacking me. And when I talked to that pastor he was saying, “Well, is it any wonder? A thousand people watched your sermon last week. You don't think Satan is going to try to stop that?” Of course, he is.
But, we can have confidence that the manifold wisdom of God might be known by the church, the principalities, and powers in heavenly places. It is in the church that Christ Jesus is proclaimed and heralded as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It is in the church that we gather together as what some theologians call the church militant. As we get side by side as warriors clothed in the armor of God that we fight with one another and for one another with gospel courage because it's in the church that that Word goes out. And it's the same gospel courage we even saw in Paul's life. Do you remember in Acts chapter 26? Paul was on trial. Paula is in chains writing these letters. But Paul was on trial in Acts chapter 26 and with courage he goes before King Agrippa and he tells the king who has sway over his life or over his death. And what does he do? He tells him about how all the law and the prophets point to Jesus Christ. That the mysterious thing is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You can have that courage.
I was told, not too long ago, that I give too many stories of these amazing stories of how God has worked and that I should just give more common examples. Brothers and sisters, I am telling you, those were ordinary Christians with extraordinary grace. And that extraordinary grace resides in your own soul. Someday, you might be called to stand before a civil magistrate and you might be demanded to either turn your back on your Lord, or to confess Jesus Christ and become a preacher of righteousness. You can have gospel courage because we have confidence in the wisdom of God that this is His plan.
But we can also have confidence and courage in our own personal lives in prayer. Look with me at verse 12. Ephesians 3:12, “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.” In Jesus, we have boldness and access and confidence. It is in Hebrews chapter 4 and Hebrews chapter 10 that God tells us that we can come into God's most holy place, that we can enter into the throne room of God, into the very presence of God and there we can come through Jesus, through Him being our priest and we can make intercession. Chapter two of Ephesians verse 18 told us that much as well that we can come to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. Christian, you can confidently go into the holy place of God. You're welcomed as a child into the king's court. You are welcomed as a child into the palace of the king. You're welcomed not just into His presence but to His person. You're not just allowed to stand there but you're allowed to speak into His ear. What amazing grace He's shown to you, Christian, that you who were once dead in your trespasses and sins have been made alive in Christ Jesus. You have access to the Father in prayer. When you close your eyes, Christian, you are not one who prays out of fear, but you can pray with bold confidence. You can pray with courage that your heavenly Father will hear your words. You can pray to your Father who is in heaven and He hears you. You can take your anxiety to the Lord and put it at the feet of His throne and know that He hears you. Christian, you can take your worry to the foot of His throne and He will hear you.
This is what Jesus tells us in John chapter 15, that if you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. If Jesus is in us and we are in Him and His word is in us so we're praying in accordance with His will, the Father does hear you. So when you feel that you are weighed down by loneliness and your soul has become dark and gloomy and blue, you can go to the Lord and know that you have comfort there. When you're worried about what's going to happen with your 401k, God has all the riches in Christ in store for you. When you are fearful, know that you have access to your Father and you can boldly ask Him, “Give us this day our daily bread.” When you have needs and you've lost your income and you've lost your job and things are going all wrong, you can go to your Father who is in heaven and boldly come before Him as a child before His Father and say, “Father, please, give me bread.” And your Father in heaven will hear you. This is the promise that we have that we can have confidence and courage in prayer.
But you can also have confidence and courage, lastly, you can have confidence and courage in affliction. Look with me at verse 13, “Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” Have you ever read through the book of Acts before? Have you ever just taken a look and seen what it would have been like to be Paul? Paul starts his ministry and he goes to Lystra and they stone him. Acts chapter 14, I mean, that's a death sentence. They want to kill him because he's boldly preaching Christ. You just turn over a page and when you're there in Acts chapter 15, you find Paul who's being beaten, literally beaten, for his faith. And then you turn over again just two chapters into Acts chapter 17, and you find Paul in Athens and the philosophers of this world are making fun of him and mocking him. And then when you get towards the end of the book of Acts, you find Paul in Jerusalem, and there are literally people plotting how to set up traps to kill him. What's Paul's words for them? “I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you.”
It's amazing, one of the things that happens when we read the stories of the martyrs, when we read through the book of Acts, and we see Paul's life, it doesn't make us go, “Oh man, I wish God knew what He was doing.” No! But we look at Paul's life and we're able to see, “Man, God even used this persecution, even Paul being in chains, to send His gospel to the furthest ends of the earth, to the very capital of the Roman empire.” Do not lose heart in affliction. Do not lose courage in your affliction. As the church father Tertullian, who wrote in the 1st century, “the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs, is the seed of the church.” The Christian Church for centuries has been spread through affliction. Because it is when Christians have confidence in the manifold wisdom of God and of the rich grace in Jesus Christ that they can courageously, boldly, both in prayer and before men, enter into the very theaters of the world and stand with confidence and say, “My God lives!” Brothers and sisters, if you are confident in what God has done, you can be confident in what He is going to do. The scriptures are replete with this. If you know who God is, you can have courage in this life to face anything that comes before you. This is why we started in Daniel chapter 3 with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Why do you think they could stand up to King Nebuchadnezzar? Because they knew that they had a God in heaven who was God most high. Brothers and sisters, if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could stand before a king and proclaim God's glory while they were under the shadow of the Old Testament, how much more can you, in the light of Jesus Christ, the holy Spirit who fills your soul, the one who stands with courage and confidence in this world today, you can have confidence and courage in Jesus Christ. Cling to His grace. Know His teaching. Love His wisdom. Boldly go to Him in prayer and never lose heart, even in affliction.
Let's go to His throne of grace now. “Oh God, how good and wonderful are You, that You would show such grace to us, that You would be so bountiful in Your mercy, Your kindness, Your love and Your grace. Father, we pray that these would not just be words which sound good and make us happy, but, Lord, they would be the foundations for our soul. Lord, give us gospel confidence and give us gospel courage. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Let's turn over into our Psalters now as we sing the great missionary Psalm. Psalm 67 selection c. This is a psalm which gives so many missionaries courage and confidence that God is bringing His kingdom here on Earth as it is in heaven. Psalm 67 selection c.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website: Sharonrpc.org. We’d love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa 52640. May God richly bless you this week.