Proclaiming The Revelation Of The Mystery Of God's Grace Pt 2

Well, good morning. Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 3. Ephesians chapter 3. We'll start in verse 1. We'll finish with 13 and go to the Lord in prayer. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 1.

For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

And so this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages and God who created all things. so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers, to the authorities, and the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. so I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you which is your glory oh God in heaven as we've just read this ministry of the gospel is given by the work of the spirit and the minister and Lord I I have come to know more and more although not completely just how weak I am as a as a proclaimer of your word Lord I I feel that deep within me even right now and so I ask you for the aid of the spirit to do anything of value before this congregation the church, the called out ones before me right now Lord in heaven this is a work that you do through us to proclaim and to listen and so I ask that all of us would desire that you would be so kind to an undeserving people to give us ears to hear a heart to receive and words to speak this word that is so good and dear to us.

God in heaven, we thank you for the role of the minister. We thank you for the apostle Paul. We thank you how he was and the apostles were the first ministers and continues even today with ministers today and how we are all, Lord, those who call upon the Lord, ministers in some capacity. And so we thank you for this teaching. I pray that, Lord, that we would understand it and we would apply it to our lives and it would influence us to be bold to be bold ministers in our own capacity where you have called us to be.

Thank you, Lord, for this time, and may you bless it by your kindness to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I've always been a very competitive person, and having six boys at home, I think some of that competitive nature in me has rubbed off on them, in which there is constant competition going on in the living room floor with wrestling or playing football outside or whatever goofball game that they've currently made up.

There's competition behind it. And one thing that I find myself teaching my children a lot is how to compete well. And one of the temptations of a competitor, someone who is very much, what's the word I'm looking for, who's competitive, thank you, is that you can overdo it, right? And the whole fun gets ruined with how competitive you are if you're losing or it's not going well.

And so I'm constantly teaching my boys how to compete well. And one thing I don't like doing, if you've done this before, don't get too mad at me, but I don't like doing that by saying, it doesn't matter if you win. Because that's not true. It does matter if you win. You're supposed to want to win. In fact, if you're competing with people they don't want to win, that's not competition.

And so that's lame. That's not how, in my opinion, if you're mad at me for it, you can get over it for now, is that you don't teach people that way, that that's how you compete better. It doesn't matter if you win. Well, it does. But the thing is, though, you need to put the desire to win at its proper level, right? And this is what I constantly tell the boys as they have a bad attitude, and I tell myself when I have a bad attitude, when I'm losing at trouble against a bunch of five, six, seven-year-olds, is that there's that desire to win, which is proper, but it needs to be down here.

And then there's a couple levels up that's more important, right? And we go through this. What's the number one objective? To glorify God, right? To glorify God is our number one objective in this competition. And then there's a level under that, right?

Glorify God and to have fun and to enjoy him forever. To have fun. That's a legitimate desire in this game. We don't want to lose sight of that. And competition the whole purpose of sports is to have fun with it right So we want to glorify God we want to have fun and then we want to win badly And if it in that proper categories there in those proper categories there you will do well And so whenever someone's having a bad attitude, we go over, what's your greatest desire here?

Glorify God. What's the second one? Have fun. What's the third one? To win. And why aren't you having fun or glorifying God right now?

Because I want to win above those things. It's a common thing that goes on. And so, again, I think it's important to have them in their proper place. Now, what does this have to do with the ministry? What does this have to do with where we're at now in Ephesians 3? I think the current state of ministering the gospel to the world is to idolize the minestee.

And that's a made-up word. Forgive me if it's not helpful. But the one that we minister to is the minestee, the one that's receiving the ministry. Whether it's a fellow believer or the world or the unbeliever, right, that we're ministering the gospel to. I think the current state of ministering the gospel to the world, a lot of times we can idolize the ministry or care about their reaction above the other appropriate concerns.

And of course, we'll get to, I don't want to jump ahead of myself, but we should care about their actions. We should care about how they receive it. But it cannot be of the greatest degree of our concern where it jumps places of other things. If so, then we will get ministering wrong. And so again, I think it's a lack of putting things in their proper place.

And I think really a good aspect or a good indication or a good example of this is Alistair Begg. And I think most of us know what happened with Alistair Begg. And in no way am I saying right now that if you listen to Alistair Begg, you need to turn it off. So anything that I say to the man with the accent up north of us, it's not to say that you shouldn't listen to him.

Or now we just throw him to the wolves, right? That's it. There's this guy named Samuel Say. He's all right. He has a pretty good article on this in which I think he's very level-headed with saying this is wrong what he said, but it doesn't mean that now he's the worst thing. And if you don't know, one of the things Alistair Begg lately has said is he said that it's okay to go to a transgender, gay, whatever it is, a gay, transgender marriage, right?

It's okay to do that as long as they know where you stand so that you can show support so their hearts aren't hardened to you. More or less, I don't want to get what he said wrong, but that's more or less what he said, that it's okay to give them a gift so that they don't look at you as a Christian, as this hard-hearted, not caring, no feeling, right? And so that their reaction perhaps would be better for the gospel that you give.

And that's his line of thinking. It makes sense in a way, right? We should care about how the gospel that we minister gets received. We should care about how they receive it, but we can't care to the degree that we do wicked things like go to a marriage ceremony that's celebrating that kind of wickedness, right? We can't let that overthrow what we are doing as ministers of the gospel to say when something is absolutely an abomination to God that we can't participate in celebrating.

Not to mention, not to get too much into this point because it's not the main thrust, but a marriage, you know when you go to a wedding um you are witnessing a a covenant happening between man and wife saying i will say i'll be i'll join together and stay joined together death to his part right sickness and health i'm covenanting together i shall be together forever with them right and and there's an aspect where you're you're you're witnessing that and you're actually bearing witness and saying we agree with this covenant that's why that's the old classic who what's that little thing that ministers used to say, not so much anymore, but whoever disagrees with this, you can tell I don't say it, whoever disagrees with this, go ahead and raise your hand, say something, or forever hold your peace, right? And that's actually really intentional to say that you are agreeing with this covenant going on. If you don't agree with it, then you need to say something now and voice your opinion.

And so the point is that if you are there at a wedding, you're actually agreeing with what's going on so you cannot go to a gay marriage, quote unquote marriage, you cannot go to something like that without saying, and I agree with this. Not to mention the celebration afterwards of something that God has abominated. So the point is that I think we can have these things kind of messed up in the way that we consider them and not put them in their proper place and it causes us to make these errors.

I think broad evangelicalism in general, when it comes to ministering the gospel, has made an idol of the ministry or their concerns or their reactions. You don't hear very much about God's wrath, about God's anger, about God's commanding the people to repent from their sins, turn away from it, and obey Jesus Christ as the authority. You don't hear that kind of strong language anymore.

Instead, what you hear is God loves you and just wants you so bad. That's the kind of evangelism that we hear today, and that's an idolizing of the reaction of the person we're ministering to because we don't want to risk offending them. So we say stuff that won't offend. God loves you. He just wants you so much. That's not going to offend anyone.

But yet the scriptures, whenever we see ministers give the gospel, it is offensive to those who are not being worked on by the Spirit. God is angry with your sin, and you need to repent and obey Jesus, no longer obey your own flesh. You need to do that now. That's offensive. and and and so whenever we don't put these things in their proper place we can make these uh these issues now not to belabor the point but recently i i saw an article on fox news where it talked about some celebrity that found her faith found her faith even in the way that's used is meant to not offend anyone because really what does that mean to find her faith it's not an objective faith it's not an objective standard that she had to obey or or submit to it's just something that's hers, right?

That she found it's doing really good for her, right? And so I think this sort of way of thinking it an idolizing the ministry It idolizing those we are ministering to and saying that their reception of it or them being offended over it perhaps should be of our greatest concern And this can and will lead us to problems. See, here in Ephesians 3, Paul is suffering from bad responses from the ministries.

That's why he's suffering. Bad responses from his faithful ministering of the gospel. Yet he says, do not lose heart. Do not stop, right? He says ministry is a gift from God, from the power of God. And now here today in 9 through 12, as we finish up, Lord willing, we'll see that the message preached, the result, and the sure success of the minister causes us not to place people's response too high on that totem pole.

Suffer what may and not to lose heart. So let's look at that then together this morning. Look at verse 8. I'm going to go over that again at the risk of going too long. Paul says, by a gift from God and by his power, in verse 8, at the end of it, he says, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is him as a minister.

This is what he does. He preaches the unsearchable riches of Christ to the world. to the men of seas. And we kind of, I talked about it quickly last week, but this is only realized or understood. The unsearchable riches of Christ, the bountiful riches of Christ that comes forth from him can only be realized with an equal understanding of our unsearchable depravity of the person that we're proclaiming the gospel to.

You can only understand the beautiful riches of Christ, if you understand the deep depravity of yourself. It's only in that great difference that you say Christ is all-worthy, all-rich, bountiful in wealth. But it must be understood that, and I am totally depraved. If we win people over to Christ without that understanding that you need Christ worse than you could ever imagine, they'll think Jesus is okay.

There'll be a level where, yeah, Jesus seems to be all right. But Jesus demands that we would understand that he is bountiful in his riches, and that is of his righteousness. And we can only understand that if we understand just how much we are depraved and in need of his righteousness. That we then see him and say, yes, he has everything I need and want.

And as a minister, we are to point people to their depravity so they can see the beauties of Jesus. So if we're lax-y daisy, right? If we care too much about what we don't want to say, anything that might cause them to be a little offended inside, then they won't be in that position to see the beauties of Jesus. Now, I feel the need. I'm going to wait.

There's a caveat. I'm going to wait. I told myself to wait. I'm going to wait. The words of the minister needs to expose sin. For the sake of what?

So people just feel bad and you say, ha ha, no. The words that you speak as a minister in your own capacity needs to reveal the sin of the person that you are preaching or giving the gospel to so that they can then see the beauties of Jesus. You see, when that is your motivation, right, is I want you to see the wonders of Christ. You won't sit there and hammer them with the law of God and say, you are just terrible, ha ha, and make them feel terrible just with this pride within you.

But you'll compel him. Jesus is beautiful. You need to believe. You need to follow him. He's better than you can imagine. That's because you are so utterly corrupted.

You see that you show them their need with a love for them to see Jesus. And we see Jesus act like this. We see this in scripture, and it's worth looking at. Look at John 4. If you're not careful to have eyes to see it, you might miss it. But Jesus was very, very willing to hurt feelings for the sake that they would see the need that they have for him.

Look at John 4 with the woman at the well. The woman at the well, she's coming to the well in the middle of the day. That was very weird, right? You would usually go not at the heat of the day. You would usually go with other women towards the end of the day, times when the sun wasn't so hot. So this lady's alone.

She's in the middle of the day. She's an outcast. She's probably, and I don't want to grab too much here, but she's probably an outcast because of her immorality, because she's wicked, right? And Jesus is not afraid to point to that, to point her to the need that she has for him. Look at chapter 4, verse 16. And John, Jesus said to her, go, because he's telling her her need for spiritual drink, and she can't get off her mind of the physical, right?

Whenever you don't realize your need spiritually, you just can't get your mind off the physical things. and so he's he he he he does this tactic here where he says to her go call your husband and come here now he knew full well that she didn't have a husband but why is he saying that because this is a major aspect of her wickedness right here why well look at verse 17 the woman answered him well i don't have a husband so she's trying to simply say i just simply don't have one and jesus says yeah you're right in saying i have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. She's living with someone, right? That's not her husband.

She's kind of done with the whole marriage thing. So notice how Jesus exposes the wickedness of her life, right? He says, yeah, you're right. You don't have a husband. You've had five, and the one you're with now isn't even your husband, right? That's offensive, right?

It's exposing her wickedness. And he says, what you have said is true. And then she tries to sidestep that and then point to the mode of worship on this mountain for the Samaritans or that mountain in Jerusalem. And what does Jesus say to that? He says in verse 21 woman believe me the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor Jerusalem will you worship the Father You worship what you do not know We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews That's what Jesus is saying.

You don't have salvation. You think you do, but you don't. Say that to someone today. Unless the Spirit is working in their heart, they're going to get pretty offended by that. Because she, they, the Samaritans, believe that we have salvation here. And he says, no you don't, it's from the Jews. offensive right but yet for the time for the sake of time look at what she ends up saying after this conversation where he says i am the messiah that is to come who will show you all things look at verse 39 many samaritans after this conversation with jesus many samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony who said what he told me all that i ever did not the good stuff.

It was the wicked stuff, the embarrassing, the shameful stuff, and he's exposing it. Now, why would that be such a delight? Because he is Messiah. He's forgiver of sins. He makes all things new. This town would know just how wicked this lady is, and she's saying he knows everything I did, but yet I'm accepted in him through his great and gracious forgiveness of sins.

So we can't be afraid to offend as a minister of the gospel because it's only when we're offended and we see our wretched state that Christ becomes all the beauty to us. We can see the flip side of that, the rich ruler. You remember the rich ruler? We won't go there, but the rich ruler that thought he was rich in righteousness. I don't need the righteousness of Messiah.

I got my own righteousness. The bountiful righteousness of Christ means nothing to me. I'm bountiful in righteousness. You remember the rich ruler that thought he was rich in righteousness. Jesus tells him to do the law, to live. And what does he say?

Oh, I have. I'm good. I have. I have done the law. Jesus then what? Exposes to him that, no, you haven't.

And what does he say? Okay, give up your wealth and come and follow me. And he leaves depressed. Why? Because he was not rich in righteousness. He was not willing to forego his riches for the sake of the one who was rich in righteousness, thus exposing his sin, leaving him depressed until maybe one day with the preaching of ministers later on, he perhaps did repent and come to Jesus.

We don't know. Paul, the once proud and rich in righteousness Pharisee, after seeing Christ at the right hand of the Father, what does he say in Philippians 3? Well, let's just read it. It's worth it. Look at Philippians 3. What does he say?

The one who once was rich in his own righteousness, he makes a very serious statement here in Philippians 3. Look at verse 7. He says, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as garbage, as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not have any righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

You see, the message that is declared is one in which we preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, you are depraved, you are dead in your sins, you have no righteousness of your own, but in Christ there is wealth more than enough that you need. This is what we proclaim. But if you idolize people's reactions, you will not point them to the unsearchable richness of Christ.

You won't. You'll be too afraid to offend them. Now look at verse 9. He says the same thing, only a little differently. He says in verse 9, Paul does of Ephesians 3, so he says again to preach to the gentiles this is what the minister does right he preaches to the gentiles the unsearchable riches of christ this is what he does as a minister and he also says in verse 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in god who created all things you see he's saying similar things he says and to bring to light if you see there in verse 9 is what he said in verse 8 about preaching preaching is simply bringing to light something.

Exposing something is what preaching is, right? It's saying the same thing. To bring to light is what he said in the last verse about preaching. And to everyone in verse 9 is what he said about the Gentiles. And we've already said this before, that what makes it so remarkable that the gospel is not just for Jew, but for Gentile, is what you're saying. It is literally for everyone.

It is not just for the corner of the earth, for one race of people, but with the New Testament era, now it is for everyone. That's why in Acts we just see it exploding out to the world because of this marvelous mystery that Christ is for everyone. And so there should be something within us as ministers in our own day that causes you to say, you're telling me that everyone I come in contact with has the potential to receive the richness of Christ? and there should be something that's like I want to give them the gospel I want them to receive the gospel I want them to respond well to the gospel there should be something in you that causes you to want that badly deep within your soul you should want to find every opportunity possible to reveal Jesus to them and you should want to not want to needlessly offend them so that you cut them off from that Christ receiving right so it's it's it's a good thing as evangelicals to want to give the gospel in the best way, not needlessly offending, but being faithful to the message that saves, because it is for everyone.

That's your drive. Look at 1 Corinthians 9. Look at 1 Corinthians 9. We see this drove Paul, this nature of this. He says in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19, Paul says, For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them to the gospel. He says to the Jews, I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.

And to those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law, to the Jews. To those outside the law, the Gentiles, I became one as outside the law, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law. He says, to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak.

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. He says, I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I might share with them in its blessings. It's a natural thing within your Christian frame that you say this gospel is for everyone. And so therefore I want to become all things to all people so I can win them to that gospel, right?

I want to be able to become all things to all people to win them to the gospel, whatever that looks like. But notice he says, but I'm still under the law of Christ. The law of Christ is still my guidance. I don't just throw out the law of Christ for the sake of being able to give the gospel to anyone. In other words, there is still something directed me as I proclaim this gospel message.

And so what directs us as ministers? We want to win all, everyone that we can. We want to not needlessly offend, but we need to be faithful to the law of Christ that dictates our message to them, even if it does offend. And what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, to bring to light, he says in verse 9. to bring to light um this is what preaching is is you're exposing something it's not your message you're exposing a someone else's message that is god's message and what are you bringing to light well look what he says he says um in verse nine to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.

So this God, creator of all things since the beginning of time, had determined that there would be a mystery shrouded that you cannot know of nature itself, but you need a minister to expose that truth to you. God from beginning has determined that this is the way the mystery of Christ would unfold. That of ourselves we cannot know, but we need a minister to shed the light on the truth.

That's what needs to happen. And so this is what dictates us as we give the gospel to someone. We need to look at the way we preach, the way we give the word, is we're simply just shedding the light on something that God has hidden since before time began, that we get to now shed the light on. This is what we are doing. We don't change the message. We don't make it more palatable for the sake of responses, but we simply shed the light on it.

But again, there's this aspect where we want to make sure that we're making it as exposed as possible, right? There's this mystery that people don't understand, and that's what you should carry with you. You go knowing they do not understand Christ. They don't understand the basic necessity that they have to look to Jesus for salvation, but yet I can expose it with my word right but you want to do it in a way not that they will not be offended this is my greatest desire i don't want them to be offended but that they would understand it the greatest way what is the way that i can preach the gospel to this individual person and the way that that light will expose it the greatest because the fact of the matter is it's going to look differently depending on who you're talking to right if you notice paul when he talks to the Jews in Acts 13 when he preaches the gospel, do you notice that he starts with Israel and the promises made to Israel?

That makes sense. He's talking to Jews. They understood that. They understood God, the creator of all things. They understand that the covenant's made to Abraham and how it's made good in Jesus. But you notice that when Paul is exposing the gospel or shedding the light on the mystery to the Gentiles in Athens in Acts, what is it, 17, I think, you notice that he starts not with the covenant to the Jews.

That wouldn't make any sense. He starts with creation, God himself, who he is, because the Gentiles don't really understand who the true God is of itself. And so the point is that the desire of our hearts as we are giving the gospel, as we're preaching the gospel, is how can this person best understand it? How can I do it to where it will shed the greatest light on the mystery itself?

It cannot be what's going to offend them less. It needs to be how can they understand it most in their particular life. The way I give or minister the gospel to a false convert under the sinner's prayer stuff, the way I give the gospel to someone who's a false convert under the sinner's prayer, in other words, oh, I said the sinner's prayer, I'm good.

Even though they're living like the devil, I said the sinner's prayer, I'm good. I going to give that person the gospel a little differently than I give the atheists the gospel I going to start with different This person who says the sinner prayer he acknowledges God to be true He acknowledges the right God or the God who exists right And so it going to look a little differently than the atheist who denies God altogether. Or the gospel, the light that I shed on the mystery to the Catholic working hard to get into heaven is going to look differently than the one that I, again, said to the one who's living sinfully because of the sinner's prayer thinking he's all right right so it's the light shed is going to look differently though it's the same mystery being revealed you're just making sure that i'm shedding it in a way that this person can understand greater or more better the light being shed so the desire of the minister is to shed proper light on the mystery of christ not a proper response to the mystery of Christ.

We cannot control that. That cannot drive us. So the minister's preaching, as we've seen in these two verses, needs to highlight the ministry's poverty to see Christ's riches. And it needs to shed proper light on unknown mysteries of Christ that is being made known now in preaching. How can I best shed this light? Now, in verse 10, what helps us not to get these things out of whack is understanding the result of ministry.

Look at verse 10. He says, so that, as a result, this is a result, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. He says, through the church, through the church. The church is the assembled congregation, right? And it's not just the assembled congregation, it's ecclesia, that is an assembled congregation, but it's also the called out congregation, right?

Ec is to be called out, right? We are to do exegesis, right? Expose, bring out the text, right? Well, ecclesia is the congregation that's called out of the world. And so we must understand that this is the result is that the church would be, will be called out by the preaching of the minister, right? The church will be called out of the world by the preaching of the minister.

There are many who will scoff and respond badly. But there are some who will then be called out, drawn out by God to join the assembly of the believers. And that is the same truth whether we're going through a great revival of the 1700s or if we're going through a great downward trend like we have been, quote unquote, enjoying whatever, not enjoying the past several years. it's still the same truth.

It's still the same gospel. It's still the same practice of the minister. It's just sometimes God calls out more than others. And as a side note, I think he does it a lot to test ministers, to test people who are to be faithful to the gospel. Just because you get less people being called out because it's God's will, doesn't mean now you start messing with it.

Doesn't mean now you start making it more palatable. It's a test of our resolve of what saves people, what's important to be preached, and I'm going to maintain it even if God decides that the church will be smaller than other ages. So the result of ministry is that the church would do what? Would be called out, and through this church, he says in verse 10, the manifold wisdom of God would be made known.

The manifold wisdom of God through the church being called out, becoming ministers themselves, the wisdom involved in that would be made known. Manifold wisdom, it's the only time used here in the New Testament. Manifold, it's multifaceted beauty. It's multifaceted. It's like a diamond, right? It has all sorts of different angles.

You look at it in all different angles, it's like a very beauty, a certain essence of beauty. and you see it from all sorts of different angles as it exposes its beauty to us. And he's saying that this nature of the minister preaching the gospel, the church coming out, it manifests the wisdom, the manifold wisdom. It makes it known. What's fascinating here is Paul could have complained right here.

He could say, God, why don't you call more people out so I don't suffer? Imagine, if all people were being called out, Paul would never suffer. He would be praised as an apostle, and everyone would praise God for the glory of sending an apostle, right? But the fact is that part of the manifold wisdom of God that this would happen is not that everyone would come and join the church, but that some wouldn't and actually harm the church.

And so it's fascinating that God's plan, the manifold wisdom to be displayed, is that the church would undergo suffering, would undergo people hating them, would undergo a certain defiance of, no, we're not obeying Jesus. In fact, we're going to harm you for obeying Jesus. It's fascinating that instead of Paul complaining, God, why don't you call more people out?

He understands that his suffering is part of the manifold wisdom being displayed, the beauty of the church's suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ. It's beautiful to, we'll get to who? He sees the suffering, the rejection, the hard hearts the good responses the soft hearts all working together to display his wisdom in the church And so again going back we cannot be overly concerned with the response of the ones that we are ministering to because God is using their rejection as a manifestation of the wisdom to be displayed.

Right? But if we don't understand that, and we just think, no, we want everyone to come, in a way we do. But in another way, when they don't, we don't mess with the word proclaim. Instead, we say, this is actually part of God's wisdom as well. And to whom is this wisdom displayed to through the church? Who is it displayed to?

And it's fascinating. He doesn't say to the world. He doesn't say to the scoffers. He doesn't say to those all around. What does he say? He says that it may be the wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities and the heavenly places.

He's talking about the angelic realm. He's talking about the angels. In our day today in which there's no such thing as a spiritual, we can kind of, even as Christians, misunderstand that the angels are watching what happens in creation with salvation, and they are marveling. In fact, 1 Peter 1, 10, 12 through 12, Peter talks about how the angels long to see the gospel proclamation to the nations and the church being formed.

The angels long to see it. The idea is they're on their tippy toes trying to make sure they get the best angle possible to view it. So we gotta understand that even though the world might hate us, the world might be appalled by us, the homosexual couple may call you a homophobic bigot, for not going to their wedding for the sake of being a proper gospel witness, the angels delight in it.

The world may be appalled that you don't confirm their particular identity in sin. The angels rejoice that you don't. The minister may consider you the most hateful person in the world because you are lovingly trying to reveal Christ to them. The angels see your love for the mystery revealed. When the world below hates your ministry of the gospel, know that the heavenly realm above is rejoicing at it.

There needs to be an understanding of the spiritual realm that's going on around you so that when you're feeling lonely, when you're feeling rejected by the world, by your family, you need to understand that the angels are rejoicing at your gospel identity, proclamation, faithfulness. The angels adore it. So the result of the ministry of the gospel is always praise from the angelic realm that the church is revealing that wisdom to them and they're saying hallelujah for what god is doing on the earth this encourages us it encourages us to be faithful with the message to not bring about people's reactions above where it ought to be in our desires and now finally look at the sure success of the ministry that paul details in verses 11 and 12 this was paul says according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in christ jesus our lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him you see the sure success of the ministry of your ministry of paul's ministry of all ministry is rooted and God's purpose who created all things.

And so, you know, my kids have a lot of purposes for the household, but they're not the authority, nor are they all good in their purposes. So therefore, probably 99% of them shouldn't happen, right? And that's the whole goal is to train them up to know what's good and what a good purpose is. You see, God is the authority over all things. His purposes shall stand and no one can deny it. and thank God that he is a perfectly good God.

So his purposes, as they are revealed in Jesus, are always good and always sure. And he says here, this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. His purposes will stand. He has purpose to hide the mystery of Christ. He has purpose to reveal it in Christ at his first coming, to reveal it in his ministers when he finished his work and went back to be with the Father.

He has purposed to cause the chosen to come out and to respond well even though the world scoffs. And he has purposed the success of the ministers even in the hardships and the sufferings. So far from suffering and hardships that Paul was enduring that we may endure as ministers being a sign of failure, Paul's saying this is actually what he purposed again for his wisdom to be displayed it's a sure success because it's rooted in the plan of God for Christ this was all of this according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord and what do they say verse 12 he says in whom in this Jesus he says in verse 12 we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him So in other words, your right relationship with God through Christ at present ensures the success of your ministry tomorrow.

If you want to know how you can be sure that your ministry of the gospel to the world will be successful, it's because it has been successful to you. that you have a right relationship with God and God has ordained it that he will be successful as he gives this ministry out or gospel out to the world. He will build this church. It will come through suffering.

It will come through scoffing. It will come through the whole package that reveals his wisdom. So as it's been successful to you, as you have boldness to approach Christ, so you know that it will be successful as God has determined it to the world. As you can boldly approach the Father through the Son, verse 12, so you can boldly approach the world with the Son.

So if you're having a hard time ministering the gospel to others, it starts with being able to minister the gospel to yourself. If you are having a hard time having the courage to give the gospel to others, you need to start by proclaiming the gospel to yourself that you were a wicked sinner, that you were poor in spirit, that Christ filled you up with the Spirit, gave you wealth beyond degree of his righteousness, and he has determined it to be this way, that you would proclaim the same gospel to the world, in which some will scoff, some will respond. Nevertheless, it's all according to his great plan to be the wisdom displayed in the church.

And so, the Apostle Paul, a minister of the gospel, was suffering from his ministry because of bad responses from people he was trying to minister to. He says, though I suffer, don't lose heart. This ministry is a gift from God, empowered by him in my weakness, he tells us. The message preached, the glorious result, the sure success of this mystery is not rooted in them, but in God. so if you're a person who has heard the voice of Jesus and one of his ministers and have responded part of the wisdom you are manifesting to the angels is to be a minister yourself are you embracing the ministry God has gifted you with or have you lost heart overcome by any level of suffering that may come by the reactions of those you are trying to minister to So put your confidence in the message that God has purposed for success.

The one that has chosen people, cannot reject, even while the rest scoff. The one that has chosen to bring in people to be in the church, the rest will scoff, but those whom he has chosen will respond. Put your confidence in the way God has chosen to reveal his manifold wisdom in Christ. Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, we thank you for the ministry. We thank you, Lord, that although we are weak, as Paul is weak, although, Lord, of our own selves we cannot do any good, we know that it is a purpose that you have, that our strength would come from Christ.

We know that we have been made righteous by Christ. We know that we have a right relationship through him, Lord, and you have called us now to proclaim this gospel that has saved us to others. And we know the sure success of it, Lord, because you have saved us. You have saved even me. And so that same success can be found in anyone whom you call out to join the church.

And so, Lord, let this encourage us to minister the gospel. Let us not, Lord, be distracted by the many things that can be distracting. Lord, help us to have a desire to make it understandable as much as possible to the world. And help us, Lord, not to needlessly offend people as an act of pride or whatever it might be. But let us be willing to be faithful to the gospel even if that means offending the world, showing their sins, their need for Christ, for the sake that they would see the richness of Christ.

Let that be what drives us. And God in heaven, whenever we feel weak, whenever perhaps we have had so many rejections or people scoffing and we want to lose heart, let us be like the Apostle Paul who was the first minister after Christ, that we would, Lord, remind ourselves it's not about exactly their responses, but it's about what God, what you are doing in this whole thing, revealing your wisdom in the church, even through the sufferings, even through the scoffings, because we know that you will save your people. So let us be faithful as your people to be faithful to this gospel message as ministers.

And Lord, let us be looking for opportunities to minister this gospel. Many times there's opportunities all around, Lord, and our hearts and minds are just not on it. I pray, God, that we would take it seriously, Lord, that this is what you've called us to do and that through your strength you can enable us to do it by your grace. Thank you so much for being kind to us, to think that we could be still in our sins, enjoying our sins and living a life of death.

Instead, you've called us out to this great purpose that you have to be the wisdom displayed. Thank you for being so kind to us in Jesus. May he be glorified in us. In Jesus' name, amen.