Sacred Secrets

Well, almost everyone of us, I suppose, loves a good drama, whether it's a book or a movie, just a good dramatic story. I'm talking about the kind of story that has real suspense and mystery, the kind of story that you just can't quite put all the pieces of the puzzle together. You're not sure how it all fits, and then all of a sudden something happens and you recognize you begin to think, oh, okay, now I got it. That's why that happened. Well, that's why she said what she did an hour ago in the movie. And it begins to fit together. The pieces begin to come together. And it's really a good drama. You can tell if it's really good. If you want to go back and watch the movie again, because now you have the secret, you have the clue, and you want to make sure you understand all the twists and turns in the plot based on the knowledge you now have of how it's going to turn out. That's when you know it's really a good movie. Now I drive my family crazy with movies like that. If we're watching a movie that I've already seen, they hate it. Because I pause it and say, now did you hear what they said? Remember that, that's really important later on. Did you see what happened there? You got to remember that. I just drive them crazy with that kind of thing. But it's exciting to me to go back through it knowing the important twists and turns now because I know there's a point in the movie where all that's going to be important. Well, that's exactly what Paul does in Ephesians chapter 3. So open your Bibles and we're going to find out some plots and some twists and turns here that God has for us in revealing His plan and purpose for the ages for all of human history. There are times when you're given a secret, something that has been purposefully held back and then is made known at just the right time that helps everything fit together. That's exactly what we find here this morning in Ephesians 3. Paul is going to reveal to us in this chapter in the first 13 verses three secrets, sacred secrets that help us understand everything God's trying to do. Everything He is doing in this run of human history. Now the amazing thing is we almost didn't get these three secrets. We almost didn't get them. If you look at verse 1, I want you to see something that Paul does. For this reason I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of Eugentiles, then there's a pause. It's indicated by a long dash in the NIV and then he breaks into another train of thought in verse 2. He says, surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace. It was given to me for you just in case they hadn't. He explains what it is for the next 11, 12 verses all the way through verse 13. He doesn't pick up on his original thought till verse 14. You see how verse 14 starts? It's exactly the same way verse 1 started. For this reason I kneel before the Father. I'm convinced that what was happening here is that Paul at the beginning of chapter 3 was ready to launch into a prayer for the Ephesians to really grasp and understand all of the wonderful things he had just written about in chapters 1 and 2. And so he starts out by saying, for this reason, you know, the apostle for Eugentiles and he's going to start into this prayer and then all of a sudden he backtracks a little bit. He's got a parenthesis here. There's a digression here to what he's been talking about in chapter 2 and he says, you know, I want to go over that again, explain that a little bit more thoroughly. Now for those of us who believe that every word of the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, this is not an accident. This is an intentional, spirit-led digression, a holy parenthesis where the Holy Spirit wanted us to know some things and he puts it in this passage. In fact, there are three divine secrets, sacred secrets that Paul reveals in this passage that if he hadn't been sensitive to the Holy Spirit leading him, we would never have gotten. The first one is the mystery of the church. This is the sacred secret. Number one, that Paul reveals to us here is the mystery of the church. Let's read verses two through six. Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. That is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to me in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and shepherds together in the promise in Christ Jesus. Now three times in those verses, he refers to the word mystery. He'll use it again in verse nine. So four times in this passage this morning, we find the word mystery. What is this mystery? Well, let's begin with an explanation of mystery, of just the word mystery. We need to understand that before we can grasp what Paul's talking about here. We need to understand how he's using the word mystery. It's obviously a key word in this text of Scripture. Now, if you were to look up mystery in Webster's dictionary, particularly the word mysterious, which we use a lot, you would find this definition in Webster's. Mysterious is something that excites wonder, curiosity, or surprise, while baffling or eluding efforts to explain or understand. That's how Webster's defines mysterious, or a mystery, something that, you know, intrigues you. It's interesting. It's surprising, maybe, but you can't explain it. You can't fully understand it. What's going on? Maybe it's kind of unveiled in layers or stages. That's something mysterious. Well, there's a little bit of that in what Paul's talking about here, but there's much more, there's a much more defined and focused use of the word mystery in the Bible. In the Bible, when Paul uses the word mystery, basically there are two elements found in this word. The first element in the Bible use of the word mystery, and what Paul is talking about, is a mystery is something you would never know unless God revealed it to you. You would never be able to figure this out on your own. You would never be able to come to the conclusions of this truth by your own senses or your own mind logically thinking or even your own intuition if you're a woman. You would never be able to come to this on your own. It has to be revealed by God. Now Paul talks about that and lays this out beautifully for us in his own words, much better than I could in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 9 and 10, where he says, however, as it is written, notice, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, this can't come to us through our senses. No mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. Now look at verse 10, but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. Now I know that when most of us read verse 9, we think that's talking about heaven. And certainly heaven is a wonderful place that we just can't grasp with our senses and we can't imagine with our minds, but that in the context is not what Paul's talking about. Not talking about heaven, because he goes on in verse 10 to say, God has revealed it to us and God has not revealed to us all of what waits us in heaven. We don't know that yet. But whatever Paul's talking about, God has revealed to us, and if you read the whole passage, he's talking about the apostles receiving revelation from God and he even uses this expression, expressing spiritual thoughts in spiritual words. What he's talking about is the writing of the Bible. The New Testament, particularly by the apostles, this is revelation that came from God. You could never get on your own. You would never know by the five senses that we have or your mind or intuition. You can only know it because God chooses to unveil it, to reveal it. And he's done that in his word. So that's one element of the meaning of the word mystery. The second element that Paul is into when he uses the word mystery is this. And that is that this thing that was revealed by God, this truth revealed by God, has not been revealed in the past, but God chooses a particular point in human history to make it known, to reveal it. And he tells us quite clearly when that time is in this passage, in relationship to this mystery we're going to talk about. Verse 5, notice, he says this mystery, which was not made known to men in other generations, talking about the past, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. Now, quite clearly, what he's saying there is this mystery, whatever it is, and we'll get to that in a moment, hang on to this thought because it'll be important later, do you what I do to my family. Whatever this mystery is, it was not revealed in the Old Testament in past generations, but it has now been revealed. Now is a key word, and even the tense of the verb revealed, which is in a tense, which indicates this is a specific revelation of God for right now, this is where it starts, this revelation of God, this unveiling of this truth, this mystery starts with the apostles and prophets, talking about New Testament apostles and prophets, the men who laid the foundation of the church. So whatever this mystery is, it was not known in Old Testament times, it has been revealed to the apostles, it is truth that is revealed for this age, we call the church age. So this is not something that was understood in the Old Testament. Even little glimpses that Old Testament writers and prophets had of what God was going to do in the future are not completely understood without the fullness of New Testament truth. Then we can go back and kind of say, okay, that's what they were talking about back in Isaiah, that it's really clear now in the New Testament. So this is New Testament revelation by God's apostles and prophets, okay? That's the meaning, the explanation of mystery in the Bible, something that we could never get on our own has to be revealed by God, and God held it from the human race for a period of time and picked a particular time to introduce it to reveal it, to make the mystery known, and in this case, the mystery was known to New Testament prophets and apostles. Okay, that's the explanation. Secondly, we need to understand about the revelation of this mystery, to whom was it revealed then? Well, first of all, it was revealed to Paul. Very clearly, Paul makes the case in verses 2 through 4, that this was uniquely revealed to him, this mystery. Notice what he says in verse 2, surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. Now the word administration is a word, some translations have the word dispensation, it's really the word stewardship. It has to do with the management of someone else's business. You see, in the Bible, a steward was a household servant who ran the household for the master. He passed out the daily duties to the other servants, he would take care of all the bookkeeping, he would make sure the crops got planted on time, that the harvesting started at the right time, that everything was taken care of. Meals were prepared, goods were ordered on time, he just ran the household for the master. That was a steward. And Paul uses that word here of his own place in the church of being a special steward given a special administration or stewardship by God to give this mystery to the church. So Paul is unique to some extent in receiving and giving this mystery to the church. He says in verse 3, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I've already written briefly, he's already talked about it a little bit in chapter 2, we're going to see that the mystery is talking about the body of Christ, Jew and Gentile being in one body. Paul says, we already talked about it a little bit, it was revealed to me, verse 4, in reading this then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. Word insights, an interesting word, it's a Greek word that means to bring together. The word insight is a good word to describe the bringing together of knowledge and understanding, so that you not only know something, but you deeply understand that you have a full grasp of that truth. It's a bringing together, knowledge and understanding. Paul says, I have the bringing together, God's given it to me, of the knowledge and understanding of this mystery. So Paul in a unique way was the one to whom God revealed this mystery, but he was not the only one. God took a little more time with him, revealed more of it to him, so that he would explain it in the New Testament epistles, but he says in verse 5, it was also revealed to God's holy apostles and prophets, other New Testament men like Peter, James and John, apostles like that. For instance, you remember the story in Acts 10 of Peter when God, he was praying and God let down a sheet, he had a vision of a sheet, and on this sheet there were all kinds of unclean animals according to Jewish food laws. Peter was a good Jew, he wouldn't eat those things, but God said, rise up Peter, kill and eat. You can eat anything on that sheet. Peter says, no Lord, I'm a good Jew, I don't eat unclean animals. And the Lord said, that's gone, Peter. And what he was showing Peter was that this was a new day, God was doing a new work, that Jew and Gentile would come together in the body of Christ, and there would be no distinction like there was in the Old Testament. Peter saw that, and other apostles saw that too. So the revelation of this mystery was primarily to Paul, but also to other apostles and prophets. Now, what is this mystery? What is the mystery we're talking about? This mystery that we would not know on our own has to be revealed by God, was held back for a long period of time, revealed in the New Testament, especially to Paul, but to other apostles and prophets. What is it? What are we talking about? Verse 6 gives us the identification of this mystery. The mystery, this mystery is, here it is, that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. You see the word together? Up here's three times in that verse. It's key word. What he's talking about is that God is doing a new thing now to bring Jew and Gentile together, as he explained to us back in chapter 2 in one body called the church. It is the church, the bring of Jew and Gentile together in one body, which is new and revolutionary. That's this mystery that was not known in Old Testament times, but is now revealed in New Testament times. And notice he implies this or explains it in three ways. He says through the gospel, Gentiles. Last week we saw in chapter 2, they were far from God apart from all the promises of Israel and all that. But now through the gospel, Gentiles are heirs together with Israel. That means you both are sharers of the inheritance that God has given you in Christ. Equally, it's not like in the Old Testament, remember the Old Testament law about inheritance? The first born son got a double portion. If you were the second born son, you only got half as much. But in the church, Jew and Gentile get equal. Equal inheritance. Everybody's on the same level when it comes to what we receive from Christ. But not only are we heirs together, he says we are members together of one body, both in the same body. And the emphasis is equally in the same body. It's not like Gentiles, other proverbial red-headed step-sister, you know, that kind of, you're not really part of the family. Not like that. It's that Jew and Gentile are equal members together in the body. And then notice, third thing he says is they are sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. In other words, everything Christ has promised us in salvation and in heaven, Jew and Gentile share together equally. I cannot explain to you how revolutionary that was to the Jewish mind. That would just completely blow their whole theology out of the water. Because Jews in Bible times were used to their Old Testament destiny given to them by God. They are the favored nation of God in the Old Testament. The people of God, through whom God will bring light and the gospel to the Gentiles. Yes, but they are the favored nation of God, the favored people of God. And what God is saying is this new truth that I didn't reveal in the Old Testament. But I'm revealing now is that I'm doing something different now. It's not about the Jewish nation being the people of God. I've got a new people of God, the body of Christ, the church, and it's combined of Jew and Gentile on an equal plane, equal level. And that's why so many Jews in New Testament times had difficulty grasping this. It was so revolutionary to their concept of the people of God. And by the way, a lot of folks still struggle with this. What I'm telling you this morning is one of the interpretive keys of the whole Bible. In other words, it is one of the clues, one of the tremendous keys to understanding your whole Bible is to understand the distinction between Israel and the church. In the Old Testament, under the Mosaic law, God had His people Israel, and He dealt with them in a certain way through the Mosaic law that He does not deal with the church in the same way. The church is a different work of God composed of Jew and Gentile equally in the body of Christ. And it's not the same work of God. God has temporarily set aside His program for Israel. He's going to come back to it. When He comes back to rule in the millennium, sets up His kingdom, Israel will again be His special covenant people. All the nations of the world will flow into Jerusalem. The Bible says to worship in that time, Israel will be the prince of the nations again. But for this time period that we're living in, God is doing a new work through the church, and the failure to understand that distinction causes people a lot of confusion in understanding their Bible. I've had folks just argue with me to their last breath, well, not their last breath, but to the last one. We could get out very well that we are under the Sabbath laws. You know, that we're supposed to be, and one guy just give me all kinds of literature and try to push this at me, that we are supposed to worship on Saturday. Because the Bible says, keep the Sabbath. Well, yeah, it says that to Israel. That was God's plan for Israel. It's not the church and the failure to distinguish what God had for Israel and what God has for the church creates untold confusion among people. He had someone else that tried to tell me one time that they were going to read through their Old Testament, and everything God told them to do, they were going to do. And they were challenging me about some of the things they were reading that God told Israel to do in the Old Testament. Why aren't you doing that? And we need to be doing that. And so I just sat them down, and it was after service here on Sunday, and it's not who you're thinking it is, someone else. In fact, it's not someone who even goes to church here. They were visiting that Sunday, and they sat me down. And I really believe it's important for us to keep all the commands of God. Even in the Old Testament, I said, are you going to build a wall around your house on the roof? Kind of looked at me. I showed them in the Old Testament where, you know, in Old Testament times they had flat roofs, and it was a place where you went up in the cool of the day to meditate. So they were required by the mosaic law to build a parapet, a fence around the edge of their roof, so people wouldn't wander off, you know, and fall off the roof. Is there, are you going to do that? I asked them if they were going to let their gardens sit still every seventh year and not plant it. And I asked them some other specific things, the Bible commands in the Old Testament, but those are commands to the Jewish nation. They're not commands to the church. And the failure to distinguish those two works of God causes untold confusion among the people of God. What I'm saying is very important in understanding your Bible, and that is the mystery of the church. That's a work that God is doing in this age that is not the same thing as his work with Israel. We need to understand that, but that's only one of the three mysteries that Paul reveals to us in this parenthesis, in this digression here. The second mystery has to do with the ministry of the gospel. There are some secrets here, friend. Some secrets that many folks in the church don't know. In fact, there are secrets here about the ministry of the gospel that a lot of pastors don't know. I'm not sure, I know it as I should, but there are secrets about what God wants the ministry of the gospel to be. Would you look at them with me? In verse 7, he describes, first of all, the practice of the ministry, how the ministry is to be carried out. The ministry of the gospel is to be carried out this way. Verse 7, I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace, given me, through the working of his power. You notice those three phrases? First of all, a servant of the gospel. The practice of the ministry is that we are servants. Those who have been called the minister of the gospel are servants. The word is de-Akanas. It's a Greek word which means a table waiter, a servant, a household servant who waits on tables, who is standing in the corner, and it's not about them, it's about the people at the table. It's about what they need, how they want the table settings, what kind of food they want, when they want it served. The servant's agenda is subservient to the needs. And that's what we are who minister the gospel. We are supposed to be servants, and the practice of the ministry is a practice of servant hood. I like what John MacArthur and his excellent commentary on Ephesians says about this text. I want to read it to you. He says then or now the man who is genuinely called by God is in constant danger of losing his effectiveness by coming to think of himself as more than a servant. When he loses his sense of servant hood, at that same time, he loses his spiritual power and usefulness. When he exalts himself and begins to work in his own human power and according to his own plans, he competes with God and forfeits his spiritual power. To lose dependence, MacArthur says, is to lose everything. Because everything that is of any value in our lives, including power for effective service, comes only from the Lord. Among the greatest dangers to the ministry and to all faithful Christian living, are things that in the world's eyes are of supreme value, personal ambition, prestige, recognition, honor, reputation, and success. That is a good statement. And what he's saying is what Paul is saying is that if those of us who are called to minister the gospel ever lose the idea that we are servants, then we lose the effectiveness and the power to minister because it all becomes about us and building our own little kingdom. And that's not what ministry is supposed to be. We are supposed to be servants of the gospel. Secondly, the practice of ministry is to be done according to the way God's gifted us. You see it in verse 7? Paul says, I became a servant of the gospel by the gift of God's grace, given me. Now Paul had some gifts that God had given him that Peter didn't have and that a Paulist didn't have and other New Testament preachers didn't have and some of those preachers had some gifts that Paul didn't have. And you know what the danger is in ministry is trying to be somebody else, trying to do what they do and their giftedness and effectiveness or longing for the kinds of gifts that somebody else has and forgetting that God has gifted each of us to do something in our own realm and what he wants us to do and to look at someone else and say, boy, I just wish I could do what he does or what that church does. That is to forfeit our own effectiveness. And so the ministry, the practice of the ministry is to be a servanthood ministry. It is to be according to the giftedness that God's given us and thirdly, it is to be according to his power. Notice there at the end of the verse through the working of his power. In other words, any ministry that is going to be used of God or anyone who ministers the gospel must do it in the power of God with utter dependence on him. The very minute that anybody who ministers the word of God begins to depend upon natural ability, whatever that might be, or on experience, done this for so long, I can get up and just let it go. You begin to depend on that, you're done. You're done as far as God's concerned. If you begin to depend upon experience or preparation, boy, I worked hard and prepared this well, man, I'm ready to go. Are you really? Where's God's power in this? If we ever lose our sense of dependence on God's power, and I'm talking to preachers this morning, talking to Sunday school teachers, and anyone else just living the Christian life is the same way. If we ever lose our dependence upon the power of God, then we will not accomplish anything that is valuable in God's eyes. We may impress people, we may wow people, with natural ability and so forth, but nothing of eternal value will be accomplished. This is the way ministry is to be practiced, this is where it's believed out. But I want you to notice not only the practice of ministry, notice what Paul says, and this is a secret to many of us, and that is the privilege of ministry. Notice what he says in verses 8 and 9 about the privilege of ministry, he says three things again. I like the way Paul did everything in threes. Verse 8, although I am least less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me. Now, as Paul just trying to be kind of super humble here, you know, and I don't want you to think much of me, I'm less than the least of all saints. This was not a false piety or false humility here. Paul really felt this way. I believe Paul really, because he mentions it two other times, and actually gives us two reasons why he felt this way in two other passages. Paul really believed he was less than the least of all saints, and he could never get over the fact that God took someone like him and put him in the ministry. He could never get over that. The privilege of being in the ministry. One thing Paul could never get over was his sinfulness, and how God could take someone as sinful as him and put him in the ministry. He said that in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 15, look at this verse, he says, here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst. And Paul meant that. He really believed. You know why he believed that? Because he knew something about the holiness of God that a lot of us miss. Paul was so impressed with God's holiness that it brought into sharp relief and contrast his own sinfulness, and he never got over the fact that God could take a sinner like him and actually use him in ministry. What a privilege. But Paul also never got over his past. That's another thing that made him realize the privilege of actually being in ministry was his past. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, this about his past. He said, for I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle. Here it is. Here's why. Because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. Paul never got over the fact that the one whose whose whole ambition in life early on was to persecute the Church, destroy the Church, kill as many believers as he could. God took that very same person and put him into the ministry to preach the gospel to build the Church. Paul could never get over that. And he said, you know what? I am just privileged to even be in the ministry. And if we never get over that, if we feel like, if we never get over the great privilege, God has given us those of us who are in ministry, then if we ever get over that, if we ever feel like we deserve this or how blessed people are to have us in ministry, then we have got a totally worldly self-centered perspective. Paul never got over the fact that it was a great privilege to be in the ministry. But it was not only a privilege to be in the ministry. Notice he says it was a privilege to preach the riches of Christ. You see that in verse 8. Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me, and here it is, to preach to the Gentiles the unsurchable riches of Christ. Paul could never get over the privilege of being called the preach, the riches of Christ. And those riches are unsurchable. You cannot fully understand them, know them, search them out, track them down. You get somewhere and understanding them and you find there's more to understand. Paul could never get over the privilege of preaching Christ. And you know what that's what ministry is about. Now there's a lot to preach if you preach the Bible. If you preach the Bible, you'll preach about finances and you'll preach about marriage relationships and you'll preach about raising children and you'll preach about a lot of things, but everything centers around Christ. Jesus Christ. And what a privilege to preach to other people, the unsurchable riches of Christ. And what Christ has done to make all the rest of life come together in the right way. There is no greater privilege than that. Arturo Toscanini has long been recognized as one of the greatest of all the conductors of classical music. His greatest years when he did the most recording was between 1924 and 1954 when he died. He was the great conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, also conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. But his real strength was Beethoven. He loved to conduct the symphonies and the concertos of Beethoven. In fact, I've heard his collection, his recordings with the NBC Symphony Orchestra of the nine Beethoven symphonies and they are without parallel. They really are masterpieces of classical music. Toscanini won night finish to concert in which he had focused on Beethoven and conducted one of the Beethoven symphonies. And the crowd just went wild at the end of the concert. And it was tremendous. And there were applauses and calls for him to come back on stage and he came back and they did a couple of more pieces and curtain calls finally Toscanini turned his back to the crowd that was still applauding and he said to the orchestra who was standing by now. He said, you are nothing. I am nothing. Beethoven is everything. That's the way he felt about his music. That's the way we need to feel about ministry. I'm nothing, you're nothing. Christ is everything. If we ever lose that perspective, we lose a biblical perspective of ministry. So the privilege of ministry is the privilege to actually be in the ministry or to preach the riches of Christ but also notice the privilege of making plain God's truth. What a privilege. Look at verse 9. And to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. I tell you friends, there is no greater privilege for a preacher of the gospel than to have the opportunity to make plain the riches of God's word, the truths of God's word. There's nothing like that. To be able to study the word of God so that you finally begin to understand how this kind of fits together and what it means and then to do the hard work of figuring out how do you put this together in a way and teach it and preach it so that it will be plain and clear and apply it and illustrate it so that we get it. And when it actually happens, when you're in a setting like this and you're trying to make plain what God's word says and you start seeing lights go on, you start seeing people recognize and grasp truth. There is no greater thrill than that in the world. Now I've had a few thrills and fun times and great experiences in this world but there's nothing that can compare to the privilege of being able to proclaim God's word. Now there's the other side of it too where you see people nodding off and that kind of thing too. We see that too and that's because you're on medication, right? Yeah. But when you see something happening and you see God turning on lights and people's minds and hearts and you see people grappling with truth, you can almost see decisions being made. There is no greater privilege than to be a part of that. It's tremendous privilege. And if you ever lose the sense, if I ever lose any of us who minister the word, ever lose the privilege that God's given us to do that, then we have a polluted view of ministry. I love Kent Hughes. Kent Hughes is the pastor of college church in Wheaton, Illinois. He's a great preacher of the word. Had the privilege of sitting in a class taught by him a few years ago and just a magnificent pastor and minister of the word of God. He's written a whole series of commentaries, most of them New Testament, a few Old Testament, called preaching the word. The series is called preaching the word. And in the preface to each of those books, he has the same preface for every book and it's called a word to those who preach the word. And it's just kind of preacher talk. And could I just let you in on a little bit of it this morning? Not the whole two pages but just the two paragraphs. He starts out this way. He says, there are times when I am preaching that I have especially sensed the pleasure of God. I usually become aware of it through the unnatural silence, the ever present coughing ceases, and the pews stop creaking, bringing an almost physical quiet in the sanctuary through which my words sail like arrows. I experience a heightened eloquence so that the cadence and volume of my voice intensify the truth I am preaching. He says, there is nothing quite like it. The Holy Spirit filling one's sails. The sense of his pleasure and the awareness that something is happening among one's hearers. This experience is of course, he says, not unique to me. For thousands of preachers have had similar experiences, even greater ones. What he's talking about there, I've had the privilege of experiencing a few times. I wish I could say it that I've experienced it every time I preach. I don't know if it's just a sovereign work of God or what. He chooses when he will do and when he won't. I don't know. But I do know this. There are times when you sense that God is doing something special as the word is being preached and honestly it is almost like an out of body experience. Now don't start throwing tomatoes and stuff. I'm not a weirdo. I'm not a wacko. But it's almost as though you're standing outside yourself watching what is happening and the Holy Spirit has said, just move out of the way. I'm taking over. I'm going to do something with the Word of God that you could never do. And when that happens, I want to tell you, there is no privilege in this world like that. You can't get me back down on this earth walking on terra firma for hours after that happens. I'm going to tell you tonight about an experience in Venezuela where that happened, where I was totally beyond my comfort zone and God just took over. And when that was over, I just was in awe of what God had done. I cannot explain to you the privilege of being able to be a part of that. If anybody who ever ministers the Word of God ever loses that sense of the privilege of being in ministry, then we have corrupted and polluted something God wanted to be special. It's a secret that I'm afraid a lot of us don't know enough about, but Paul understood it, the ministry of the gospel. But there's one other secret. Oh, this one is so neat. If I could use a 70s word, so neat. And that is the manifold wisdom of God. In verses 10 through 13, we'll probably just have time to look at verse 10. But this is where the meat of it is. In verse 10, he talks about this manifold wisdom of God. You see it there, verse 10. His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Now let's look first of all what it is. This manifold wisdom of God, what is it? What's he talking about there? Manifold wisdom of God, the word manifold has nothing to do with an automobile. Okay, it means very colored or multicolored. It has the idea of all of the angles and shades, all of the beauty and variety of God's wisdom as it is seen in salvation. God's wise plan of redeeming people to Himself, all the shades and sides and angles and sparkles of that, all of that is the manifold wisdom of God. That's what it is. But I want you to also see how it is shown. Verse 10 tells us that that is shown through the church. It is shown, this manifold wisdom of God is shown through the church. The church is the demonstration of God's wisdom and all of its beauty and angles and variety of things that God is doing in His wise plan of salvation. He's showing that through the church. Here's how it works. In the church, as we've already seen in this context, God is bringing together people from totally different backgrounds, Jew and Gentile, New Testament times, other backgrounds today, but Jew and Gentile, totally different backgrounds, bringing them together in one body, one new man, the church. And you know what He's doing? He's showing all of the universe, all of heaven, a little bit of what it's going to be like when He fulfills His perfect plan and brings all of this universe under His control and destiny and what it was intended to be. He's already talked about that a little bit back in chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 when He says there is a time in the fulfillment of times when He will bring all things together under Him who is the head Jesus Christ. He talks about the same thing in Colossians 1, 20 where He says and through Him to reconcile that means to bring together to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through His bloodshed on the cross. You see there is a future time in the fulfillment of all things when Jesus Christ will bring all things in the universe to their intended fulfillment, their destiny that He has planned long ago and made possible through His death on the cross and everything will be perfect. And it is as though God is saying I'm giving you a little model of that right now in the church. I'm showing you in the church just a little glimpse of what it's like for me to bring things together. Jew and Gentile together in one body. Now bringing you together and a little model of what I'm going to do someday in eternity is found in the church. But you know what intrigues me the most about this passage, verse 10 and that is who is watching all this? Who is He showing this to? He's showing His manifold wisdom through the church but who's watching? Notice what He says there in verse 10. His intent was that now through the church the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Who's that? Angels. If you trace that expression through Paul's epistles, he uses it a couple more times in Ephesians. Sometimes he'll include the word principalities and powers, those kinds of words. He's talking about angels. Did you know that the church is on display to the angels in heaven? And it is to the angels in heaven that God is showing this great work of what He's doing. I want to show you this little model of what it's going to be like in eternity when I bring all things together. Got a little picture of it right now. It's in the church. Angels, look, look, I want you to see this. Now what that tells me is that angels don't know everything about what God's doing. They're not omniscient like God. God's the only one that has all knowledge. And evidently God has chosen to withhold some information even from the angels about what He's going to do in eternity and how everything's going to turn out. Now they would know as much as we know from the Bible, but they don't know all the details yet. They don't know everything and how it's going to work out. You know the angels have been around a lot and they've seen a lot. The Bible says the angels rejoiced and sang, Job 38, when God created the universe. They were there and they sang and they rejoiced and then they observed in abject horror as they watched Satan attempt Adam and Eve in the garden and they saw Adam and Eve sin and dragged the whole human race into sin with them. Then they watched with interest as God chose a man, Abraham, and through him built a nation, through whom the Messiah would come to remedy that sin problem someday. They watched with keen interest as they all developed in the Old Testament and they saw all the animal sacrifices and how they pictured and portrayed the ultimate sacrifice Jesus Christ someday. They watched that with great interest and then came the time the Bible calls in the fullness of time when it was just right and God said to some of the angels, come here, got a message for you to give. You need to announce the birth of my son and so the angels went Gabriel and announced to Mary and then to Joseph and then finally to the shepherds. By the time they got to the shepherds all the angels were just crying out and praised to God. They couldn't hold it back anymore. All of heaven broke forth in this wonderful joy of the fact that Messiah has come. They watched him as he grew up. They were with him in the wilderness to provide for his needs. The Bible says an angel strengthened him in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed and swept great drops of blood. 72,000 angels were waiting at heaven's gate to come if Jesus should call them while he was on the cross. Jesus Himself said six legions of angels. 72,000 angels, 12 legions of angels. 72,000 waiting, perched at heaven's gate. If Jesus had given the call, if he had given the signal, they would have come and delivered him from the cross. When you think in the Old Testament one angel killed 185,000 of the Syrian soldiers think about 72,000 angels would have done. They were waiting but they didn't come because he never called and so they waited three more days. And they had the joy of announcing that Jesus was alive. He was resurrected from the grave. And they waited for him as 40 days later. He ascended back into heaven and the Bible talks about that great procession. The angels lining the streets like a victory parade as Jesus has led to his throne and exalted as the king of all and the head of the church and the angels are erupting with all of heaven's applause. And then it is as though Jesus says, okay, okay, thank you. Thank you. Now, I was quite down angels. I got something to show you. I want to show you a little model of what it's going to be like in the fullness of times when everything in human history is finished and I bring it all together in my grand purpose for human history. I want to show you a little model of this. Now watch, watch. It's the church. It's the church. That's why it is so important that we have unity in the church. That's why it's so important. We understand our purpose and diligently pursue it because the angels are watching. We are on display for the angels and God is using us as a model to show the angels. This is what it's supposed to look like and will look like someday when I bring all of human history to its final conclusion. It's a little model of it in the church and when we mess it up, when we mess it up, what must the angels think? My friend, all of these secrets revolve around the church. The mystery of the church. Yes, the ministry of the gospel is for the church. The manifold wisdom of God in all of the plan for human history is modeled in the church. I want to say something this morning in closing and that is if the church is that important to God, it ought to be that important to us. The church is not an option for believers. The church is not an issue of convenience for us. We are God's model for the angels as to what He wants to do with all of human history. It's that important. The church is not just something, well I'll take it or leave it. You don't have to come to church to be saved but neither do you have to go home to be married. You can be married without ever going home or without spending much time at home but I'll guarantee you this if you're not very much at home, if you're not there very much your marriage is going to suffer. Your relationship is going to suffer. If you're not in God's house with God's people very much your relationship is going to suffer. You don't have to be in church to be saved. No, it's not the deal, it's not the issue and I'm not legalistic about this kind of stuff but I do believe what's important to the heart of God ought to be important to us. So my friend when you come to church come to worship with all of your heart. Don't sit there, don't just stay in there and do nothing when we're singing these great songs. That's our opportunity to show the angels that we join with them in a glorious adoration of our great God and Savior. Do it with all your heart. Don't care how you sound, that's not the issue. The issue is the heart cry to God when you're worshiping and my friend if all you ever come to is a worship service in this church you're robbing yourself and you're robbing this church of all that it was meant to be. Now please understand, I'm not legalistic with that. I know schedules are busy today and I know it's difficult to be here every time the door is open some of you just can't do that but I'll tell you what this is the Lord's day it's not man's day and there are times when we need to set some other things aside and say the Lord comes first it's not about me and my convenience it's about him and if the church is important enough for Jesus to die for and to put on display before the angels there ought to be something about this that's important to us. If you're not in a place where you can get some fellowship beyond this large crowd in a Bible fellowship or some ministry or smaller group where you're serving with other people where you can get some fellowship and caring important parts of what the New Testament says the church ought to be about you're just robbing yourself because that's the glory of the church and if you're not serving in some way or involved in evangelism those are the purposes of the church it's what we're here for. I know I know no church is perfect we are certainly not perfect there are times when we miss things and there are times when we get stuff wrong we go around kicking ourselves and saying man why did that happen why couldn't we done a better job there we're not perfect you heard about the guy that was stranded didn't you heard about well even if you didn't I'm gonna tell you guy was stranded on an island after a ship rack and he lived there several years I don't know if his name was Tom Hanks or well but anyway he was stranded on an island for several years and and while he was there he built three huts and one day a ship came by and he built a fire they found him and captain the ship came on the island and said we're you know we're here to rescue you and and just before we go tell me what are these three huts and the guy says well this one over here is my house I built it to live in and the captain says well what's that went over there he says well that's that's my church that's where I go to church and the captain said well what's that third one over there the guy said well that's where I used to go to church but I got fed up with that one and I built another one now I understand how God sometimes moves us around you know all that I understand all that I'm not picking on people but but you know sometimes we can find stuff wrong with the church if we're the only one there and and we all know we're not perfect this church is not perfect sometimes we blow it but we must be committed to God's work in the local church and try to help make it better rather than complain about it being wrong this is God's work and we can all help make it better and so we've got to be a part of this great work one one pastor who had served all of his years all of his ministry and a rural mountain village toward the end of his ministry decided what can I leave as a legacy to this little village you decided to build a church building and so he did nobody saw the plans of it until it was finished and when it was finished the congregation came and they looked around they were just odd at the beauty and symmetry and just wonderful little building for their use there in that church and this is what this pastor would leave as a legacy but somebody noticed there were no lamps in the building and in that day and time you had to use lamps oil lamps or caracene lamps to light the inside of the church building but there were none there so they asked the preacher where are the lamps and he took them over to the walls and showed them little hooks inside of the wall and then he gave each family a lamp he said when you come and you sit here you hang your lamp your part of the church will be lightened when you're not here your part of the church will be dark would you pray with me please Father help us to recognize how important your church is it's not about us it's not about us building something for ourselves Lord it's about you showing the angels of heaven what you're doing on planet earth and that we could be a part of that the greatest privilege you've given us outside of heaven itself so Father help us to take the church seriously not to see it is just an inconvenience or something that is a minor part of our busy lives help us to put the focus on the church that you put on the church to see it's importance and Father I pray especially for anyone who may be here this morning who's not saved who's never come into the body of Christ through knowing Christ as their savior that today would be the day when they will know they need you they will come and be saved we ask in Jesus name amen