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­­­­LSB Ephesians 3:1-13

1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 if indeed you heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 About which, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: 6 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for all what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;

It should come as no surprise, and we all rub up next to, and probably love, neighbors who are either Mason's or Mormons.

And both of those groups share in common mystery rituals and rites which must be gained by an initiation process, the revealing of mysteries, secret rituals, and oaths that you swear upon which if you break your oath, your throat will be slit from ear to ear.

That language made it into my lifetime, and may or may not still be officially in place, I'm not an expert, and modern political correctness may have buried those threats temporarily.

Masonry claims connections with Solomons temple, and even further back to the children of Israel while they were enslaved building pyramids in Egypt. And Mormonism has roots to masonry with many parallels.

During Paul's day, the so called mystery religions which sound ever so much like masonry and mormonism were rampant in Asia Minor where Ephesus was a dominant port city.

We are not surprised. Satan always parrot's what God is doing. He always deals in counterfeit truth. It's his modus operandi. It's how he rolls. Never had an original idea. He copies what God is doing and makes counterfeits that confuse the truth while they inflame the recipient with pride that God hates.

So Paul walks into Ephesus with the true mystery and uses all of the same language that the other mystery religions have already had in place and people are non plussed.

Looking back with our 20-20 hindsight, it's almost as if God hid truths on purpose and by design so that Satan's efforts at counterfeiting truth would be thwarted.

Peter states something interesting about what Paul speaks of here, of mysteries now revealed. 1 Peter 1:

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries, 11 inquiring to know what time or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been declared to you through those who proclaimed the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.

things into which angels long to look God has sectrets that He keeps to Himself and reveals at proper times set by Him.

Deuteronomy 29:29. Easy to remember. Perhaps God made it that way on purpose so we would remember; It says; “The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

God has secrets. Things in which the angels wish they could peer and understand. Information God witholds. Think about what Jesus said in Matt. 24:36 talking about His return at the end of the age. . . “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

Think of the mess Satan would make on earth if he knew the time and day when God will call the church home and the 7 years of Jacob's trouble will begin. Pandemonium would ensue. Or the day and hour when the door to the ark was sealed shut and the heavens opened up and the floods came. Or the day and hour in Sodom and Gomorrah when God rained down fire and brimstone on those cities.

God warns. He gives avenues of escape. No one listens. Judgement comes. God has secrets. Information He doesn't reveal. For His purposes, He doesn't tell us certain things. But likewise, God at the proper time and place that He has designed, reveals new information, formerly witheld.

One interesting illustration perhaps is Jesus, as He enters Jerusalem, for the last time before His murder. It's recorded in Luke 19 at the same time as His triumphal entry. When He comes next to Jerusalem what does He say;

41 And as He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it, 42 saying, “If you knew in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

This is a case where God did reveal a specific mystery with a date and time. In the Daniel 9:27 prophecy where God begins a clock on a specific day, the day when a decree is signed in Babylon. 70 weeks. 70 periods of time. 70 weeks of years. 490 years from a particular day that was well known to them.

At the end of the 69th week it says Messiah will be killed. Well He's weeping over Jerusalem because Messiah has arrived on the stated day and just as revealed, they should have known it was Him. All they had to do was the math. But they killed Him instead.

God reveals some mysteries and no one pays any mind, and He witholds some mysteries and the angels, and probably the demons, would like to have the information, but it all happens according to God's sovereign pre-determined schedule.

And we, by God's design, are naturally curious about the unseen, the spiritual. We have the desires within us, to know, what's out there. I'm fascinated by the star gazers. Personally, I've got no interest, because the book has already told me more than any telescope ever can. But people have this natural desire to find out.

And that desire, like all desires after the fall into sin, is corrupted. Broken. So people with the desire to know what's out there, and demon's who have an agenda to hold people captive in sin, you end up with all kinds of new age nonsense and weirdness.

Everything that can be known about the unseen world is in a single book. That's because God is beyond finding out. Only what He sovereignly chooses to reveal to us about Himself, and about other spirit beings including Satan, demons, and holy angels, can be known in surety.

God revels new information according to His sovereign design and pleasure. The old testament unfolded over millenia. 1500 years of God speaking to the patriarchs and then to His chosen people Israel through Moses and the prophets. God revealed Himself fully in that revelation.

Full theology of God is complete in the Old Testament scriptures. His character, His attributes, His love and His judgements, all made plain.
And His plan of redemption was promised. It would come through a Messiah. But God witheld much of His redemptive plan, especially regarding the nations.

He told Abraham, In you, all the nations will be blessed. Very general statement. And the jews got all caught up in their own national agendas with God and forgot about the nations. In fact, Jonah is a good case study. They hated the nations. But God didn't forget.

How and when God would bless the nations remained a mystery that frankly, the jews were just as well it never happened. Then they murdered their own Messiah. Then He arose from the dead. Then at pentecost, with Jesus disciples and apostles, something brand new happened.

A mystery revealed. Israel is temporarily set aside. Put on hold. The church age began at pentecost in Acts chapter 2. Paul defines it for us in Colossians 1:25b - 27 where Paul states the mystery clearly;

I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God given to me for you, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col 1:25-27

God has revealed a whopper, and tasked Paul with disseminating the information. God is no longer dealing through a nation. Israel is set aside. God is now working through His apostles and prophets of the church. And God is saving individuals and something new has come;

Christ in you. The hope of glory is Christ in you. Believers are individually and indivisibly fused with Jesus Christ by faith. He comes to live in my heart. I am IN Him. His identity is my new identity. Spirit indwelt christians are one person with Christ.

But there was more to it than that. The next part of the mystery is the shocker of shockers. Especially to the jews. Grace has arrived. It came via the jews. It was the Jewish Messiah who died in our place to purchase us and redeem us out of our sins.

But here's the shocker no one saw coming. The door has been thrown wide open to the gentiles. For centuries God only dealt with His people, the jews. No more. Something new has come. The church. The age of grace. And God is now dealing, one on one, individually, and you don't have to be a jew. Gentiles are getting the blessings.

The ancient city of Babylon gives us an illustration. The Euphrates river flowed right through the center of the city in 5th century BC. Babylon was a wonder of the ancient world. But some time in the 5th century the river changed course and bypassed Babylon and it was high and dry.

When archeologists found it's mounds there was nothing there but jackals and ostriches. Completely vanished.

We can think of Israel in a somewhat similar sense. The river of God flowed through it, until it didn't. They murdered their Messiah. And the river changed course. That river which is God, now flows through His church. God is working through individuals who have Christ living in them. Israel is set aside. Destitute. Uninhabited by God. High and dry, like Babylon of old.

That's temporary. God has not fulfilled all of the promises He made to Israel. They are set aside until the church is removed and the age of grace through the church closes. Then Israel will be front and center while the 70th week of Daniels prophecy unfolds. Jacobs trouble.

But this morning, zooming back out of the big picture, Paul is unfolding new mysteries that are freshly being revealed. Christ in you is the main mystery. God's dealing with national Israel, that river, has diverted and God is now dealing with individuals who are made one with Jesus.

But the shocker is this. Gentiles are getting saved in higher percentages than jews. The church is moving. Paul is taking God to the whole known gentile world, and the church, while it still holds onto it's jewish roots, is obviously going to be gentile nations. That mystery was brand new. Being revealed on the ground.

Shock and dismay for the jews. Change is difficult, right. And the church, begun in Jerusalem, the apostles and elders leading this new phenomenon, at Jerusalem. The first council of the church is held at Jerusalem in Acts 15. We read some of that together. The elders at Jerusalem, Peter, and James the elder.

But God forced the issue in 70AD when the Romans came down and dismantled Jerusalem. Utter destruction, including the Jewish temple and all of their historic tribal records. All gone.

And the fledgling church is forced out of Jerusalem and Antioch became the new mother church for a time. And historically it might be argued Ephesus was the main hub. The jewishness of the beginnings became less and less a prominent factor. God set His nation aside, sent them wandering the earth, and His church became mostly gentile nations.

The door is certainly still wide open for jews to come in, but they don't come in any different than anyone else. We consider them trophies of Grace when they do embrace their Messiah. But Paul recognizes that for the most part, a judgemental blindness has come over his own brethren, the jews. Listen to what Paul tells the Ephesians about this mystery revealed;

3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 About which, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit: 6 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,

Shock and awe that gentiles were included was the order of Paul's day. We're on the 21st floor in this building called the church, and for us, it's shock and awe and rejoicing on the occasion when a jew gets saved.

The mystery of God embracing the gentile nations was brand new then. It's so normative now that jewish christians seem set apart and special to us. Trophies of grace that we get excited about.

We need to pause for just a moment in verse 5.

5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit:

This is where all of the non dispensationalists need to get embarrassingly dispensational for a minute.

Paul reaches back to something he just said in chapter 2 19 So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, is growing into a holy sanctuary in the Lord, Eph. 2:19 - 21

The dispensation of the church, the dispensation of grace, is compared to a building with a chief cornerstone, a foundation, and then a structure being built on top of the cornerstone and foundation. We're on the 21st floor folks. The structure is still being completed.

But please make a distinction. The foundation is laid by the chief cornerstone and it was the era of the holy apostles and prophets in which revelation was being unfolded, real time, out on the ground.

At pentecost, Peter had no idea about gentile churches in places like Ephesus. Never crossed his mind.

The book of Acts is the story of the apostles laying the church's foundation, God at work in all of it, working through His chosen apostles and prophets, bringing new revelation.

In 96AD when John the apostle dies, that foundation is cast, by God, and it never changes again. There is no further new revelation. There are no apostles on the 21st floor of the building, in spite of what error you hear out there.

Pope Francis cannot normalize same sex marriage in the church. He is NOT an apostle. Revelation is complete. Sola Scriptura is the rule that we work under. Revelation is finished when John finalizes it at the last pages of the book or Revelation.

The church is not in a continuous state of flux. We have the once for all revealed gospel. Written down by the apostles, the foundation that we are built on top of.

5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit:

Paul could make that statement. We cannot. Period. Revelation is closed. Study the writings. We mine the gold that the apostles planted in the foundation period.

Here's the brand new shocking mystery now revealed;

6 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,

Up on the 21st floor with 20 centuries of church history underneath us, this is old news. Completely normative. We're sort of shocked when God quickens a jew to new life now and then. That seems outside the normative up here in the 21st century.

But to those folks down on the ground floor, that was a shocking revelation. Exciting. You've gotta love the account in Acts 13 at Pisidian Antioch;

42 And as Paul and Barnabas were leaving, the people kept pleading that these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. 43 Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God.

44 And the next Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. 45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, blaspheming. 46 Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. Since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us,
‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles,
That You may bring salvation to the end of the earth.’”
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

Paul goes first to the jews. Normative in the foundation period. But watch what happens. The jews reject and Paul says, fair enough. You're going to lock yourselves down in hard heartedness. God's going to throw the door open to the gentiles. 48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord,

That was brand new. Down on the building's foundation level. Gentiles, come on in! It seems no one was more astonished about this new turn of events than Paul himself. Almost as if he was broadsided by the revelation of this new unveiled mystery, that gentiles are equals in God's building.

7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. 8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for all what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;

Paul's astonisment is dual. Doubly astonished. First that God is building a structure using gentiles as building blocks of what He is accomplishing in the world.

And second that God chose Him to open this door. Me?? Paul?? The least of all saints???? You chose me to unveil this astonishing mystery that was hidden through centuries of jewish dealings.

In Paul's mind, the last person God would choose for something this enormous, this earth shaking, would be him. The chief of sinners. The christian persecutor and killer. The least of all saints.

This isn't false humility on Paul's part. He isn't about self deprication. What you see is what you get with Paul. He is fully astonished that of all people God could have chosen to unfold new revelation hidden for centuries, God would pick him.

In vs. 7 he considers his apostleship a gift of grace. 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.

Paul understands that the pinnacle of human experience this side of heaven, is God working miracles through you. Every time someone wakes from the dead, is quickened to life, through something God is working, using you, that's as good as it gets this side of heaven.

There's nothing more exciting, more fulfilling than God working His miracle of life, raising people from the spiritual dead, and you get to be the agent He uses. For Paul that was grace and gift and power. Paul is exhilerated. Astonished God picked him.

8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ,

And the gentiles were receptive. Paul shakes off the jewish dust and says, fine for you unworthy rejecting jews, I'm opening these riches up to the gentiles, and they rejoiced! Wouldn't that be something! Now, we've got crickets chirping.

To the jews a stumblingblock and to the greeks foolishness. That describes interest in the gospel in our land currently. And rapidly we're moving from the dis-interest of stumblingblock and foolishness to outright hostility for the gospel and anyone who preaches the authority of God over men.

Talk about sin and judgment, and hostility can blossom quickly. They get angry at anyone trying to snatch them out of the flames of absolute personal autonomy and into unfathomable riches instead. Angry. They hate God's riches. They love their sins.

But in Paul's journeys, though not without persecution and cost, the gospel was believed and rejoicing for the availability of peace with God was real. Finally, for this morning, Paul says;

9 and to bring to light for all what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things;

Did you get that. 9 and to bring to light for all
Paul realizes what's going on with what God is doing through him. Paul is the apostle who is writing these doctrines, hidden through the ages, now revealed, and Paul is the chosen vessel to bring this light to all. To everybody.

He gets that he is writing scripture. Revealed truth for all time. He understood the magnitude of the grace and blessing that he was the one that God chose to administer this earth shattering new work.

When the Creator of all things chooses you to unveil new doctrines, new truths, new revelation that had been hidden through all the ages, that's huge beyond anyone's wildest dreams. And Paul understood just how big this was.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. Wide open for gentiles, and jews. Paul was literally the person administering the mystery. He was walking around unloading truths that had been hidden through all generations until God told him and sent him packing to tell others.

Not quite as exciting for us. We don't get new revelation. But we still have the charge to administer the same mystery to those who will listen, to those who have never really heard and understood.

One final mystery to think about this morning as we close. Perhaps next week I'll take the time to visit every place in the new testament where this word mysterion is used. But the Spirit has put on my mind something that hasn't been thought of until our time.

In 2 Thess 2:7, Paul speaks of the mystery of iniquity. Something not fully revealed that has to do with iniquity in the end times. And it's about anti-christ.

Something to think about. 5 years ago no one knew anything about AI. Artificial intelligence. While there's no new revelation, the canon is closed, that doesn't mean God is out of surprises that no one imagined before He allowed them to happen. We will watch AI develop, with interest.

I watched a movie last evening about Einstein and the bomb. After the bomb was developed humanity suddenly realised the threshold had been crossed in which there was no return. For the first time in history, complete annihilation was a possibility. Still is.

It's dawning on a few folks that AI is a similar phenomenon. We can't un-invent it. And no one's quite sure what will develop from artificial intelligence. We do know that man is hopelessly wicked. Sinful. So whatever the powers of this new developing invention, it will be used for evil. We know that.

The mystery of iniquity. Iniquity will have a component that was completely unseen, unimagined in times past at the time of the end. God still has some surprises up His Sovereign sleeve. More than ever, it's going to be unfathomable riches to be on the side of all this that's going to be the Victor.