home >  Media > Weekend Message

Most people love a good mystery—trying to solve a puzzle that is posed by gifted author. God the Author of history has no intention of hiding any of his plot twists: The Bible's most significant "mystery" (which is more like an open secret) is that the gift of salvation given to the Jewish nation is actually for the whole world to know and share.

 

Hope in Darkness
God's Mystery
Ephesians 3:1-6 

July 10-11, 2010
Scott Shelton

Let us pray, Come Holy Spirit, may the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts bring glory to you. Open our minds and hearts to learn from your word today. Amen.

I really don’t like the game Clue, Jr. I can’t even graduate to adult clue – because I don’t play Clue Jr. very well. Although I like a lot of games I can play with my kids, ages 8-12. I like Trouble, Sorry, or Monopoly – I really don’t like Clue, Jr. It confuses me. You don’t have a person you are moving trying to get from start to finish. You roll the dice and move the game pieces around in circles to try and make guesses on who did what. I get confused just talking about it.

When playing Clue, Jr. – I need to get a clue! This year’s Caravan theme was Get a Clue. The high school students were on a trip to get a clue, to uncover some of the mystery of a life with Jesus. We are about that job here today, and really every Sunday, too. Not just Sundays but every day, every hour of our lives – continually seeking to uncover more of What God has planned for us. We all need to get a clue – to understand more, and to be inspired more, to live a life that follows the life of Jesus.

God’s grace – can feel confusing or overwhelming. How could God love us that much? Don’t I need to do something to earn my way? Some may still find some mystery there. But the mystery has been revealed. God’s grace is not just for the people of the old testament, the chosen people - the Jews, or for the people of the new testament, the Gentiles or the Greeks; the good news of Christ is for all of us – and real and available for us today. Everyone can have a clue of how to find God’s grace.

We are digging in to God’s Word, week by week, verse by verse, and encourage you again to bring your own Bibles. And also to memorize either portions of Ephesians or all of it. Let’s now open up our Bibles, either your copy from home, the zpc copy, here on the screens, or from your memory. Let’s stand and say this passage together:

Read Ephesians 3:1-6 – on slides

Mystery is a fairly common word in the NT, used 28 times, mostly by Paul. In fact Paul uses the word three times just in these six verses. In verse 3, Paul says, “the mystery made know to me.” In verse 4, “you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.” And in verse 6, this mystery is “Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members of one body, and share together in the promise of Christ.”

The understanding of the word mystery in this passage is “a divine truth once hidden but now revealed in the gospel.”

Paul speaks about himself in these first three verse when he says,

Mystery for Paul:         

         v. 1 prisoner of Christ Jesus

         v. 2 administrator of grace

         v. 3 mystery revealed to him

Paul is not only the author of this book but the author of more books or letters in the New Testament than any other writer. He in many ways is an example too of how to live out your faith, through stops and starts, overcoming sin and outside obstacles, and living with courage in the midst of troubled times.

Here he says he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Paul while he wrote Ephesians is imprisoned for his faith in Rome around AD 60. He has risked his a Jew, to tell others that Jesus is God. This is at the risk of Jews wanting to stone him and possibly at the risk of the Romans believing he is speaking against giving praise to Caesar.

The administration of God’s grace is the special trust that God has given to Paul to preach the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles. This is Paul’s calling and he is living it out. It is the mystery revealed to him, that the good news of Jesus is “a divine truth once hidden but now revealed in the gospel.” Jesus is not just the messiah or chosen one or savior for the Jews but for non-Jews – for Gentiles – for everyone who calls on Jesus as Lord.

Jews had heard since the time of the prophet Isaiah that a future redeemer would come who would be“a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6. Jews had not known how this would happen – and now through Jesus’ death, and through God’s call on Paul’s life, they knew how.

Paul was not able to understand this truth without God blinding him on the road to Damascus. I too might need something drastic in my life to understand God’s mysteries – to understand this truth that God’s grace is a free gift to us. We too should pray for God to reveal his mysteries to you – and to give you understanding of his word, and his truths, so that each of us who are Christ’s followers can live more for him.

Salvation is through the Jews but open to Gentiles – to everyone. This is the mystery revealed. This is where the early Christians got a clue of what to do. They were called to take the message of Jesus to everyone.

So what does this have to do with us? We can ask these questions?

Mystery for us:        

         How are we prisoners for Christ? – as Paul was

         How do we give grace?

         Have we received the revealed mystery?

Just as Paul is a prisoner for Christ, so we too should be indebted to him. We love God because he first loved us. It has been said in song, “everybody’s gotta serve somebody.” Joshua said, “choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It is our privilege and an honor that we are called to serve Jesus and to help others uncover the mystery of his grace and love. Paul goes so far to say that we can be slaves to Christ.

Being a slave to Christ or prisoner to Christ is actually a freeing thing. It frees us from slavery to sin and being a prisoner to ourselves. While we all have signature sins in our own lives, and temptations that can nag us lifelong, we still belong to Christ. This comes from surrender. Surrendering our wills and our choices our goals for success of for self to his will. This can free us from having to prove ourselves to the expectations of our neighbors, our parents, or even our own children. When we belong to Christ, surrender to Christ, those self desires are diminished so that we can glorify him.

In doing this surrendering and decreasing, we receive God’s grace. We receive his love, his acceptance, his guidance, his Spirit. By receiving it, then we commit to sharing it with others. We see that the life of sharing God’s love, serving him, is the good life. We uncover the mystery of a good life.

Paul says in Ephesians 3:4-5, by reading this letter, we get insight and understanding the mystery of Christ, now revealed. The mystery for Paul’s readers was that salvation, or grace, was for more than the Jews. Yes, it had come through Jesus, a Jew. But salvation was for everyone. While this seems very normal for us as American Christians today, this was revolutionary then. And Paul more than anyone else, was called to tell, to be the transmitter, the administrator, to Gentiles that this mystery revealed, God’s grace, was for all people.

It might be similar today trying to convince people of other countries who are from and Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu – or even agnostic backgrounds – who outnumber Christians worldwide – that Christ died for them too. It is still our job today to let the world know that Christianity is not an American religion, all Americans are not Christians, but that Jesus died for all who will call on his name as Savior and Lord. We can help uncover the mystery.

Even here at home, we may know neighbors or family members who are angry with God, have lost faith in God, or just have slipped quietly away from church. By being like Jesus to those around us, we can help them too uncover the mystery of God’s love – even for them.

So how is this mystery lived out?

Mystery lived out: Ephesians 3:6

         Gentiles are heirs with Israel

         Members of one body

         Sharers together in the promise

So God now gives us a way to live, knowing the mystery uncovered. Paul says that all of us, Jews and Gentiles, people of all backgrounds – are heirs with Israel. This means we receive the good gifts that God promised or covenanted with his people – through Jesus.

We are members of one body and sharers together of the promise. Paul encourages us then to live as one body – each of us has a role to play in this drama, this mystery of life – we are cast members of the body – and must find our place. In our roles we look for ways to share the promises that Christ has for each of us – that we are promised to be blessed – just as Israel was promised to be blessed. And we are blessed not to hold on to that blessing – but to share that promise and blessing with all others – near and far – deserve to hear the promise – and to know God’s love.

We are members of one body. And by Christians living as one body – by going out and living for Christ – we continue to uncover the mystery.

Just two weeks ago, our high school students returned from their annual Caravan, or summer mission trip. This year, for the second time, they ministered in Arlington, Texas, midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. One of the ways Mission Arlington reaches them with the promise of grace of Christ is by providing Free Rummage sales. Each morning, our high school students and leaders had the opportunity to receive furniture and other donations, load those donations onto trucks, deliver them to apartment yards, unload them and then go knock on doors to let people know there was a free gift of grace in their apartment complex.

A man named Daniel came quietly to one of the leaders there and asked for men’s underwear and socks. They didn’t have any. He went on to tell the story of how he had been robbed of all his belongings and left with nothing, and was living in homeless shelters but trying to find work and get back on his feet again. All of his earthly possessions fit into one old smelly, dirty backpack which he wore. One of our youth staff and some of our youth went to Walmart where they bought toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, shampoo, socks, underwear, a dop kit, and a Bible and a backpack. They loaded it all together and brought it back. They gave the new backpack full of gifts of grace. He cried and smiled at the same time. They laid hands on Daniel and prayed for him and revealed to him some of the mystery of God’s love – which is for everyone – no one excluded, with everyone having the chance to know God’s love.

This role of the body is not just for youth or youth leaders who went to Texas but for all of us – even here at home – to discover ways, to pray for guidance, to keep our eyes wide open for opportunities – to share the mystery of God’s grace.

In the first century, Jews were spiritual insiders, while Gentiles were outsiders. No more. Who groups now in our time are considered outsiders to God’s grace – the way the Gentiles were? How can we play a part in God’s story to share his grace with them?

Now go one more step: Think of one individual like a Daniel in your life who does not know the restoring grace of Jesus Christ. What steps can you take even this week to hold out the offer of God’s love to him or to her?

We also read from Paul that we are sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus.

Four friends from ZPC recently traveled to Spain on a mission trip and saw how they were sharers together in the promise. They spent time working with an established Christian church there to reach out to Muslims in Barcelona. Part of the time they were there, the women of the group had a fiesta for Muslim women. The Muslim women were doing a craft project and the Egyptian lady in charge had some music playing on CD, and at the request of the American missionaries – the Muslim women began to dance – took the arms of the new American friends and had them dance. After dancing in the style of the Muslim ladies for a while, the American missionaries did what all good American Christians do… they found a computer, got on youtube, found the Chicken dance, and taught it to their new Muslim friends.

This dancing brought down some of the walls. One of our ZPC women speaks with great compassion when she says that “these Muslim women don’t have the same status as us. They don’t have much status at all in their culture. They had many problems and obstacles in their lives. And they don’t know the love of Jesus.” Our ladies then had the chance to share their testimonies – their stories of faith – with these women who all spoke Arabic. As they share their testimonies with the Muslims, which were translated from English to Arabic, they are tilling the soil and planting seeds for God to do the work – to unveil the mystery of Christ to those who don’t know him at all.

These new Muslim friends had not yet discovered the mystery that is God’s grace in Jesus. And there are prayers and hopes that one day, they mystery will be revealed to them, and they will know God’s grace.

What is going in Barcelona is a great picture of the fact that we are all members of one body, and that we all can be sharers in the promise of Christ Jesus.

This church sits in Barcelona, Spain. It was founded by Egyptian Christians who sent out missionaries 15 years ago. They are reaching Muslims who have emigrated from Morocco. And they are being supported by American Christians from zpc who traveled there to share their faith. When Paul says that the mystery is now revealed, that salvation is not just or Israel, the chosen people, but for all Gentiles, for all people, everywhere…could Paul have envisioned this?

That one day American Christians from Indiana would reach out to support Egyptian Christians - who are reaching out to share Christ - to Moroccan Muslims - living in Barcelona, Spain? We are truly sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus!

I said earlier that I struggle with Clue, Jr. But I do love jigsaw puzzles. I love seeing how the picture all comes together with every piece is filled in.

In the same way, we see a picture revealed, a mystery revealed, when we are the pieces that fit together. As members of Christ’s body, we help each other and reach out to those who are lost. We help each other in times of loss, as we have seen even here at zpc in the past two weeks, as friends and the church have gathered to support families who experienced death of a loved one. We see how Christians reach out to those who are experiencing surgery or sickness with prayer, watching each other’s children, sharing home-cooked meals, and physical help. When we let others help us, when we let them see our needs, the body can work and share God’s grace.

And this grace is for all. In God’s wisdom, it was given first to his chosen people thousands of years ago – then through Christ, given to us – that we might be sharers together with not only Christians around the northwest side of Indy, but in Arlington, Texas, in Spain, around the world.

May we understand more and more the mystery of God’s grace, may we live it, may we understand it is for us, all of us, and may we be the body of Christ, sharers together of God’s love and grace to others.

Let us pray.