Grow With Pastor Joe

Do you want to know a secret? Of course you do, and so does everyone else. We love secrets. We love to keep secrets, be told secrets, and we even love to tell them. Here’s my family secret that I want to share with you. The secret begins with my love of my mom’s homemade pecan pie. It is my favorite dessert to eat on Thanksgiving (and of course the following days). When I got married, I told my mom that there were several recipes of hers that I wanted my wife to have. The top of that list was pecan pie. I made the comment about it being a family recipe that had been passed down for a couple of generations. My mom laughed. Hysterically. By this point I am now bewildered. She then proceeds to let out the family secret to my wife and I that the family secret recipe for pecan pie is just the recipe that comes on the back of the Karo syrup bottle. I had been duped. So much for a family secret recipe. Today, as we study Eph. 3:1-7, Paul is going to be continuing to show us the mystery of what it means to have our wealth and walk in Christ. This is the family secret recipe that everyone in the family gets to know. In Christ, our wealth and walk are a divine mystery that was formerly hidden and now revealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit and through the Bible. It has been said that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. God’s grace has revealed the greatest secret ever told that salvation is in Christ and that there is now a united body of believers in Christ who are no longer separated by social class, family background, or geographic location. The word “mystery” in this passage is the Greek word “musterion” that has the meaning of a hidden secret of God that has now been uncovered and understood by the Spirit indwelt believer. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” God has now revealed His family secrets of what it means to be in Christ. The mystery of the united church made up of both Jew and Gentile believers was once unrevealed and unimagined (especially by the Jews). Now, the mystery that is in Christ is revealed and received by all who will come to Christ by grace through faith. Everyone that is in Christ has access this family secret of our wealth and walk in Christ. God hasn’t left us out as my mom had done with the pecan pie recipe. God wants to reveal Himself and He has already revealed Himself fully in His creation, covenants, Christ His Son, and the Spirit indwelt Church made up of believers in Christ from all walks of life.

Eph. 3:1-7 says, “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, ² If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: ³ How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, ⁴ Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) ⁵ Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; ⁶ That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: ⁷ Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.” Paul begins by saying, “For this cause,” but then doesn’t put a verb in the sentence. It isn’t until Eph. 3:14 that we see the cause which is to pray that his audience (including us) would understand this now revealed mystery of what it means to have our wealth and walk in Christ. Eph. 3:1-13 will serve as a parenthesis of repeating what has been previously revealed. This mystery of being in Christ in one body has already been preached to us. Eph. 1:9-10 expresses this truth and Eph. 2:11-22 goes into the details of what this mystery is. Simply, the mystery now revealed in Christ is that there is one unified body of believers that are unified together with and in Christ Jesus. In Eph. 3:1-13, Paul will be repeating these truths to drive them home into the hearts and minds of all believers so that we may see our wealth and walk in Christ. We can’t live won’t what we don’t learn. We can’t learn to live in love until we live in love to learn. It has been clear throughout Ephesians thus far that we are not to be ignorant of who we are in Christ, what we possess in Christ, and how that is to be practically lived out in Christ. Many believers struggle in their walk because they don’t know the riches of wealth of the grace of God in Christ. Without this knowledge we perish and can’t walk wisely (Hos. 4:6). There are three different aspects of this mystery that is now revealed in Christ that we will see today. (1) The Man of the Mystery – V. 1 (2) The Management of the Mystery – V. 2-5 (3) The Message of the Mystery – V. 6-7.

First, let’s look at the man of the mystery that is seen in verse one. Eph. 3:1 says, “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,” The man of the mystery is the Apostle Paul. Paul had been entrusted by God to bear this mystery of a unified body in Christ made up of all believers. There are two things that we must understand about this man of mystery. First, we need to understand Paul’s testimony. Paul was born a Jew, raised as a Jew, and lived as a Jew. His testimony can be seen in Philippians 3:4-14. If anyone could boast in their Jewish heritage and commitment to God’s law, it was him. As a matter of fact, the first time that Paul is introduced in the Bible, he is standing there with coats laid at his feet as a mob of devout Jews stoned Stephen (one of the original deacons) as the first martyr of Christ. Paul was consenting unto Stephen’s death and would be a part of the earliest persecution of the Church (See Acts 7:54-8:3). But God who is rich in mercy saved Paul. Acts 9:1-16, Paul’s testimony of salvation is given. As Paul is on his way to continue persecuting the church, the Lord Jesus Christ meets him in the way. On that road in the bright glory of Christ, Paul was saved, surrendered, and set apart by Christ and for Christ. Paul immediately received a new identity and mission in life. He belonged to the Lord, no longer to the Law, tradition, or fierce zealous persecution of Christians. Paul was entrusted from the moment of his conversion to suffer for Christ’s sake, but also entrusted to carry this mystery of being in Christ to both the Jew and Gentile. He himself would be specifically sent as the Apostle of God to the Gentile world. In Romans 11, Paul expresses his love for the Jewish people and that God is not yet through with them yet. He also calls himself the Apostle to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:13) and would even be an ambassador on their behalf to the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 15). The second thing that we must understand about the man of the mystery is Paul’s trial. Paul’s testimony is that he was once persecuting the Church by putting believers in prison and now he was writing letters to the Church as he himself was in prison. Although Paul is writing from prison, specifically house arrest in Rome, he doesn’t view himself as a prisoner of Rome, but of Christ. It is, after all, Christ who first arrested the heart of Paul on the road to Damascus. As Paul put it in Philippians 3:12-14, he had been apprehended by God. Jesus Himself had appointed Paul’s apostleship and afflictions for the Gospel’s sake or as Paul sees it, “for you Gentiles.” Interestingly enough, Paul was in prison for preaching this mystery that is now revealed in Christ that he has written of already in Eph. 2:11-22 and is now expounding on. Acts 21-22 shows that the preaching of this mystery is entrusted to him and his arrest for it. Paul’s heart is for Christ and Christ’s heart is for His Church. Therefore, Paul is willing to suffer for the sake of the mystery of our wealth and walk in Christ. If it is this important to Christ and Paul, then it should be to us as well.

Grow with me as we study the believer’s wealth and walk in Christ.

Grow deeper.

Grow higher.

Grow wider.