Welcome morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter three. Continue our study
in Ephesians chapter three this morning. Before we begin, let's
bow before our Lord in prayer and seek his blessing. Our Father, we bow before you
this morning, a grateful and a thankful people. How thankful
we are for your mercy and your grace that you has so freely
and abundantly shed upon your people in our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for a full and free
salvation in him. How we thank you for the obedience
of Christ. It's the only righteousness we
could ever claim, the only righteousness that there is. How we thank you
for his precious blood that cleanses us from all sin, that pays the
entire sin debt of all of his people. Father, how we thank
you. How we thank you that we're accepted
in the beloved, that you would hear us, that you'd hear our
cries, that you'd hear our thanksgiving. Father, that you'd hear us for
Christ's sake in him. And Father, we're thankful that
you've given us another opportunity to meet together, to worship
you around the preaching of your word. And Father, I pray you'd
bless us this morning. Bless us with your spirit. What
man, woman, son of Adam is ever sufficient for these things?
to either preach your gospel or to hear it. None can except
by thy spirit. And Father, we pray you send
your spirit upon us that we might believe the things of our Lord
Jesus Christ that we hear preached this morning. We pray his name
would be lifted up and magnified. What we pray for ourselves, Father,
we pray for our children's classes. Father, that you bless in a mighty
and special way. How we thank you for all these
children that you've given to us. Father, we pray your mercy
be upon them. We pray that you'd be pleased
to be merciful to them in your time and cause us to be faithful,
to always point them to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray
you bless your word wherever it's preached this morning. Bless
it for your glory. Bless it for the good of your
people. Father, in this dark, barren world in which we live,
how desperately we see we need your gospel. and we pray you
cause it to run well today. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name which is above every name, the name
of Christ our Savior, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Fellowship of the Mystery. Our text begins in verse nine,
but I wanna go back to verse three and read up through verse
nine, see this in context. Paul begins in verse three, Ephesians
chapter three. how that by revelation he made
known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby
when you read, you may understand my knowledge and the mystery
of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons
of men, as is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets
by the spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of
the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the
gospel, 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. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints is this
grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable
riches of Christ and to make all men see what is the fellowship
of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been
hidden in God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now the
mystery that Paul is talking about here is the mystery of
how God saves sinners. God saves sinners by the doing,
by the dying of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not by man's religious
works or going through all different religious ceremonies. The mystery
that men cannot understand unless God would reveal it to them is
God saves sinners in Christ. For Christ's sake, all because
of who he is and what he has done. That's the mystery of Christ
we looked at a few weeks ago. And this mystery you remember,
the word mystery means something that must be revealed to us.
God the Holy Spirit must reveal this mystery to us because we're
so blind we can't see it and we cannot understand it. We don't
have the capacity to understand it unless the Lord reveals it
to us. And part of the mystery of the
gospel is the fellowship that it declares and the fellowship
that it gives. Now the word fellowship, that
Paul uses here doesn't mean the same thing that we mean when
we talk about fellowship. We talk about fellowship, we're
talking about visiting together, eating together, being together,
enjoying one another's company. Now we enjoy that, I'm all for
it. But the fellowship that Paul
is talking about here is so much better. Because the fellowship
Paul is talking about brings salvation to God's people. This
word fellowship Paul uses means a joint participation. It means to be joined to, a sharer
in, or a participator in. And that fellowship, the way
God saves sinners by this fellowship, that's a mystery to me. And the
only way this fellowship can be revealed to us is by the gospel.
The gospel that God has given us to preach and to believe.
I wanna give you a few examples of this fellowship. First, there's
the mystery of the fellowship of the Trinity. Now, sinners
are so lost and they're so dead in sin that the only way we can
be saved is by the work of the entire Godhead, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Now, if you think about that
for just a second, you start to get a hint how sinful and
vile we really are. It takes the work of the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit to save the likes of us.
That's how depraved and sinful that we are. The father had to
purpose the salvation of sinners. He had to purpose it and he had
to choose the sinners that he would save. If he didn't, nobody
would ever be saved. Because man, left to his own
self, would never decide to be saved on God's terms. Never.
Man, left to himself by his nature, would never choose God. God had
to choose us first. He had to purpose our salvation
for us or nobody ever would be saved. Then the son had to come
and earn the salvation that the father purposed. Christ came
and earned salvation for God's elect by being made what he's
not. The son of God was made flesh. And as a man, made flesh, made
under the law, he earned salvation for his people. He earned it
by his perfect obedience to the law. He earned a righteousness
that he freely gives to his people. Then the Son of God had to be
made what he was not again. He had to be made sin. In order
to take the sin of God's elect away from them, Christ had to
be made what he was not. He had to be made sin. And when
Christ was made sin, he took the sin of his people and he
made it his. And then he paid for it. He paid the debt that
he owed by the sacrifice of himself. And by his precious blood, he
washed away all of the sin of all of his people. The blood
of Christ is so precious that by one sacrifice, he paid an
eternal sin debt, by one sacrifice. And when the son of God was made
what he was not, when he was made sin, in turn, he made his
people what they're not. He made them righteous. God's elect are made righteous
through fellowship with Christ, by being a partaker in his work
of redemption, by being a sharer in his work of righteousness,
by being a partaker in the benefits of his sacrifice. And then the
Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit comes and he gives spiritual
life to God's people. He gives them faith in Christ
through the preaching of the gospel. And he's gonna give that
faith, he's gonna give that life to everyone that the father chose,
everyone that the son shed his blood for. And he does that,
the spirit gives life and gives faith through the preaching of
Christ, the preaching of the gospel. Paul earlier talked about
God calling him and equipping him to preach the gospel to the
Gentiles. That's why the way God gives life and faith to his
people is through the preaching of the gospel. You just cannot
overestimate the importance of the preaching of the gospel.
This is the way God is pleased to save sinners. It's the way
he applies the salvation that the father purposed and the son
purchased with his blood. And we're so sinful, we're so
vile, it takes the entire Godhead to save us from our sin. All
right, here's another mystery. Sinners have fellowship with
the Trinity. We have fellowship with God because
of God's work of redemption. Here's the mystery of the fellowship
that a sinner has with God. The gospel declares believers,
Sinful men and women like you and me, God has called out, saved
by his mercy, by his grace. The gospel declares we have fellowship
with God. We have fellowship with God almighty.
We have union with him. Now that's the only way a sinner
can be saved, is through union with Christ. If we would be saved,
we must have this fellowship. We must have fellowship with
Christ. We have to be a sharer in, a partaker in, all of his
work of redemption. We have to be a partaker in who
he is, partaker of his nature. Not to this point, Paul is talking
here about God's purpose of salvation. It had been hidden for generations. When Paul was writing roughly
4,000 years, the way God saved sinners had been hidden until
Christ came incarnate. Now, God wasn't being mean. He
wasn't hiding the gospel. He wasn't hiding his will of
redemption to be mean to people so men couldn't find it and they
couldn't be saved. God hid the gospel in plain sight. It was
hidden in the types and pictures of the law. The reason it was
his, not God tried to hide it from us to keep us from seeing
it, it was hidden because we were blind and we couldn't see
it. We took all those types and pictures and ceremonies of the
law and turned that into works, thinking we could be saved by
it. And that's not the purpose of the ceremony, the law, the
priesthood. The purpose of all of that is
never that we earn a righteousness by our obedience to it. It's
all a picture of Christ. It all points us to Christ. God's purpose of salvation was
hidden in all those ceremonies of the Mosaic law. Now before
Christ came, we thought salvation was this. You had to be born
a Jew, because God only sent his word, only sent his prophets
to the Jews. And we thought you had to be
a Jew who followed the laws and the ceremonies, the Old Testament
scriptures, because those things are only given to the Jews. And
then Christ appeared. And we say, now I see. Now I see. The answer to the
mystery, how God saved sinners has been revealed because the
Savior's come. Christ came, now I see it's been
revealed to us. The answer to the mystery of
salvation is that salvation has always been had by fellowship
with Christ. By union with Christ, being a
partaker in what he did. Because when everything he did
as a man, his people did anyway. because we have union with Him.
That's how we're fellowship or partaker in what He did for His
people. I'll give a few examples. The
mystery of election. The Father. Scripture can't make
this more plain. The Father elected a people into
salvation. And you know how He chose them?
In Christ. In Christ. Christ is God's first
elect. That's the only way you and I
could ever be chosen, is in Christ. the mystery of how a sinner's
sin is put away. How is that possible? It's by
being joined to Christ. And those Old Testament ceremonies
gave us a picture of that. The high priest laid his hands
on the head of that goat, symbolically transferring the sin of that
goat to the people. It's through union with Christ. Philippians
3 verse 10, this was Paul's great prayer, that I may know him and
the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.
being made conformable unto his death. Paul wanted to know him,
to know the fellowship of his sufferings. His great desire
was not to suffer like Christ did, but to be a fellowshipper,
to share in the benefits of Christ's death for you, to be made righteous
in Christ, to be justified by the work of Christ. Then there's the mystery, how
can a sinner be made righteous? Well, we can't do it ourselves.
We can't obey God's law and make ourselves righteous. Righteousness
can only come by the death of Christ for our sin. He must die
for my sin. He must die as my substitute. The way I'm made righteous, the
way you're made righteous, is through fellowship with Christ,
by being a sharer in what he did, his death, burial, and resurrections. It's not the law. That's not
the law. Paul said this in Galatians 2
verse 21, If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead
in vain. Why did Christ die? If you and
I could keep the law. The only way we could be made
righteous is by his death, his burial, his resurrection for
us. Then there's a mystery of justification.
Sinners cannot be justified. Justified means made without
sin. We can't make ourselves without sin. because everything
we do is sin. I don't care how many works of
the law or religious ceremonies we go through, we can't put away
our sin, make ourselves without sin. Sinners can only be justified
by fellowship with Christ, being a partaker in what he's done
for his people. It's by faith in Christ. Paul
said in Romans 3 verse 28, therefore we conclude that man is justified
by faith. by faith in Christ, by what Christ
has done, not by our deeds of the law. It's through fellowship
with Christ. Then there's the mystery of spiritual
life. We live, God's people live because
Christ lives. He died and rose again for us. That's why we live. We live by
having fellowship with Christ, by being a partaker in his resurrection. When Christ arose from the dead,
all of his people did too, because they're in him. That's the only
way we can be given life is through fellowship with Christ, being
raised in him. Then there's the mystery, not
just of salvation, not just of justification, but eternal salvation,
eternal justification. Paul says in verse 11, according
to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord. This was God's eternal purpose. People, they love to argue about
when is a sinner justified? Was it when the father chose
him? Was it when the son died for
him? Was it when the spirit gave them life? Is it not until they
appear in glory? The answer to that is yes. It's
all of those. Justification is eternal. Salvation is eternal. To say that salvation didn't
happen until I believed, that'd mean God changed. Somewhere from
eternity to the point when this old speck of dust came along,
God changed. That's not possible. God didn't
change. Our salvation, our justification
is eternal. Now, we experience it in time,
don't we? God lets us in on it in time,
But that salvation is eternal. It's what God purposed in eternity
past. See, we experience it, salvation. We experience justification in
time. But we're partakers. We're saved,
we're justified by being a fellowshipper with Christ. We're partaker of
his obedience, of his sacrifice, of his death before time begins. in Christ, the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. This thing is eternal and it's
in Christ. Now the gospel, here's something
else that's a mystery. You know, people, um, you know,
they, people get all hung up on angels, don't they? I mean,
they, some people in goes so far as to worship angels, but
you know, the gospel is a mystery to the angels. Look at verse
10. to the intent that now, under
the principalities and powers in heavenly places, that's the
angels, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of
God. Paul here is talking about angels,
and if you look over at 1 Peter, Peter mentions this same thing,
1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1, verse 12. unto whom it was revealed that
not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things
which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the
gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,
which things the angels desire to look into. I want to be sure I say this just
right. There's angels here. And if we
could see them, I mean how focused we would be on them, wouldn't
we? Here is how important preaching the gospel is. Here's how seriously
we ought to take what we're doing right now. The angels desire
to look into the things of the gospel that we have preached
us every week. Do you think of that? Wherefore,
Paul says in verse, since this is so, the angels desire to look
into the thing, how important this thing of preaching the gospel
is. Wherefore, considering that, gird up the loins of your mind,
be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The angels, they're
such higher creatures than we are. Yet the gospel that you
know and love is a mystery to you. Salvation in Christ. That's a mystery to the angels.
Oh, they, they understand how it was accomplished. They watched
it. They understand how it was accomplished,
but they, here's why it's a mystery to them. They haven't experienced
it. They haven't experienced it. A third, they say, the heavenly
host fell and they're reserved in chains under the day of condemnation.
There's no redeemer for them. The angels see these things.
They understand the mechanics of how it is. God saves sinners
by the obedience and by the blood of Christ. They see that, but
they've never experienced the grace of it like you who believe
that. They've never experienced the
awe of it like you have because they don't have a Redeemer. Now
the angels, they know things. They've seen things. They're
in heaven. They're serving God, flying around his throne crying
holy, holy, holy. They go where God sends them
as his servants. They have seen things in heaven.
They know things we don't know and we haven't seen. But you
know what? Believers know things and by
faith have seen things that an angel never will see. You think
of that. It's the experience of God's
grace in the heart. That's a mystery, isn't it? Oh, how thankful that ought to
make us the angels have no one to be in fellowship with, no
one to be a participator in, in redemption. But men do. Men do. God's given that to us.
What a mystery. It's a mystery. It's such a gracious,
wonderful gospel. What good news we have to tell
sinners, there's salvation in Christ. You can have fellowship
with God Almighty. That's how sinners are saved.
Now that's a mystery. But Paul says, that's such good
news. I want all men to hear it. I want all men to hear this
gospel. I want them to believe it. Now
I know they won't. I know they won't. But that's
what I pray for. That all men would hear and believe
this gospel. Certainly that all men come here to preach would
hear the gospel and believe it. I know that all will not believe
on Christ. I know that. But I also know
God's elect will. They will believe on Christ.
God's gonna see to it. And that's why we continue to
preach the gospel. God's given us this gospel to
preach, and that's why we continue to preach it, because God's elect
are gonna believe it. God's people will be blessed
by it. It's through this gospel. Paul
wrote 1 Corinthians 1 verse 9, God is faithful. So here's why
all this is sure. The salvation of God's people
is sure, it's because God is faithful. by whom you're called
under the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We preach
this gospel because that's how God calls his people to fellowship
with you. All right, now here's the third
thing. The mystery of the fellowship
that believers have with each other. Now, if you're like me,
if you happen to grow up under the ministry of Brother Henry,
you may be like me, Every time I hear the word fellowship, I
think of his definition of fellowship. He says, fellows in the same
ship. That's a pretty good definition.
Fellows in the same ship. See, fellows in the same ship,
they all get along. At least they better, because
there's going to be trouble. It's a small, confined space. They get along because they've
got the same goals. Their goal is for this ship to
come to shore. Their goal is for this ship to
stay afloat through the storms, through the deep seas, through
whatever it is, till it gets to shore. That's their goal,
isn't it? They have the same need. They need this ship to
come to shore. I can't swim there. I need the
ship to come to shore. And they have the same love. They're all
in love with the ship. They're all in love with the
captain, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they're all brought to shore
safely the same way. It's all by Christ alone. Look
at first John chapter one. Fellows in the same ship and
you know, believers have fellowship together and we have fellowship
together because we all have fellowship with Christ. See, we're all partakers of Christ's
work of redemption that joins us together, doesn't it? Joins
our hearts together. First John one verse three, That which we have seen and heard,
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us. We want to have fellowship with each other, and truly our
fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Now here's why and how we have
fellowship with each other. It's because we each have fellowship
with Christ. If we each are joined to Christ, if we each are partakers
of the benefits of Christ's sacrifice for us, then we have fellowship
with each other, because we're in love with the same person.
We're depending on the same person. We believe on the same person.
We'll have fellowship, and we're gonna get along, because we love
the same Savior. That's why we get along. And when that's true, when we
keep this focus, we're in love with the same Savior. We're trusting
the same Lord. We're serving the same Lord.
We love the same gospel. We love God's way of salvation.
When that's true, other differences don't matter. And we can have
fellowship together. I don't care what your different
backgrounds are. If you're both in love with Christ, you ought
to be able to have fellowship with each other. Paul told the
church at Philippi, chapter one, verse five, he said, I'm thankful
for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.
Our fellowship together is in the gospel of Christ. That's
the whole basis of our fellowship. And when our fellowship is in
the gospel, all these other differences don't matter. Now here's a mystery
that Paul was writing to the church at Ephesus about. Paul
was the apostle to the Gentiles. And he's telling them that the
Jews and the Gentiles have fellowship too. that you can't think of
two greater opposites than the Jews and the Gentiles. I mean
how the Jews despised the Gentiles, how they looked down their nose
at the Gentiles. And Paul's telling them, in Christ,
if they're believers, Jew and Gentile, these two opposite ends
of the spectrum, have fellowship with each other. Because God
is so gracious, he saves Gentiles too. And the Gentiles to the
Jews, that's the worst sinner in the world. The worst sinner
you could find, just the worst insult you could call somebody
is a Gentile. Oh, what a mystery that is, that
the Jews and Gentiles have fellowship together. And even Jew and Jew, Saul of Tarsus, all the Jewish
believers knew who that fellow was, didn't they? They're scared
of him. They crossed the street if they
saw him coming. They did everything they could do to avoid him. And
they were all together one day. And somebody said, you know,
I heard. I heard Saul Tarsus was down
there at the synagogue preaching Christ. God saved that self-righteous
rebel. God saved him. And they said,
really? He's such an enemy of the gospel.
Yes, God saved him. Now that was a mystery. Saul
had some of their family, some of their friends jailed and killed,
and God saved them. That's a mystery. But you know
that division faded away after God saved Saul, didn't it? It
sure did, it faded away. And we would do well to remember
this. If we're ever divided over anything other than the blood
of Christ, over the sacrifice of Christ, what the sacrifice
of Christ has accomplished. If we're ever divided over anything
other than salvation alone, in Christ alone, something is very
seriously wrong. Very seriously wrong. Because
we have fellowship together. Believers have fellowship together
in Christ, not in any of this other miscellaneous stuff. If
we divide over something other, the work of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, the sacrifice of Christ, redemption in his
blood. If we divide over anything else, you know what we're doing?
We're making something more important than Christ. That's how serious
this matter is. And I think it's something, especially
in this day, that is so divisive. This is something we ought to
pay attention to. And it can be very helpful to
believers and having fellowship with each other because the day
in which we live is so divisive. I mean, buddy, you make one misstep
and you're cut off forever. Isn't that right? Disagree with
me once, you're cut off forever. I was telling somebody this earlier
this week, what the political climate that's in our country
and maybe our world right now, certainly in our country, that
climate And that attitude has creeped into God's church. We
need to be very careful about it. I'll use this as an example. Remember, now we're talking here
about fellowship with Christ. Fellowship with one another in
Him. I'm not trying to be political,
this is just a statement. I am as a staunch political conservative
as you'll find anywhere. I mean, just so staunchly politically
conservative. Yet I have fellowship with people
who politically are liberals. Because we're both believers.
So their stuff doesn't matter. You know, if we're both focusing
on Christ, the basis of our fellowship, the basis of our friendship,
the basis of us being partakers together is Christ. The governments
of this world couldn't matter less. Just couldn't matter less. They just cannot be more insignificant
when it comes to the fellowship of believers. Many of you also know I'm a big
Ohio State football fan. I hate the maize and blue. I mean I hate them. I have fellowship
with people who are Michigan Wolverine fans. I really do.
I really do. Now you just apply that to any
difference you can think of that will come up in the flesh between
two believers. If we divide, if our fellowship
is severed over anything that's not the truth of the gospel,
the truth of redemption in Christ, the problem is man's pride, not
God's will. I promise you that's true. Oh, let's pray that the Lord
lets us avoid that. and make the issue Christ. Make the issue His glory, not
mine. His recognition, not mine. His
gospel, His people, not mine. If God will let us avoid that,
we'll have fellowship with Christ. And our fellowship with each
other be sweet. And we'll be able to worship Him together.
Now, can you think of anything more important than that? Worshiping
Him together. I hope God bless that too.