Well, good morning. Good to be
back home and be with y'all again. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Ephesians chapter three. Ephesians the third chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy, Reverend is your matchless name. Father, we come carefully,
reverently before your throne of grace, yet so thankful that
we can come boldly, confidently in our Lord Jesus Christ because
of who he is and what he's accomplished for his people. We come before
you crying Abba Father. How thankful we are, what an
unspeakable and act of your mercy and your grace, that you'd make
sinful men and women your children and enable us to call you our
father. We're so thankful. We're in awe of your wisdom,
your mercy, and your grace, and saving your people by the obedience
and the sacrifice of your dear son. And Father, I beg of you
this morning that you'd give us the spirit of worship, that
you'd enable us to look into your word, that you would reveal
to us the Lord Jesus Christ and enable us to worship. Don't let
us just go through an intellectual exercise, but Father, enable
us to worship from the heart. I pray you'd speak to your people,
to our hearts, and enable us to worship and rest in Christ
our Savior. And what we ask for ourselves,
we especially ask for our children's classes at this time, Use this
time, Father, to plant the seeds of faith in their heart. And
we pray also, Father, for your people, wherever they might be
meeting together today. Bless your word. Cause it to
go forth in power, this dark, dark day in which we live. Father,
we thank you for the many blessings and provisions of this life,
how you've blessed us beyond measure. We're thankful. Yet
in this flesh, we're a poor and a needy people. Father, we pray
that you give a special blessing to your people that you brought
into the valley of trouble, trial, heartache, sickness. Father,
you know your sheep, wherever they're at, you know our needs.
We pray you'd meet it richly according to your goodness and
your wisdom and the riches of your mercy and grace. All these
things we ask and give thanks in that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. All right, I've
titled our lesson this morning, The Mystery of Christ. I'd like
to read to you my text from Ephesians chapter three, verses one through
seven, go back and make a few comments. For this cause, I,
Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you've heard
of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you,
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 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. Now the theme of these
verses is what Paul calls a mystery. He mentions the mystery several
times. And Paul calls this a mystery because the way God saves sinners
is a mystery to the natural man. The gospel of Christ is a mystery
to the natural man. Man by nature doesn't love the
gospel of Christ. because he doesn't know Christ.
He can't understand the gospel. He can't love the gospel because
it's a mystery to him. Christ is a mystery to him. Now,
mystery is something that cannot be understood by natural human
reasoning. When I was a boy, I used to love
to play the game Clue, trying to figure out if Mr. Mustard
did it in the dining room with the candlestick or something.
By process of elimination, you come down Well, this mystery,
you can't figure it out by process of elimination. It cannot be
understood with human reasoning. The answer can never be understood
by human reasoning, by human intellect. If a man's message,
if you hear a man preaching, his message is not mysterious. It's not God's gospel. If a message
can be understood with a natural reasoning, the natural mind,
it's not God's gospel. If a man's message is not so
mysterious, that all you can say about is that supernatural,
it's not God's gospel. Let me give you a few examples.
Mark four, verse 11. He said unto them, unto you is
given to know the mystery of the kingdom. God's kingdom is
a mystery. How you get in that kingdom?
By God's grace, by God's mercy, by God's calling, that's a mystery.
God's kingdom is spiritual. It's not physical. And that's
a mystery to the natural man. And the proof of it is false
prophets. What's their message? It's all
on the physical end. Why don't they preach the spiritual
thing? Because it's a mystery to them. Ephesians one, verse
nine. Having made known unto us the
mystery of his will. Now God's will is a mystery. The father's will in salvation
is a mystery. that he chose a people and gave
those people to his son to save all by himself without any input
from man. That's a mystery to the natural
man, isn't it? Ephesians five, verse 32. This
is a great mystery. After Paul had given all this
instruction on marriage, he said, this is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church. Marriage is a beautiful
picture of the union between Christ and his bride. And boy,
if you understand that, you understand how to have a happy marriage.
If you can understand that marriage is a picture of Christ and his
bride, you've got the key to a happy marriage. But that's
a mystery to the natural man. That's why there's so many divorces,
it's a mystery. Colossians 1 verse 27. To whom
God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this
mystery among the Gentiles. Here's the mystery. which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory. But Paul's talking there about
the new birth. One person has two distinct separate natures.
That's a mystery to the natural man. It's a mystery to somebody
that's only got one nature. It's a mystery. The Holy Spirit
of God dwells in you if God has saved you. You are the temple
of God, Paul said. That's a mystery. How can that
be? It's a mystery. 1 Timothy 3 verse
9, Paul's talking about preaching the gospel. He said we preach
the gospel, we're holding the mystery of faith in a pure conscience. Now God-given faith is a mystery
to the natural man. We can't make ourselves believe
Christ can. Can't do it. God the Holy Spirit moves where
he wills, giving life and faith to whom he will, when he wills.
You can't see him, you can't see him coming, you can't see
him coming through, but boy there sure is evidence of it after
he's come through heaven. When he comes through in power there's
life, there's faith where there was none before. Salvation is
an act of God. Applying that salvation to the
hearts of God's people is an act of God to Holy Spirit. Somebody's
not saved because they made a decision for Jesus. Somebody has life
because Holy Spirit gave it to them. 1 Timothy 3 verse 16. Without controversy, there's
no argument about this, Paul says. Great is the mystery of
godliness. Here's the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. He was justified in the spirit,
seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, unto you and me,
received up into glory, believed on in the world. Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, he's the God-man. He's man, so he can save sinful
men by being their representative. He's a man just like we are,
but he's also God. He has the holiness of God. He
has the righteousness of God. He has the purity of God, so
he can satisfy God's holy justice and save his people from their
sin. And since he's God, he cannot fail to save his elect. He can't
do it. That person of Christ, That's
a mystery to the natural man, isn't it? And in our text, Paul
talks about the mystery of Christ. In verse three, he says, 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 in the mystery of Christ. Now I see four mysteries
in our text this morning concerning salvation that's in Christ our
Savior. Number one is this, the way God
does things. Now God has a will and the way
he accomplishes his purpose and his will is mysterious to us,
isn't it? God's ways are mysterious to
us for this reason. We would never do things the
way God does them. God's ways are not our ways.
But even though God does things, we don't understand why he's
doing them. We don't understand what he's accomplishing in this.
You can be confident of this. Whatever it is God's doing, he's
working all the events that take place in this world for this
purpose, to bring his elect to a saving knowledge of Christ
and give them faith in Christ. That is God's purpose. Here's
an example of God doing something we don't understand, verse one.
For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.
Now, if you and I were gonna spread the gospel in Rome, God's
got a people in Rome that he purposed to save. Christ died
for them. They must be given life. Well, if you and I were
gonna spread the gospel to Rome, and that was the seat of the
most powerful nation on earth at that time, we wouldn't have
done it the way God did it. Not one of us would have. We'd
have sent Paul to Rome, All the churches, all the false churches
there in that town, we'd have had them receive Paul gladly
and say, Paul, why don't you come preach to us? And Paul would
preach to all those people and many people would believe on
Christ. That's the way we'd have done it. If it was up to you
and me, we'd have created a desire in Caesar. He woke up one day
and said, you know, I really would like to meet this man Paul
and hear him preach. And Caesar would have invited
Paul up there to his palace to preach. And Paul would have preached
to him, and God would have saved Caesar. And boy, he wouldn't
have let there be any opposition to the gospel in the whole Roman
Empire anymore, would he? And many people, the gospel would
have been spread over the entire civilized world, over all the
Roman Empire. Many people would be brought
to Christ. That's the way you and I would have done it. That's
just so. That's not the way God did it,
is it? Instead, God did the opposite of what you and I would do. He
made Paul a prisoner in Rome. There he is chained to a wall,
chained to a Roman soldier 24-7. That was God's will. That's why
Paul calls himself the prisoner of Jesus Christ. I'm not the
prisoner of Rome. This is God's will. This is God accomplishing
His will. I'm the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. I'm a prisoner here for your
eternal good. For the eternal good of the Gentiles,
who will hear me preach while I'm a prisoner." Now, Paul was
a prisoner. I mean, he could not go freely
walk the streets and do what he wanted to do, but he could
still preach. God moved and put it in the hearts
of those people who were keeping him captive that he could preach.
See, Paul was chained up, but the gospel wasn't chained up.
Paul never went preaching Caesar's court, but people in Caesar's
court still heard the gospel. People from Caesar's court. came
to this higher house where Paul was being kept a prisoner to
hear him preach and God saved him. Now you think of that. A
mighty church was raised up in this city of Rome because people
heard the prisoner preach the gospel of Christ. God even saved
a man there named Onesimus. Onesimus was a runaway slave
and he ran into Paul when he was at Rome. Now Paul and Onesimus
knew each other. Onesimus had been a slave at
this man Philemon's house. Philemon was Paul's close friend.
He would have Paul come to his house and preach to the people
in his house and the people in his town. Onesimus had met Paul
before. He may have even heard him before.
Hated what he preached. Didn't believe what he preached.
The Lord didn't save that old rascal until he stole from his
master, ran away from his master, ran to Rome thinking, I'm never
gonna see these people again. And who'd he run into but the
Apostle Paul? Then the Lord saved him. Then
the Lord saved him. See, that was the way the Lord's
pleased to reveal himself to Onesimus, and only God would
do it that way. Only God would. Now, we wouldn't
have done it that way, would we? But looking back now, we
see, oh, the way God did it was the best way, don't we? And I
said all that to say this, I sure hope I remember that the next
time the Lord does something I don't understand. I hope I
remember that. I hope that I'll trust the Lord's
doing what's best, even though I don't understand it. In 1773,
William Cowper wrote these words, God moves in mysterious ways
his wonders to perform. God's ways, the way he accomplishes
his purpose is a mystery, Cowper said. It's still true today,
isn't it? The way God does things is a
mystery, but he's still accomplishing his will, always. All right,
number two, the way God saves sinners is a mystery. Look at
verse five. This mystery of Christ, Paul
says, 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. Now the answer to the mystery of salvation, how can
a man be just with God? How can God save a sinner from
his sin? Wash him white as snow. The answer
to the mystery is Christ. See, the Lord never was pleased. Israel lived over 2,000 years
under the law and the ceremonies that God gave Moses. But the
Lord never was pleased to save anybody. by them keeping those
laws or them observing those ceremonies. And you know, that
should have been obvious to the Jews, shouldn't it? Nobody could
do all that perfectly. Nobody could keep the law perfectly.
Nobody could observe the ceremonies perfectly. All the law and the
ceremonies, everything required and all of that, the best it
could ever be is just a picture of Christ. There was no saving
power in it. All it could be was a picture
of Christ. God never gave the law so you
and me could earn a righteousness by keeping it. God gave the law
to show us how much we need Christ to come and do what we can't
do. I need him to come and keep the law for me. That's why God
gave the law. God didn't ever mean to save
anybody by somebody observing all the types and ceremonies
and pictures of the Old Testament law. Salvation was hidden in
those things. It was hidden in a picture. Those
things pictured The answer to the mystery was Christ. And once
the Lord reveals Christ to me, now I see. Now I see with all
the stories and the ceremonies and the law, everything we read
in the Old Testament, now I understand it when Christ is revealed to
me. Look back at Matthew chapter
16. You know, the disciples, of the
Lord who ended up becoming the apostles. You know, they were
all Jews. They grew up under these laws and these ceremonies
and these traditions. And before they met Christ, they
didn't understand what they meant, but they did later. Look here
at Matthew 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, whom do
men say that I, the son of man am? And they said, some say thou
art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremiah or one of
the prophets. And he said unto them, but whom say ye that I
am? And Simon Peter answered and
said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. He knew
the answer to the mystery, didn't he? And Jesus answered and said
unto him, blessed art thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed that unto thee, but my father. which is in heaven. Peter knew the answer to the
mystery was Christ. He knew who Christ is. And the
only reason he knew that is the Father had been pleased to reveal
it to him. That's what the Savior says. And the same thing's true
of you and me. The only way we can know Christ,
the only way we can know how God saves sinners, the only way
we can know the answer to the mystery is by the same revelation. The Lord has to reveal Christ
to us. Otherwise, we're gonna perish
trusting in our own words, because we don't know the mystery. We're
gonna think the way God saves sinners is by me keeping the
law, by me doing my best. I'm gonna perish trusting in
my words, unless the Lord's pleased to reveal the answer to the mystery.
It's Christ. That's how God saves sinners,
is by the person, the doing and the dying of God's Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's how God saves sinners.
The third mystery is this. who God saves. Oh, that's a mystery. You gotta always purpose to save
the Gentiles. You go back and read in the Old
Testament, now we can see that, can't we? The Lord saved Gentiles
even in the Old Testament. Naaman the Syrian, a Gentile,
a Gentile who was the captain of the enemy of Israel. The Lord always purposed to save
the Gentiles. And you know what the Gentiles
were considered by the Jews? That's the worst kind of sinner
you can be. A heathen idolater. But the Lord intended to save
some Gentiles. The Lord never just intended to save just a
few Jews. God's grace and God's mercy are so great. They're too great to be confined
to just a few natural descendants of Abraham. God chose to save
sinners. Sinners. He didn't choose to
save good orthodox Jews. The question for you and me is
not do I attend a place where we got all the right doctrine,
our doctrinal reducts are all in a row, we got everything just
right, and I know all the right doctrine. That's not the question.
The question is am I a sinner? That's the question. Christ came
to save sinners. He didn't come to save good people. Christ chose
to save the worst of sinners, heathen idolaters. That's how great God's mercy
and grace is. Look back at Matthew chapter
nine. This is a mystery. Christ did not come to save good
people. He came to save sinners. Matthew chapter nine, verse 10. And it came to pass as Jesus
sat at meat in the house, Behold, now look who it is that's just
naturally drawn to come to Christ. Many publicans and sinners came
and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees
saw it, they, you know, it's just like when we have a big
old church dinner, we got the table set up here, and you know,
you look for a place where there's an empty seat. These publicans
and sinners came, there's an empty seat at the table where
the Savior sat. Why? The Pharisees weren't sitting
there. You ever thought of that? The
Pharisees weren't sitting there. Publican sinners came and sat
down with the Lord. Verse 11, and when the Pharisees
saw it, they were over at their separate table. When the Pharisees
saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans
and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he
said unto them, they that behold need not a physician, but they
that are sick. Now you go and learn what that
means. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice, for I'm not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And that remained
a mystery to the Pharisees. I don't know about you, but this
sinner sure is glad that the Lord came to show mercy to sinners. This sinner sure is glad the
Lord came to save genuine sinners, not pretend sinners, the chief
of sinners. And the only way you can be glad
about that is if the Lord's been pleased to reveal that mystery
to you. Who it is Christ came to save. He came to save sinners. And scripture tells us he saved
them to the uttermost, completely and fully. And the way the Lord
reveals that to his people is our fourth mystery. It's a mystery
how the Lord lets his people in on what he's done for them.
The Father chose a people to save. The Son saved them. He redeemed them from their sin.
He shed His blood and put their sin away. He obeyed the law as
their representative and made them righteous. The great transaction's
done. This thing's done. But when I
was born, I didn't know about it. You didn't either. How does
the Lord let His people in on what He has done for them? Now, the Lord's done this great
for his people. It wouldn't surprise me if the
Lord said, I'm going to tell him about it. I'm going to speak
directly from heaven just like I spoke to Moses, just like I
spoke to Abraham, just like I spoke to Jacob. I'm going to speak
directly from heaven so people hear and believe. Now you'd think
if the father did that, it would work. Don't you think? I mean,
we heard God speak from heaven. Why believe him? I know of a
time God did speak from heaven. You know what he said? This is
my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Hear ye him. Far as I know, there's no record
anybody did. We're so dead in sin, we wouldn't
even hear God the Father speak from heaven. That's not the way,
I mean, we would if that was the way the Lord was pleased
to reveal himself to his people, but that's not the way God's
pleased to reveal himself. The Lord reveals himself to his
people in a way that humbles us. Everything about God's salvation
humbles the sinner. It humbles us, it puts us in
the dust, it makes us just completely dependent on God. If God's gonna
save you, he's gonna do it by the preaching of the gospel.
You're gonna have to come, hear another sinful man tell you how
God saves sinners. God's not gonna speak directly
to you. He's gonna send another sinful, flawed man to preach
Christ to you. Verse seven, Paul says, whereof
I was made a minister. God made me a minister according
to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual
working of his power. God called Saul of Tarsus. Of
all people, God called Saul Tarsus to be a preacher. He threw him
down there in the dust. He blinded him. And what did
God do? He sent him to Ananias. Somebody
came to preach to him. And God used this man. He took
Paul aside separately and taught him the gospel personally. He
made him a preacher. God made him a preacher. Paul
wasn't such a gifted preacher. because he grew up at the feet
of Gamaliel, learning all the scriptures and learning all the
law and all of those things that, I mean, I reckon God could use
that knowledge and it came in handy later, but that's not what
made Paul a preacher. God made Paul a preacher. And
the Lord does the same thing for his preachers today. He calls
a man, most usually, it's the most unlikely fella in the bunch,
and God calls him to be a preacher. And he equips him. He makes them
a preacher. And how can a former rebel, like
Saul of Tarsus, like Frank Tate, how can those men be qualified
to preach Christ to you? That's a mystery, isn't it? It's
a mystery, something only God can do. And when the Lord calls
a man to preach, He gives him an assignment. Look at verse
two there in Ephesians three. He says, if you've heard of the
dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you
word. That word dispensation means an assignment. It means
to administer someone else's property. Remember after Joseph
was sold in slavery down there to Egypt and he ended up in Potiphar's
house, remember? And Joseph said, Potiphar doesn't
know what he has in the house or in the field. I'm taking care
of it all. That was the dispensation, the
assignment given to Joseph He administered all of Potiphar's
goods. That's what he was doing there.
Well, that's what God's preachers are. God's given us an assignment. And the assignment that God has
given us is to preach Christ. It's to preach Christ. It's not
to do anything else. It's not to try to convince somebody
to my doctrinal stance on several different things, you know. Our
assignment is to preach Christ. See, the gospel of Christ belongs
to God, doesn't it? But now he's given it to us to
preach. You think of that, that's not
just me, that's this whole church body. God has given us the gospel
to preach to our generation. That's pretty serious business.
If God's gonna save people in our generation, It's going to
be by the preaching of the gospel. I want to be faithful to do it,
don't you? God is pleased to use this gospel, the preaching
of the gospel, to save his people from their sins. It pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now
you're not going to be saved without hearing a preacher, without
hearing a preacher. Somebody's got to tell you the
answer to the mystery. Somebody else has gotta, you
can't figure it out, it's gotta be by preacher. Somebody's gotta
tell you the mystery is Christ. Somebody's gotta preach Christ
to you. And oh, if the Holy Spirit lets you hear, now you're gonna
have the key to unlock the mystery. The key's Christ. Let me give
a few examples. When was the Ethiopian eunuch
saved? Now, I'm just assuming this man was a powerful man. He's a smart, intelligent man. He was the treasurer of the queen.
I mean, this man, he had to be something else mentally. He had
to be something else. He was reading the scriptures
and was blind to it and knew it. When was he saved? When Philip
came and preached to him. Philip said, you understand what
you're reading? He said, no. How can I understand this mystery
except some man tell me? And Philip began that very scripture.
What'd he do? Preach Christ to him. Lord saved
him. How about the Philippian jailer?
Oh, I bet that man was a hard nut. Don't you think he was just
a hard nut? I mean, he wasn't just there
keeping somebody in prison. He enjoyed making them suffer.
He enjoyed it. Oh, he was a hard, hard, hard
man. When did God break it? Paul preached
to him, preached Christ to him. Lydia. I kind of think of her
personality just the opposite of that Philippian jailer. They
were both from the same town. They both ended up attending
the same congregation. I picture her just being like
a southern lady, you know, she was the sweet, kind, you know,
lady. And she was there by the riverside
where prayer was wont to be made. And she was there, she was around
religion, she had some interest in religion. But when it got
safer, when Paul showed up at that river and preached Christ
to her, and the Lord opened her heart, she understood the mystery
now. The day of Pentecost, Peter came
and he stood up and boldly preached. He told him the answer to the
mystery is Christ. Christ. And 3,000 souls were
saved. and some of the most unlikely
people on the planet. The way you and I would calculate
likelihood, some of the most unlikely people on the planet
were saved that day. Peter told them, you have by
wicked hands taken and crucified the Son of God. Some of those
people that God saved that day were the very people at the cross
demanding the death of Christ. God's so rich in mercy, he saved
them anyway. They were there demanding the
crucifixion of Christ. And Peter preached Christ and
Him crucified to them. Then they understood what happened
that day. They understood the mystery and
God saved them. Isn't it a mystery that the Lord
has allowed us to have the gospel here? And he's enabled us to
believe and love it. Isn't that a mystery? I thank
God for it, don't you? All right, Lord bless you.