You'll turn with me now in your
Bibles to Ephesians chapter 3. With this cause, I, Paul, the
prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if you have 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 a few words
whereby when you read you might understand my knowledge in the
mystery of Christ. And I believe there he's referring
back to those chapter 1, chapter 2 of his own letter. 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 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 to 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 hath been hid in God, who created all things by
Jesus Christ, to the intent that now under principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold
wisdom of God. Now, the great God of glory,
the Father of Lights that James talks about, he said, every good
gift, every perfect gift, cometh from above, comes down from the
Father of Lights, with whom is no bearableness, neither shadow
or turning. This great God of glory, the
Father of Lights, He has purposed He's purposed to save a people
for the glory of his name. And these prophets and apostles
and the one great mediator and surety of God's everlasting covenant
of grace has made these things sure. These are the means that
God has given to make these things known to us. All that God chose,
He chose in Christ. All that He predestinated to
be sons were predestinated. You can read it over here in
verse 5 of chapter 1, by Jesus Christ to Himself. All that He
redeemed were redeemed in Christ. All that was scattered, separated,
He brought to Christ. And in that day, He will gather
all things, all things in heaven, earth, and hell. He's going to
gather all things that He purposed to do in Christ. He's going to
gather them all together. All together. God's predestinated
it. And especially, Paul says, these
Gentiles. These Gentiles. They were far
off, he said. He said, you remember this. I
want you to know something about the power, he said, of God toward
us who believe, talking about that faith of God's elect and
what kind of power and authority it took. that went before concerning
your resurrection, your spiritual resurrection. And that authority
that went before in Christ. And he said, now you remember
where you come from. He said, you're Gentiles. You're
Gentiles. We used to have a phrase we used
when we were just little kids. And somebody said something and
we'd question it and we'd say, cause why? And they say something,
we say, cause why? And we just keep saying that.
Well, here's cause why. That's what Paul's getting ready
to tell you. He said, for this cause. See how he begins this
chapter? For this cause. What cause? The cause he's already told us
about back in Chapter 2. How he took Gentiles and Jews
and redeemed them both from one body. How that he purposed to
have one church made up of both Jews and Gentiles. That the Jews
had a purpose under this predestinating work of God. They had a purpose
in it. So did the Gentiles. So did the
Gentiles. And that was a great mystery.
This great God of glory who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will has determined that these things come to pass.
He makes known unto us the mystery, he said, of his will. It's a
mystery. You're not going to figure it
out. Nobody's going to figure this thing out. Go up and down
your neighborhood and start talking to your neighbors and see if
they figured it out. They claim to know God. They
claim to understand these things, but they don't understand these
mysteries. You mention any of these things that God calls a
mystery, either the mystery of iniquity, the mystery of godliness,
the mystery of the Gentiles, talk about any of those mysteries,
and I guarantee you they've got nothing to say. They'll just
look at you and shrug their shoulders. They don't know. But God, he
says here back in verse 9 of chapter 1, has made known unto
us the mystery, the mystery of God's will concerning these things. The revelation of this purpose
has taken in a people that no man had ever thought before this
time should be included as sons of God. You go back and read
the Old Testament without any knowledge of what took place,
and you're going to come out of there saying to yourself,
God despises Gentiles. I'm telling you, He took their
land away from them and gave it to Israel. Went in there and
slayed hundreds of thousands of them. He commanded that they
not be included. When they brought them back,
they would be hewn to pieces, all of them destroyed. Even a
lot of times, even the cattle and everything that they owned,
he destroyed. You go through there, and you
just don't even find a hint of God's compassion and grace toward
Gendi. There are just a few exceptions
to the rule as it goes along, like in the days of Elijah and
different times like that, where showed favor, Nebuchadnezzar. For this calls 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. Now, there's
three things here that seem to me to be on the heart of Paul
as he begins this chapter. These are the three things that
I want to talk to you about this morning. First, that there is
a divine cause. There is a cause. Things are
not running without an end. Things are not just evolving
on their own. I read a little excerpt. I won't
tell you who wrote it, but someone very close to me, and they wrote
this thing that their belief was in what they called karma.
And this karma is just a belief that whatever comes to pass,
that's it. You don't know it until it comes
to pass. Once it comes to pass, then everything
has to be geared around that, and something else comes to pass. I've always wondered what karma
was. I guess that's what it is. But here Paul tells us there's
a cause. God has a purpose. He's doing
something. He's doing something. And he
gears everything to that something, this cause. And this is a great
mystery to men. It's a mystery even to religious
folks. It's a great mystery. And God
just goes right on doing it. And nothing hinders him. Secondly,
he wants them to know this, that his being a prisoner was part
of this purpose. Everything that comes to pass,
all the suffering, the beatings, the whippings. They hired thugs
to beat old Paul, leave him there for dead. He was beaten within
one stripe of his life three times. Shipwrecked, put out on
islands, bit by reptiles. You just go on and on and on. He said, I'm a prisoner, and
my being a prisoner is due to this cause. this cause of God. It's right in line with Him.
Right in line with Him. And then thirdly, He wants them
to know this, that He Himself was sent of God to make known
the will of God to them by the gospel He preached. Now I'll
tell you this, if you don't believe that the preaching of the gospel
is the means of God ordained to save sinners, you need to
go back and read the life of these early apostles. There's
just no way that a man will subject himself to that kind of suffering
and that kind of disrespect and humility who believes that there's
another way. He ain't going to do it. He ain't
going to do it. And that's what Paul's telling
them. These sufferings were necessary for you, he said. Necessary. I suffered these things that
this gospel might be preached to you. And this gospel that
I preach to you is according to the purpose of God. And these
three things in general mark the ministry of every God-called
preacher. He sees first that preaching
is the means whereby God is pleased to call out His sheep and feed
His sheep and maintain His sheep all the days of their lives.
He understands that. And no man will ever commit himself
to the gospel ministry and be willing to make these sacrifices
that it does demand. He's not going to do it until
he's convinced that there's no other way and that this is the
way of God. Not going to do it. Secondly,
that no man who goes for God and sees the cause of this ministry
and sees also all of the obstacles and suffering that he must endure
of God as necessary, as necessary to achieve his end and goal.
He must see that. They're necessary. You're not
going to suffer unless it's necessary, are you? Huh? I ain't. But if it's necessary, I'll suffer. You know, you got to, here's
a dentist down here, but your tooth ain't hurting. I don't
care how bad it is. It could be black and hanging
by a thread. You ain't going to that dentist until that thing
starts hurting. When it starts hurting, you'll
go down there to the dentist and you'll suffer. You see what
I'm saying? When you see suffering necessary
to accomplish the goal, you'd be willing to suffer. You'd be
willing to stand there and take that attitude of men, that ungodly
attitude. You'd be able to stand there
and take their rebukes and take all that foolishness and things
that they do. And then the third thing every
God-called preacher desires and prays that God will establish
And that is that he himself is God's ambassador to those to
whom he sent. Now this is a, just a, I can't
tell you how important that is. And you could write volumes on
what it is to be called to the gospel ministry. I've read things
written by some of the greatest writers of all times, and I've
sat under two of the most mature and most used preachers of our
whole generation. I've sat under them and listened
to them. But the bottom line is this. God puts us in the ministry
by causing us to be approved by those that have the rule over
us, number one, and by his effectual working in us. Now, that's what
Paul says. And that's the bottom line of
the whole thing, is God's effect. What's effectual in that working?
Providence. Providence. I can't open the
door. I can pace the floor and want to preach the bed. It kills
me. But I can't open that door of
providence. Only God can open that. And I've had friends who
have spent their whole lives training, have master degree
in theology. They went to school for nine
or ten years, getting prepared for the ministry, and they went
and sat under gospel preachers for years and labored and wanted
to go out. And the pastor would use them
to preach in the church and all of these things. And yet, the
door of providence never opened. Only God can put a man in the
ministry. That's what Paul is telling me.
And he did it through his effectual working in me. He opened a door for me to be
in Taylor, Arkansas. He opened that door. I didn't
open it. I didn't open it. He did. He
did. There's five preachers in that
church up in Daniel. That pastor could have recommended
any of the five. They could have come right down
here, preached to you the same things I'm preaching to you.
But God didn't open that door for them. He opened it for me.
Who laid that on that pastor's heart? You see what I'm saying? There is an effect of working
in a minister of God that only God can do. I can't open those
doors. I can't open those doors. It's
of great importance that you, as hearers, settle this thing
in your heart as to whether or not the man who ministers to
you is sin of God. It's just foolishness. If this
man is just a colleague, if he's just a professor up here teaching
something, then anybody in here could have done that. Isn't that
right? Sure they could. You can sit
down and read a book and learn the lesson, stand up and give
the lesson. That's not how it's done. That's not how it's done. In Matthew chapter 10, verse
14, the Lord tells those that He sent to preach His gospel.
I want you to listen to this. Whosoever shall not receive your
message. I ain't what that says. I ain't
what that says. Matthew 10, 14. Whosoever shall
not receive you. That's what it says, ain't it? Y-O-U. You. Whosoever shall not
receive you and hear your words. Ain't that what it says? When
you depart out of that house, you depart out of that city,
shake off the dust from your feet. Verily I say unto you,
it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
in that day of judgment than for that city." Pretty serious
words, ain't it? Paul opened his letter to the
Ephesians by saying that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ by
the will of God to them. To them. To the saints which
are at Ephesus and to all the faithful in Christ Jesus. God's
opening the door here of a great mystery, a mystery hidden from
the world from the beginning of time. And according to the
purpose of God, He now makes these things known by certain
men He's chosen to the work, gifted in an understanding and
accompanied by His Spirit. Now, an interesting word in these
first verses is the word dispensation. Now, I always thought dispensation,
back in my days of religion, had to do with an age, an age,
a coming age, the gospel age and all of this type of thing.
That's not what that word means. The word dispensation means administration. We're under the Obama administration. That's an economy and it means
a trust. He was chosen of the people and
given this trust, this administration. And he has to give an account
for it. And that's what Paul's talking about here. He said,
I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles if you've heard
of the administration or the economy of the grace of God given
me to you. God has given me an administration,
a trust. And I'm laboring hard on this
point this morning because I want you to understand the significance
of it. It's the whole reason for our being in this world.
I want you to think about it. Think on your heart. Go home
and read about it. Research it. Don't take my word
for it. Go home and read about it. See if what I'm telling you
is not the truth. It's the whole reason for the
present structure of the church. It is the whole reason for preachers
and preaching. This trust. Caleb and Anna Pounds
are in the process of moving over here because they've come
to see this and see it clearly. This is a trust given us. It's
the only reason why we exist. It's the only reason why God
leaves us in this ungodly world. Why would God? We're justified
before God. I'm as righteous as I'm going
to get in the righteousness of Christ, so what am I doing here?
And I know by his promise he's going to come and get me and
take me up there where he is, and he's going to perfect the
work that he's began. So what am I doing here? Why
did he leave me here? Paul said he's left you here
as fellow laborers with God. God's given us the high privilege
of being a part of this ministry, a part of this thing. That's
the only reason we're here. And what do we do? We spend our
labor and time and efforts on everything on the sun except
this. Except this. And that's why I'm
hammering on this so hard this morning. That's why we're here.
That's why we're gathered here as a church. God's going to make
known all these things to principalities and powers in heaven. He's going
to make these things known through the church. Ain't that what I
read to you, little Walter? The manifold wisdom of God is
going to be Manifest before every living thing by the church. By the church. It's God's purpose
that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, partakers
of his promise in Christ, he said, by the gospel. By the gospel. Not by some universal gathering
together to exert power and influence. Not by campaigns and public demonstrations,
and it's not by social reform and interaction between the church
and civil management and all these other foolishness. It's
not by schools and spiritual special education opportunities. It's by local assemblies. Local assemblies and the preaching
of the gospel. I told the folks up in Kansas
City, the Holy Spirit of God, that was to be the theme of that
conference. And I made this statement to
them. The Holy Spirit of God, when He sent into this world,
was not sent to freelance. He's not sent down here to just
do what He will, with whom He will, wherever He will, and all
that type of thing. That's not why He was sent. He
was sent, the same as Christ was, to accomplish a purpose.
And His coming, it's not that He couldn't do anything He wanted
to. He's God. But so was Christ. And He said, I didn't come to
do my own will. Neither did the Holy Ghost. He's
sent to accomplish a purpose. And that purpose is His presence
and power that accompanies the gospel that God has ordained
to preach. All three persons of the Godhead
are in harmony in this thing of salvation and the preaching
of the gospel, and they do not work independently from one another. They are all in harmony in this
thing. And the revelation of God to the New Testament apostles,
verse 6, is that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of
the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the
gospel. Paul said, whereof, because of
this cause again, whereof I was made a minister according to
the gift of the grace of God given unto me, now listen, by
the effectual working of His power. Turn with me over to Colossians
chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. And look
here at verse 21. and you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. If you continue
in the faith, grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel which you've heard and which was preached to every
creature which is under heaven were of I, Paul, and made a minister,
who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which
is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his
body's sake, which is the church." We're of, talking about everything
that he just said. I made a minister according to
the dispensation, the administration of God, which is given to me
for you to fulfill the word of God. That's pretty clear, isn't
it? Even the mystery which hath been
hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to the
saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Does that clear that up? That's why we're here. That's
why we're here. That's why he appoints. And we'll
get into that a little later on in the study of Ephesians. He appoints. He appointed apostles. He appointed prophets. He appointed
pastors and teachers, evangelists, missionaries. He appointed all
of these offices to accomplish this right here for the unveiling,
the unveiling and the effectual gathering in of these Gentiles. And there's just no other reason
for us to be on this earth. In I Corinthians 3.9, He tells
us that we are laborers together with God. Talking about Him and
these different ones who were preaching to them that they were
familiar with and calls their names. He said, we are fellow
laborers together with God. He said, ye are God's husbandry,
ye are God's building. Then in chapter 4, he says, let
a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards,
there's that administration again, stewards of the mystery of God. It's our administration and trust
given to us of God. Moreover, he says in verse 2
of chapter 4, he said, it is required in stewards that a man
be found faithful. This is a sacred trust given
to the church wherever God is pleased to establish an assembly
and there to do everything in their power to be faithful to
this trust. See, that's what's behind this
thing is the preaching of the gospel. And it's inclusive of
every member of the church. Now, he just got one preacher
that stands up here and preaches, but I can't preach unless you
support me. I'd go back where I was and get a job. I can't,
I, we, those apostles, they told them, he said, it's not meet
for us to wait on tables, but he said, we'll select out some
men here, and you can take care of that so we can give ourselves
to study and prayer. So we can preach, so this thing
can be done. And, and every, every office,
every member of a church has a part in this thing, of preaching,
and it's a sacred trust. And once you see what it's about,
once you get into the inner workings of it, your whole life will begin
to revolve around this and not everything else. If my whole
life revolved around my family, I'd still be in Kentucky. That's
right. If Kayla Banana's whole life
revolved around, they got brand new grandchildren over there.
It's heartbreaking for her to leave those little children and
come over here. But they see some things. And they see that
everything revolves around this and not that. That's what this
is teaching. That's what he's saying here.
He lays the foundation of it way back here in the beginning
in chapter 1 with all of these things talking about God our
Father and our inheritance as sons and that He accomplishes
these things totally in Christ Jesus. He shows us about his
redemption and how we were quickened by faith and so on. And now he
says, here's the inner work. Here's what this thing's all
about. God has chosen a people, and these people are inclusive
of the Gentile, these old heathens. You say, I just can't minister
to them. Man, they're just ignorant. You can't talk to them. Well,
sure they are. They don't know anything about it any more than
they did in the days of Paul. They didn't know anything about
it. They had to be taught. These
things had to be declared. And then he says in Ephesians
3, 8, Unto me who am less than the least of all the saints is
this grace given, that I should preach him among the Gentiles,
the unsearchable riches of Christ. You know, when the natural man
thinks about preaching in the ministry, we think in terms of
natural ability, special gifts, remarkable men. But God hardly
ever uses men like that. He hardly ever does. He'll pick
a John Newton. That's who He'll pick. Slave to a slave. Raise him up
to be one of the greatest preachers of His day. God hardly ever uses
men like that. But He takes the weak things
and foolish things and base things of the world to confound the
mighty and the noble and the wise. Paul had been chosen out
of the depths of Parisianism. Back when I was in religion,
I thought about Paul being trained, and I thought about all those
things being an asset to him. He said none of them things was
an asset to him. He just counted them as dung.
That's what he said. They were useless, totally useless. They were contrary to what he
was trying to do. And that's what he's trying to
tell folk. He said, God converted me that in me first he might
show a pattern to you just how far down he'll go to get a sinner
and save him. And he didn't choose me because
I sat at the feet of Gamaliel. He chose me because of my weakness
and inability and how far down I was. I'm the chief of sinners,
he said. And just time and time again
he talks about himself as nothing, just nothing. less than the least
of all the saints. He'd been chosen out of the depth
of Phariseeism and self-righteousness, and he was a murderer under the
disguise of religion. Held the coat of them that stoned
the first martyr. And in the name of false religion,
he persecuted the church. In the name of false religion,
he sold others on the same deceit that filled his own heart. And
physically, the man physically, you couldn't even look at him.
It never says clearly exactly what was wrong with him, but
evidently most of the old writers feel like he had scales or something
where God blinded him. It was difficult to look at him.
And he makes mention of that in Galatians. He said, I bear
you witness. He said, when I came to you at
the first, and God opened your heart and your eyes to this gospel,
he said, I bear you witness that you would have plucked out your
own eyes and given them to me. Now they wouldn't have thought
that if there wasn't something wrong with his eyes. What I'm laboring
to say here is that this man, although he's held in high esteem
by God and sit up here with an honorable position, it doesn't
have anything to do with him. And it's usually in spite of
everything that he is. It's in spite. And Paul prays.
What did it say? Three times he prayed for the
Lord to take this infirmity away from him. And the Lord said,
my grace is sufficient. In other words, I gave it to
you on purpose. I gave it to you on purpose. So men wouldn't
glory in you, they'd glory in me. And this thing, Ephesians
2, 9, is to make all men, that is all to whom he was sent of
God to preach. See what is the fellowship of
the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in
God who created all things by Christ Jesus. To the intent that
now unto principalities and powers and heavenly places might be
known, listen, by the church, the manifold wisdom of God. And that's all verse 11, according
to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord. I'm out of time. Thank you.