I want to read down through verse
13 again for you. For this cause, because of what
he had been saying in chapter 2, that we're his building, we've
been reconciled to him through the blood of Christ and so on.
For this cause, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for
you Gentiles, since you have heard of the dispensation of
the grace of God which is given me to you, how that by revelation
he made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words,
whereby when you read you may understand my mystery of Christ,
my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, 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 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 have been hid in God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ. To the intent that now unto the
principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known
to the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal
purpose which ye purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom
we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him. Wherefore, I desire that ye faint
not at my tribulation for you, which is your glory." You and
I have been going very slowly, and one of the reasons we've
been going slowly through this epistle is because I've tried
to take just one verse, or perhaps one thought, and get one thought
from each message. Last week you and I looked at
Paul's concern for these believers here in this church. And one
of the concerns that they had was that Paul had been a prisoner
now for years. And they become concerned about
that. They have these false apostles. that came down here among them.
You read that in Revelation 3. And they were always trying to
undermine this apostle. And no doubt, they were saying
to these Ephesian believers, you know there's something wrong
with that apostle. There's something wrong with
Paul. The rest of us are free. We have our liberty. But look
at him. He's a prisoner of wrong. He's
been bailed now, not one year or two years, but we know for
four years. There's something wrong. And
they begin to be concerned. Why is Paul a prisoner? You know,
after you've suffered some things, if it's just for a while, then
you can get through it. But when it's extended, and it
goes on and on and on, we'll say, well, that trial doesn't
bother me. Well, maybe not, until it goes on a year, or two years,
or three years. Then after a while, you start
saying, what's wrong? Something's wrong. So Paul wrote
there, we looked last week, in verse 13, and he said, I don't
want you fainting. I don't want you to grow discouraged
and confused as to why I'm a prisoner. And then you remember, he said,
I'm a prisoner for you Gentiles. The reason I'm in jail is not
just because I'm an apostle. It's not just because I preach
the gospel. But I preach it to you Gentiles. The Lord called me and sent me
to you Gentiles, and therefore the Jews hate me. And they sought
to kill me. And that's why I'm a prisoner
of Rome. He answers that question. He's
a prisoner because of that. Now, he calls himself here in
verse 2, and that's what we want to look at this afternoon. He
deals with something else. He deals with his stewardship,
his being entrusted with the gospel. If you have heard, or
since you have heard, obviously they heard, he spent at least
two years with these people. This word, dispensation, it means
It means really two things, and you put them together. It means
administration, and it means a steward within that administration. If you'll think of the president's
administration, you know when someone is elected president,
he has this administration. He gets all of these people together
to run, to be in charge of his administration. He puts one over
this area, and puts one over that area, and they're stewards. You have a steward over the economy.
You have a steward over what we call the Secretary of State
and Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Education. Those
are stewards. Well, that's what Paul is saying
here in verse 2. If you have heard of this stewardship
of the grace of God which is given me to you, he was a steward
over the grace of God. And of course, he calls it also
in verse 4, the mystery of Christ. And then he's a steward over
these unsearchable riches of Christ. He calls them many things,
but basically he's a steward over the gospel of the grace
of Christ. That's what he says, God call
me, Christ call me to testify, to witness the gospel of the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said this in 1 Corinthians
4, he said this, Let a man so account of us as the ministers
of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. And it's required
in stewards, that he said, that a man be found faithful. And
then in 1 Corinthians 2, he says this, Our exhortation, our preaching
was not in deceit. We're not out to deceive people.
It surely wasn't in uncleanness nor in guile. It wasn't in error. It wasn't in deception. But as
we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel. In trust with the gospel. That's what he means. He's a
steward. And he said, since God has put us in trust with this
gospel, he tries our hearts. He says, here's the gospel. You
keep it in your heart. You be faithful to it. You entrust
what I've given to you to faithful keeping. And he told Timothy,
this glorious gospel of the blessed God is what I preach, which was
committed unto my trust. And he said in another place,
2 Corinthians 5.19, that this is the ministry. God was in Christ. Reconciling the world unto himself,
and committed unto us the word of reconciliation. And then he
was writing to Timothy, and he calls that good thing, that's
what he calls the gospel, that good thing. And here's what he
says to Timothy. He said, Timothy, keep that good
thing which was committed unto thy trust. And keep it, he said,
by the Holy Ghost. That gospel that was committed
to you, keep it. And here's how you can keep it.
You can keep it in your own heart to believe it, to rest your hope
upon it, and you can keep it pure upon your lips. Keep that
good thing. How can he do that? By the Holy
Ghost. By the aid and by the help. by
the assistance and the grace of the Holy Ghost. And he was
writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, verse 20, and he says, O Timothy,
keep that which was committed to thy trust. And then he was
writing concerning the Jewish nation and the Word of God, and
he said, What profit is there of being a Jew? What advantage
does the Jew have? He said, well, this is one advantage
they have, unto them was committed, entrusted, the oracles of God. The Word of God was committed
to the Jew. And you know, there's one sense
in which they were faithful. We've talked many times, Larry,
about how careful they were when they copied the Scriptures. They
knew it was the Word of Jehovah. And if they made a mistake, they'd
just wad the paper up and throw it away. They preserved the Scriptures. They said, this is the Word of
our God, and we'll preserve it. So they were faithful in what
was committed to them. But in another way, they were
so unfaithful. Because they added their silly
traditions and man's commandments to God's Word. And they made
void the commandments of God by their tradition. When Paul
came down to die, he said this about his stewardship. He said,
I fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. That doctrine
of faith, the truth, this mystery which God committed to me, this
gospel of His grace, I've kept it. And Peter was speaking to
every preacher and every teacher. And he said, as every man has
received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good
stewards. of the grace of God. So see what
he's saying? Paul is saying, I'm a steward.
I was a steward of this mystery of God, this grace of God, this
Gospel. Timothy was too. And now Peter
says, every man that God has called to preach the Gospel,
he's a steward. He's a steward to dispense this
Gospel. And I glean from this that when
Paul here is speaking of a preacher, He's not called to supervise
social events. When we think of a preacher being
a steward of the gospel, and then he reduces himself, or he's
reduced by the church to supervising social events, it's utterly ridiculous. to emcee some social event that
the church has got going on, or to entertain some shut-ins,
or to bury the dead, or simply murder the young, or to advise
civil government. A preacher has been entrusted
with this gospel of God's grace. He has this treasure. In another
place, he calls it a treasure in these earthen vessels. And
the scripture says we're to guard it with our lives. Stewards of
God's grace. And we're told if a man has received
this gift that he won't entangle himself with the affairs of this
life. That he may please Him that's
entrusted to him with this grace. You know what a successful ministry
is. A successful ministry is not
one that has a lot of converts. A successful ministry is not
one that preaches the Lord's crowns. You know what a successful
ministry is? Being a faithful steward to what's
been committed to us. That's what I call success as
a pastor. That's what you call success
as a congregation. We come on the scene, the Lord
has established us as a local church, we have this gospel of
His grace, and when we go off the scene, this is the way that
will determine our success. Have we been thankful to hold this gospel that's been
committed to us? I count that serious, don't you?
We do, don't we? We do. Notice what Paul says here about
his stewardship of this grace. He says it this way in verse
2. Since you have heard of this stewardship of the grace of God,
and he says two things, which is given me for you. He says these two things. First,
he said concerning this stewardship, what was committed to him, this
gospel of God's grace, he says it was given me. It was given me. It's not something
I earned. It's not something that I married
it. It's not something that I was educated into. It's not because
of some natural abilities that I have. I'm a steward. This gospel has been entrusted
to me because it's been given. And he says it again there in
verse 7. Look how he says it. I was made a minister according
to the gift of the grace of God given. Ain't that amazing how
he keeps saying that? Nobody writes like this apostle.
It's not enough for him to say that I was made a minister according
to this gift, but he said according to this gift of the grace of
God, and he doesn't stop there, which was given. Grace, gift,
given. He can't say enough about it,
can he? In verse 8, "...and to me, who am less than the least
of all saints, is this grace given." Grace given. Paul can't magnify grace enough.
He never could. He tried it. He put all these
adjectives, but he never could express what he was feeling in
his heart. The Lord called him. He was a blasphemer. injurious,
he tried to stomp out the name of the Lord Jesus Christ from
this earth, hauled into prison the Lord's people, and the Lord
struck him down on the Damascus Road and saved him. And Paul
was amazed by that. He said, the life I now live,
I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me. Even when I
hated Him, He loved me. and gave Himself for me, and
He never got over that. And here now, He said, I'm amazed
at this, that He would call me into this ministry, that He would
call me to be an apostle. And He says, this shows again,
the exceeding abundance of grace, this gift that was given unto
me, a messenger of His grace. And how he humbles himself here
and says, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. One of the saddest things that's
happening in the ministry, I fear with some preachers, is this
thing of being lifted up in pride. Drawing attention to themselves.
Their ministries become about them and about personalities. I have a relative of mine and
he introduces himself just in common conversation. I was with
him one day and we met some people and he just introduced himself
as a reverend, so and so. I'm the reverend, so and so. And I thought, that's so sad.
Mentioned one time in the scriptures, and it's applied to Jesus Christ. His name is written, and me take
it to myself. What's a reverend? What's a doctor? There's some people that you're
not even allowed to address them unless you put doctor in front
of their name. I hear a man ask a person one time, how am I to
address you? By your first name, by your second name, or mister,
and they said doctor. Doctor. What is reverend? What is doctor?
It has to do with me. What is doctor? It's what I've
accomplished. Some height that I've obtained
to. There's all kinds of jealousy today in the ministry, all kinds
of division, and I think one of the things that's caused it
is this very thing the Apostle Paul here is talking about. If
we're not careful, we'll forget as preachers why we're preachers
at all. Why am I a preacher? Why is any
man a preacher if God has called him to preach? It's because He's
given him a gift. It's grace that's given unto
him. Not for him to boast himself
in. Not to exalt himself and get
proud about. Paul said, I recognize this.
That this ministry has been given to me. It's a gift of God's grace. And he said, when I consider
myself, I realize that I'm less than the least of all saints. And when we realize that it is
such a gift that's given, it ought to humble us. It ought
to humble us. I, of all people, have been given
this precious gift. And what should I feel about
it? How should I feel about it? I should be amazed at it. I should
be humiliated in myself. Me? And why would He give me
a gift? We'll see that in just a minute. God help us never to forget as
preachers what we're doing in the ministry to begin with. It's
something that's given to us. But then he goes on to say this,
this grace of God given to me for this purpose. It's to you,
Word. It's to you, Word. It has nothing
to do with the preacher, does it? It's this gift that's been
given to him towards his church. It's a gift of God to the church
of Jesus Christ. We'll see that in chapter 4.
He gets into this. But here's what he says in verse
8. He explains that in verse 2. He said, I'm this spirit entrusted
by this gospel of God's grace to you. Then he says here in
verse 8 and verse 9. And to 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. It's given
me to preach. And then he says there, to make
all men see what is the fellowship of this mystery. I think one of the most beautiful
pictures of a gospel preacher is, I don't know if I should
call it an analogy, but the Lord has got me all confused about
these comparisons and analogies and somalitudes. He brought me
a big paper on it today. If I wasn't confused enough before,
I'm confused enough. But Paul gives us this beautiful
picture of a Gospel preacher. One of the most beautiful pictures
in all the Word of God. He says two things about him.
He depicts him these two ways. First of all, as a seed sower. And here you see this man out
in the field, and he has some kind of instrument. Trying to
turn up the soil. He's just working with the soil
and he's toiling and he's sweating. And he's got these calluses on
his hands. And he's working and he's laboring.
And he has this bag of seeds and he just sows them everywhere.
The seeds are going everywhere. And he goes off to another place
and he turns and turns and sows some seeds. That's the analogy
of a preacher. That's what he looks like. And
then, the second one is in the very same verse, and it's a water
boy. You have this man with a bucket
of water. And he's going around pouring
water where this other fellow sowed these seeds. You know,
we go outside and get our water hose and we just stand there
and water. That's all we do is water. That's what a preacher
is. He's a seed sower. and a water
boy. That's all he's fit for. I think one of the reasons that
the apostles suffered like they did, the reason they suffered
so much, for the Lord to show us that
it's not about us. It's not about personalities. Paul said this about him and
the apostles. He said, I thank God has set
forth us, the apostles, last, as it were, appointed to death.
He said, we're counted as the filth and off-scouring of all
things. We're nothing. And did you ever
notice, reading the last letter that we have from the apostle
Paul, that he basically was dying alone? He said, all those that
be in Asia have turned away from Me. And He asked for a coat to
be brought to Him for winter. He basically died alone. Why did these apostles suffer
as they did? I think one reason to show us.
That it's not about them. As they're persons, it wasn't
about them. What were they after all? They
possessed in their hearts this precious gift. The apostles were
gifts to the church. And God upheld them in it, not
by their own strength. They could have never endured
what they suffered. God gave them to the church,
not them as men, but He put that precious treasure in their hearts.
And He says, now you go out and dispense it to My people. You
go out and sow this gospel and you go out and water this seed. Water, boys, and seed sowers. That's all you are. What a difference between these
great apostles that suffered like they did and the popes that
come on the scene later. Have you ever seen such a difference
in anybody? as you find in the apostles of
Christ and the popes of Rome. And they call themselves successors
of the apostles. I read that just this week. Successors. Peter was the first pope, they
say, and all the popes are successors from Peter. Well, Peter never
acted like a pope. These popes desire worship. That's
what they desire. Worship. You tell it in the way
they dress. You tell it in the way they position
themselves above everybody else. They desire people to come and
bow and kiss their hands in the rings. The names they call themselves. Most Holy Father. The Vicar of
Christ. Here in Christ's stead, head
of the church, Pope, supreme authority, these apostles of
Christ would have been horrified to think about such things. What did Paul say of himself?
I am less than the least of all saints. It is disgrace given. We preach not ourselves, but
Christ, and ourselves just servants. We're not the heads of the church,
he said. Christ is the head. I'm nothing. Apollos is nothing. But Christ is all. And Christ
is in all. We have this gift. We have this
ministry given to us. And why is it given? To dispense. We're vessels. What are we to
do? Pour ourselves out. The vessel
is nothing, brothers and sisters. We're to keep it clean. We're
to care for it, to guard it, to separate it. But it's not
the vessel. Not even these great apostles.
It's what's within it. This thing that's been entrusted
to us to give, to pour out to other people. I hope you and
I understand this. In whatever capacity we serve
the Lord's Church, it's a gift given to us. See, we just don't
stop what these great apostles do. It comes right on down to
us today. If we're a church, not only have
we received this wonderful gift of salvation, but God has put
gifts among us. He began with these apostles.
He gave the church apostles, and prophets, and teachers, and
evangelists, and so on. But you know what else He gave
the church? He gave the church gifts of helpers. Helps. There are some of you here that
we could not do without. We absolutely could not do without. You know, I leave the pulpit
and these brethren, when they teach, you come up to us and
say, Oh, fine message. Thank you for that good lesson.
You pat us on the back so you recognize us. But most people
in the congregation are just helpers. And you don't get recognition. What you do is behind the scenes.
But what would the church do without you? And when the Lord was writing
to the Corinthians, He mentions these helpers in the same breath
as these apostles and prophets and so on. Helps. Don't be discouraged, helpers. Don't worry because no one pats
you on the back. What you do is unseen. People
don't compliment you for it. Don't be discouraged. Don't put
yourself out front. Don't promote yourself. But just
realize this, that what you're doing, you're doing because it's
been given to you. It's a gift of God's grace. And
it's just as important in that sense and as valuable as these
apostles were. And as the pastor is. What if
we had all pastors and no helpers? What confusion that would be. Serve the Lord in the capacity
that He's called you into. Be thankful for it. Be amazed
at it. That not only has He saved you
by His grace, but He's called you and given you something to
do to serve His people. Ain't that wonderful? Be like
the Apostle Paul. Just be at the point where you
can't thank the Lord enough for it. You can't magnify His grace
enough. Just do what Paul said. It's
given. No, he said it's a gift. Oh,
he said it's grace. Oh, that God would give us an
attitude like that. We get so weary sometimes of
serving one another, don't we? We do. Because we're still in
this flesh. Or to be in a local church next
to being saved is one of the greatest blessings there is in
this world. And to be called and given this
gift to serve that body of Christ, what a gift. Never grow weary,
brothers and sisters who have done it. Never cease to thank
Him for doing it. Be like Cindy as she cleans the
church. Pray for everybody that sits
in the place where she cleans. I've got a happy shame in myself
and some of the rest of you did too. When Cindy says when she
gets to the point where she knows we sit, she prays for us. I've
not always done that. I've cussed under my breath sometimes.
What a mess! Them rascals! Paul recognized this stewardship
was a gift given to him. But he acknowledges something
else. He acknowledges this. And he recognizes this. And this
is what he recognized. He didn't have the ability to
exercise this gift. He was just a man. The Lord had
given him this gift, but how in the world is he going to do
it? How is he going to preach? How is he going to write all
these epistles? How is He going to stand against all this opposition? He was aware of what the Lord
Jesus told His apostles. Without Me, you can do nothing. So He goes on here in verse 7
and look how He says it. I was made a minister according
to the gift of the grace of God given unto Me. I'm a minister,
He said, and it's a gift. But Paul, how in the world are
you going to preach? Look at all the opposition. It's impossible
for you to preach. How are you going to do this?
How are you going to perform your office? How are you going to be faithful
to your stewardship? Well, he says this, and look at it, "...by
the effectual working of his power." I tell you, Paul was
a man that knew himself, and he learned to ascribe all the
glory to God, He not only says He's called me and He's given
me this precious gift, but He upholds me in it. He enables
me to exercise that gift. He's not only called me to preach,
but He enables me to preach. And He uses this word here that
He used over and over again, by the effectual working of His
power. That's one of His favorite words.
He used it in chapter 1 verse 19. Remember he said this, we
believe according to the working of His mighty power. And then
in chapter 3 verse 20, unto Him that is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask to think, according to His
power that worketh in us. And in chapter 3 verse 7, the
effectual working of His mighty power. Paul said, here's the
way I preach. Here's the way I exercise this
gift. Here's the way I endear. Here's why I don't quit. Here's
why I'm willing to get in the pulpit. Here's why I'm willing
to spend and be spent beyond any strength that I naturally
have. God is working in me by this
mighty power. Working effectually in me. You know what this word effectually
means. We've looked at it before. It means having the power to
gain the end's desire. Paul, I've sent you to preach
the gospel. And I'm going to work in you
to that end. The Lord Jesus was ready to go
back to glory and He was instructing His apostles. And He told them
this very thing, to go unto all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature. Go unto all the world, preach
the gospel to every creature. And then the very next verse
says, He was received up to glory and set down on the right hand
of God, and they went everywhere preaching the Word. And then
the most wonderful thing is added, the Lord working with Him. The
Lord working with them. Not just alongside of them, but
it's like a carpenter taking his tools in his hands, and he's
going to build something. And he's got his saw, and he's
got his pencil, and he's got his hammer and his nails, and
he begins to work. He takes that saw in his hand,
and he cuts and hammers, and he nails that building. He builds
it up. He takes hold of those tools,
and he works with them. That's what Mark said the Lord
did. He took hold of us, and He worked in us, and He worked
through us as we preach this gospel. Peter said we preach
the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Oh, God,
give us preachers like that today. Give us preachers that you're
willing to take hold of. This is a wonderful thought I
think Christians should get a hold of. Every Christian should get
a hold of this, not just preachers, but every Christian, every believer.
Because Paul said there in chapter 3, in verse 16, he said, I pray
that God would grant you according to the riches of His glory to
be strengthened with might by His Spirit, and the inner man. Do you realize the power that
is working in you? Not only to believe at first,
but to continue to believe? To wrestle and struggle with
the powers of darkness? Do you realize the power that's
working in you? We talk about the power of creation,
That God created this universe by the Word of His power? That
He upholds it all? That He keeps order in all of
these planets? Can you imagine the power that
it takes to make a world and hang it on nothing? That says
to the sun, rise, and to the rain, drop down from heaven? Paul said that same power is
working in you to will and to do. to believe,
to hope, to endear, to cleave, to love the power of God. Ain't that amazing? Ain't that
amazing? Oh, I just can't make it. What
a shameful statement. Oh, brothers and sisters. Can't
make it? Oh, I just can't go on. I just
can't endear. What kind of Christians are we?
Paul said I can do all things through Christ. How can you do
that, Paul? Because this mighty power working
in me. It doesn't matter what the Lord
calls you to do, or what the Lord calls you to endear. He
don't expect you to endear it in yourself. He knows you have
no strength. As a matter of fact, as you realize
you don't have any strength, the better off you'll be. Because
you'll begin to think, when I'm weak, then I'm strong. The power
of Christ working in me. The power of God. And then we can say with the
Apostle Paul, here's the reason of it all. It was given me. It was given me. That's it, isn't
it? What have we, brothers and sisters,
but what we've received? What can we do except what He
first works in us to do? Without Me, you can do nothing.
But oh, in Me, and by Me, and through Me, you can do all things. We have no right to glory, do
we? All of us have to say with the Apostle Paul, I'm less than
the least. I'm the chief of sinners. We're
thankful for this, that God in His mercy, God in Christ, gives
us everything that we need. Let's pray.