Not Our Might or Power but by God’s Spirit

Not Our Might or Power but by God’s Spirit

Ephesians 3:7

“Shall I, for fear of feeble man,

The Spirit’s course in me restrain?

Or, undismayed, in deed and word

Be a true witness for my Lord?”

And it speaks the same as the verse that we’re studying really today. So maybe you’d look at it, loved ones. It is Ephesians 3:7 and it concerns, of course, Paul’s own ministry and witness very clearly. And it seems to me there are some words for us here in this verse. “Of this gospel I was made a minister.” “Egenaethaen” is "I was made" or "I became." And minister: “diakonos”; “diakonos” is minister. “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace.” “Kata” is "according to," and “dorean” is "gift," and "of God:" “theou,” and "grace" is “charitos”. So, “Of God’s grace which was given me;” “dotheisaes” is "what is given." “Was given me by the working,” “energeian,” “energeian” which obviously becomes our "energy," and it is the "effectual working," "the working," the "strong working." "Of his power:” And everybody knows of the name of the magazine in Minneapolis, Dunamis. “Dunameos” is "of power." “Dunamis,” which became [our English word] dynamite. We called our first magazine, “Dunamis”, you remember.

So, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power.” And obviously he is referring initially to his calling first of all. That’s the first meaning of the verse, “I was made a minister when I met Jesus on the Damascus Road." And that’s what we read about in the New Testament lesson. And obviously there was a great working of God’s power there because he was struck blind, and then he received his sight back again when he met Ananias. So he’s speaking first of all of that, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power.” And then secondly, he’s speaking of the fact that the grace of God’s power is what makes him a minister of the gospel.

It’s the working of God’s power that makes it. And that comes out you remember, when he spoke to some of the people that he wrote to, and said, “I did not come to you with words of men’s wisdom. In fact, I came kind of shaking and trembling.” And he emphasizes that it’s not by the brilliance of his explanation, even though we may think Paul was quite a genius, yet he says, “It’s not by my explanations of truth that you have received this gospel or that I have been a minister of it.”

And that’s what came home to me strongly, because it’s very easy, it seems to me, with our emphasis on doing the very best we can, both in speaking to each other, and in speaking on radio, and in the work that we do on the websites, it’s very easy for us to allow our emphasis to depend wholly on that, or for our concentration to be completely upon that, and to think, “Yes if we do this right, if we do this website well enough, people are going to be drawn to Jesus.” And it seemed to me very -- really comforting, and strengthening, and encouraging, and probably humbling to realize that Paul had this ministry of the gospel because of the effectual working of God’s own power.

Now where that comes out is in particularly, the response of people to the gospel. And there is one response there in Acts 2:37. This is after Peter spoke, you remember, on the day of Pentecost, explained the whole thing from Verse 22, you remember, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders,” and right on through, you remember. And then he says verse 29, “’Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried.’” And he ties it into the Old Testament; preaches the whole sermon; and then in verse 37, “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ’Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” And verse 41, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

That was one response of the people to God’s mighty power working upon them. And I think there’s a strong tendency for us to think, “Well, Peter preached it clearly. He made it absolutely clear to them, and so they understood it, and they were convinced, and they did what is right in the light of truth. They responded appropriately. And that’s why it happened.” But of course what Paul is saying to us is, “It was by the working of God’s mighty power in them that they came to that place.” And it seems to me, sometimes we can actually get discouraged, because we do not see them being cut to the heart, and we do not see three thousand coming and repenting. And we think, “Well, it’s because we’re not doing it right, and we must work harder at it, and do it better.” And what Paul is saying is, “This ministry of the gospel depends wholly on God’s grace given to us through the mighty working of his Spirit in people’s hearts.” And he almost says, “It’s independent of what you say. It’s independent of what you do.” And that’s why it seems to me the Bible says very clearly, “You are unprofitable servants.” At the end of it all we are unprofitable servants. We actually don’t achieve anything. We simply do what God gives us to do, and his mighty power works the change.

Now another proof of that is another man, you may remember, preached virtually the same sermon: Acts 7:54. And of course you know who it was. And really Stephen did virtually [the whole] chapter. Acts 7:1, “And the high priest said, ‘Is this so?’ And Stephen said: ‘Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran...’” And he goes right through the whole thing again. He explains it all in detail. He comes right to the heart of it when he comes to Jesus. And he says, "This Jesus....” In verse 51, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it...” He comes right to what has now happened in Jesus, and now, verse 54, were they cut to the heart? “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him.” And of course, you can see he got a lot of 'hits on his website:' Verse 58, “Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him.”

So it seems that that is also the working of God’s Spirit in power in the people’s hearts. And that indeed "God’s word does not return unto him void, but it does achieve the purpose for which it was sent." And it’s possible for us of course, in that particular situation to remember that there was another man standing by looking after the clothes of those who stoned Stephen. And of course that turned out to be Paul. And it’s easy for us to say, “Oh, well now that was one good result that came.” Yes, but that wasn’t obvious to see even in... Stephen went to heaven without any assurance of it at all.

It seems to me if we are realistic, we need to see clearly that we are engaged in a ministry of the gospel. The gospel is what God has planned for all of us in Jesus. And our job is to explain that as clearly as we can, faithfully, and to live in the light of it. And then it is absolutely up to God’s Spirit; absolutely dependent on his power. And it is vital for us actually, to keep our eyes off this issue of results, because you will just as often get the result that Stephen got, as you’ll get the result that Peter got. And yet they’re both the result of God’s working of his Holy Spirit in people’s hearts.

What I think is vital about this, is that it governs the way we will all work on our websites, and the way we’ll work on our newsletter articles, and the radio, and all the other things we do. Our job is to do those as well as we possibly can for God’s glory and to do them out of joy, and out of love for him. But then, everything else is in God’s hands, and it seems to me then we look up to the Father and we thank him for what he is doing in people’s hearts. And therefore we exercise faith in the only power that is really at work.

I think there’s a great danger of us here laying emphasis not on the real power that does the work, but on us ourselves, and on our abilities, and on how we’re doing things. And of course, you can see that if we’re putting faith in that, we’re actually not believing God, and we’re not putting faith in him. And so it seems vital to put our faith strongly in the only power that makes a difference in people’s lives.

Now it also helps us when we come to issues like this being “cut to the heart,” because it’s very easy for us to say, “Oh they were cut to the heart.” Either that’s an exaggeration by the scripture writer, or things were certainly different then, or they were certainly mighty preachers and mighty witnesses compared with us little pygmies. Well of course they were cut to the heart because the Holy Spirit worked deeply in them.

And so it is with us, God still does his work that way. We are ministers of the gospel “according to the gift of God’s grace to us through the working of his Holy Spirit.” And that’s the only way we are ministers of his. And that’s the only way that work is done in people’s lives and people’s hearts. And that’s also, of course, a message to us even about the things that all of us, and certainly I, talked about at supper last night. When we begin to look at the bad things that are happening in our world, it really has always been like that.

It’s part of the testimony that God has established that, in fact, we are living apart from him, that there will be continually bad things happening in this ‘fallen world’. And yet, the change is possible, because it is wrought by God’s Holy Spirit. It is not wrought by Stephen speaking the right words in the right way, or by Peter preaching in an effective way. It is done by God’s own Holy Spirit. And he is the one that changes people’s lives.

It helps us of course, when we realize that the people that we notice are the people’s whose lives have been greatly changed and have been transformed -- and the fact is, that that can only happen by the work of God’s Spirit. It’s very difficult. I mean, I know as a school teacher you can get incremental changes in a person’s behavior, but they’re very little. They are just a little adjustment, a little modification. That’s about what we produce in each other. But changes that radically affect our behavior and our attitude are wrought by the Holy Spirit within us.

And so it might be good to just read some of the – I’ve looked at some of the other places where Paul has talked about his ministry. And there’s Romans 15:16, and they all run along the same lines. He says -- verse15 gives you the grammatical context, “But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him.’”

And I was saying to both Martha and Joe that it was important for us to play down the professional Christians that write letters to us, wanting to debate endlessly points of theology, or ways of evangelism, or apologetics. It’s vital for us to play that down and to attend to those outside Christianity who really are serious about knowing the meaning of life, because those are the people to whom we are called. “They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him.” And I think I said to both Martha and Joe, that if you don’t do that, if you allow yourself to be distracted by the professional Christians that want to debate you continually, or want-- Martha was saying, “Should we have our doctrine, stated there [on websites] plainly? Because so many of them say, ‘What do you believe about the Bible and the virgin birth?’” And I think the answer is, “No!” We don’t want to encourage that kind of bickering over doctrine. And we want to keep our eyes focused on the dear hearts that do not know Jesus, that don’t go to church, that don’t like religious people, and the people that we’re called to. And of course that’s what Paul was saying, that he’s called to those people, too. And that is our calling.

Of necessity therefore, we will maybe get a lot Stephen’s hits, and not so many of Peter’s great churches. But that’s in God’s hands. God can determine when that comes. It seems to me that the only way you can ever find out, is by going right to the Father. And when we get to heaven we will see what God himself has wrought. And I think we’ll be amazed at what has happened. But I think that’s the Father’s work and it’s in his hands.

Paul speaks again in 2 Corinthians 4. And they’re useful because they just explain again the heart of what being a minister of Jesus Christ or a witness for him is. I think it’s right at the beginning of the chapter, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, is it veiled only to those who are perishing.” And you see this is where he emphasizes very strongly, this is something that God does. This is something that is in the realm of the spiritual powers. It is not connected with our language or our words. We should make our websites attractive as we can, but for the glory of God. Not to get people in, but for the glory of God.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.” And that’s why he points out, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”

And it seems to me that’s Gods way all the time. And so it will be with us. It will be in our lives. God will continually be working to bring us into the fullness of Jesus. And as he does that, and when we’re at our worst, and we think we are most lacking in winsomeness, and we are doing the least work, at that moment God will be doing his own work in people’s hearts and lives.

And so it is a very different kind of ministry. And it’s good to read these things because it corrects the unbalanced view we get of mega churches, and of success in today’s world which bear probably no relationship to what is actually happening in the kingdom of God at all.

And there’s just one more reference I think that I have and -- maybe I’ve given you them all? No, I think that’s it, loved ones.

Well let’s make the websites as good as we can, but let’s be very clear who is doing the work.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we do thank you that you have given us brains and hands, and then given into these hands these computers. So we thank you Lord, that you have graciously put us in a world of sense and of physical existence, where we can enjoy using these hands, and using the computers, and expressing the joy of your life, and your energy through these things. But we thank you Lord, that that’s their purpose. That neither our hands nor the computers can change people’s hearts. You alone can do that. And you, in the great wisdom of your kingdom, determine whose hearts are to be changed and whose wills submit to you. And Lord, we thank you that you have proven yourself a fair and a just God and Father down through the years. And so we know that you do all things well, and that your administration of your own kingdom is in accord with your nature of love and mercy.

So we thank you Lord, that we can commit into your hands the working of your kingdom and the working out of your gospel in people’s hearts. And therefore we commit into your hands our Father, the thousands of men and women who during these coming years will read the facts about your work and your witness. And we know Lord, that you will work in their hearts accordingly, and that “your word will not return onto you void,” but “it will achieve the purpose for which it was sent.” And Lord, we know that at some time that will be joyful acceptance, and at another time it will be the kind of raging rebellion and rejection that Stephen faced. Lord, we leave all that in your dear hands. And we thank you for calling us to joyful ministry of your gospel. And we thank you Lord, that the results are in your hands, and are due to your work and your power.

We thank you Father, that we can go forth in confidence that you are giving to us continually the gift of your grace through the effectual working of your Holy Spirit, in the lives of those that we meet.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each of us now and evermore, amen.

Jesus is Kind to the Ungodly!

Jesus is Kind to the Ungodly!

Ephesians 3:6

The verse that we’re studying today is Ephesians 3:6 and I can get you right in media’s rays right into the middle of it very fast. Ephesians 3:6 you can see reads, “That is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” You’ll be interested to know, as I was, when I looked up the Greek that the word for Gentiles is “enthos”. It’s a Greek word “ethnos”. You can see what it becomes in English, have you eaten any ethnic food lately? Is that friendly food? No, that’s food from the other side of the world, that’s them.

It’s interesting that it’s Gentile food and it has come really to mean, for us, not the food of our friends but the food of not necessarily our enemies, but those from other countries. And so often, that has been the attitude that we have probably taken to those that are not Christians. We think they’re the ethnic people, they’re the Gentiles, they’re the people who are out there, not at all the attitude of our Father obviously, not at all his attitude.

Very clearly and I’d just ask you to look at it again, because it really is an important verse and it’s 2 Corinthians 5:14 and it is the expression of God’s attitude to the Gentiles, to the non-Christians, to the people from the other side of the tracks. 2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.” And you would like to change that to, “One has die for the Christians, therefore all the Christians have died.” Or, “One has died for the sanctified, therefore all the sanctified have died.” Or, “One has died for all the believers, therefore all the believers have died.” But there it is, and you just cannot change God’s word like that, because we are convinced that one has died for all therefore all have died. And that means of course, the Gentiles, and it means the non-Christians, it means our customers.

I know I know how difficult it is. I think he’s probably dead now any way Bin Laden, but Bin Laden, you know. If Christ has died for all, then all have died. And if they are not living in all that God has done for them, it’s because they don’t recognize the reality that they are in, but this states very clearly that Christ has died for all therefore all have died. And that means that all that we have is really theirs.

Now that is of course, the whole spirit of Luke which I think Luke 6 fits the lesson we read this morning and it’s the piece of New Testament that we all had trouble with, I’m sure, as teenagers. I certainly had in the little Christian Endeavors Society, we’d read this and interpret it always as this is the ideal you know, but of course it’s utterly impractical in today’s world and yet it’s the whole spirit of 2 Corinthians 5:14. It’s the whole spirit of the attitude these are my brothers and sisters, these are not my enemies. “I say to you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to every one who begs from you; and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” And we always looked that and said, “Well, that’s ridiculous. I mean, you’d have no clothes left if you did that.” So it’s not meant to be practical.

However you argue about the practicality of it, what we did with our interpretation was is we eliminated that from the Bible. We eliminated that attitude. We said, “Now, that’s true we ought to try to love our enemies. We ought to try to do good to those who would do evil to us. We certainly – that ought to be our aim in life and our attitude.” But in our practice we just rejected that as a spirit that either was impractical in today’s world or that we had not reached yet. But you can see the sense of it when Jesus goes on in verse 32, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” And yet we often think that obeying Christ is loving others. No, obeying Christ is loving those who don’t love you, those who even hate you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.” Even ordinary people who don’t know Jesus are kind to those who are kind to them it’s kind of automatic almost. We know it’s something we use in education. It’s something we use in business. If somebody is good to you, you ought to be good to them and we often say that almost as if it’s a Christ like thing to do and of course, Jesus is saying, “No, this is a sinner thing to do. This is what ordinary sinners do who don’t know me at all. They’re good to each other and because they’re good to each other they return that goodness.” And verse 34, “If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.”

Isn’t that amazing? He is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish and then of course, I mean, our hearts just leap within us because we realize, “Like us? Like us? He is kind to the ungrateful. Oh, ungrateful people like us? Selfish people like us?” Yes. “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” And it all stems, you know, from 2 Corinthians 5:14 really. If Jesus died for all then all died, then everybody that we meet has been crucified with Christ, then God’s power in restraining what they can do to us is effectual. So we need not fear enemies, we need not be afraid of people who would take advantage of us, we are in the hands of our Father who has included them in his Son’s death and has already surrounded them so that he has protected them in many ways, and he has protected us from them. But that’s why the whole spirit of those verses is possible, because those verses are built on the assumption that somebody else is looking after you, that you do not have to defend yourself, or protect yourself against these people who would do you harm.

So in a way you know, it’s a leap out into a different kind of life. It’s a leap out into a life 10 or 12 feet above the earth. That’s what God is talking about here and that’s what he’s getting over to us when he says, “The Gentiles, the people who even do not believe in me, they are,” and then just look at it again Ephesians 3:6, it’s so extreme that you have to read it to be sure it’s in the Bible, “That is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs.” They are heirs with us. We are heirs of Jesus. We inherit all that he has, so do they. “Members of the same body,” but that’s what it says, it throws you back to the verse in Corinthians, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it,” and these Gentiles are members of the same body, “And partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” One of his promises is, “I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also,” they are partakers of that promise. They were included in Jesus when he died and they therefore are partakers of that promise.

I’ve said this to you before, but I don’t know that you have really caught it, it’s well known in theological circles because we talk about how the Catholic Church has an inclusive attitude to the world. Now, we can see and the Pope himself would admit that in many ways, it hasn’t an inclusive attitude and it has failed in relationship to the Jews to have an inclusive attitude. But it comes through the whole teaching of the Catholic Church that everybody is included in some way in what Jesus has done. And indeed, that probably carries on in the emphasis of parishes in the Anglican Church where they talk about, “I live in this parish,” even if you don’t go to church at all, even if you have no belief in God, you live in that parish because the church did have an attitude of inclusiveness.

It had an attitude that Christ had died for all therefore, all have died and that everybody therefore is in the position where they can experience what we have experienced of Christ in our hearts. And so they’ve had an attitude of inclusiveness as opposed to what tended to be a development, a wrong development of the evangelical church after the great awakenings in the 18th century, after those great awakenings where people like Wesley emphasized, “For all, for all, my Savior died.” Then there came an emphasis on, “Yes, but for that to be real in your heart you need to believe and you need to have a real relationship with Jesus.” And that very easily has slid into a kind of exclusivity which has the attitude not that everybody is included but only those who believe are included. And then the emphasis came on do you believe and do you believe the way you ought to believe? And so the stress came on – strangely enough it came full circle because the Catholic Church itself got into works and in many ways the Evangelical Church got back into works because it got an emphasis on what you do is almost more important than what God has done to you in Jesus. And so here God is presenting to us again with the fact that, “The Gentiles, even the Gentiles are partakers of the promises and even the Gentiles were in my Son when he died and he felt their pains and carried their sins.’

And of course, that’s what came home to me during that hymn it seemed as if Jesus himself pleads with all of us, “I have died for you. I bore you in myself. I bore every little thing that you ever suffered and I bore the strain and the stress that you have wrought upon my Father and that you have wrought on all your children, on all your brothers, your sisters, your fathers, your mothers, on everybody that you have done harm to, I have borne that in my own heart.” It’s as if Jesus is saying that and when we go into an ordinary customer in a store, we are facing part of Christ and he said that, “In as much as you do it to one of the least of these, you do it unto me.” And so when we meet them, we’re not meeting people from the other side of the tracks, we’re not meeting people who are not Methodists, or aren’t Catholics, or aren’t Christian Corps people, or aren’t Christians, we’re meeting people who have taken part with us in our Savior. Who have been included by him in his death; who are known by him and who are loved deeply by him. So we are going to our friends.

Now, this is what I’d say to you, they know if you think of them as their friend – as your friends, or if you don’t. They know that. They know if you regard them as equal to yourself and part of the same thing as you belong to. And if you say, “Oh well, we could give them a wrong idea of themselves,” it’s not for us to do that. That will be the judge on the last day, he will do that. Our job is not to put them right as to where they belong, or where they don’t belong. Our job is, as Paul himself said, “From now on therefore, we know no man from a human point of view. We look upon nobody from the point of view of their outward humanity. We look upon everyone as they really are, people for whom Christ has died and who have died with Christ.”

It seems that that’s where the power comes from. As Wigglesworth looked upon a person who needed healed, he saw them not as a person outside Jesus, but a person inside Jesus who had been healed by his stripes. And so it was his faith in what God had done in Jesus that enabled the healing to be manifested here in this century. And so I think it is with us. And I think you feel that yourself. There’s something dead about an argument with them on whether the Bible is the word of God. There’s something dead and dry about an argument with them about why they should believe in God. But there’s something very warm and alive in your own attitude of love and acceptance that comes over to them so that often – I certainly have seen it myself, often it works magically because where they would normally swear, something kind of holds them.

Something kind of holds them back and they actually are on their best behavior and so it’s true that where you allow Jesus himself to shine forth, in all his love and all his kindness, and all his mercifulness, and his acceptance of them, somehow they are touched by that bigness of heart, that magnanimity and they sense, “Ah, this person’s kind of different,” and they open their hearts to the flow of Jesus’ life from you and that’s of course, the only thing that will change them, the only thing that will touch them. But it seems to me that it’s worth taking that verse and having it in our memories as we go into the stores and realizing, “This person is a member of the same body, a fellow heir, a partaker off the promise in Christ through the gospel.” Thank you Lord. Hello Mrs. Stevens. Let us pray.

No Existence Outside of Jesus

No Existence Outside of Jesus

Ephesians 3:5b

Let’s take a Bible please and turn to 2 Corinthians. And it’s verses that we know, but they relate to today’s study. 2 Corinthians 5:11, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men; but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to be proud of us, so that you may be able to answer those who pride themselves on a man’s position and not on his heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” May God help us to be that. Amen.

Will you turn to Ephesians 3 please? And you know sometimes I fight between wanting to keep you awake and getting down to the details of the text. But I think you’re interested in that, so I’ll concentrate hard this morning in repeating again some of the things we’ve said. Chapter 3 and verse:1 gives the context, “For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentile -- assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.” And his brief writing of it -- if you just keep your finger there, and then turn back to the end of Romans, you’ll see, I think, the letter that he was referring to where in Romans 16:25, almost as part of the benediction, he mentions the mystery: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery…” That’s what he’s mentioning. “According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith -- to the only wise God be glory for evermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.” That’s the brief writing that he’s talking about. Just there in the end of Verse 25, “According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages.”

The secret I think is what you find in Daniel. And I can help you find Daniel. Daniel 3:25 is part of that mystery, you remember. It’s in the flaming furnace, the fiery furnace. “He answered, ‘But I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire.’” Three of them of course were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “And they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” And that’s one of the references to what is thought to be an appearance of Christ Jesus, an appearance of Jesus. Because one of the translations is, of course, “Like the Son of God.” And that’s the mystery, that Jesus existed in Old Testament times. And that’s part of the mystery of Christ, that Christ is not just Jesus of Nazareth who lived those 34 years in Palestine but that he existed himself during Old Testament times. And he appeared there with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

And of course, that is the mystery that he’s talking about, “Is made known to everyone.” In verses like John 17: 5, and again, it’s a verse you’re familiar with. And it’s Jesus’ prayer, you remember, “And now, Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” And that’s the mystery that is made known through the apostle John when he writes of Jesus’s prayer here. “Glorify thou me in thy own presence with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.” It’s Jesus saying, “Lord, I existed with you even before Old Testament times.”

And that’s part of the mystery that Paul is talking about with us, you see. That’s what he’s referring to as the mystery of Christ, because he says, “When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” It was hinted at in former generations. It was hinted at by the reference to the “Son of Man” walking in the fiery furnace. It was hinted at even back in Genesis where God said, “Let ‘us’ make man in our image.” He was obviously speaking to someone. And, it’s hinted at in Isaiah 53, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our pains.” And it’s hinted at there that Jesus, of course, existed ‘before’ he came to earth in the first century of our era. He existed before that. And he himself is saying, “I existed before the world was made.” So that’s part of the mystery of Christ.

And of course, that’s what we’re talking about here together in Verse 4, “When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

And the mystery of Christ of course is further than that. Paul is saying Jesus existed before the world was made. And not only that, but there’s something else. And he says it in Colossians 1:26, “The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is…” And then he states what the mystery is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

And then he goes on with that remarkable sentence, “Him we proclaim, warning ‘every man’ and teaching ‘every man’ in all wisdom, that we may present ‘every man’ mature in Christ.” And of course, we usually look upon that as just Paul’s hope, except that it is so persistent. The adjective that he uses, “Him we proclaim, warning ‘every’ man and teaching ‘every’ man in all wisdom, that we may present ‘every’ man mature in Christ.” And that’s what he carries on actually with in his emphasis, “How great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery,” because that’s really what he’s saying. He’s saying, “Everybody, every man, the Gentiles as well. Not just the Jews but the Gentiles. Everybody is involved in this person who is the great mystery of the ages, this Christ who spans the centuries. And everybody is involved in that.”

And of course, he makes that very clear, you remember, in the verses we read as a New Testament lesson in 2 Corinthians 5:14. “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all;” for every man, “Therefore all have died.” “Therefore every man has died.” And it’s just so blatant, so plainly and simply stated, “The love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”

And that’s what ties it up with the verse that we’ve repeated to each other so long, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” And then the whole set of verses in Colossians 1:15 where Christ is “the first-born of all creation,” and, “In him all things hold together.” And it comes home to you that what God is repeating again, and again to us is, “I put you all into my Son. I made you all part of my Son, everybody.” And actually Paul himself draws out the implications of this, you remember, in Verse 16 there of 2 Corinthians 5, because he’s just finished saying, “One has died for all; therefore all have died,” and then 2 Corinthians 5:16 he says, “From now on, therefore...”

So, from when we’ve seen this, we regard no one from a human point of view. We look upon nobody from the outside. We look upon nobody according to whether they’re gentiles or Jews… And then I would push you a little: “According to whether they’re Lutherans or Catholics, or Presbyterians or Methodists.” And then I would push you a little bit more, “According to whether they’re looked upon as Christians or non-Christians. And I know that it kind of sticks in your throat. It obviously stuck in the throat of the Jews. They said, “No, no, when we’ve circumcised a foreigner, then maybe they qualify to enter into the promises that we have received. But not until then.”

So, sometimes we don’t just say, “If they’ve been confirmed,” but sometimes in our heart of hearts we say, “If they believe… If they believe then they’re qualified to enter in… to Christ?” What if the Savior has them inside him at that moment? What if he carries them, and bears their sins at that moment? And we pontificate.

That’s I think, part of what Paul is saying, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”

I really still question Wigglesworth [Smith Wigglesworth, 1859 - 1947, British evangelist] trailing that lady around the hall [Pastor chuckles], which he did, you remember: “Walk in the name of Christ! Walk!” And he walked her around. I really question a bit his doing that, but it was the same spirit. It was, “In Jesus your sickness has been borne.” Maybe – we would maybe rightly question as him as the way he tried to bring about that realization in her, but it was the same spirit. It was the same attitude in him. “The Savior has borne your sickness and carried your pain.” That’s a fact. That’s a fact.

We would probably wonder, “Well, isn’t it up to God to manifest that in the appropriate way in his own good time, and Wigglesworth, not for you to force that timing?” But the heart of what he did was, “This is what has happened in Christ. You were created in Christ Jesus; you were crucified in Christ. ‘He died for all therefore you also have died,’ and, ‘Your life is hid with Christ in God,’ and, ‘Your sicknesses and your pains have been borne.’ And that is fact. And you have to decide whether to believe that fact or not. But the fact is unquestioned. And that’s really what Paul is saying, “From now on we don’t look upon anybody from a human point of view.”

And I submit to you that it does change the way that we look at our customers. I would submit to you that it does change the attitude we have to, what we say, is ‘the unbeliever.’ And I think I mentioned to you some weeks, if not months, ago that it does change ‘their’ awareness of ‘your’ attitude to them. And they do know whether you regard them as an outsider and whether you regard them as on the other side of the tracks, or as ‘one of them’ as opposed to ‘one of you’. They can tell that. And there is an awareness of your love and your ‘all inclusive acceptance’ that comes through your eyes, and your whole attitude to them; as opposed to the attitude where you stand back and you think in your heart, “How could they do that?” Which, I agree with you, is very difficult not to do, when you see their orange hair and their earrings stuck through their cheeks. But still, Jesus was the one himself who, in that situation, made no distinction between the ‘tax gatherer’ and between the ‘prostitute’ and ‘his disciples’.

And so Paul is saying, “Christ has done this for everybody.” And that’s really what we’re talking about when we say the ‘universal atonement’. And we try to make a distinction between that and regeneration. We say regeneration takes place when a person ‘believes’ that they have been universally atoned for in Christ.

But the universal atonement is true, that everybody has been born in Jesus and raised in him. And the only thing that is keeping them from enjoying that is their own non-belief. But that our attitude is based not on their unbelief but on the ‘fact’, on the fact that we have been crucified with Christ.

And so that’s the heart of what Paul is saying. And we come down then to Ephesians 3:5, “The mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” And Verse 6, “That is how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

And of course, he’s simply saying the ‘non-Jews’. We have a tendency to think, “Oh, he’s speaking about the gentiles who are some kind of nationality there like the people in Thessalonica and people in Galatia, and the people in Ephesus. But no, the Gentiles are the non-Jews, that is, how the non-Jews, how everybody who is not a Jew, everybody, “Are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

The difficulty I see with us being exclusive is, if Jesus has borne the deepest sin of the worst murderer, if he has borne that inside himself and held onto that murder and kept his arms around that murder, then who are we to say that that murderer is somebody that we should not deal with, respect, or love. The indication here is that they are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, and that that’s the attitude God wants us to have to them.

Just one last thing: Sometimes – I’m sure you’ve found the same. Sometimes during the night God makes things real to you that you haven’t seen before. And I just saw very, very clearly that each one of us is in Jesus, and Jesus is the biggest thing in our lives, the biggest thing in our heart and our mind every moment, as opposed to ‘us ourselves’ being the big thing and the important thing. And that our being in Jesus is everything. We are him. We are not ourselves. We are him, and what he has in his mind, and his thoughts, that’s the precious thing to us. And I saw that in prayer time too, that is what is overwhelming in our minds. We are either in Jesus and we live in that reality or we’re not in Jesus and we don’t live in that reality.

The fact is, all of us are in Jesus but we can sever ourselves from that fact and all the benefits of that fact by thinking of ourselves inside ourselves. And I thought too, even in the prayer time today, I thought, “I wonder how many of us are like a little guy coming into the king’s presence? And then we duck in and out.” We like to call it our wandering thoughts: we just can’t keep our mind on Jesus. But I wonder if it is like that? It’s really like ducking in and out of his presence. And yet of course, we would think that would be a terrible thing.

I suppose most of us can think of it most realistically, even though many of us have not had the privilege of being Catholics, we think of it as with the Pope. He’s such a dear man, and he looks in a way now so indefensible and so vulnerable. But you could think of ducking in and out of his presence. You go in, and then you duck out again, and you come in. And we just say, “Oh, it’s our wandering thoughts.” But really we’re either in Jesus every moment in which case of course, his head, through the Holy Spirit, fills us with his thoughts, or we’re preoccupied with ourselves and we live primarily inside ourselves, and we’re filled therefore with deadness of ourselves.

In fact, that’s what came home to me during the night. There is no reality outside Jesus. We do not exist outside Jesus. And that’s why it’s so dead for us either in a prayer time or in our own inner life. It’s so dead because there is ‘no existence outside Christ’. There is actually no existence, and we are actually in non-existence when we aren’t in Jesus, when we aren’t consciously in him. So maybe God will give you light, and me, on that. Let us pray.

Dear Lord, we thank you for bearing us all inside yourself. We thank you Lord, that the reason the worst murderer in New York City has life today is that you, in unbelievable grace, continue to bear him inside yourself and give him life and sustain his life. Lord, we see that in the home that is full of cursing and swearing at this moment, in the business office that is filled with dishonesty, and with crookedness at this moment, you are there, not only feeling the atmosphere in the room, but inside each person, bearing the pain and the agony of their thoughts of hatred and hostility. And we see Lord, that all around the world you have everything inside you and are bearing it all. And we see Lord, that you continue to sustain us even as we are wrapped up in ourselves and preoccupied with our own concerns, you continue to bear us.

So Lord, we see there is only one reality and that is ‘us in you’ and ‘you in us’. And we see Lord, that it is not just a case of good manners, it is a case of honest respect for you, that we would see our hearts are open to you every second, and we would make those hearts places that you are at home in, places where you enjoy being, places where you can share delight with us. And oh we would thank you this day our Father, for all the truth that you’ve revealed to us, and especially for this reality that everyone we meet today and tomorrow, and the next day and the next day, is someone whom you are bearing inside yourself, someone whom you have already changed, and as we look upon them no longer from a human point of view, but as new creations in you, we would pray that, by your Holy Spirit, you are able to impart that same faith to them, so that the work that you have done will be manifested here on earth.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Difficulties are Part of God’s Plan

Difficulties are Part of God’s Plan

Ephesians 3:4

I’ve drawn this little illustration and that’s it there in the little tray and you know it so well and that’s the fact, and that’s the faith, and that’s the feeling, and really I think, that’s the heart of what I’d like you to go away with today, that while this is the locomotive you’re going up the hill and you get there into Jesus. But once the feeling begins to be the locomotive, and the smoke comes out there, it goes right down, you know, everything goes down. So that’s really the heart of it.

We could start it loved ones, at the verse that we’re studying there in Ephesians. It’s Ephesians 3, and you remember last Sunday we read verse 3, or studied verse 3 a little, “How the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.” And we said that that was probably in Colossians 1:27 that Paul is referring to where he mentioned it briefly. Colossians 1:27 and 1:26 is, “The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints.” And then he briefly explains what it is, “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is,” and then he defines the mystery, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

So that’s what he’s talking about in Ephesians 3:3, and then in Ephesians 3:4 today he says, “When you read this,” when you read those words Christ in you the hope of glory, “When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.” And it is undoubtedly Paul that explains to us that it’s a very shallow interpretation of Jesus to concentrate on the man who lived from 6 BC to 29 AD and make everything just stand on that. And I do think that that’s part of the reason why Jesus is often, I hate to say despised, but certainly not respected even by Christians. We look upon him as, “Oh yes, he’s God come to earth, you know, in the first century and that’s how we know about God, and he came to us in his Son Jesus, and Jesus this and Jesus that.” And we miss completely the fact that at this moment it is Jesus’ life that is keeping us alive and enabling us to be conscious at this moment and that Jesus is not just this person that appeared for 33 or 35 years in the first century, but he was when nothing else was.

He existed from before the foundation of the world. He was with God as his only begotten Son before there were any human beings, before there was any earth, before there was any – presumably before there was any of the universe that we can see with our eyes. Jesus is far more than just the person who appeared as a human being in our first century. Jesus is the one who is eternally with God and Jesus was the first-born of all creation. And I think often you know, however often I’ve quoted that to you, often we kind of get that into a box somewhere and we say, “Oh yeah, he’s the first-born of all creation. He was born like a man, you know.” No, he was the first-born of all creation. He was the beginning of creation.

God begot Jesus and inside Jesus as he begot him, he begot the whole creation, the stars, the planets, the spaces, the skies, Joe Selzler. See that’s where we – that’s where we falter and we fall back and we think, “No, no it can’t be that. No, not Joe, he wouldn’t know about Joe” but see that’s the mystery of it, and that’s the miracle of it, and that’s the depth of it. See, this wee girl here, this wee Catholic girl did not start her existence with her mum. See, that’s a great mystery that God has seen all of humanity, born, and living, and died, and raised with him. He has seen them all inside his Son Jesus.

Now, we would see that if we could begin to grasp the eight sideways that we all know to write that’s not a very good version of it, but its infinity. But if we could grasp infinity we would see of course God can do that, of course God sees everything at once, of course God doesn’t see things sequentially as we do in time. Of course, he sees everything at once. Of course, he must have seen Joe Selzler back there when he begot his own Son. And so we gradually we can kind of begin to grasp a little that it’s possible, but that’s the mystery of Christ you see. And of course, you don’t need me to tell you that Christendom doesn’t talk about that at all. We don’t. We don’t talk about that.

We join actually, the unbelievers in our attitude to Jesus, “Oh yes, Jesus was God come to earth and he was a human being and then he went back up somewhere to be with God.” But the mystery is that Christ is eternally humanity. We have eternal life because we are inside Jesus. We were created in him. We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus. The reality is that God foresaw what would happen to us and he determined that he would bear that. That’s what the whole sin bearing thing is that we’ve talked about so often and I think you know this. God was faced with creating people who would have free will and therefore could hurt him and could hurt each other, and God did not make them out there somewhere where they could make their noise, and do their murders and not bother him. God made them inside himself and that’s the meaning of God bearing our sin in Jesus.

We are made inside Jesus so that God experiences everything that the worst one of us has ever done and he bears us inside Jesus and bears all that, and puts up with it, and endures it, and then changes us in his Son so that each one of us have received a free change and we have been changed in Jesus. And that’s why the Bible says, “You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God.” You, what you’re experiencing here on this earth is what you would have been if you hadn’t been in Jesus. But that life is dead now, it has died because God bore all that and despite it all he raised you up and made you new in Jesus so you have actually died and your life now is hid with Christ in God. That’s the fact.

That’s the fact. You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God and the way to live in this world is with your eyes on that fact every moment of every day, to live by faith and not by feeling. And we get into trouble when we look at our feelings which are part of the life that we would have lived if we hadn’t been in Jesus. That’s it. When a moment of anxiety comes into you, that moment of anxiety is – well, you know without me saying it, it’s a lack of trust in God that’s why it’s there. You’re anxious because you feel the thing depends on you, or on other people, but not on God who is faithful and who will ensure that things go right. So it is really, for a moment, not having faith in God.

Now, the moment you put your mind on that and begin to consider it, you’re looking at part of the life that you would have lived if God had not put you in his Son and raised you up, and hid you with himself. And so when you look at that, you’re looking at something that has passed something that is gone, something that is unreal. You’re looking at a picture, a photograph that God has given you of the past that has already been changed by him in Jesus. And so when you look at that with your – or allow your feelings to dwell on that, then that’s why the whole thing starts collapsing upon you. And there is only one way to live in constant joy and that is you have died and your life is hid with Christ with God so yippee let’s go. But that is the only way.

In every situation that’s God’s answer to us, to live by faith in that and that’s what all the mysticism and all the saints are about, they’re about living by simple faith in what has happened to them in Jesus. And you can see, I mean, you can glimpse a little of it in your own mind, in that situation where the buyer has just barked at you and implied that it’s just rubbish that you’re trying to sell her, at that moment if you immediately say, “I have died and my life is hid with Christ in God,” then who cares? Who cares, I’m up there looking down. Not laughing at her but certainly looking down and thinking, “That silly little shop, what has that to do with anything?” And it immediately, immediately puts you above the world. And it’s the same with virtually everything you can think of.

When the tire goes flat, or when that terrible moment when you find that you’ve overspent the bank account and you really don’t know what you’re going to do. At that moment, at that moment, look at the fact. See our weakness is we dice around a little. We almost say, “Yes Lord, yes but give me one more minute just to count the pennies. Give me just one more minute to think about this. I just,” – if we would look at ourselves we’d say, “Let me sort it out first Lord and then I’ll trust you.” And at that very moment there’s only one thing to do and that is set our mind upon the fact that you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Why should you do that? So that it’ll get you out of trouble, so that it’ll help you in this life, so that it’ll make you a good Christian, so that it’ll help you to witness? No, because it’s the fact, because it’s stupid not to live by facts and the fact is we have died with Christ and our life is hid with Christ in God and we are safe and secure in his arms. I suspect you are the same as me, that you say, “Well, I’m not living by feeling. It’s my mind.” Yeah, well if you’re living by your mind getting caught up with these things.

What we said last Sunday you remember, where Satan says, “Hath God said you shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” He tackles first your mind and if he can get your thought going along the lines that your life is not hid with Christ in God, then he knows that he’s got you. And I think the error that we make is we let just a second go by. We let a second go by. That’s all he needs, he just needs a second because he knows that if he gets you the first second he can hold onto you the second second. And then it’s just a spiral, it just goes – well, you know how it goes. And it’s the same – presumably it’s the same with our speaking, it’s the same with our speaking.

I’m ashamed of the times that I speak unwisely and the bad tone in my voice at times, to all of you and certainly, to my wife, but certainly in my speaking and it seems to me it’s the same with that because I don’t know how – when you find yourself saying something that is not kind, or not gentle, or not patient, but when you do it, or when I do it it’s obviously because I feel I have to fix this thing. I have to fix it. I have to get this person to do this one way or the other I have to do it. I mean, I think I’m right in saying I don’t think it’s because I hate the person or dislike the person, I think it’s because I want the best for them but I feel that I should do it. It’s my responsibility.

God is not in his heaven and all is not right with the world, I have the responsibility. And it’s the same therefore with speaking it deals with that whole – that whole temptation we have and tendency to speak the wrong word in the wrong way at the wrong time. Immediately at that moment look up, you have – you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God. So if you’re dead you can’t do anything about this and if your life is hid with Christ in God you’re okay and God will himself take care of it. But it’s that that we need to do.

Now, the only other thing I’d like to say is God has carefully arranged lots of little moments when you can prove that you have faith. And that’s all it is, that’s all it is, and the sooner we get hold of that wisdom of the old saints the better. These things, this world is not running wild, God has redeemed it, and God has brought it under control. He is working all things according to the counsel of his will. The things that appear to be going wrong are sent by a loving Father, to his dear children asking them, “Do you trust me? Do you trust me? You’ve just tripped over that thing, do you still trust me? Do you trust me?” And that’s what it is. And so the events that occur that are unpleasant, the things that people say to us that aren’t kind, the errors that we make ourselves, those are all lovingly sent by our Father simply to test us to see if we trust him knowing that the only way that we can grow in faith is to exercise it and so he gives all these opportunities for us to exercise it. And what we need to do therefore when the temptation or the trial comes along is to look up and say, “Lord, I see. Thank you. I have died and my life is hid with you in God.” And really that’s it.

That’s the wonderful life that God has called us to and I ask you to help me to live in that faith and I feel that I should do everything to help you to live in that faith. But, that is it and this little illustration is right. Let us pray.

Temptations and Trials Are God’s Gifts

Temptations and Trials Are God’s Gifts

Ephesians 3:3b

I thought we would start with what we’ve studied last time I was here and that sort of thing, so that we maintain continuity. We are in Ephesians, and we may actually be further than this verse, but I thought at least I’d start at Verse 4 and actually read Verse 3 as an introduction. It’s Ephesians 3 and if you go back to verse 2 you’ll get the movement of the sentence. Ephesians 3:2, “Assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.”

“The mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.” And the mystery you remember is the mystery of Christ. And what we have begun to see clearly is that Christ is not just -- and I mean that is a great thing -- but he is not just the expression of God in the years 6 BC to 29 AD. But in fact, he is the one in whom all of us were made and in whom all of us exist. And that’s part of the mystery. And you remember where he talks, he says, “How the mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have written briefly,” one assumes that it was what he had written in Colossians that he is referring to, Colossians 1:26. He talks there about, “The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And so there he defines the mystery.

The mystery is that Christ is not simply the person that lived from 6 BC to 29 AD, but he is the person who is inside each of us. And you may say, “Well why does he connect that up with, 'How great among the Gentiles,'?" You see in verse 27, "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Well because he’s saying, “The Gentiles are part of this blessing. They’re part of this mystery. Christ is in them and they are in Christ and they will not be lost because, 'they’re not in Christ'; because 'they don’t believe they’re in Christ.'” But they don’t have to get into Christ. They don’t have to get up into the same level as the Jews are with the benefits of their laws, and their tabernacle, and their sacrificial system. They do not have to jump up 'into' that system. They are already in that position.

And you remember, that is made clear in several verses by Paul. Colossians 1:15 first of all deals with the fact that every one of us were made inside Christ. “He,” Jesus, “Is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” Jesus was the first human being born of creation. “For in him all things were created.” Everything, you see! Every Gentile, and you and me, and Hitler [Adolf Hitler, 1889 – 1945, Austrian-born German politician, leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, the main cause of World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust, the torture and execution of millions] even, and Bin Laden [Osama Bin Laden, 1957 – 2011, Saudi Arabian, founder of al-Qaeda, the militant organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets]. “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” And that’s the mystery that Paul is talking about.

The mystery is that every one of us were made inside Jesus, or we have used the verse often, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus," [Ephesians 2:10]. And each one of us were made in Jesus, and Jesus is in each one of us. And of course it makes a big difference. It takes away all that lying that people indulge in, and that we ourselves indulged in, where we thought we aren’t good enough for God to forgive us. We used that often to keep ourselves independent of him. But in a sense and in fact, there is no place, no way in which we can say that, because all of us were made inside Jesus. God put us into his Son and we are alive because of Jesus’ life pulsing through us. And we lose the advantage of that by refusing to believe that. But we will – well we've said ourselves, “You cannot – you’ll never be thrown out of Jesus." You may ignore him, but you’ll never be thrown out of him. You are created inside him.

And then you remember, in Romans Paul went further than that, because he said, “You’re not only created in Jesus but all that you have corrupted inside yourself has been destroyed in him.” Romans 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” So that everyone has actually been put right in Christ. And of course that deals with the whole problem we have of, "How can I ever changed? How will I ever get any better? How can I avoid my sins?" Well, because you have been changed in Jesus, and he is inside you, and all you need to do is let him act inside you, and he will overcome those things for you.

And that’s what is finally said by Paul in Ephesians 2:4 you remember. He outlines all of what we’ve just said; he outlines it all in one sentence. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God--not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And that’s the fact.

Well I haven’t my [white] board, but if I had it, I would put up "Fact." And I’d make the little engine [train engine], and I’d say [chuckling], “That’s the engine, and the next carriage is 'Faith,' and the last carriage is 'Feeling.' And the engine always needs to pull. The 'Fact' needs to govern the 'Faith', and that governs the 'Feelings'! And when it turns round the other way around and the 'Feeling' becomes the engine, and it drags the 'Faith' down after it, and that destroys the effect of the 'Facts'.”

And I’d mention to you again, I think we often get caught in that simple process. And I think the way we get caught is we say, “Well yes, I shouldn’t let my feelings affect whether I really believe that I am in Christ at God’s right hand, and whether I have been really raised above all my difficulties, and whether God has in Jesus met every problem in my life and has resolved it, and has made the crooked thing straight. I should not let that depend on my feelings. But I do need to think about it a bit! I mean, there are times when I’m really convinced that that’s the situation. But there are other times when I feel I really need to give myself a good brainwashing. And so those times, I want to live in the fact that I am at God’s right hand, and I want to rejoice in that, but I just need to check back on these questions I have in my mind, or these little bits of doubts, or this uncertainty, or this little issue that has come up that I need to think about."

And I think it’s very easy to say, “Yes, I’m not governed by my feelings.” But yet you are governed by thoughts, and questions, and reasoning’s, and doubts that keep you, at the 'critical moment', from dwelling on the fact that, "'God who is rich in mercy towards us, out of the great love with which he has loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses,' when we were in a worst mess than we are at this moment, he 'raised us up and made us sit with him in the heavenly places.' And that’s where I am."

"That’s where I am. What ever this car is like; whatever noise it’s making that it didn’t make before; whatever kind of rain is dripping down the back of my neck; whatever miserable things this buyer has just said to me about our beautiful jewelry, I am at God’s right hand." And it seems to me that we’re back to that little train. The engine is the fact, and the facts are there in Ephesians 2 and those verses. And if we fix our faith on those facts, the feelings will come along. But if we accept Satan’s trickery, and his very reasonable, “Hath God said you shall not eat of the...,” and it usually is that kind of thing. “And has God taken care of this too?” And you go like the engine driver; you go back to where the guard is and the caboose is at the end just to check, “Well I'd better just check.” And I think that’s where the trouble comes in.

I think we go back just to check and to think it through again, rather than settling on the fact, and staying with the fact, and making that upper most in our minds and our heads, even by repeating these verses. “Lord I thank you, that you, even when I was dead in my trespasses and sins, out of the great love with which you have loved me, made me alive together with Christ, and raised me up with him, and made me sit with him in the heavenly places -- with you in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages you might show forth the riches of your grace and kindness towards me.” And if we would do that I think oft we would not dwell in the doldrums. And I think we end up in the doldrums not just because we’ve let our feelings take control, but often because we’ve let our minds deal with some of the – what we think are the questions.

I’m not recommending that you read this, because it’s seems to me to be a book that you read very slowly. And I’m just reading very slowly, and I’m not ready to go on further yet. Dr. Michael de Molinos [Miguel de Molinos, 1628 – 1696, Spanish mystic, the chief representative of the religious revival known as Quietism.]. When did he write it? 1685. And what happened to him? The judges and the Benedictines got him, and he died in prison, yes. So he’s in the whole tradition of Guyon [Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon, 1648 - 1717, French mystic and advocate of Quietism, but never called herself a Quietist], and Fenelon [François Fénelon, 1651 - 1715, French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer]. But he has just some great words and I’ll try to read just a little, and then I’ll explain it to you.

I’ll hold onto its old English. It’s translated by Douglas McFadden who lived, believe it or not, in Letchworth in Hertfordshire here. Yes, and he wrote this introduction in Letchworth, and wrote it probably in 1948, I think or so. No, it doesn’t say but probably reasonably recently. But this is Molinos, “Thou art to know then that temptation is thy great happiness.” Those things that happen to us that try to force you back, the train the other way around. They try to force you to concentrate on your feelings, or your events, or experiences. “Thou art to know then that temptation is thy great happiness. So that the more it besets thee, the more thou oughtest to rejoice in peace instead of being sad, and to thank God for the favor he does thee.” What is the favor God does you? Here it is, “I have put you in my Son. I’ve raised you up and made you sit with me. I want you to believe that, and to live in the reality of that. And to check out if you are, I’ll let something happen to you that makes you question it.” And I think that’s it.

That God has so arranged our lives here on this earth so that we will constantly -- and I think this is the error we make: we think, “Well we know it won’t be a flowery path. No, he didn’t promise me a rose garden. But it should be on the whole successful and victorious. And there will be dark moments but those will be dark moments.” And God says, “No, no I’m going to bring a lot of things to you,” and he thinks of Marty Overby, "No pain, no gain." And he says, “If there’s no pain there’s no gain." "You’re untried if you believe it all with nothing contradicting the facts that I’ve given you. You’re untried, and so I’m telling you I’ve done this. You are at my right hand; you’re with me, and I have overcome these things that are making your life difficult. But, I need you to believe that, and I will continue to bring things to you and try you.”

“In all these temptations and odious thoughts the remedy that is to work is to despise them with a stayed neglect because nothing more afflicts the proud devil than to see that he is slighted and despised, as are all things else that he suggests to us, and therefore thou art to tarry with them as one that perceives him not, and to posses thyself in thy peace without repining.” And I thought this was the useful phrase, “And without multiplying reasons and answers.” "Without multiplying reasons and answers."

That’s where I got the 'thinking thing' from. I thought, it’s often not just our feelings but, “Well we’ll reason this out. Well we’ll work it out. Well I’ll persuade myself somehow that this is true. Maybe if I could look at it a different way, I’d see that it’s true.” God says, “I told you it’s true. Just believe me. Don’t play around; don’t play mental games with yourself; just believe me and get going.”

[Resumes reading] “And without multiplying reasons and answers seeing nothing is more dangerous than to vie,” (and of course it’s Old English,) “Than to vie in reasons with him who is ready to deceive thee." "Nothing is more dangerous than to vie,” (to 'vie' is to fight). “Nothing is more dangerous than to fight in reasons with him who is ready to deceive thee.”

And of course it does make you think back to the Garden of Eden, “Hath God said?” And you remember the way we used to say, “Satan’s first approach to Eve and to Adam was in their minds, ‘Hath God said?' 'Has he said you shouldn’t eat of...?' 'Is there any tree of the gar...?' 'You say he loves you, but is there any tree of the Garden that he’s told you not to eat of it? If he has then how can he love you?'” So that’s why Molinos says, “Without multiplying reasons and answers seeing nothing is more dangerous than to vie in reasons with him who is ready to deceive thee. The saints in arriving at holiness passed through this doleful valley of temptation, and the greater saints they were, the greater temptations they grappled with. Nay, after the saints have attained to holiness and perfection, the Lord suffers them to be tempted with brisk temptations that their crown may be the greater and that the spirit of vain glory may be checked, or else hindered from entering in them, keeping them in that manner, secure, humble, and solicitous of their condition. Finally, thou art to know that the greatest temptation is to be without temptation.”

You see we have an utterly different attitude, which of course prepares us to be laid flat on our backs every time. We hate temptation. And we think we shouldn’t be anywhere near it, and we think we shouldn’t have to deal with it. And he says, “Finally thou art to know the greatest temptation...” And I’m sorry, I should say too, that temptation for him of course is not only tempting to do evil, but also trial; also trial. They are both -- both of them are just variations. I mean temptation really covers temptation to do evil, or incitement to do evil and trials that make life difficult, because they’re both checking you on the same thing: is your faith in God? Is your faith in what God has done to you in Jesus?

“Finally thou art to know that the greatest temptation is to be without temptation. Wherefore thou oughtest to be glad when it assaults thee.” And I went back to, "Greet it as pure joy when you enter into various trials." Because I have usually received that as, “Well that’s my job, that’s what I ought to do. I mean, it’s hard but I ought to be a stoic, and I ought to greet is with pure joy. Oh how do you greet it? But I ought to rejoice.” He’s pointing out, this is a gift; this is a gift to you. Temptation and trial is a gift from God, because it’s his way of strengthening you by testing: "Do you believe this?" He’s giving you another opportunity to fly up into the position that he’s given you at his right hand. So he’s almost driving you from the earth by it.

“Wherefore thou ought is to be glad when it assaults thee, and with resignation, peace and constancy resisted, because if thou wilt serve God and arrive at the sublime region of internal peace, thou must pass through that rugged path of temptation, put on that heavy armor, fight in that fierce and cruel war, and in that burning furnace, polish, purge, renew, and purify thyself.”

It seemed to me realistic. It seemed to me real. And I just lay it before you and ask you to think about it, and to see that there is a way to live in constant victory. And it certainly is not by giving a lot of attention to what he [Satan] is saying, but as Molinos says, “Neglect him; neglect him. And turn up and be filled with the facts that God has given you.”

Let us pray.