Ephesians 3.1-13
A sermon preached at St Margaret’s, Nedlands 30th August 2020
As a teenager I was deeply depressed by the meaninglessness of life. When I travelled in the train to the steel works in Port Kembla, I was fascinated by men working with oxygen lances burning scale from the red-hot slabs of steel. The showers of sparks were quite a show. But it was always the same; the job seemed never done. In the end it depressed me. Then I would look around the train, men reading the newspaper – every day the same. I wondered did people work to eat, or do they eat to work. I was haunted by the prospect of leaving school and finding myself in a routine occupation where every day you did the same thing and came home to the same thing.
I also worried about the significance of my life, or rather, its insignificance. It did not seem to me that I counted for much. I seemed to be a cog in a big machine.
Then Jesus came into my life and I discovered that God had a plan for the world; there was meaning. I also discovered that I meant something to God. I was not insignificant, though I continued to feel that way in regard to the world. So, I sometimes prayed that God would give me something meaningful to do. I was intrigued by the notion of destiny. Is it possible for someone to have a destiny? Not as in fate, where you are caught like a rat in a trap. No matter what you do, what you are fated for will get you in the end. But to have a significant future, something you were born to achieve, I wanted to feel I had a destiny. I realized that if there is such a thing, only God could give it, so I prayed he would. I think for that reason I have seen most of my life since then as privilege. Belonging to Christ is a privilege, and every task that God has given me I have seen as a gift and as a privilege.
I begin on this personal note, but the reading is about Paul and his privilege – and I want you to think about you.
In Ephesians 3.8 Paul says,
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Grace is a gift we don’t deserve. Paul had a sense of incredible privilege.
In one way he saw himself as less than the least of all God’s people, though it wasn’t always so. As a young man he had been very status conscious. In one of his letters he talks about his life before he was a Christian:
I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness under the law, faultless.
He doesn’t mention Rome and Tarsus, where he held the citizenship, because he is addressing Jews. He was proud of his race, intensely proud of the status his Israelite ancestry gave him with God, proud of his education, and proud of his activism as he went to war against this new Christian sect. He was proud that he was now being noticed by leading temple figures. Everything about him gave Paul satisfaction. But notice how he describes himself in Ephesians 3.1: “A captive of King Jesus.” He was in prison, but that’s not all he means. Imagine him, hurrying off to Damascus to attack the followers of Jesus, feeling immensely important because he carried official letters from the Jewish government. He was going to root out this superstition – this imposter who imagined himself to be the King-Messiah, who ended up where he belonged, on a Roman cross. And now he is struck blind by a dazzling light, addressed by a voice which he knows is God’s, but says he is Jesus, the man he so hated and thought was dead. And now Paul realizes that far from being God’s favourite, he is a persecutor and murderer. And then he is forgiven, and charged with the awesome task to carry the name of King Jesus to the non-Jewish world. Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, the least of all the saints, but now given this gift: to preach to the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. What a privilege!
What are these unsearchable riches of Christ he mentions? Let’s drop a net into Ephesians and see how many we can find. In Ephesians 1.3 we are blessed with every spiritual blessing; in 1.4 chosen by God to be holy and blameless; 1.5: predestined to be his sons and daughters; 1.7: redeemed by Christ’s blood and forgiven our sins; 1.8: given insight into God’s plan for the universe and the meaning of life; 1.13: sealed with the Holy Spirit for a future inheritance; 1.19: protected by the power of God to ensure we get these blessings. Quite a list to put under the heading of the “riches of Christ”, and we have only looked at chapter 1! There are lots more. A number of times in this letter Paul speaks of our inheritance, which is nothing less than to be a child of God with a share in the new universe. Chapter 2 says God has chosen us because he wants to spend eternity showering us with gifts: an awesome thought!
I studied maths with a young woman who refused to become a Christian, because she said she would hate heaven because she would know everything and there would be nothing left to discover. As if the God who created this world and filled it with such wonders is not capable of creating endless other worlds for his children’s enjoyment, should there be the need. “The unsearchable riches of Christ”: the Greek word is anexichniastos. Ichnos is a footprint: the meaning is untrackable, untraceable. We will never get to the bottom of the riches that are ours in Christ. There will always be more.
I wonder how you felt when you first came to know Jesus? Did it fill you with wonder that God should have been so kind to you? Did you think it was so good that you wanted others to share it? Did you ever thrill at the thought that God might use you as his instrument to bring his blessing to someone else?
Paul says, “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
We need to be careful about applying this too quickly to ourselves. Paul was special, and there are things about him for which there is no parallel with you and me. “Surely you have heard about the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me,” he says in verse 2. A steward was a manager of a large household, or a farm or business. God gave Paul control of an important sector of his world operation: nothing less than taking responsibility for getting the gospel to the non-Jewish world. There is nowhere in the NT where you feel Paul’s excitement more than here.
In the rest of our passage he explains the special role God gave him in his plan for the world.
Ephesians 3.1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 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. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Something new is happening that no one dreamed would. God’s plan is unfolding in an unexpected way. If you look back at chapter 1, you will see Paul declaring that God has made known his plan for the fulness of time to “re-head” (anakephalaiosthai) the universe, or everything (ta panta) – in Christ. The messianic hope of the Old Testament was coming true. God’s plan always was that his Messiah would be king over the whole world. It is bigger than that, says Paul. His plan is to put everything – everything: the material universe and the spiritual realm – under the headship of his Messiah, for time and eternity. And we now know who this Messiah is.
Inn chapter 3 Paul speaks of his own role in this universal plan: to declare to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Jews expected that some Gentile would be saved, but they would be an exception. The kingdom of God would be the kingdom of Israel. But now something unheard has happening. Jesus has instructed his apostles to announce to the whole world the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. It is Paul’s task to manage that operation.
The reason he wants people (us) to know about his role is not to boast, but to establish the authenticity of his gospel. God has made him his apostle to the Gentiles. An apostle was someone’s agent. Someone who can act on your behalf and carryh your authority, when you are not present. In the case of a king, an apostle is an ambassador with plenipotentiary powers. That is what Paul was. Jesus made him his ambassador to the non-Jewish world. His message is the message Christ gave him, which is God’s message. That is why we make so much of Paul.
But he was a controversial figure in the first century. Many rejected his teaching, and, of course, his apostleship. The two go together. The main deviant forms of Christianity in the first century were Jewish attempts to tie the gospel up with the law of Moses. In the second century there were Gentile attempts to marry the gospel to Greek philosophy. In the past two hundred years the attempt has been made to marry Christianity to the materialist, “scientistic” worldview of the West. In our own time people want to accommodate the gospel to new ideas about sexuality and inclusiveness. But how is anyone to know what the truth is? The answer is that Jesus appointed agents, apostles, to speak for him. What Paul taught was what Jesus gave him to teach. Reject this and you reject true Christianity. That is why it was important for Paul to establish his position then, and why we need to understand it now. Paul was not just another Christian. He was as essential to God’s unfolding plan as were Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David and John the Baptist. The New Testament actually contains material for a “doctrine” of Paul. What is more, the other apostles agreed with it; it wasn’t some sort of power grab on Paul’s part. A further thing that needs to be said: none of us would be Christians today, if it were not for St Paul. Gentile Christianity stems from him; so, oddly, does most modern Jewish Christianity. Ancient Jewish Christianity mostly died out.
We shouldn’t read Ephesians 3, then, thinking it is about us. We are not Paul. Most Christians, even ministers and missionaries, don’t have a call like Paul’s to some special ministry. No Christian leader has the authority to say his or her teaching should be followed unquestioningly. However, we can share in Paul’s mission, just as we share in the task Jesus gave to all his followers to make him known in all the world. Let me make three points about how Paul’s special commission affects us!
Firstly, the task God gave Paul is unfinished. Paul did what he could. At one point he could say, “from Jerusalem to Albania I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.” He say that, though most individuals and towns and villages remained untouched, because he had planted enough churches and left enough workers to get on and complete the task.
Second, he drew others in to share the task: Barnabas, Mark, Phoebe, Timothy, Silas, Luke, Titus, Epaphras and many more. Although he was given responsibility for the mission to the Gentiles, he did not see it as his exclusive task. Our passage is full of management language. Like any good manager, Paul delegated. He even made arrangements for things after his death.
So, third, when he knew he would be put to death, he spoke to Timothy of the needs of the future. He does not make Timothy the second-generation apostle to the Gentiles; that was a unique, start-up role. Christ appointed no apostles beyond that first generation. Rather, Paul urges Timothy to guard the gospel, and entrust it to others, who will teach others, and so it has gone on down the ages (2 Timothy 1.13-14; 2.1-2). We are Paul’s spiritual children, heirs to his gospel, heirs to his vision. His teaching is embedded in his letters.
It is as you and I engage in Paul’s mission and spread his teaching that we can say, “to me though I am the least of all the saints, has been given this grace …” for me, for a few years it was to explain to students in the new South Africa the unsearchable riches of Christ. I can say this – you can say this – because we are furthering Paul’s mission and teaching his doctrine. For me it has been a privilege beyond anything I dreamed of, or thought God might do when I prayed he would give me a destiny. How exciting it was to teach people, who would go out and explain God’s great plan of salvation to others and others and others. What a privilege!
Now I want you to think about you. You too can share Paul’s vision, which is Christ’s vision, which is God’s vision. You can have a significant role in what God is doing. I’m sure he will give you one, if you ask. Of course, I know many of us here this morning feel past it; the world belongs to the young. What I am suggesting may sound like a joke. But while a Christian has life, he or she is in God’s service: “I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ …” Even in prison Paul carried on with his work. Every true Christian has been captured by Christ. In chapter 2 we learn that God has saved us by grace for “good works that he prepared beforehand for us to walk in.” Christian life is not a meander; it unfolds under the direction of the sovereign God. So, it is no joke to talk about each one of us discovering our God-appointed destiny. And it goes on to the end, until the Lord says enough! and calls us home.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I am talking only about preachers. Preachers are essential to the working out of God’s plan, and I hope you won’t shut out the thought that teaching might be the best way you could serve the king. Each generation needs a new crop of men and women who are sold out on Jesus and want nothing more than to proclaim him to their own generation. Every church needs to ask itself, “If they are not coming from here, where will they come from?”
But when we talk about Christ’s mission and the building of God’s kingdom, it is big; we are talking about more than preaching.
Imagine Priscilla and Aquila saying to one another one day: “To us who are the least of all God’s people, was given this privilege, to open our home to the people of Corinth, Ephesus and Rome – to invite Apollos home to dinner after synagogue and explain to him about Jesus – to host Paul’s preaching meetings. Aquila ran a successful leather factory which made it possible for them to have their big house and to move from city to city. Most of his time was needed by the business, but his wife was a gifted communicator and entertainer.
David Broughton Knox gave the last four years of his life to establishing a new training college in Cape Town in South Africa. One of the many things he did was to see that one of his students who had left his job as a bank manager, was ideally gifted to manage the new college. I could have done very little without that man. There are a host of roles that are essential to make any kingdom ministry possible. Jesus says that even the person who gives one of his disciples a cup of water will receive his or her reward. You must all put your minds to how you will work together to make St Margaret’s a powerhouse of kingdom activity. Whatever our age and stage, each of us could begin by choosing one young person and begin to pray that God would reveal himself to them and put them to work in his kingdom-building enterprise.