INTRODUCTION. God created the earth to be a living planet, and thus the home of every living thing He created. We are the only race on earth that is aware of the vast complexity of life here, and what a privilege it is to live on a planet like ours. But with that awareness comes the responsibility to take care of what God has given us, the human race: dominion. The Bible says in Psalm 115:16, “The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.” This gift implies a stewardship to take care of the earth. Good stewardship of the earth has brought forth the abundance of food and prosperity that our civilization has achieved. When people have neglected their stewardship, they have damaged the environment that sustained them and have created famines that have forced people to migrate to other lands. There are real consequences for careless living, as farmers know better than most.

Through Jesus, God entrusted something exceedingly precious to us – a Message, the Gospel, that can transform our life and the lives of people we know. The Gospel, Paul wrote to the Romans, “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” God entrusted the message of salvation to the Gentiles to the Apostle Paul like no one else in the first century. To Paul, God gave revelation into how Jesus’ atonement – His death on the cross and resurrection – transcended the religious barrier that kept Gentiles from entering into covenant with God. Consequently, all of us now have direct access to God, not only for eternal salvation, but to meet even our most basic temporal needs. The writer to the Hebrews put it this way, “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

So today, I want to focus on this stewardship of God’s message to the world that has been given to you and me. I want to look at the Apostle Paul’s life and see what we can learn that will challenge us to grow into our responsibility as men of God.

Last month, I spoke about “the Barriers between Us” and how Christ had broken down the walls that separated us from God from the Jews, the original people of God, and from each other because of sin.

Paul concluded his passage about breaking down barriers by describing how God has then built us up and joined us together, the very opposite of breaking down. He concludes chapter 2 of Ephesians saying, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

He painted the image of a glorious temple as a metaphor for God’s household, which is Christ’s body.

In this passage Paul expanded on his appointed responsibility to be a steward of, or administer, the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles.

READ EPHESIANS 3:1-12.

• STEWARD OF GOD’S MYSTERY – vv.3:1-3
  • The Prisoner of Christ – v.1
    • Paul calls himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Recognition that his imprisonment was appointed by God.
    • Paul accepts that his hardship is a positive faith lesson to an emerging Church. Persecution was their lot in a hostile, pagan Roman world that was beginning to crack down on this new religion. Jewish hostility toward the gospel was now hostility from the ruling empire.
    • Are we willing to accept that the hardships and frustrations that may come our way are part of God’s plan?
  • Stewardship of God’s Grace
    • The Message: “God’s plan for including everybody.”
    • Oikonomia – administration (v.9), divine arrangement, or dispensation (KJV), which has its roots in the word oikos for “house”. This word is literally about “home economics”. Our word “economy”
      • The word used in Jesus’ parable in Luke 16 about the unfaithful steward, the oikonomeion.
      • Paul goes back to earlier theme. Eph.1:9-10 “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him ¹⁰ with a view to an administration (oikonomian) suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.”
      • Oikoumenée – the whole inhabited earth. The Church has the stewardship entrusted to bring the gospel to the world, and make disciples of all nations (Mt. 28:19-20).
    • Jesus selected Paul to be Church’s greatest theologian and apostle. He set the tone for the new Church that would grow to be the strongest religion in the Roman Empire.
    • Paul’s household was the entire Gentile world in the Roman Empire. About the gospel, Col.1:5: “Everywhere in the world that Good News is bringing blessings and is growing.”
  • Revelation of the Mystery – v.3
    • Revelation Apokalupsin: opening or unfolding of truth.
      • Nothing about God can be known unless He reveals it to us.
      • Human beings became accountable to God as moral agents when God made Himself known to ancient peoples.
      • Paul had a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ on the Damascus road, and then had his understanding of prophetic scripture opened to see that Jesus is everywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
    • Mystery musterion: “something hidden or unknown.” Paul is saying that his responsibility was to bring to light to the Gentiles something that had been from both them and the Jews.
• REVEALING GOD’S MYSTERY – vv.4-10
  • Sharing the Mystery of Christ – vv.4-5,7-8
    • Reading gives insight. The power of the written word: it doesn’t change like human stories. Mt.5:17-18. “not one stroke…”
      • Repeated reading / listening increase understanding.
      • Aid to meditation, the key to spiritual growth.
    • Paul was made a minister (diakonos, deacon, servant). Paul was called to serve others by bringing revelation to them. We are called to be Christ’s witnesses.
    • Paul connects God’s grace with “the working of His power” (energeian tés dunameōs). God’s grace (the Holy Spirit’s influence) energized Paul to teach with authority; it energizes and empowers our witness, makes it vital to the listener.
    • “The least of all saints” – Before his conversion, Paul had been so gripped by Pharisaical arrogance that he couldn’t imagine that God would want to bless the Gentiles with salvation.

The least of all saints. Ephesians 3:7-8 (The Message): “This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.”

• The Gentiles are Full Partakers of Christ
  • Fellow heirs (sunkléronoma). We get everything in eternity that
  • Fellow members of the body (sussōma). We are intimately connected to Christ, his body. Perpetually connected to the life of God, who is eternal, self-sustaining life.
  • Fellow partakers (summetocha) of the promise in Christ. All the promises of God are answered “yes” to us. 2 Cor.1:20
• Unfolding the Mystery. vv.9-10 “and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.”
  • Paul was charged with bringing God’s plan to light to the world. He is the most influential writer of the Christian Church.
  • God had always had this plan, but waited until the right time – after the Resurrection of Jesus – to make it known.
  • Only through Christ’s atonement could the Holy Spirit be given to impart revelatory knowledge through inner regeneration.
  • When you receive Christ into your heart and are born again, you gain the capacity to understand spiritual things.
• Revealing His Wisdom – v.10 “so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.”
  • God’s Manifold Wisdom. God is infinitely multi-dimensional in his capacities and thinking. He sees things from an eternal, holistic perspective, and understands exactly what is needed to bring about the future He desires and what He wants to reveal.
  • God’s wisdom – doing the right things in the right way to reveal Himself and His ways. God delights in His ways and wants all thinking creatures to understand what they can about Him.
  • Relationship with God.
    
• THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S MYSTERY – vv.11-12 ¹¹ This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, ¹² in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.
  • Man’s Chief End is to Glorify God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism’s first question is: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” John Piper: “God is most greatly glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”
  • God’s Eternal Purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Himself with and through His creation forever. God understands there can be nothing higher than the creation experiencing God. We are called to have the highest experience of God – that is the mystery of Christ.
  • Man’s highest glory is in glorifying God. “We are most satisfied when God is most glorified in us.” It is a noble thing to desire to do great things for God. Wm. Carey: “Ask great things of God; expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”
  • To do great things for God, you first have to let God reveal to you the things He wants you to do. This is a work of love in relationship with Christ.