The Stewardship of God's Grace, Eph, 3:1-3
Ephesians 3:1-3 · Vern Peterman · Dec 19, 2004
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 49
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262317147019

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

A blessed good morning to you. Now, where are we in the study? We've been going through Ephesians, first couple chapters. We've been going through Colossians, couple chapters. We will be looking back at Ephesians here. So, here's the big picture. Here's the Roman Empire from space. You look at Roman Empire from space all the time, right? Here's Paul. He's in this house arrest arrangement. Rome.

All right now there's these churches that are way over here Ephesus and Colossae and he's written them letters so as he's working on these letters here he's going to write both Ephesians and Colossians sent him with this fellow Tychicus and so we're going to go back to the book of Ephesians having studied the first two chapters of Ephesians earlier and First two chapters of Colossians, begun the first four verses of Colossians chapter 3, now back in Ephesians here. In Ephesians 1, Paul was telling us that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. He was enumerating those blessings as he went through chapter 1. Then in chapter 2, Paul has kind of told us where we were and what remains for eternity, and including in order to join the Jews and Gentiles together, the putting out of commission of the law of Moses, in order to create the church. Here in Ephesians chapter 3, Paul is about to explain to us what's the nature of this gospel message that he has, the benefit for us.

So maybe you're wondering, why is it that we're studying two books at once? Remember, it's not because Vern's gone cross-eyed. But it is indeed because these books have major sections in parallel, sections that make a lot of sense. And what's going to happen? We're going to want to get all our ducks in a row.

The last half of Ephesians and Colossians have application portions, the outline of which is perfectly in parallel. And so we want to have those two be joined together here. As we're studying through Ephesians 3.1 through 4.16, there's some material there that's kind of unique. We pointed out the parallels between Ephesians and Colossians. This is a section where there's some unique passages to the book of Ephesians, largely unique, some parallels to Colossians. And so we'll be looking at the first three verses of Ephesians 3 here to get reoriented.

Just a reminder that as we went through Colossians 1.25 through 27, That was a brief summary of what we'll be looking at over the next several weeks in Ephesians 3.

Now, so Paul starts off with this passage, for this reason. You might be wondering, what's for this reason for? What's the reason for? That's a raisin, not a reason. Okay, come on, let's do something else. Okay, there we go. Paul is, of course, able to change topics But one of the things we've noted all along in both Colossians and Ephesians is Paul does things logically. He says, for this reason, because of this, for, based on, therefore, and he uses logical connectors and he's doing the same thing here. Paul uses similar language, for this reason, in a number of places.

We've already seen it in Ephesians 1.15.

Then, In the following verses, after Ephesians 1.15, Paul prays for the believers at Ephesus. We saw that in Ephesians 16-18.

He will do exactly the same thing as we get into Colossians 3.14-21. He's even going to start again with the same phrase. But, what he does, he starts talking about, for this reason, and then he puts in a long, about a dozen verses, kind of a parenthetical statement. And that's what's going to consume our next few weeks here.

One of the things to note in Paul's pattern, prayer is not a leap of faith. You heard that phrase? Leap of faith? It was a phrase that was started better than 150 years ago by an existentialist philosopher. And one of the things that we see in Scripture is that Scripture knows of no such thing. Scripture founds faith on reasonable points of contact, reasonable points of testing, and as Paul makes clear, points of logic.

Every time Paul prays in Ephesians 1-3, he starts with, for this reason. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't just say, boing, now we're going to pray. He has a logical basis, a reason that he is going to launch into a prayer. There is a founding for it. It's not a leap of faith.

Colossians 1.9, which we looked at some time ago, is interesting. Same thing. For this reason, and he begins praying for the believers at Colossae. Prayer isn't rationalistic. That is, it's not something from a purely human standpoint. I'm going to sit down and get all logic out and then launch into prayer.

It is founded upon revealed truth. That's the logic and the reason. We've got a basis in Revelation, a basis that the Lord has revealed to us in his word. Each prayer, as we notice the pattern here in Ephesians and in Colossians, each prayer is about extending what is known of our position into our condition.

That's his prayer. He prays initially in the book of Ephesians, I pray that the eyes of your heart would be opened. Why? He wants them to see their position. As we see it getting worked into chapter 3, will see that he very much is desiring that that be worked into their daily life, applied actual living, so that the prayer is not simply some lofty disconnected prayer, but it is a prayer that these believers will understand their position in Christ and that it will be lived out in full reality every moment of every day.

Now, then he says, Now, one of the things to note here, it isn't anything fancy grammatical. There's no great historical or cultural background. Paul, however, is specifying himself for two reasons. And the main thing is, this isn't egotistical. Paul is not being egotistical.

Paul says, I, Paul, and he's sending this letter to Tychicus. So he wants to spell things out. this letter and the letter to Colossae are going there through this fellow Tychicus. It's a long jaunt, as you saw from that view from space. Tychicus has a long walk ahead of him.

There are also others with him, as Paul makes note in Ephesians 6.22. So I, Paul, would avoid any confusion. He's saying, I particularly have something here that I need to tell you, and it relates to me, even though there are others who are sharing in the writing of and the delivery of this letter.

It's important not to see it as egotism because in Ephesians 3.8 he says, to me, the very least of all saints. And Paul is not displaying a false humility here.

Why? As he tells, towards the very end of Acts, he says, I persecuted the church to the point of death. He recognizes, he says, I have no worth. I, of anyone, have offended the church and assaulted the church horribly. He says, it's not by worth of my own, I am the least of the saints, but because of God's mercy and His grace, I've been given this charge. Now, what is he saying? For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Now notice as he makes this statement, we've got a question here. Is Paul saying that he's being chained up by Christ? Is that what he's saying? Is that his message?

It's easy, if you think about it, for human beings to get pretty bitter and disgusted and mad about the situations they're in. Ever been there? You look at the situation you're in and you say, now this is lousy. This stinks. Paul, as he is writing this, had spent two years in the prison in Caesarea, Roman prison, chained to a Praetorian guard because he had appealed to Caesar. He's starting a time in Rome, two years approximately in Rome as well. Chained to a Praetorian guard 24-7. Nasty experience.

They don't necessarily like being chained up to a prisoner and there's no obligation to treat the prisoner nicely. Here he is chained up with his prisoner and yet, look at what he does. It isn't simply an attitude of resignation that Paul's calling for here. Instead, as he makes multiple reference to his imprisonment, not to try to gain sympathy, but he's connecting his imprisonment all the way to the top. Jesus Christ has a definite connection with why I'm in prison. This is something that the Lord is doing. This imprisonment is of Him.

How about that in our own situation? Maybe you didn't feel the best this last week. Maybe the car didn't cooperate with you, or your bank account. Whatever it happens to be, there's an important recognition as believers that the Lord isn't just throwing a bunch of accidents at us. As believers, we don't have bad luck.

For the sake of you Gentiles, Now, it's possible here that Paul is making a reference to athletic representation. We notice that in several instances in Colossians chapters 1 and chapter 2. That's possible, but that hasn't been his pattern here in Ephesians. If there was one thing, that's a difference between the two books. That pattern of repeatedly going back to athletic representation doesn't seem to follow here in Ephesians.

More likely he's just saying that it was on their account. It was for them. It was for their benefit. And the Gentiles would have been the majority of the church there at Ephesus. There was a significant minority of Jews, but the majority certainly would have been Gentiles of every sort. Ephesus was a very metropolitan kind of town with lots of different ethnic groups. It was both a major port city, the third largest city of the Roman Empire, lots of traffic in and out, There was also a network of Roman roads, even including the Silk Road coming out of the East. China, India, influence from the Far East was coming into Ephesus. Lots of variety, but largely Gentile.

Paul says he was commissioned to these believers who were in these Gentile lands. We see repeated reference from Acts into 1 Timothy. of Paul's commission to the Gentile lands, appealing in those Gentile lands to both Jews and Gentiles. Now it says, if indeed, and one of the points we'd like to make there, Paul isn't doubting that they had heard.

One translator even put this, surely you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace. You see, if you think about it, Paul spent three years there. He says that in Acts 20. And just a little bit before, he had met with the Ephesian elders. Now, he says, if you have heard of, and you think of, there are a few different ways that the people there would have heard of Paul's special commission, his assignment to the Gentile lands to establish the grace gospel there. One possibility would have been when he was in Ephesus. Remember we saw in Acts 20 there?

Three years, he said, he spent in Ephesus. so they may have heard directly from Paul during that time. Additionally, by word of mouth, we know from the book of Acts it said all Asia heard the gospel, that is, the entire area of which Ephesus was the capital.

And third, by reading earlier letters. Paul had by this time already written other letters And we know it was becoming the pattern for believers to say, hey, a letter from Paul, I want a copy of that. They didn't just put it on the photocopy machine, but they'd take the letter and copy it off and pass it around.

They'd say, this is great, I love reading this stuff. Look at the things he's teaching. This is fantastic. And so people would have spread the letter around. There would have been one, two, or possibly three different means that people would have heard of Paul's particular appointment to ministry.

Now he uses this word stewardship. It's a word we've looked at before, but it's been a couple of months, maybe more like a number of months, so we'll want to review a few things. The word is oikonomia. We get our word economy from there, but explicitly it means household principle or rule is the idea. It's a combination word. Paul loves those compound words.

And what we get here is, this is a word that was used throughout the New Testament. So we see it used in various places by different authors. It is often related to slaves. That is, slaves were often given a position of household rule. And one of the things we've noted as well is that it was used all the way back to the book of Genesis. The concept of being given an assignment over a household, or over a business, or over somebody's fields. That principle is used repeatedly. We brought out, when we were introducing this before, that there is a family of words, and it starts off with this.

The iconomos is somebody who has been given the assignment. In this case, Paul was an iconomos, right? He was a person given the assignment to spread the grace gospel into the Gentile lands. It's taken from the word that was used regularly, and that is somebody who has been given a charge or assignment over something, typically something that belongs to somebody else.

Oikonomia is this particular word. It's the administration, or the management, or the stewardship arrangement. That's the word he uses here. The oikonomos is given the oikonomia. Oikonomio is the acting out. It's the verb form. carrying out that assignment, that stewardship that's been given.

And finally oikos is the house and we think of a house and we think of the building but it may include something far beyond that. Remember the promise to David and as we reconsider here this time of year to Mary repeated was this descendant of yours David and the one to be born of you Mary will have a house, a throne, and a kingdom. The word house means something far more than just a physical little house, doesn't it? It involves an entire area, and in this case, it's the whole descendancy from David. A house, a throne, and a kingdom.

Alright, now, here's the basics of a stewardship. An example we get is out of Joseph. Here's Joseph, and the owner is Potiphar. He gives Joseph an assignment, So Joseph would be the oikonomos. And the assignment is to be over all his house and all his fields and crops. And the particular term that's used in the Greek Old Testament there, it's the one over the house, is the way it's stated. So it's very similar to the word oikonomos. Epitu oikou. The house in the field is owned by Potiphar.

When we went over this before, we pointed out that Joseph took care of everything so that the only thing Popper had to worry about was the next bite of food he put in his mouth. Now, Paul is saying, I've been given that kind of an assignment from the Lord. The Lord gave to Paul the Apostle an assignment and he said, okay, here is the assignment.

I want you to take this message that the church being both Jews and Gentiles in Gentile lands, I want you to take that into the Gentile lands. That's your assignment. It's the area over which you have responsibility. So that's Paul's use of this same word, and it's the same concept that's carried out throughout the Old and New Testaments. So here Paul points to his assignment. Stewardship of this message of God's grace. I am carrying this message of God's grace to all these churches in the Gentile lands.

Do you see when you read the New Testament how much that grabbed Paul? This was not a casual assignment, something he said, oh, by the way, I kind of do this. This is something that grabbed his every waking thought, and I'm sure some sleeping thoughts too. So here is Paul with this intense and heavy assignment. He had this stewardship responsibility to convey these grace truths to all the Gentile nations for salvation and for spiritual growth.

Notice he didn't just come in and give a salvation message and say, good, you're saved, I'm on to the next ones. He stuck around in Ephesus for three years. Why? He told them in Acts 20, he says, I gave you day and night with tears the whole counsel of God. The whole thing, because it all counts. I want you not just to be saved, but to grow. And he tells the church at Colossae, he says, my aim is for every person, every person, every person to mature spiritually. Not just the elders and the pastor, the deacons and a few others. Everyone. He wants every believer to mature spiritually.

Which was given to me for you, is the next phrase that pops up there. You see, this stewardship that Paul had was to convey this message into the Gentile lands. As he did so, he recognizes, it's given to me, but it's not for me to keep. Ever been given something that's not really for you? He says, it was given to me for you. It's my job to hand it off. It's my place, Paul says, to make sure that somebody else gets it. A lot of times we'll be given something and it'll be a trust relationship, or somebody will say, here, take care of this for some period of time.

This is a little unique. It wasn't a matter of keeping it safe and quiet and private. It was a matter of, the place, Paul, to keep this safe is to make sure it gets handed off to everybody who will take it. An interesting difference. It's not a matter of keeping it secret, quiet, covered, silent, unknown and untouched. Instead, I want you to keep it safe by giving it to everybody who will possibly listen. Pass this on to faithful, faithful men who will in turn teach others also. Very interesting character to his commission. This all makes perfect sense.

Paul was a messenger, not just any messenger, an apostle. The word means special messenger. He had a specific message assignment to pass along. He says it was given to him by revelation. Now this is important. This is really important. This is a brief couple of words, but it has some points to make that are really profound. We don't want to miss them. He draws upon words that are used in a special way in the Old Testament.

When he says that it is by revelation, This isn't something he just dreamed up. He said, hey man, I just came across this great idea and I thought I'd pass it along to a few folks. It wasn't something that he said, hey, I think I'll invent something. How about if I invent a religion? Not his assignment. He hadn't been given this grace message. He hadn't gotten it as just merely another human being. He hadn't gotten it from another human being.

Jesus Christ took the initiative personally to reveal these things to Paul. Paul didn't get to spend time with Christ and the other disciples, right? It was specifically and personally revealed to him by Jesus Christ, the resurrected Lord. Paul was discipled directly by Christ. We see that in a few passages including Less specific, but certainly a reference here in Ephesians 3.

He says in 1 Corinthians 11.23, I received it from the Lord. What did he receive? The things that the other disciples got because they were there at the Last Supper.

Do this in remembrance of me. Paul said, I wasn't there that evening, so the Lord had to tell me directly. I received directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, have them do this in remembrance of me. You weren't there, but you need to know it. To the church at Galatia, he said, I didn't get this message that I'm passing along just from anybody. Somebody else didn't bring it along. I received it through revelation of Jesus Christ personally. Him directly. Paul taught some things then because of that personal revelation that are unique.

The position of the believer in Christ and the identification truths. Not exclusively in Paul's message, but very substantially. The other apostles give secondary reference to those truths. The walk of the believer in the spirit and the flesh, that's Paul's unique message, isn't it? The church is the body of Christ, and Christ is the head of the church.

By the way, that message with both those halves of the message, Ephesians and Colossians are the two books where that stands out. one of the values in our study in both. The believers have been sealed by the Holy Spirit twice in Ephesians and once in the messages to the church at Corinth. The Jewish and Gentile believers are in Christ, as the message of the end of Ephesians 2.

The mysteries, something we're going to see three references to in the passage we're looking at here this morning. And finally, the listing and explanation of gifts, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, and then in the next chapter, Ephesians 4. Those are just some of Paul's unique teachings. There's this word by revelation, so this word revelation. The noun form is apocalypsis, that's what he uses right here. The verb form, apocalypto, is especially in the Greek Old Testament Book of Daniel, and there, especially in chapter 2.

There are a number of places Daniel 2.19, 2.29, 2.30, 2.47, where this word is used in association with the word mystery, which we also see here. Real interesting. It appears that Paul took particular efforts as he wrote this to base his language substantially on the book of Daniel.

Why? His message was different but he wanted to communicate it, it's the same Lord who reveals. It is the Lord's initiative that it reveals it, not by some cleverness of human beings. Finally, it says, there was made known to me, the Greek word there, norizo, made known is a passive verb. It was sovereignly revealed by God. It was God's doing, God's action. It's also an indicative verb. It indicates that it is fact, not wishful thinking, not, boy, it'd sure be nice if this would happen. It was reality. It was indeed, and in fact, revealed by God's action. Now, what in heavens is Noritzo? Noritzo is not a Ritz cracker, not no Ritz.

We could point out more similarities between Daniel and Daniel chapter 2 and the first three chapters of Ephesians, but just to point out here, This word that Paul uses for made known is also used 12 times in Daniel chapter 2. Paul keeps underscoring the point.

I was given these things by God. Daniel had already made the point. God took the initiative. He exclusively reveals these things. Paul is saying it's not my doing, it's God's doing. He's underscoring that point. Even though the message is different, additional information from what Daniel revealed. The principle is the same. God takes the initiative to reveal these things. God is the one who makes things known. Paul didn't pry it out of God's hands. He didn't come to God and say, Oh, please, please, please tell me. Paul wasn't clever or powerful. We didn't get the information because of that either. God revealed it because it was on God's own initiative that he determined to do so.

You see, human beings, isn't it amazing? You've seen this. Human beings, we always want to know the future. Tell me stuff, you know, give me insights. And so human beings have all sorts of concoctions. People pay money in for centuries, you know, looked at things like crystal balls, reading the tea leaves, the signs of the zodiac, looking at horoscopes.

Turns out the Babylonians even had a map. We've got a copy of this here. You see a picture of a map of a sheep's liver. And they have special little places where you look at the sheep's liver. They'd sacrifice a sheep and look at the liver to try to determine the future and determine what the right course of action is. Human beings are incurably searching for all sorts of ways.

How can I tell the future? How can I tell what's going to happen? How can I tell what's the right decision to make? What we're going to see here in Ephesians 3, 1-13, Paul is going to say, look, all these crazy ways of trying to tell the future, I'm going to tell you what really matters.

This is what you need to know. And it's not something you're going to have to cook up because you looked at some zodiac. It's not because the horoscope said to do this or that. But it's because God, who made heaven and earth, and loves you, determined on his own initiative to reveal it."

Now, here's this word Mysterion, and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, ah, Mysterion, he's going to show us some moose. Yes, I guess so. Anyway, we will look at some moose here. But this word really doesn't have anything to do with moose, it's just a joke. Anyway, just so you know. But some cultural insights we want to review here. We looked at these some months ago but I don't want them to leave our mindset here.

There were a number of religions in Ephesus and throughout the Roman Empire that practiced these mystery religions was what they were called. And what they would do is they'd have elaborate rituals that they'd go through and they'd give people these so-called secrets that they were sworn under penalty of death. Don't tell anybody these. And only those who were a part of this elite group who had been through this initiation and taken the oath of silence were allowed to know these things.

So, imagine what the reaction is when Paul uses that very same word. He writes to the Corinthians and he says, Behold, I tell you a mystery! Everybody knows it. How about here in Ephesians 1.9? He made known to us the mystery of God's will, of His will. And, we'll see farther on in Ephesians, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. How about that? Instead of, keep it quiet, don't tell anybody. Boldness. Tell everybody. Exactly the opposite of what the culture would have dictated. Shocking, outrageous behavior. Tell everybody. That's your assignment.

This word mystery here shows up again here in Ephesians 3.3. And as you see, there are others on the list. Now, in case you're stunned and just outraged at the thought, there'll be no more moose. Don't worry about it. There's a whole bunch more references to the word mystery in Listerion and lots of moose opportunities here. OK, here's a little more digging into the word.

The word is derived from the verb muo, which means to shut the mouth. So here, this idea of mystery is keep your mouth shut. cultural message. It was part of the oath of silence of the pagan mystery cult. In contrast to the general culture, here's Paul who uses the word to indicate something that had not been previously revealed but is now revealed by God. God's revelation. He is revealing something not previously revealed. It doesn't remain unknown and mysterious.

You see, God is pulling back the curtain his plan for things that are visible? What's going to happen to this earth? What's going to happen to the heavens and the things that are invisible? What's going on in the spiritual realm that our science, as impressive as it may be to us, can't determine? What's happening?

We pointed out sometime in the past here that God has different aspects of his will. It's this first part here that he's going to spell out. Those things that are fixed and irreversible that are now and are going to be in the future. Now, finally he finishes off this passage which is, I wrote before in brief and so we have a question. Not that bad of a question. Okay, all right.

So, did Paul write another letter to the church at Ephesus before that we don't have now. Is this Ephesians, or second Ephesians, the second book? I don't think we need to come to that conclusion, and here's why. He starts off with, for this reason, right? He based it on something.

What he's pointing back to is what he said in Ephesians 2, 11-22, and he spelled out that both the Jews and the Gentiles will be put together into a new body, a new people, which is the Church. That's the thing that he wrote about before in brief. Paul is explaining just what he told them. He says, I've told you the Jews and the Gentiles will be in a new body called the Church.

Paul isn't just thinking this up. He isn't just conjuring up some idea. It came by revelation of God. He says, I'm not just cooking this up for you because I think it sounds cool. I'm telling you because God gave me the assignment and this is what he told me through the person of Jesus Christ. By personal revelation, he said.

Colossians 127 states briefly what Paul is going to tell us in greater detail in the rest of Ephesians 3. Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is the focal point. of the revelation that he's giving here, zeroing in on that. As we look at this passage, we're starting into a whole passage, but the key thing is this, and Paul has underscored the point in the words that he has chosen and the way he's said it.

God is not putting us here on planet Earth to wander around just wondering, well, I wonder what the truth is. I wonder what God wants. What does God have in mind with all these things? It's those kinds of basic questions. He's saying, I have a direct answer from the Lord. I want to pass it on. I want you to know about it. And it's because the Lord loves you and cares for you, and He has paid the price, He wants to bless you so unfathomably that it will take eternity for you to come to understand it.

As we look at this time here, time of year, it's a time of blessing. The Lord is saying, look, it goes way, way beyond that. Oftentimes this year, time of year, we get focused on the infant. And certainly that is a very special and beautiful and blessed thing. But the coming of Jesus Christ was one part of a revelation. what's all too often bypassed and overlooked. God not only revealed himself specifically in the person of Jesus Christ, but he has told us what that means right now and what it means for eternity.

That's the really neat thing about this passage. He's saying, God's not sitting there holding something in front of the truth here and saying, you know, good luck. He's saying, I love you so much and I have an eternal purpose and I want you to know it and I want you to share in it. He's told us this here because He loves us and He wants to share His glory with us. Marvelous, marvelous truth. He doesn't want us to be in a fog, in an ongoing mystery about it. He wants us to share it. He wants us to walk knowledgeably by faith. knowing because he's revealed.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at your precious word here, how marvelous a set of truths you've laid out. Not just propositions that logic are applied to, although certainly they're that, but truths, Lord, that are so marvelous as to be unfathomable. Truths that are so deep as to require eternity. for us to understand and to come to know. We thank you for the tremendous relationship that we have with you and the eternity that you've given us to learn about it. Thank you for this special time of year and for this special eternity that you have chosen to share with us. In Jesus' name.