Bonded Together

Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 3.

Hear the word of the Lord. We're going to read verses 1 through 13. Paul is instructing the church here in Ephesus about their walk with Christ, how they're being built up in Christ, they're being called out as his saints, and he's speaking to them as citizens and members of the household of God.

And so he begins chapter 3 with these words. For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things, 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.

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him. Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the fact that you've given us your word. You've given us your word. You reveal these things by the Holy Spirit to the Apostle Paul, and then he revealed them and shared them with the church in Ephesus, and now with us again we read them again. And may your Holy Spirit now open our eyes and our ears to understand more deeply the very riches that's of your grace that have been poured upon the Jews and Gentiles and all peoples of the earth through the gospel. We pray this now in Jesus' name. Amen. When you look at the world today, you do say, what in the world is going on? Or is this world going to hold together? It is falling apart, and I guess every generation has that feeling once in a while, and I'm sure the Ephesians felt like that since they were Ephesian Christians, since they lived in a very pagan city, and Paul is coming to them again and writing to them and to encourage them in their faith.

But I'm sure they're struggling. What do you do when you've been culturally canceled? You've been thrown out and you lost your spot on Facebook. What do you do when you're put down because you hold to specific beliefs that are exalting to Jesus Christ and do not complement the worldly culture? What do you do with man-made and human natural disasters? What do you do when your faith is being assailed? Well, some of these questions are running through the Ephesians' minds here in this passage, and Paul is writing to encourage them that they should not be discouraged because of all their troubles, and he reflects on his troubles, and he had a bunch of troubles. He had loads of troubles, and we know as we think about the things that happened in the Apostle Paul's life. But he wants the people in Ephesus and he wants us as Christians to look at the hardships of others and even our own hardships and be encouraged because Christ is bringing us through these things. And for like the example of the Apostle Paul, God brought them, Paul, through these difficulties so that other people would actually hear the gospel and they would come to faith in Jesus Christ. And in other words, even though there are these hardships, the kingdom of God is growing and was growing and it still grows for that reason.

So don't focus. He didn't want them to focus on his trials. He wanted them to focus upon what Christ had done and what Christ had provided for them in the gospel. And so when we come to this text, we need to realize Paul is trying to encourage these Christians and the Scriptures encourage us in this. That is, the church needs to know that the church, the people of God, are bonded together to be a witness to the glory of God. That's why we're here.

But we are bonded together. We are a body of believers. We're a body of Christians who are here for his glory, and that gives us a unique identity in this world. Okay, our oneness in Christ is a witness to the world. Okay, the first verse, you can divide these verses into three parts or three points. I'd say the first part talks about Paul's life and his struggles and his things being revealed to him as an apostle directly by Christ. The second part is the core of what we want to look at tonight, and that tells us about the works of God's grace and what Christ has done for us and the status that each of us have together and individually in Jesus Christ. And the third part sort of states the witness that we have to give to the world and to the angels in heaven.

Okay, this is an interesting passage. You know, you can go through the Psalms and you see all these statements, and I'm going to give you one. Okay, Psalm 68 35 says, Oh God, you are awesome from your sanctuary. The God of Israel himself gives strength and power to the people. Blessed be God. And that is true.

That's what we're to do. God gives us power and strength and grace, and we're to be witnesses and bless his name. Okay, first of all, the first part we're going to look at how Paul was energized, how Paul was passionate, because he was being sent to the Gentiles with the gospel. And I think most of us are Gentiles in here, but we're the benefactors from Paul's ministry in the long run. And yet there is a mystery in the gospel that is being revealed to the Gentiles, to the non-Jewish world, and Paul is carrying this around the upper rim of the Mediterranean Sea. Okay, Paul's own conversion to the Christian faith is a revelation of what that mystery can do. You know, here you have the furious opponent of the Christian church in the very beginning, and now he is out pushing the gospel, the same gospel he opposed to the Gentile world. He was commissioned to do this work, even though he had been previously so opposed to the gospel. And if God can change the part of Paul, that resistant Pharisee, then of course he can do the work in the hearts of Gentile believers, unbelievers.

Next we see that Paul was changing positions here. He was the one who went, and he was the imprisoner. He was imprisoning Christians, and now he is the prisoner of Jesus Christ.

Quite a contrast here that he's presenting. And this highlights Paul's restrictions that were put upon him, his being arrested, his being locked up, or maybe he was locked down, however you want to look at that situation. But he was restricted. He had physical beatings, deprivations, but the power of the gospel transformed him. We see the radical Jew become the radical advocate of a Gentile ministry, and this is all accomplished by the grace of God, which he keeps saying in this passage of Scripture. It was given to him that he would have this role. It was not one he chose.

God graciously gave him this role. So Paul is an advocate of what has been revealed. Some things have that were, some things have that were, some things were hidden. So what was being revealed?

Is there something that we don't know? Well, if we look at verses 5 and verses 9, we see what that is. It says that in which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his apostles and prophets in the Spirit. So there's a lot more being revealed now, okay. Then verse 9, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things. So some things were hidden.

They were not clear, but now they have been made clear. And what is this huge ministry that was hidden? Actually it was not, you know, it wasn't totally hidden because we know that there were Gentile believers in the Old Testament. A number of people who were in the line of Christ were Gentiles and came to know faith, came to faith in the living God. But God does progressively reveal things to us. We see that flow in Scripture. And believers were learning more and more of the depth of God's grace, and we're still learning that. And we will be learning that into all of eternity. But verse 8 describes the mystery and what is being revealed now to Paul, and what Paul is explaining to these Christians in that first century.

He says, verse 8, to me the very least of the saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of God, the riches of Christ. Unfathomable. Now that's an interesting word. We don't use that often, but it's something that cannot be measured. And you know a fathom is this.

Pretty much you stick your arms out. It's six feet, and so you put six feet on the cable or on the rope, and you go and you toss it out in the water, and you can tell how shallow the water is. And when you get to about 12 feet, you better slow that sail ship down.

You're gonna be in trouble. And so there was a measurement for navigating that Paul saw many times as he was on these ships, and he says there is no way you don't have a rope or a cable long enough to measure the grace and the love of Jesus Christ for people. We can't comprehend it. And I as a human being, and maybe you do the same way, I'm pretty stingy with my kindness and grace, but God is not stingy.

He is abundantly graceful. And all the grace that we receive from Christ is totally undeserved. We deserve punishment, but grace is a free gift. If it's not a free gift, it's not a gift. If it's not free, it's not a gift at all, right?

You've got to pay for it. But Paul is emphasizing God has brought the grace to the Gentile world. Now, what is that mystery more specifically? It's stated in verse six. This is the core of the text here that I'm emphasizing tonight. He says, to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

There were indications all along that that was going to be the case. In fact, you know, if you think about it, every one of us, every human being on the face of the earth is a descendant of Adam and Eve. And then again, you can go back and say, well, every human being on the face of the earth today is a descendant of Noah and his sons and their families. That is true. So in a sense, every believer and every non-believer has a believing ancestor in their past, okay?

So there's something that's been known and passed along. But we know that those who have faith, like Abraham, that those people who are like him, they're called the children of God, and they have faith and they're counted righteous, and they had the sign of circumcision. But the Gentiles, they were not circumcised.

They didn't have that right. They didn't have ritual, I mean, and they didn't have that concern, except in some cultures. But they were considered excluded from the Jewish faith. Now the mystery that's being revealed here, it more clearly is that God does include the Gentiles into the faith without circumcision. It's based on faith, not the outward signs. And this is a great truth for the Gentile community there in Ephesus. They see this, they're learning this as a congregation and they're encouraged. And so there are three bonding truths that he shares here in verse six. The Gentiles and the Jews, who are believers, are fellow heirs in Jesus Christ. Now we hear that a lot.

We're kind of familiar with that, but that is very weighty and meaty. So you and I are fellow heirs with believers around the globe, okay? We understand that.

And it's as though, however, that we sat down with the great lawyer at the desk and he pulls out the last will and testament and he says, guess what? Well, you have the Mercedes. Oh, you have a Mercedes and you have a Mercedes and you have a Mercedes.

Everybody's got a Mercedes, okay? Everybody gets everything. That's what Jesus does for his heirs. Everything that he gives to, that he gives to one, he gives to all. So we are fellow heirs, equal with unmeasurable and unfathomable shares that Christ has prepared for every believer down through history.

And we will be surprised at the riches that we receive. We are heirs with Jesus Christ. Romans 8 verse 16 and 17 make, gives us an astounding statement about the believers and their relationship to Christ. It says this, the Spirit, the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. We as believers are bonded together. We are heirs with him, okay?

So the glue of the bond is referred to many places in Scripture. And I'm just going to read two or three other scriptures that just reflect that, okay? Galatians 4-7 says, therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son then an heir through God. Of course you know sons, particularly the oldest one, got almost everything. So ladies if you're sons you get everything, okay? That's what it means.

Everything. We all share equally, fully fully in the riches of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11-7 talking about Noah. It says, by faith Noah being warned by God about things not yet seen in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. And then in Peter it's got that verse that we all kind of struggle with but really basically this. Women are resilient.

Men might beat you at arm wrestling but women are resistant. Here's the passage, okay? 1 Peter 3-7, you husbands in the same way live with your wives in an understanding way as someone weaker since she is a woman. Show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. We are fellow heirs together of all that Christ has presented.

And the list could go on and on and on. There are many passages of scripture that point us to this reality of our oneness, our bond together as heirs of Christ. And Paul is saying the mystery revealed to him as he was resistant to the gospel as he was, that this mystery was revealed to him that Jewish believers and Gentiles belong to the kingdom of God and that they should not be divided. So the point I want to make here is don't let anything divide you from members of the body of Christ. We are bonded together as his heirs, okay?

We are a body. Okay, the second bonding truth is this, is that Jews and Gentiles are fellow members of the church, the body of Christ, okay? Jesus Christ is the head of the church and he is your head. If you're a believer he is your head and he's my head and he is the head of all the church. So we come and we profess Jesus is Lord and that's what that means, that we are all under him. We are all members of his body. Ephesians says 5 23, comparing those two institutions, the church and marriage, Ephesians 5 23 says, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church. He himself being the savior of the body but as the church is subject to Christ so we should be subject to Christ.

So he's showing that that bond, we are part of the body. Now Jews and Gentiles are members of that universal church, Christ's church. Romans 12 4 and 5 kind of shares something about that. It says that as members of the church it says, for just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function so we who are many are one body in Christ and individually are members one of another.

Paul is building up the church in Ephesus. He's encouraging the church to realize you are a bunch of Gentiles who are pulled out of all these places and you're joining a religion that's connected to Judaism and you know you're hearing the gospel for the first time. You belong in the body of Christ along with the Jew and the Gentile and everyone everyone who believes.

And so we all come from different backgrounds you know you may you know if you got people who okay this person their their backgrounds as an executive, this person is in small business, this person was stationed over here, this person did business and lived in this country for x numbers of years, you know this person's a teacher, this person is this and that. Everybody comes and looks at things from different directions but but in reality we are all brought together into one body and we all have different experiences and backgrounds but we are still members of God's body. God does um there's only one of you and there's only one of me there are no clones we we are his members of his church. So we submit to Jesus Christ as our head and we submit to him as king of kings and lord of lords and we grow together uh in the body of Christ. Now when it says that we are fellow members of his body this was so illustrated this morning when we partook of the communion where we realized that Christ gave his blood and his body for us to bring us into his family into his kingdom and so we communed with Christ and we were here communing together and that's what Christ is trying to do. Paul is trying to teach the people there remember your identity your identity is in Jesus Christ you're bonded to him and you are now a member of his body. So the third bonding statement here is that Jews and Gentiles are fellow partakers of the covenantal promises. Historically we see the the line of grace we see the promise of a redeemer that that's being given down through biblical history and through real history since God began it so from Adam to Noah to Abraham and forward we see God's immediate works of grace as he told Adam and Eve that that immediately that there would be someone who would come and crush the head of Satan one of their descendants and gave them that hope and grace and as Noah was remind we reminded of Noah that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and if we see that that unfolding there and we see the the faith of Abraham and that we believe like Abraham then we'll also be counted righteous as Abraham was counted righteous. We are fellow partakers of the promise of salvation through the Messiah Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit confirmed that again and again he has many times Jews and Gentiles are fellow partakers now we don't realize that America is is more diverse and more unified than we realize Americans are but you know when you were you were dealing with a Jewish conflict and a Gentile conflict this was intense back in centuries ago usually intense and so we don't we don't grasp the the conflict and the depth of resistance that Paul was dealing with but you know at Pentecost as the prophets had predicted the Spirit of God as Joel Joel had predicted in 28 29 the Spirit of God was poured out on the church and the people who saw and heard the preaching of the gospel in their different languages some understood the gospel and some believed and who were these people multiple groups of people just a few like there were there were the Medes who were the Persians who are the Iranians of in their in the heritage there are people of Asia minor there are people or or Turkey there were Egyptians and Libyans and Romans and Arabs and it goes on and on all these different people hearing and he gospel as these Galileans spoke to them in their own tongues the miracle of the of the work of God bringing people into his fold symbolizing it there right there in at Pentecost at Pentecost then again the Jews and Gentile were their unity and oneness and bonding before the Lord was confirmed by the multiple works of the Holy Spirit among the Gentile hearers this is what the reports that Paul and Barnabas brought around back to the church in Jerusalem you know and later Silas went out with Barnabas and I mean John Mark went out with Barnabas and Silas went out with Paul but but they were bringing back the news the Gentiles are coming to faith in Jesus Christ and you know it become an issue it become a boiling point in the early church how can we how can we have people who do not know the old testament or not circumcised how can they be members in the kingdom of God that was a boiling point so in acts 15 verses 7 11 7 through 11 here's what was Peter said as he preached there that day after there had been much debate Peter stood up and said to them brethren you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe and God who knows the heart testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit just as he also did to us and he made no distinction between us and them cleansing their hearts by faith now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear but we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in the same way as they also are and so when the when the people became came to faith in Christ and they received the Holy Spirit and they were blessed by God and professed their faith in Christ the Gentiles did circumcision was out the door the point was they have been bonded and brought into the to the body of Christ and and they are now partakers of the covenant promises that God had been making all the way through from Abraham on through they are members of the body of Christ and so saved by grace through faith in Christ alone that's what makes us heirs that makes us members of the body and that makes us partakers of these eternal promises of God you look at chapter 1 verse 13 Paul makes this statement he says in him you also after listening to the message of truth the gospel of your salvation having also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise all that God had been promising down through the ages was being fulfilled right there and and Paul is assuring these Ephesians who were not there at Pentecost he's assuring that this is really true it's true it's true it's true now and so it was confirmed that Pentecost it was confirmed at the Jerusalem Council that we become Jew and Gentile become one body in Christ we're partakers of the promises of God and we're sealed by the indwelling person of the Holy Spirit so you and I who are here today are bonded together in Jesus Christ we too are fellow heirs we too are of the body of Christ we too are partakers of all these eternal promises that God has made so do not let the world divide you the world will divide you real quick it will pit people economic group against economic group economic group it will pit ethnic group against ethnic group it will pit male male males and females against each other it will do all kinds of things it can do to confuse you and to confuse me but we are one we are the body of Christ purchased by his blood but more than that we together are a cosmic witness to the heavenly powers and rulers if you look at them at verse 10 it says we're brought to this mystery has been revealed as made known it says so that 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 the wisdom of God is going to be made known what God has planned all through history is going to be named known which is which is the gospel Romans 11 verse 33 and following it says this oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways for who has known the mind of the Lord or become his counselor who has the first given to him that it might be paid back to him again for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever and ever amen so it's hard to imagine the multiple blessings and the wisdom of God has he's worked out this plan of salvation down through time but it is really true we are witnesses to angels in heaven you ever thought about yourself being that you and I we are witnesses we as believers give testimony to heaven itself yes we can give glory to Christ through good times and bad times as Paul was saying he was giving glory to Christ through good times and bad times as Paul was saying he was giving glory to Christ through his sufferings but when the heavens angels in heaven see that you are living for Christ and you're speaking of the glories of Christ and just giving testimony to God's goodness here on this earth they rejoice they're seeing that witness now let me back up a minute do you remember what it was said in Hebrews 12 remember those cloud of witnesses they're at that point in time we are looking at the cloud of witnesses and they're watching us right and so we see all the people of faith down through time they're they're up there and they're watching us and we're watching them we're remembering oh we should live faithfully like they are but now he's showing another dimension oh the angels in heaven are watching us and what we do and how we live brings glory to Jesus Christ and the angels in heaven praise God for what he sees God working in our lives and doing and how he's using us as he used Paul and he used other people down through time so the angels in heaven see and they hear your witness and they give praises to Jesus Christ so that's the role that we have as his called out saints as his holy people so when the fallen angels and then some big debate did the fallen angels see this or or you know is it just the good angels in heaven well either way there's the witness because I tell you Psalm 2 says the world rages and it does rage those people who see that the glory of Christ they they resist Christ even if it's a good witness and that's what Paul was saying there even if your witness is great for the Lord in in 1 Peter 4 he says so as you live live for the will of God for the time already has passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desires of the gentiles having purposed a course a course of sensuality lust drunkenness carousing drinking parties and abominable things and all this they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation and they malign you so your witness can be maligned by those who are resisting the Lord but to the angels in heaven they are praising God for what you are in Christ and who you are in Christ we are witnesses to a fallen world but moreover we are witnesses to the angels in heaven and bring glory to Christ so the body of Christ is here for that purpose we are bonded together as heirs as members of the same body and as fellow partakers of the same promises same promises we are God's people and we should live that way and our bond together is not for our own glory it's for the glory of Jesus Christ that's why we're here on this earth that's why he's called us out of darkness into his light that's why he's purchased us with his blood and given us life so praises be to Jesus Christ let us pray father we thank you for the fact that you have given us identity that is not of this world an identity in you that the world cannot take away since we are your children and father we praise you for the fact that you've loved us this way from the foundation of the world and you love us this way even now oh father give us tender hearts toward you and let us glorify you today we ask in Jesus' name amen