Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our
lead pastor, Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message
would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you
to the life changing love of Jesus.
May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today.
Before we get into our text today, one of the things we do
that is an expression of our unity together is we practice a
confession almost every single week.
We say these words, they're a truth telling moment where we
express both the the difficulty and the brokenness of life, but
also the reality of how God sees us.
And it's our way of sharing the Gospel with our own hearts and
with one another. And so I'm going to say the
first line and then we together say the second line.
If you're visiting today, just wanted to give you the heads up.
It's like our our moment of liturgy is right here.
So for anyone who loves liturgy, like brace yourself, it's going
to come and go, but this is what we say.
We say we're badly broken. We're deeply loved.
Isn't that true? It is true.
There are days when maybe we don't feel it or where there are
some competing thoughts going on.
We lean on it with such strengths because it's what God
says about us, not what we think about ourselves or about our
neighbor. You may have some disagreements
over some things, but what God says is that person is beloved
to me just as you are. And so when we say that, we're
affirming something and we're actually standing against the
currents of this age that want to divide and separate and
fracture further. So we're a people of the gospel
that belong to Jesus that declare the door is open for
anybody to walk through that door and become a part of the
family of God. Amen.
All right, so here we are in Ephesians.
We're starting chapter 3 today. And I just want to for those who
may be new into the series or for those who are like, man,
it's already been seven weeks, Johnny, I don't know what
happened this morning, let alone seven weeks ago.
Let me just give you sort of the summary of chapters 1:00 and
2:00, and then I'm going to locate us as to what's going to
come next. So we sort of know where we are.
Like the blinking. You are here on the map of the
Epistle to the Ephesians. So Paul starts with explaining
that the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus is
the apocalypse that changes everything for everyone.
Our series is called Apocalypse Now, and that does not mean that
giant choppers are about to come like whizzing through and that
we're caught up in some wild film.
It means that the veil has been torn, that the covering has been
lifted, that our eyes have been opened and we see something that
we didn't see before. And what Paul shows us is that
walking in the way of Jesus, we should expect a series of
ongoing apocalypses in our life. I'm always looking to see Jesus.
What do I, what have I not seen about you and your Kingdom yet?
What have I not seen yet? Even though I may have heard it,
even though I may have thought I understood it, I haven't had my
eyes opened. And so Jesus is the central
person and work this apocalypse is about, He goes on and he
shows us how without God's intervention, all people, can
you say all people, there you go, good, So all y'all right?
And all the other, all yours, all people are spiritually dead.
They're separated from God, they're fractured in their
relationships, and they're enslaved to sin, to the powers
and principalities. When Paul talks about powers and
principalities, he's kind of going to shake up some of our
Western materialistic worldview. The kind of things like tables
and cheeseburgers and cars and houses are it.
He's like, no, no, no. Look, God made the physical,
material world, but he also made equally real the spiritual
world. And that there are powers and
principalities, both angels and demonic beings, angels who have
turned from God's rule. But there's also these sort of
ideas and things that work throughout culture trying to
subvert the Kingdom and the rule of God.
And there's these powers and principalities at work.
And the people, apart from the saving work of Jesus, all people
are enslaved. But Christ has conquered the
powers of sin and death. Christ is risen and ruling above
all things. When the early church said Jesus
is Lord, they weren't just subverting Rome.
They were subverting the powers and principalities, the Kingdom
of darkness that was seeking to destroy God's work.
Jesus is Lord over all. So any ideas that we've got that
are drawn more from sort of Middle Ages that the devil is
the ruler of hell? No, Jesus is Lord of all and
hell is a place of judgement for the devil and all those that are
walking in his way. And Jesus is Lord even there.
Jesus Lordship is total and those who are in Jesus share in
his blessings and the realities of his life both now and in the
age to come. What that means for you is that
you no longer have to try and earn your way to have an
experience of union with God. You have union with God because
of Jesus. Therefore, all the dividing
lines of race, of gender, of economy, of power, of ethnicity
are erased. God has made one new humanity
through Jesus. We all have new life in Him, and
that life is entered into by grace.
It's a gift given, not something earned, not based on your
status, not based on where you came from, but based on Jesus as
a gift. You enter by grace through
faith, through an allegiance and a commitment to Christ alone.
We are saved from death and saved to life in the way of
Jesus and we are saved together. The book of Ephesians is writing
to a community all y'all, and so when you hear the you come up
throughout the readings of Ephesians it means us as a
people. Not a series of individuals just
randomly thrown together, but a family that belongs to one
another and has community with one another.
And what was radical was Paul was saying this wasn't just for
the Jewish people. It was Jew and Gentile united as
one new family. And the church, this united
people that encompasses us as a local church, all the other
local churches faithful to Jesus in this town, in this nation,
around the world. And not just today, but for all
of time that the church has existed, they're all together as
a family. So you got a big family.
You got to know that your family is vast, and some of them will
really annoy you as much as you annoy them.
It's just true, right? But we're family.
We have a bond that goes beyond our preferences, that goes
beyond our personalities. It's a unity found in Jesus.
And this church is the temple now, where God dwells and where
his glory is displayed to the ends of the earth and beyond and
beyond. We'll get to that.
Now, where are we heading from where we are today?
Well, we'll get into more of the the second-half, the
application, but we're still in the opening half of the letter.
And that opening half, chapters one through 3 is written to help
us understand the apocalypse of Jesus so we can kind of get our
minds and our hearts around it before we get our lives around
it. And that's where we go with
chapters 4 to 6, is the help to apply the apocalypse of Jesus
more directly. And we'll look at the
functioning of the church as a community together, where each
person has a place and a function and a role to play.
We'll look at the processes of spiritual formation.
How do I grow into the ways of Jesus and live a life that more
and more reflects the Kingdom that I'm now a part of, not the
Kingdom I came from? We're going to look also at the
impact of the gospel on our relationships within marriage
and family, within the workplace, and we'll look at
what it means to resist in the unseen realm.
That's some good shorthand for talking about the powers and
principalities, the unseen realm.
It helps us remember, oh, I come from a pretty secular,
materialistic worldview and that informs me so much in the media
and in the in the news and the conversations that I have.
They're just this under underlying assumption.
But the biblical worldview challenges that and says there's
more going on than you can just see.
And how do we deal with those parts of that unseen realm that
are antithetical to God's Kingdom?
But today, today we have a digression.
Today Paul starts to say something and then it's like,
well, hold on, time out. And he steps over to the side to
explain and express something. He starts in verse one,
something that he's not going to pick up again until verse 14,
which Pastor Jason will be covering next week.
And what he begins to do is pray.
What he's going to do when we get to the the what he started
is he's going to pray. And that's actually a very
normal response for Paul. He pivots from teaching an
excitation into worship and prayer.
It's like he gets just caught up in the grandeur of what he's
talking about. He's like, oh, hold on a moment,
I got to actually pray right here, or I got to worship God.
You're so great. It's like breathing in and
breathing out. But something manages to stop
him short here. Why?
What could possibly interrupt Paul's urge to pray?
Well, there's a situation that he's in, and it's a situation
that will raise some questions for his audience about whether
they should be listening to this guy or associated with this guy.
So it's something that needs to be addressed.
For Paul, the apocalypse has changed everything, including
our response to suffering and persecution.
Paul pauses here, and what he does reveals to us how grounded
he is in the realities of God's Kingdom.
What does being grounded in an unsettled age look like?
You ever feel like it's an unsettled age out there?
Just like I'm nervous to turn on the news this morning, Who knows
what could have happened whilst I was sleeping.
I'm nervous to say anything to anybody because they might take
me the wrong way and just assume that like I hate them and I'm
the worst human in the world ever, right?
Does it feel like Babble out there when nobody can understand
each other and just misinterpret each other left and right?
It's an unsettled age, and we're living with this pervasive sense
that something's not right, and then it bubbles up in real world
things. We've moved from sort of this
age. Mark Says is an Aussie pastor
and thinker and writer. And I heard him talk recently
about moving from an age of anxiety to an age of action
where all of that ick that you've been feeling online and
you've seen like, hey, young people in the room.
Do you ever see, like, some real conflict going on and people
being, like, slightly unkind to each other online?
Yeah, You ever see that? Adults, Do you ever see that?
Have you ever participated in that?
And then it's moved from the digital to the real world, and
it's starting to come out face to face with people.
It used to be, we'd say, man, you'd never say that face to
face. Now people do.
It's unsettled and unsettling out there.
In the past, we've seen seasons like that and we've seen people
who have embodied a groundedness that has brought massive
transformation. So historically, I was just
thinking through like people like Abraham Lincoln, people
like Corey, 10, Boom, who hid Jews from the Nazis and ended up
being in a concentration camp and then survived all of that
with her faith not just intact, but rich and overflowing.
People like Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned and then when he
was finally released, brought about massive change in a
nation. People like the Reverend Doctor
Martin Luther King Junior, who refused to play by the rules of
the enemy and would not combat hate with hate, but chose the
way of love, grounded people who knew who they were, who knew
what they were about. Mark Sayers also wrote this book
called A Non Anxious Presence, and I think that's brilliant
shorthand to picture what groundedness should look like.
A non anxious presence. The world is unsettled.
It's it's a hot mess, right? You as a follower of Jesus in
the body of Christ, do not have to play by the rules of
engagement that the enemy has set out.
You get to walk a different way. So for Paul, the apocalypse has
irrevocably changed how he understands himself, his
calling, and his standing. So I'm going to open the
scriptures, but would you, would you pray with me here?
I was travelling for a few days at a conference and I got back
in from Indiana last night. The only person I can blame for
the scheduling of preaching right after travel is myself.
So just have grace for me. And as I pray for you and us, as
we open the word, would you just maybe just say a quick prayer
for me might get us out on time. You never know.
There's just too much in here that wants to come out.
And so do yourself a favor, pray for me that I would be clear and
concise. All right, Father, thank you for
the Scriptures. God, this word that is precious,
that is you speaking to us and giving us wisdom and life and
showing us Jesus and the Kingdom and more.
God, to just see it with our own eyes and our broken
understanding isn't, isn't sufficient.
We need You, Holy Spirit, to open our eyes, to see wonderful
things out of your word, to comprehend what you were saying
to us specifically today as a church and as individuals, we
ask that you would guard our minds and our hearts and our
bodies from anything that would seek to interfere with paying
attention to you. And I pray, Lord, that anything
that comes out of my mouth that is just me, that would that
would just pass on by, but I make myself available to you,
God, that this word would be formative for me and for each of
us here and for us as a body, and that through it you would be
glorified. I ask you Jesus name, Amen.
All right, So what does it look like to live in light of the
apocalypse? Paul's experienced something.
He's talked about it and here he is.
And what he begins in Ephesians chapter 3.
I'm teaching from the NASB, which is a slight more technical
translation. You heard it read from the NLT
or some weeks we're using the message so it's a more hearable
translation. But for teaching purposes, I'm
working with the NASB. And in verse 1, he starts, he
says for this reason, which is Paul linking back for the reason
that God has both overcome the cosmic break and the covenantal
break and has joined all people, Jew and Gentile together to be
the new temple in the Spirit. For this reason, I, Paul, the
prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.
And then in my translation, there's an M-1 of those long
dashes. This is Paul going, oh, hold up.
He does a hold up moment because he's just said I'm a prisoner
for the sake of you Gentiles. Because of the work that I've
been doing, sharing the gospel with and bringing in the
Gentiles through the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have now been
imprisoned. Many believe he was imprisoned
in Rome. And so Paul is somebody who
manages to offend the religious establishment and the political
establishment and is put in prison.
And that was a great source of shame.
Culturally. You've been imprisoned.
Obviously you've done something wrong, or at best maybe you
haven't. But to be associated with you
puts me at risk. And So what does Paul do with
that? Well, I see a great humility
flow out of Paul in these opening verses of chapter 3.
Because what I would be tempted to do is be like, yeah, I'm a
prisoner because of the work I was doing for you, but check out
my credentials. I I've lived a clean life.
I was like super high up in the Jewish church.
But then I met Jesus and I repented.
And like, it's been wild out there, people.
I've been all over the place preaching the gospel, planting
churches. I'd be like, listen, it's OK,
I'm fine, but I'd be pointing at me.
Paul doesn't do that. I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ
Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.
The humility kind of continues. He goes, if indeed you've heard
of the administration of God's grace, which was given to me for
you back in the day, this would be like Billy Graham getting up
and being like, hi, I'm Billy Graham.
Oh, if you've heard about me, like maybe you have, maybe you
haven't. I don't know.
Let me just make sure, like it's Paul, he was known amongst the
religious world and he has been ministering for a while amongst
the gentile world. He's not a stranger, but he
doesn't lean on his own reputation.
If indeed you've heard about the administration, this is a word
that means like the management of a household.
Paul's picture of his loving pastoral care of the church is
looking at it more like a household and a family than an
organizational structure. If you've heard of the
administration of God's grace, which was given to me for you,
that by revelation, that's the word apocalypse, that by
apocalypse there was made known to me the mystery.
As I wrote before, briefly, he's referencing what he's already
said or some other letter. His other letters are longer.
He's referencing, look, I just unpacked the mystery of the
gospel. You can see it, it's right
there. And there's this little moment
where he, he speaks of things having been made known to him by
revelation. It wasn't his brilliance.
Paul was a brilliant thinker. There's other letters in the New
Testament that kind of reference like man, it's kind of tricky to
understand. Y'all right?
He's like, you got to read carefully.
Paul was a brilliant thinker, but he didn't get here by his
brilliance. He got here by an apocalypse, by
his eyes being open to see things in a different way.
There's a humility at work here. We see it elsewhere in this
passage when he uses the word minister in verse 7.
That's actually the word servant.
I'm a servant of the gospel. A servant doesn't tell the
master what the job is or how they'll do it.
A servant says, what would you like done and how would you like
me to do it? That's Paul's posture in all of
his brilliance. What would you like me to do and
how would you like me to do it? He just makes himself available
to the Master Jesus. He also later on says that I the
very least of all the Saints, and Ben Witherington in his
commentary on this says it's basically like he's saying I'm
the least, I'm the most least that there can be.
He sort of makes up some Greek here to try and express his view
of himself. Paul doesn't raise himself.
He lowers himself in order to raise Jesus.
In verse four and five, he says by referring to this, what I've
written before, by referring to this, when you read, there's an
expectation that the people who hear this letter are going to
come back and read it again and again and again and again.
There's an expectation that you and I, that all of us would come
and read again and again. When you read, you can
understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.
So now it's now it's understandable, it's
comprehendible. Which in other generations was
not made known to mankind as it has now been apocalypsed,
revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.
It was through the Spirit that people are given revelation and
calling and power. Previously things weren't made
known like in the way of rational thinking and
understanding in other generations, but now it's been
apocalypsed. Not because these people that
have received this revelation are more brilliant, but because
this was God's timing and God's plan to reveal it to His
apostles, which is a common word at the time for sent ones and
his prophets. So living in light of the
Apocalypse means it's not about me or us, it's about Jesus.
It's all about him. He is the central one and our
credentials, whatever. I've seen God use all kinds of
people. In fact, the New Testament shows
us in the Gospels that he's going to use fishermen who are
uneducated. He's going to use tax
collectors. He's also going to use Paul, a
highly trained religious leader, whatever.
He'll work through you and your context if you will make it all
about Jesus. So being grounded means the
humility that says it's not about me, it's about Jesus.
But it's also comes with a clarity and we'll continue on
verse 6. Paul says to be specific, so he
wants to like make sure that everybody knows this is what I'm
saying, 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. That's the servant word
according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me
according to the working of his power.
So Paul knows that this calling was a grace from God, it was a
gift to him, and that he needed some attending power at work in
him to fulfill this calling. He's clear about that.
But the real heart of it is that the Gentiles are now these three
fellows, right? They're fellow heirs, so they're
going to inherit something. And if we know our scriptures
from the Old Testament onwards, the promise of inheritance
initially is a a promised land, but it's also a promised Kingdom
and there is a Kingdom that is now and not yet.
And the church are the inheritors of that Kingdom with
Jesus. That's wild.
You're not called as ones who are just going to be like
enslaved in the Kingdom of Jesus.
You are Co heirs. You inherit it.
That's a big deal. And we are fellow members of the
same body. So it's not like, well, we're
all going to inherit it, but we're going to keep like the
Jewish people over here and the gentile over here, and we'll
have two bodies. He said, no, no, no, we're one
body. But then there's this other one,
fellow partakers of the promise. And when I made my notes, this
is a little insight into how, like preparation work goes.
You do your initial work and you sketch out.
This is where I think we're heading with this text for this
moment, with this people. And then you sit with it and you
pray through it, and you let the Lord speak.
And I initially had written down the word promises, because who
knows that? There's a lot of promises of God
in the Bible. There's many promises.
And we as ones in Christ have the authority to pray the
Scriptures and to hold on to those promises and even to tell
the Father, you said this, so I'm holding you to it.
You said this, You said you'd give me abundant life, Jesus.
So I'm asking, would you give me abundant life?
You get to do that because you're in Jesus.
But the text actually says the promise, one promise, a specific
promise. And my brain went, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa. What is the promise that Paul is
referring to? And all of this kind of happened
towards the end of the week and I was travelling and I just
didn't have the moment to drop a note over to our tech team and
be like, hey, guys, can you drop this whole bunch of other
scriptures into the overhead? So the fact it's not on screen
is totally my fault. And they will probably tell me
later. You could tell me on the
morning, but I didn't even get to that.
So sorry tech team, but here we are.
I want to read these for you. This isn't Luke so the end of
Luke in chapter 24 and you get to hear all of this in my pseudo
British accent instead and he says this Luke 24 verse 4.
At first service thought that was funnier than you did so
that's fine. Now Jesus said to them, These
are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that all the things that are written about me in the law of
Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and
he said to them, So it is written that the Christ would
suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that
repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His
name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending
the promise of my Father upon you.
But you were to stay in the city until you're clothed with power
from on high. So this is kind of right at the
ending of Doctor Luke. He was a physician.
His account of the life of Jesus.
Now we just flip over to the book of Acts.
And he summarizes it again in Acts 1 when he says, gathering
them together, Jesus commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but
to wait for what the Father had promised.
OK, great. Well, what is that which he said
you heard of from me for John baptized with water, but you
will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
I want to tell you, church, we typically kind of reverse into
these things, much the same as we do when we're dealing with
things around politics. We start with our existing lens
and then we try and read the scriptures and the Kingdom
through that. I want to tell you that's like
looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
Everything just looks a lot smaller and narrower.
We are to read the culture. We are to read all of life
through the lens of the Kingdom. We, we look through the Kingdom,
we look through the lens of Jesus to behold all other
things. And I know that some of us
probably come from some theological backgrounds that
would be like, uh oh, you've got kind of some, maybe some at
least an orange light on like, where are we going here?
Baptism with the Holy Spirit. And some of you are like rubbing
your hands, like, let's go. I get that.
One of the beautiful things about this body is this some
diversity. I just want to show you what the
Scriptures say. You have to do something with
that. Then Jesus says to his
disciples, wait, they've seen him, he's resurrected, they
believe in him, he is Lord. He has breathed on them in
John's Gospel and said, received the Holy Spirit.
We believe that when you come to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit
dwells within you, a comforter, a counselor leading you into all
truth, That river of life that wells up within you that bears
good fruit. Lovejoy, peace, patience,
continue the song in your own time, right?
It's all there that's birthed by him, but he actually tells his
disciples, I want you to wait until you receive the promise of
the Father. That promise comes in Acts 1,
when in Acts 2, right? So they gather, they wait.
Acts 2, Day of Pentecost comes and the Holy Spirit is poured
out on them and there's tons of flames appearing on their heads
and they speak in languages they don't know.
And thousands of people come to Jesus and the church is
launched. They knew Jesus, they believed
in him, He was Lord. He told them to wait, to be
empowered by the Holy Spirit being poured on them so that
their ministry would be effective.
How many of us wake up each day going like, man, I really love
Jesus, I'm his, but I just beat up.
I don't even know how to deal with the relational fractures
going on around me. I don't know how to deal with
the corruption in the place I work.
I don't know what to do about the political divisiveness in my
nation. Don't even get me started on
what's going on globally. I just feel under it and pushed
down and powerless. And I think Jesus would say to
us, are you willing to wait on me for the promise of the
Father? I'm not telling you.
Well, let's continue on Acts 19. This is the birth of the
Ephesian church. We covered this in the first
week. He says, beginning verse one.
Now it happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul
passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus and found
some disciples. He said to them, did you receive
the Holy Spirit when you believed there was something not
quite right? It's like I can't put my finger
on it, but something's off here. Let me just ask a few questions.
Did you receive the Holy Spirit? And they said to him, On the
contrary, we've not even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.
And he said, into what then were you baptized?
And they said into John's baptism, what Jesus said, John
baptized with water. Paul said John baptized with a
baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who
was coming after him. That is in Jesus.
And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands
upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking
with tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all.
Look, when the Holy Spirit is absent in some fashion, it
shows. And when the Holy Spirit has
been poured out in power on His people, it shows.
And you might be uncomfortable with some of the ways that it
might show, but you will not live in the power that God has
for you in this age where we live in enemy occupied
territory. This is not neutral ground.
You won't live with power until you yield to the fullness of
what Jesus wants for you. He says it's a promise, a
pledge. Write also in.
Galatians chapter 3 verse 14 because you might be like, well
how do you know that it's all to do with the Holy Spirit isn't to
do with land. Well, Galatians 313 Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse
for us for it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree
in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would
come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the
Spirit through faith. So I think when Paul says here
their fellow heirs, their fellow members of the same body, and
their fellow partakers of the promise in Christ, he is talking
about the empowering work of the Holy Spirit that has not just
been poured out on Jews, but also on Gentiles.
That very thing was the reason that the church council in
Jerusalem. I think it was might be wrong on
that, but it was one of them where it was the Jewish church
where like we can't hold back here, can we?
Maybe that was Antioch. Clearly, clearly the gospel has
come to the Gentiles because the Spirit is moving amongst them.
We see the evidence of it. We come in 2000 years later with
a prebuilt doctrine around these things.
Paul just had language for the experiential reality of the
power of God working through regular people like you and me.
And it was not just for the apostles, because the same thing
happens at Ephesus. And it is the normative function
of the church throughout the New Testament that we see God's
people equipped with God's Spirit for God's work.
Paul has a clarity that hangs on knowing who sent him, how he was
sent by grace and that God was with him and the God is with us
too. So living in light of the
apocalypse is both this humility but also this clarity that
brings us to a purpose. Verse 8, he says to me the very
least of All Saints. And Paul saw himself this way
primarily because of his persecution of Jesus people,
right? That's where he begins is
persecuting Jesus and the church to the very least of All Saints.
This grace was given a gift received to preach to the
Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten all
people as to what the plan of the mystery is, which for ages
has been hidden in God who created all things.
Paul understands his purpose, which helps him be grounded.
He's not thrown off by different things going on around him, not
even his imprisonment. Paul knows my purpose is to
preach the unfathomable riches of Christ.
That means there's a depth to the beauty and wonder and
mystery and majesty of Jesus that we will never Plumb.
You will never get to the full depth.
So just this morning I was walking and praying in my
neighborhood. If if you've ever thought like,
I need to cross the street, there's a crazy guy.
I think I was the crazy guy this morning.
I was walking the neighborhood, praying, talking to the Father,
and I was praying and I was like, God, I need more words to
tell you how wonderful Jesus is, which is ridiculous because he's
the Father and He knows how wonderful Jesus is.
But I just needed more words. Would you reveal to me the
unfathomable riches of Christ so that I can proclaim that?
You get to be a. People who proclaim Jesus to
everybody because that's part of the purpose preach the
unfathomable riches of Christ to let everyone know the plan Paul
says to enlighten all people all y'all and all the all y'all's
out there is there anything further than all y'all.
I feel like we've maxed out in Texan at that point but be
further than that right as to what the plan of the mystery is
which for ages has been hidden in God who created you all
thinks it's not hidden now and everybody's welcome to the
table. We get to proclaim Jesus has
done it all and if you will unify yourself to him, we're.
All welcome in Why Well, verse 10.
I just think it's just fascinating.
So that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known
through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the
heavenly places. So that the Church by her very
existence will declare truth to the heavenlies you.
Might be wondering like. Is anyone paying attention to
our social media campaigns? Are people checking in on the
YouTube feed? Do the, does the city know the
stuff that we're doing? The heavens are watching people,
both those who love the Lord and are leaning in like, I didn't
know this was the plan. And those who were reposed who
were like, uh oh, we got a problem because you know, it's
6:00 AM and the church in Texas just woke up and they're
together. They're not fighting anymore.
They're together. They're not dismissing one
another. They're honoring each other.
We've got a problem, people. The multifaceted wisdom of God
that goes beyond as singular understanding.
We think there's like maybe one thing God is doing.
He's doing a lot of things all the time through everything.
The polychromatic wisdom is shown in a multi colored family.
One of the things I have delighted in over the three plus
years that we've been here is seeing the increasing diversity
of River City Church that is beginning to really represent
the diversity of New Braunfels. Because Jesus is for everyone.
And when we limit ourselves to one expression, it's like just
saying I'm not going to go to the potluck and enjoy the many
forms of food out there. Our small.
Group does a shared. Meal most weeks, we always theme
it. We want to try the food from
everywhere. People.
I want to hear the song and see the dance from all the different
cultures people because there's so much going on there that
expresses the wonder of God's created order, right.
We're like, yeah, I'll take mashed potatoes and meatloaf,
thank you very much, which are great.
I love those. You just don't want them every
day. Maybe you do.
That's OK, But the Church exists to express this multifaceted
wisdom to the heavenlies. From the now to the not yet the
Kingdom to come, from the earth to the heavenlies, the existence
of the Church proclaims the reunification of all things to
all things. The Church is the embodied
declaration of God's victory and God's ultimate plan that has
been placed in the middle of a battle raging in space and time
that gets to declare to all things that it is finished.
Jesus has done it and. We wonder why the powers and.
Principalities seem so fixated on tearing down the integrity
and the unity of the Church. Don't play that game.
How do we resist it? Well, what did the early church
do? The early church was scandalous
to the surrounding culture because Romans and Jews and rich
people and poor people and slaves and masters and men and
women shotgun horror ate at the same table.
All of the cultural divisions were thrown aside and people
were like fumbling their way into what does this look like?
I've not eaten with you before. I've not served somebody.
Before I've been served this, I just want to say there's a
difference between hospitality and hosting.
I love hosting. I love receiving hosting.
Hosting's a beautiful gift, it really is.
I'm not dismissing it, but hospitality where we treat
people like family means everybody gets to do the dishes
and help each other out and bring something to contribute.
The early church became a fully participatory experience and
they did all of this with a confidence.
Verse 11. I will wrap up someday.
Promise. This was in accordance with the
eternal purpose. Are we good?
Yes. Seven.
I got 7 of you with me. Great, I'm going.
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.
Just an aside that through. Faith in him could also be
through his faithfulness. Greeks are the lambiguous.
Sometimes I like to roll with both of them.
Like Paul was deliberately inserting some vagueness.
Because it can mean both by keeping your eyes on Jesus or
and leaning on Jesus faithfulness.
Because who knows these days when we just struggle and we're
like, I was not faithful today. Jesus was still faithful.
Just come and hold on to him through boldness and confident
access. What does this mean?
The the words in the Greek literally could be translated
more like through freedom of speech and freedom of movement.
That hits everybody. 'S political button at that
point, like, oh, where are we going?
But here's the thing, that freedom of speech, the boldness
and that confident access, that freedom of movement is not
geopolitical. It's the throne room of heaven.
You have authority in Jesus to walk into the throne room to
speak with the Father and to say what's on your heart and mind.
Even when it's messy, you get to do that.
But we sometimes are so fixated on our inalienable rights that
we want to do that at the local level.
And I think that's like going and arguing with the mayor when
you've got access to the president.
Why would you do that? Why are you fighting here over
things when you can go to the top and the top?
Isn't the president the top? Is the father.
The Son. Holy Spirit, and we have been
given freedom of movement into the throne room whenever we need
to, to come and speak what we need to say.
We've been given freedom to speak in the name of Jesus
against the powers and principalities as we see them at
work in the world around us. But you will not do that if you
are not experiencing the power of God at work in you, because
you'll find yourself oppressed by the powers and
principalities. You're no longer slaves.
Arm yourself with the Spirit of God, speak the truth in love,
and see the Kingdom change around you.
Paul endures his suffering and frames it by understanding it in
the context of a cosmic covenant or socio political battleground.
It's all going on. His willingness to endure this
hardship is an expression of love and value for the Gentile
people, he says. I asked you not to become
discouraged about my tribulations and your behalf,
since they are your glory. I'm willing to go to jail and
sit here imprisoned for the sake of bringing the gospel to you.
That's how beloved you are. Don't need to be ashamed of me.
You don't need to be afraid for you, right?
This is how the Kingdom transforms how we see things
now. Church, this does not have to be
complicated. In terms of like.
Empowerment. I would just encourage you, like
Jesus says, wait for the promise.
Why don't you do that? I just asked the Father, would
you give me this promise that is there in the Bible?
Like you don't even have to fully comprehend what's going
on. And I'm not saying that you're
going to like be tongue speaking, prophesying people.
I'm saying that that the experience should be that you
are empowered people who are bringing about Kingdom
transformation around you. OK, The spiritual gifts are
going to maybe break some of your categories.
It's OK. It's OK.
But it doesn't have to be complex.
The first church was messy and unromantic.
When you read the New Testament, it was, it was really messy, but
they turned the world upside down through some very, very
simple ways of being together. They worshipped and studied in
the temple. They ate together in their home,
sharing what they had with anyone in need.
Right? Acts 2.
Just go read it and you'll see this is what they did.
So one practice for you to live the apocalypse this season is to
open up your table at school. It could be just making a shift
at how you do things when it's lunchtime, right?
Or having a midweek meal or something in your home or your
apartment, wherever you're at, where you intentionally gather
people who are different from you in terms of your
perspectives but are unified in Christ.
When you together say we love Jesus.
Jesus is Lord, Jesus is ultimate.
All of our arguments will be settled in him, and I'm willing
to gather beyond my little tribe over here.
We are declaring the unity, we're embodying the unity, we're
confounding the powers and principalities, and we're
letting all of our neighbors who maybe don't yet know Jesus and
his Kingdom and a skeptical and suspicious go.
Something's going on here that's real because these people who
should hate each other love each other.
These people who should avoid each other, break bread
together. What is happening to simple
embodying? But we can remember together the
story of Jesus. We can break bread.
We can take communion. We can rehearse the narrative of
the Gospel in our lives and from scriptures where we can guard
holy unity and where we can treasure sacred diversity.
Because the consequences are cosmic in scope.
You should know that all the powers of.
The heavens and the earth that oppose God will Marshall against
such belonging. If you are bold enough to step
into this way of living, you should know there's going to be
some pushback, which is why again I'm saying like be a
partaker of the promise in Christ Jesus.
Make sure that you've had that time to wait on the Father and
say God, I I need more than my power to do this.
I need you at work, in my life and then as.
You gather listen to each. Other learn each other's
stories, celebrate together and then pray boldly together.
When the people of God, in unity, in the name of Jesus, by
the Spirit of Christ, pray, stuff happens.
Because we're not just dealing. With material, material matters.
I'm so glad we got the snack pack drive.
That is an expression of the gospel going on, right?
We care about those who don't have enough, and we bring what
we have and share it. Praise God, but in prayer we
pray boldly because we want to see things align with the way of
Jesus. When I was walking the
neighborhood this morning, I just started praying.
I just like overcome with a sense of needed to pray for the
men in my neighborhood. I don't know, it's like they're
all neighborhoods are vast here, right?
But I'm just walking and praying and I'm praying for the breaking
of bondages in men's lives. I'm praying that they'd have
freedom from things. I'm praying that they would have
joy in Jesus, that they would encounter his life and his
purpose that they would like, wake up.
Your life is not just like doing your job and paying your taxes
and trying to keep the family happy and together.
You have a purpose that is cosmic.
And I was just like praying. That's why I was the crazy guy
that you'd walk on the other side of the street like, oh, you
got 2 choices. If you see me walk in the
neighborhood, you can like cross the street or you can join me in
prayer, Right, Let's go, right? The spirit.
Of God moved. In me this morning with an
assignment and I prayed, took action.
The sufferings of the Church should not.
Frighten or shame us, it's to be expected.
Those who suffer for the sake of spreading the Gospel show both
the worthiness of God and the belovedness of the ones Jesus
misses the most. So we need to start using the
rights that we have in the Kingdom, our free speech and our
confident access to seek God together.
We have a prayer night coming up on October 8th.
I want to encourage you to participate in that.
We've got the Shine the Night campaign where we can be in our
own neighborhoods, loving people well and in moments that the
Lord would provide, talking about His goodness and His life.
We have ways to show up and embody, and it doesn't happen
just here. I'm a voice for an hour,
whatever it's been. Sorry, thank you.
But you have all week together to make a plan, share a meal
with people, share Jesus with people, spend time every day
asking God to empower you by his Spirit and let's see what
happens in this place that we call Hon.
I'm going to pray. Would you stand?
Father, I just want to bless the church gathered here.
I thank you God that whatever. Sufferings may come against us.
Jesus, You are worthy and we don't need to be frightened.
Jesus, you are worthy and we. Don't need to be ashamed, would
you? Empower us.
Anew by your Spirit that we would make much of his name and
share the gospel, that we would pray boldly together that we
would live as the church in this city to confound the powers and
principalities and to witness your love and your life to our
neighbors and our friends. And may we go now, Lord, and the
love of the Father under the lordship of Jesus, by the life
of the Spirit, for the glory of God, the good of all people, and
our joy. Amen.
Thank you for joining us today. River City Church is all about
experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and
community, and we hope that you've been able to experience
that today. As grateful as I am that you've
spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no
substitute for full participation in a local church.
I love it when River City people listen to other pastors, but it
is those who show up week after week faithfully giving their
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Thanks so much for listening. May the Lord bless and keep you
in all grace and peace.