Mystery Revealed

Well, if you have your Bible with you this morning, I hope you do. We're going to
be in Ephesians Chapter 1. We have begun an extended series in the book of
Ephesians that will take us into the spring. I don't know how far into the spring
it will take us. It may take us beyond that, because this is a rich book that is
full of much for us to learn and to understand. And this morning,
I want you to be thinking about three questions that at some point in our lives
all of us are confronted with some
am I here? And question number three is what happens when I die?
Three existential questions that all of us deal with. Now I remember that my mom
used to tell the story. My sister, she said, she would tell people that she was
born in your amy. She said, people would say, where were you born? She said,
I was born in your amy. And My mom said, no, honey, you were born in Florida. She
said, yeah, you're amy. She said, no, it's Miami. And she said, yeah, you're amy.
That's how my sister had heard it all her life. She had been born in Miami, she
thought it was your amy.
But the little boy who came to his mom and said, mom, where did I come from? And
she thought this was going to be the big question that parents have to talk about
with their kids. And after she started to explain, he said, no, Peter came from
Cleveland, where did I come from. So that was the simple answer that he wanted. But
all of us have to deal with the question of where did we, where did all of us
come from? Where did life come from? Not the city, not reproductive issues, but
where, what's the origin, the origin of all of this? And then why are we here?
And then what happens when we die? That first question, where did we come from?
Most people answer it this way. we came from an explosion. There was a big bang
that happened billions and billions of years ago, and there are humans living on
planet Earth today because some gas exploded years ago. And I know when I say it
that way, it sounds crazy, and honestly, if you explore the idea with any
objectivity, it is kind of a crazy idea. It's a theory that people have come up
with to try to explain what is unexplainable, inexplicable,
but it's the common answer most people have. Where did we come from? We came from
a Big Bang. They even named a TV show after that, right? Second question, why are
we here? What's life all about? That's a question philosophers wrestle with. You guys
know I love pop songs from the 60s and the 70s, and there was a pop song that
came out in that era that, interestingly enough, dove right into that question. It
was from a movie that came out in 1966, a movie called Alfie, and the theme song
was written by Hal David and Bert Bacharach. And the lyrics of the song were,
What's It All About, Alfie? Is it just for the moment we live? What's it all about
when you sort it out, Alfie? Are we meant to take more than we give, or are we
meant to be kind? And it kind of went on with these philosophical... This was no
ordinary pop song to be pondering philosophical questions like that. But here's the
answer the song comes up with. At the end of the song, they said, I believe in
love, Alfie. Without true love, you just exist, Alfie. Until you find the love
you've missed, you're nothing, Alfie. And I thought, okay, maybe they're talking about
Love in a broad, but then it goes, it ended poorly. When you walk,
let your heart lead the way and you'll find love any day, Alfie. So why are we
here to follow our heart? That's the answer. Most people would have, most of your
neighbors. You say, what's life all about? What are we here for? Well, we're here
to try to do good. We're here to follow our heart. We're here to seek joy or to
try to bless other people. Where'd we come from? A big bang. Why are we here to
follow our heart? What happens when we die? Well, most people, if you ask again,
most people, you go to the mall today and say, what do you believe happens to
people when they die? Most people would say, well, the good people go to heaven.
Who are the good people? Well, people like me. I mean, that's how most of us think
about it. Who are the bad people? People who are worse than me. People who are
good like me go to heaven people who are worse than me go to the bad place and
of course there are alternate theories there are some people who
There's, you can't scientifically test this. There's no way to prove where we came
from. There's no way to prove why we're here. There's no way to prove what happens
when we die. We can't prove how the world began. We can exchange theories or
hypotheses, but we can't really test that hypothesis and prove it.
Why we're here is not a provable kind of question. And even when we get reports
back from people who had their heart stopped or their brainwaves stopped and then
they came back and they tell you about the tunnel and the bright light, again,
there's no scientific, very verifiable way of saying, this is what happens to people
when they die. These questions have been around forever, and people keep pondering
them and speculating on them and theorizing about them and coming up with creative,
innovative ways to try to answer them. The passage we're going to look at this
morning addresses this because it tells us that one of the spiritual blessings that
God gives to us as his children is he gives us answers to these questions.
His answers to these questions. You remember in these opening verses in Ephesians, If
you've been here studying with us, we've been cataloging the spiritual blessings that
are ours if we are in Christ. That's the phrase we keep seeing over and over
again. In Christ, in Christ. When you become a follower of Jesus, you are in
Christ. And the Bible says, this is when you turn from your sin and you follow
him. In Ephesians 1 .3, it says that you are blessed with every spiritual blessing
in the heavenly places. Your soul has everything it needs to thrive if you are in
Christ. The immaterial part of you, the you that is not just your hands,
face, feet, and flesh, but the soul has everything it needs to thrive if you are
in Christ. And then Paul says the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ include
the fact that God chooses us, the fact that God predestines us for adoption as his
sons, that he forgives our sins, that he redeems us.
And this morning we're going to see another spiritual blessing. God gives us wisdom
and insight as his children to understand things that have been hidden from us since
the beginning. Mysteries. We're going to find out where we came from and why we're
here and what happens when we die, because God gives us insight into that.
Now, we don't get all the answers we'd like to have. God doesn't explain everything
to us, but we do get clarity and insight about these things in God's word.
And they come from the only reliable source in the universe for this. If you want
to know where you came from and what happens when you die and why you're here.
The only reliable source for that is the one who created everything, the one who
sustains all life, the one who gives it meaning and purpose, and the one who will
bring you home to live with him. What has been a mystery, as Paul writes this for
centuries, is revealed to God's people in Christ. And by the way, that's the only
way to solve these mysteries is through revelation. One of the reasons people get
stuck on these mysteries is because they try to solve them empirically,
scientifically, through the scientific method. The only trustworthy way to resolve
these issues is through revelation. And let me just say, most of what you know and
believe, you know and believe because of revelation. Not because you saw it or
tasted it or touched it. How many of you know and believe that Abraham Lincoln was
assassinated in 1865?
all these. You have to trust the sources, and we're suggesting to you that God and
his revelation is the ultimate source of this. Let me explain what I mean by this
after we read the passage. So again, we're going to read Ephesians 1, verses 1
through 14 that gives us the whole context of these spiritual blessings. We're going
to focus this morning on verses 9 and 10. Let me pray for our time in God's word.
Father, we need your spirit to speak through your word to us today.
These are substantive, heavy things that we're considering, and so, Lord, we ask that
you would give by your spirit the revelation that we need in our soul so that we
can not only hear these things, but we can believe that they are true because they
come from you. Give us hearts that are ready to hear and believe, we pray in your
name. Amen.
Ephesians 1, beginning at verse 1, this is the word of God for the people of God.
The Bible says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with
which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which
he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of
his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the
fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven, and things on
earth, in him. In him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things
according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in
Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him, you also,
when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in
him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our
inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.
Amen. May God bless this reading of His Word. Grass withers and the flower fades.
The Word of God will stand forever. Again, our focus this morning, and it's on
verses 9 and 10. Paul is moving from talking about spiritual blessings we have
received personally in Christ, redemption and forgiveness, to talking about the
corporate blessing, the mystery that is revealed that God is going to unite together
in one body his people. So verses seven and eight say you have individually been
redeemed and forgiven. Versus nine and ten say the redeemed are going to be united
together in Christ. And we look at this as the mystery being revealed.
So we see in him, first of all, we have the mystery of his will revealed to us.
Secondly, we have insight into his divine purpose revealed. Third,
we have the promise of unity in Christ for all who are in Him revealed. And then
finally, the promise of the restoration of all things revealed. These are the things
that are revealed as the mystery of God's will. So I want to look first at how
the life and death and resurrection of Christ proves that the,
excuse me, provides us with the revelation of the mystery of God's will. But let me
back up for just a minute. Look at the end of verse 8, where it says the Bible,
God has lavished his grace upon us in all wisdom and insight.
Now there are two schools of thought on that phrase, in all wisdom and insight. One
school of thought is that God has lavished his grace on us doing so on the basis
of his own wisdom and insight. So because he is wise and insightful,
God has lavished grace on us. He was not being arbitrary or capricious. He wasn't
being random when he lavished his grace on us. He was doing what he knew was right
and wise to do. Now, that's true, but I don't think that's what this verse is
saying. I think this means that God in his grace
given us ears to hear.
You see, what is true about you and me and every person on the face of the earth
is that we don't have the wisdom to comprehend these things in us unless God gives
it to us. Here's how the Bible says that in 2 Corinthians 4. The God of this
world, the God of this world has blinded the minds of believers to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel and the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Apart from divine enablement, apart from God opening your eyes and your ears and
giving you wisdom and insight, you would never be able to comprehend what is the
mystery of the gospel. It would make no sense to you unless God opens your mind to
see it. But when God takes the blindfolds off, when he gives you wisdom and insight
by his grace, now when you hear the gospel, now you go, I see that.
That makes sense. I didn't see it before, but it's starting to fall into place. So
Ephesians is telling us that God is unblinding us. I don't know if that's a word,
but that's what he's doing. He's giving us wisdom and insight that we're lacking to
make known the mystery of his will. In fact, 2 Corinthians goes on to say, for
God, who has said, let light shine out of darkness, he created the world that way,
has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. God reveals the mystery by removing the veil that is
keeping us blinded to the gospel and by shining the light of the gospel in our
hearts so that we wake up and we go, I see it. It makes sense. This is how the
mystery is revealed, the mystery of his will. Now, when Paul uses that word mystery
in verse 9 in the passage we're looking at, the Greek word Mysterion means something
that was once hidden.
21 times in Paul's writing, six times in the book of Ephesians.
And in fact, at the end of Ephesians in chapter 6, he calls it the mystery of the
gospel. He says to the Ephesians, I want you to pray that I will have boldness to
open my mouth and proclaim the mystery of the gospel. So the word mystery is
talking about the revealing of God's purpose and plan for humanity.
And to understand the mystery of the gospel, you have to go back to Genesis chapter
3. Just stay with me here. In Genesis 3, you know, that's a big pivotal chapter in
the Bible. It's where the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, took, they
were tempted, they fell to temptation, they ate the fruit from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and they rebelled against God in doing so, and in the
process, they separated from God, they were alienated from God, and the fellowship
that they had enjoyed with God, walking with him in the cool of the day, living
with him in paradise, experiencing the joy that they had with him, all of that was
gone in an instant. They were cut off from his blessings, and because God had told
them that On the day that you eat from that tree, you will surely die.
What happened when they ate from that tree is they died spiritually.
The part of their soul that connected them to God was cut.
They had no connection with God anymore. They were dead spiritually. They were
unresponsive to him. They were blinded to what was true about him.
They became unresponsive to him, and they were then consigned to experiencing what
would be ultimate death, which would be his eternal righteous wrath for their sin.
It's a terrible day. But then God comes to them in the same chapter right after
they've done this, and he gives them a promise. And the promise is that the seed
of the woman is going to fix their problem.
of the woman going to fix my problem. I know I've got a problem. I know I'm
facing death. God, you said it's going to get fixed. None of that makes any sense
to me. The seed of the woman? What is that? Women don't have seed.
What are you talking about?
It doesn't make any sense to them until a virgin conceives and bears a son and he
is called Emmanuel.
See, the Old Testament is filled with all kinds of glimpses and signs and hints to
solve the puzzle that is the mystery of God. You read the Old Testament and you
get a piece of the puzzle here and a piece of the puzzle there and a piece of
the puzzle there and you're hanging on and going, God said he's going to do this.
I don't know how that's going to work. Something about a Messiah, something about a
deliverer. And they're coming up with all kinds of theories and ideas, but they
don't have
was through the sacrificing of animals. Or we were thinking that as long as we kept
the law, we would be better. No, Jesus comes to say, it's not about animals, it's
not about the law, it's about me. All of that's been pointing to me all along. The
mystery is being revealed. You remember Jesus,
on the day of his resurrection, there were two guys, I think they were guys. We
don't know if they were guys. At least one guy, two people walking away from
Jerusalem back to their hometown of Emmaus. And this was after Jesus had been
crucified, and Jesus shows up on the road with them, but they don't recognize him.
Why don't they recognize him? Because God had kept the blinders on. And he's talking
with them. Where are you guys going? We're going home. Where have you been? We've
been in Muslim. Then they say, don't you know everything that's going on? And he
goes, no, tell me, right? The irony of that. No, tell me what's going on. And they
begin to tell him about how they thought Jesus was going to be the Messiah, but he
was crucified. And now some women are saying that the tomb is empty and that
they've seen him, but I mean, how can that be?
And then Jesus says, well, let's look at the Old Testament. And it says, beginning
with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them all that the scriptures had said
concerning himself. He took the veil off and said, see this piece of the puzzle in
the Old Testament? See this piece? See what this was talking about? All of this was
talking about the Messiah coming and dying for you in his life. That's what Jesus
did, and the mystery is revealed to them, and they sit down and they have lunch,
and then Jesus is gone, and they realize that was Jesus. And they say, didn't our
hearts burn while he was telling us? He said, yes, because the mystery had been
revealed to them.
Now, this idea that God reveals to us the mystery of his will as a blessing for
us doesn't mean that we understand everything we have a question about, right? I got
a lot of questions that I don't have answers for.
There's a lot that God is doing that I don't understand, especially when it comes
to suffering and hardship in life. You say, what's this all about? I don't know.
You all know Deuteronomy 29, 29? You should know that verse. Deuteronomy 29 says
this, The secret things belong to who? The Lord, our God. But the things that are
revealed belong to us and our children forever that we may do the words of his
law. God has revealed some things, but not everything. There are secret things that
belong to the Lord. And when it comes to the secret things that belong to the
Lord, we need to be at peace with the fact that we're not going to know everything
in this life. But the things that have been revealed, that we can know,
we've got enough to say grace over with the things that have been revealed, right?
Rather than trying to worry about the things we can't figure out. The revelation of
the mystery of God's will that Paul is talking about here is not full revelation of
every part of God's will, but it is clarifying revelation. God isn't revealing
everything to us, but he's revealing to us everything we need to know. He's
revealing to us in Christ his plan for reconciling sinful humanity to himself and
the spiritual blessing it is because Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise he made
all the way back in Genesis 3.
The Jews knew that God was going to send a Messiah a deliverer. They didn't
understand how it was going to work. They had centuries of trying to figure it out.
The mystery of the gospel, this is the central message of Christianity. I like the
way Pastor Rick Phillips talks about this. He says, Christianity brings to the world
not a therapeutic program for earthly happiness, not a political action agenda,
not a power grab by one ethnic or religious group against others. Christianity
presents God's revelation concerning his otherwise secret plan for saving a fallen
world.
Just ponder that for a second. The message of the gospel is not how you can have
a happier life. The message of the gospel is not how we can be in control of the
political structure. The message of the gospel is, sinful man can be reconciled to a
holy God. We sang about it this morning. Only a holy God can do this. The mystery
being revealed here in Christ is how God will set us free from our sin and
inaugurate his...
That's the second thing. The mystery of his will is revealed, but we're also given
insight into the divine purpose, not just what is God going to do, but we get some
of the why of what God is doing. We get his plan and his will being done
according to his purpose. Now, again, there's a lot we still don't know,
Deuteronomy 29 -29, but we do know that God has a purpose for what he's doing. He
has a purpose for everything he does. Nothing God does is unintentional or haphazard.
He is intentional and purposeful about everything. You've probably heard a quote from
Pastor John Piper, who said this at one point. He said, God is always doing 10 ,000
things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.
And his point when he says that is twofold. First of all, God is purposeful about
everything. He's doing 10 ,000 things. He knows the number of hairs on your head.
He cares for the sparrows and for the lilies of the field. I mean, he is
superintending everything. And you go, who can do that? Only God can do that. R .C.
Sprole once said that if there's a random molecule in the verse, then God is not
God. He's right. If there's a molecule that is not under the control of God, then
God's not God. But in addition to saying that God is purposeful here, Paul is also
saying that while God is purposeful, we are often in the dark about what those
purposes are. And this is where you have to learn to trust God in the dark.
Because what he's revealed to us about the purposes of his will, and here's what he
has revealed. God has revealed that the purposes of his will, here's the why behind
it. Why does God accomplish the redemption? He so loved the world that he gave his
son. Okay, that one reality,
that one truth, God so loved the world that he gave his son. If there's a God who
would do that for you,
can you trust him with what you don't understand?
If there's a God who is willing to say, I want to be reconciled to you so much
that I will allow my son to suffer and bleed and die in your place, now can you
trust me with the things you don't understand? God has a purpose for all he's
doing, And when his purpose is not clear, you can still trust him. He's proven that
you can trust him because he gave his own son to die in your place.
Can you not trust that he's doing 10 ,000 things and you're only aware of a few of
them? Verse 9 is driving home the point that God is doing what he's doing
purposefully, according to his will. He has a plan that he has set forth in Christ
and he's accomplishing what he purposed to do. God's will is always centered in
Christ, even when what he's doing is not clear to you, you can trust him. Verse 10
in Ephesians 1 tells us that ultimately a part of God's purpose is to unite all
things in Christ. So that, we have a revelation inside into the divine purpose,
but we see that what is the divine purpose is the unity of all things in Christ.
Now, let me say something about that. All things here doesn't mean all things. There
are some people who look at verse 10 about uniting all things in Christ, and they
try to argue that this verse is suggesting universalism, that everyone is going to
be saved and everyone's going to go to heaven one day, that God is going to unite
all things. They say, this verse says he will unite all things. Well,
it says he will unite all things in Christ. It's not all things,
it's all things who are in Christ. God's purpose is for his people,
who he has, we've already seen, called predestined to be adopted as sons. That's who
he's going to unite in Christ.
And unity in Christ is something that's a big deal to God. God wants his people,
his sons, his adopted children. He wants us to be one, to be united in Christ.
Jesus, on the night before he was crucified, in the upper room with his disciples
as he praised the high priestly prayer. He says, Lord, I pray that they will be
one, even as you and I are one, Father, that they will be in me just as I am in
you. He's praying for unity. Paul's going to explain in Ephesians 3,
we'll see when we get there, that one of the things that God is doing in revealing
the mystery to us is he's uniting the Jews and the Gentiles. Jews and the Gentiles
were completely divided. They worship different gods. They didn't see
slave and free. All humanity, regardless of class distinction,
regardless of ethnic distinction, regardless of background, regardless of your bank
account. He's uniting us all under the umbrella of Christ. We all have equal value,
equal standing, equal worth, equal dignity in Christ. There's a unity that comes
there. And when Paul makes the turn, we'll see this when we get to chapter four,
when he turns from talking about the indicative to the imperatives. So the first
three chapters, what God has done for us in Christ, the last three chapters in
Ephesians, how we respond to God based on what he's done for us in Christ. These
are the indicatives, these are the imperatives. When he makes the turn in chapter
four, he says, walk in a are worthy, and he says, be eager to pursue the unity of
the spirit and the bond of peace. Unity is what he's pressing us for. Unity
matters. This unity is a big deal to Jesus, and it's part of the mystery that's
being revealed here is that God is uniting us together. The way people were grouped
together in the ancient world was your ethnic heritage. Jews were with Jews, Greeks
were with Greeks, Romans were with Romans. And when Rome invaded you, you stayed a
Jew. You didn't become a Roman because you stayed in your ethnic group. And he's
saying, God is going to tear down the dividing wall there and unite us all
together, not around our ethnic background, but around Christ.
And of course, it makes it troubling when we read about God uniting all things
together in Christ to look at the division that exists among Christians in our world
today.
There are two issues when it comes up, when this issue of unity comes up. Two
issues that you have to keep in mind. First of all, when God is calling us to
unity in Christ, he's not calling us to what I would call a sentimental unity. You
know what I mean by that? That just means where we all hold hands and sing
kumbaya. Do you all know what, I mean, kids, you know.
in objective truth. Our unity is in what's true about Christ. Not simply our common
humanity, that's not what unites us, but it is our common faith in Christ that
unites us. So it's not a sentimental unity, but here's the other thing we have to
be careful of. Unity doesn't mean uniformity.
Being united in Christ doesn't mean that everybody now thinks exactly alike on
everything.
Some people think that to be united in Christ, you have to believe like me about
everything that I believe. We all have to believe the same about everything. Well,
maybe in heaven that will be true, but that's not going to happen here on earth.
If you're looking for unity only with those people who agree with you on everything,
you will have unity with you, okay, and nobody else. And you won't have unity with
you some of the time because you don't agree with yourself on some of these things.
No, the unity that is bringing us together is not unity on everything,
it's unity on the essential things.
In fact, some of you have probably heard this. This is attributed to a 17th century
Lutheran pastor who said this. He said, in Necessarius Unitas,
in dubious Libertas, in Omnibus Heritas. Anybody know your Latin?
Can you tell what that is? In essentials, unity. In non -essentials,
liberty. In all things, charity. Pretty good way to think about unity. Of course,
we have to figure out what the essentials are, as we think about that, and what
the non -essentials are, but while we figure that out, we give grace to one another.
We show love to one another. There's a blessing that comes when there's unity in
Christ, and we should be pursuing unity. I'm increasingly disturbed as I see people
on social media who think they have the spiritual gift of discernment, but who in
the name of holding fast to the truth, create division.
you're not holding fast to the truth rightly.
If the fruit of the spirit is not present in your life as you stand for the
truth, you're not honoring Christ and how you stand for the truth. So while we
pursue unity in Christ and while we seek to persuade one another, if there's not
love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, and you get it, if it's not
there, it's not the kind of unity that's honoring to Christ. The picture in verse
10 is about more than just relational unity among Christians. It's about a bigger
unity, and that gets us to the last thing we're looking at this morning, which is
the restoring of all things. The unity is going to come when all things are
restored. Uniting all things in Christ is not just about the redemption of people,
it's about the redemption of all of creation.
Back in verse 7, the Bible says, in Christ,
waiting for redemption. And God has said, one day I will make all things new.
All things, I will unite together, all in Christ, and I will bring in new heavens
and new earth a redeemed humanity and a redeemed creation.
And when we keep that in mind and know that that's the promise that God has made
for us, when we have an eternal purpose and set our hearts and minds on that
eternal truth, that reshapes everything about our lives.
When you begin to live your life with a certainty about what God's will is for you
today and for the future, that brings confidence and peace and hope in a world that
is filled with despair and confusion.
It reshapes your priorities. It realigns your life. This is what the revelation of
the mystery of God does for us. When God takes the blinders off and you say, I
see God's plan. I see where I came from. I see why I'm here.
I see where I'm going. I see what this is all about, Alfie.
Now all of a sudden you can look forward and go, I have a different perspective on
life. It brings us back to the questions we started with. Where did you come from?
Well, the revelation of the will of God that answers that question for you, the
authoritative source that answers that, you came from him. He created you.
He knit you together in your mother's womb. He gave you life. You're not just a
random clump of cells that just happened to be here because some gas exploded once.
You have a soul. Matter doesn't create a soul. Only God creates an eternal soul.
Why are you here? Again, the revelation of God of His will from an authoritative
source tells us that we are here to honor and glorify our Creator, the one who
made us and who made everything there is. You're not just here to follow your heart
or to follow your passions. You're not here for you. You're here to honor God.
You are not your own. You've been bought with the price. You're to glorify God in
your body. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, you do it all for the glory
of God. The chief end of man. The main purpose for why we're here is to glorify
God and enjoy him forever.
So where did we come from? We came from God. Why are we here to live for God?
What happens when we die? We go to God. Again, this is from the authoritative
source, the one who is revealing the mysteries to us in Christ.
He tells us that when we die, we go to him.
Ask someone who believes, if you go to somebody who you know who believes that when
you die, that's just it. Life is over. They say, yep, when you die,
it's all over. You say, how do you know that? Well, it's obvious. Why is it
obvious? Because when you die, you cease to exist. You know,
well, Could your soul live on? No. Why not?
Well, see, they're just making up their theory. Because they're empiricists and they
say, well, I can't see anything, so it must not be true. Well, there are thoughts
of things you can't see that are still true.
Here's what we believe based on what God has revealed to us. When you die, If you
are in Christ, your soul goes immediately from this life into the presence of God.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That's what the Bible
says. This is called the intermediate state. And if you're not somebody who worships
and follows and serves Jesus, if you've not been born again and surrendered your
life to him, when you die, your soul does not go into the presence of Jesus, it
goes away from His grace because that's what you wanted throughout your life.
You didn't want to be in His presence. You didn't want anything to do with Him.
And so when you die, that's where your soul goes to be away from Him. Your soul
is separated from Him just like you wanted it to be.
But attached to that separation and being away from His grace means eternal conscious
torment forever because of your rebellion against Him and your rejection.
be with Jesus, our body goes into the ground. There is a resurrection coming, a day
when bodies and souls will be reunited for all people. The judgment day,
and that's where the final state is declared and where we go to be forever with
the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth if we know him, or forever in
torment if we don't know him.
Now, here's why all of this matters. In the opening section of Ephesians, Paul says,
we have to realize that spiritual priorities are more important than material
priorities. Eternal priorities are more important than temporal priorities. So we
should be focusing on our spiritual lives and our spiritual blessings in Christ
rather than being all caught up in what's going on in our world today, or in our
lives today. Eternity is what matters. The spiritual is what matters.
And it's not that the material and what's going on in time doesn't matter. It's
just of secondary importance to that which is eternal. It's a spiritual blessing to
have these mysteries revealed to us. It puts our focus where it belongs. It gives
us stability in an unstable world. I'll wrap it up here this morning with one more
quote from Pastor Rick Phillips. I like this quote. He says, if we live with an
eternal perspective, realizing the purpose of this world is to bring all things
together under Christ, this knowledge will shape our approach to everything. Knowing
the mystery of God's will, We will live for eternal things, not worldly things.
We're glad to have money to buy things for this life, but we're just as excited to
use our money for the gospel cause that will endure forever. We have earthly
ambitions for contributions and achievements in this life, but we have a greater
ambition for serving in the kingdom of Christ, the glory of which will never end.
We're sorry to experience trials and hardship, but we see them in light of God's
purpose knowing that He is training us for an inheritance in glory. An eternal
perspective reshapes how you see everything. What you prioritize,
what you're living for, what matters. For all who are in Christ,
God gives us wisdom and insight into the purposes of this life that you can't get
anywhere else. He makes known to you the mystery of his will, what his purpose is
and his plan is for his people and for all people. He shows us that he is being
intentional and purposeful in what he's doing. His plan is good, and it will come
to pass. And that includes uniting all who are in Christ into one body for
eternity. It also includes the restoration of all creation, the creation of a new
heaven and a new earth, where all who know Christ will live with him eternally.
And that knowledge, that understanding of God's will and his plan should reshape how
you live your life and the choices you make today. We should live with that
knowledge in front of all of us at all times. Are you in Christ? Do you know him?
There's no more important question for you to wrestle with today.
Do you know him? Do you love him? Do you worship him?
Do you follow him? Do you obey him? Do you serve him? Do you tell other people
about him? If so, you will have insight and wisdom about his purposes as one of
the spiritual blessings that he will give you as his child. And if not,
then you need to know that these blessings we're talking about today are available
to everyone, but unless you reach out to take them, unless you turn to him,
turn away from sin, turn to him, surrender, turn away from self,
acknowledge him as your new Lord and your master, you won't have these blessings
that are being talked about in Ephesians chapter 1. But you can receive those
blessings right now today, simply by saying, Lord, I turn away from sin and self,
I want to follow you. Let's pray together. Father,
we thank you that you have in Christ revealed to us the mystery of your will.
We thank you for the blessing that is ours in knowing that. We thank you that the
mysteries of life, where we came from, why we're here, what happens when we die,
that we have your authoritative word to stand on.
not surrendered their life to you, that this morning they would see your wisdom on
display in your word and that your spirit would be at work calling them,
and they would hear his voice.
We ask all of this in your name. Amen.