The Missionary and the Mystery

Well, if you have your Bible with you this morning, I hope you do, turn to Ephesians chapter 3.
We're going to start a new chapter in our ongoing study through the book of Ephesians. And as we
do, I want to just look back at the high points of what we've already seen in chapters 1 and 2.
Paul began this letter by declaring to his Gentile readers that God had blessed them with every
spiritual blessing in Christ. That they are not on the spiritual B team. that every spiritual
blessing that is available to human beings is available to them, has been given to them as
believers in Christ. He tells them that he is burdened to pray for them, that the eyes of their
understanding would be enlightened, that they would be able to wrap their hearts and minds around
this truth that they are in Christ, that they belong in Christ, and at all that they've been given
in Christ, what it means for them to have this new identity in Christ. Then he reminds them of the
reality of their spiritual condition before they knew Christ, that they were dead in their
trespasses and sins, that they were following the prince of the power of the air, that they were
carrying out the desires of the flesh, and they were children of wrath. And then he says,
but God who is rich in mercy has made you alive in Christ. You are saved by grace through faith.
And he tells them that they've been given a new assignment, that he has good works for them to walk
in. And all of this is new news for these Gentiles. And actually it's new news for the Jews as
well. Jews thought that they had a corner on the spiritual blessing market. They thought that
spiritual blessings were for Jewish people, not for Gentiles. And the Jews did not see themselves
as spiritually dead people who needed to be made alive. They saw themselves as the spiritual
descendants of Abraham who had merited the favor of God simply by virtue of their ethnicity.
They didn't see salvation coming to them by grace through faith. They saw salvation coming to them
by obedience to the law of God. So Paul is telling his readers,
primarily Gentiles, but Jews as well, that something that they didn't understand, something they
didn't see clearly, is being revealed to them. And one of the things that he points out,
we've seen this in recent weeks in our study in chapter 2, is that it is God's design that they
would be united together, Jew and Gentile, united in one body in Christ.
That the dividing wall that has separated them... The ethnic hostility that separated them has been
torn down by Christ and they are now one in him. They are a new entity. They are the church,
the body of Christ. And together they are citizens of the kingdom of God, members of the household
of God. They are the living stones in the temple of God. God is now dwelling with them individually
and corporately by his Holy Spirit. So when we get to chapter 3,
you can imagine that there are some questions that may pop up in the minds of these Gentile
readers. One of the questions that's going to come up is, where are you getting all of this?
This is new to us. Where did this idea come from about uniting Jew and Gentile,
that God is bringing everybody together? Did you just dream this whole thing up on your own? What's
your source for all of this? And maybe there's a second question implicit in that, which is why
should we trust you for all of this explanation of God's plan,
especially when at the moment you are under house arrest in a Roman prison?
I mean, what does that say about Paul's authority and credibility that he's under arrest in Rome?
And what does it mean that if we believe what he's telling us, That could be where we wind up as
well. I mean, here's what he believes. He's in prison. Do you want to follow the guy whose path led
him to prison? These are the questions Paul is going to address as he starts chapter 3 in
Ephesians. And my hope this morning is that we'll not only see what Paul is arguing here,
for his readers about his source and the source of his authority, his reliability for what he's
telling them, but also that we can see from his personal example that this mystery has been
revealed to Paul and that it's being revealed to these readers. I want us to see that our
understanding of this truth should motivate us into the same kind of action that it motivated Paul
into. So that's the background for these verses we're going to study this morning. Chapter 3,
starting at verse 1 and going through verse 6, I want to read it together. Again, let me ask the
Lord to direct our study. Lord, we depend on you. All is vain unless the spirit of the Holy One
comes down. So Lord, would you send your spirit in this place? to soften our hearts and to open our
minds and our ears so that we can hear your word, understand your word, and obey your word.
Help us not just to be hearers, but to be doers of your word. We ask it in your name.
Amen. Let's read these verses together. Would you stand with me in honor of reading God's word?
This is the word of God for the people of God. Ephesians 3, beginning at verse 1.
a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the
stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by
revelation as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the
mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now
been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles
are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through
the gospel. Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. You may be seated. The grass withers,
the flower fades. The word of our God will last forever. So as we look at these verses this
morning, we're going to see two things. We're going to spend some time looking at the one who is
making these proclamations. We'll look at the missionary, the apostle Paul, and we're going to look
at the mystery, the missionary and the mystery that he is proclaiming.
I don't usually do alliteration, so I'd like a little love for the fact that I've got some
alliteration. Thank you very much. Here's the outline we're going to follow this morning. As we
look at the missionary, we're going to see that he is a prisoner for Christ, that he's the apostle
to the Gentiles by God's design, and that he is a steward of the grace of God.
And then as we look at the mystery, we're going to see that it was received by revelation, and it
was revealed by the Holy Spirit. So let's consider Paul the missionary first.
And first, note in this translation, before we get into Paul as a missionary, it begins,
this chapter begins with, for this reason, literally, because of this thing.
What thing? Well, he's saying because God sent Jesus to tear down the dividing wall that separates
Jew and Gentile and to make these two groups one in Christ to unite them, because this is God's
plan for his people, Paul says, I've been assigned the task as a messenger to bring this news to
the Gentiles. That's the reason I'm writing all of this to you. It's for this reason that I'm
bringing this to you. I came to you, and it's also for this reason that I... a prisoner.
This, as I said, is new news. Nobody had Jew and Gentile united as one on their bingo cards.
And as we've seen, this was hinted at in the Old Testament in passages that talked about all the
nations coming to Zion to worship the God of Israel, to worship Yahweh. But the idea that Jew and
Gentile would come together, be united together, worshiping Yahweh.
That was a novel idea. So when Paul says, this is what God had in mind from the beginning,
he anticipates that some of his readers are going to say, how do you know this? Where'd you get
this idea? Is this just some pet theory of yours? And he knows that some are going to question his
credibility in part because where he's writing them from. Would you recommend to your friends that
they look for spiritual guidance and wisdom from somebody who's writing to them from prison?
Probably not. In this case, Paul was under house arrest in Rome,
and yet Paul describes himself in this first verse not as a prisoner of Nero or as a prisoner of
Rome. He is a prisoner of Christ. Now, why does he say that? Well,
simple. Because Paul had it in his power to get up and walk out of that house arrest anytime he
wanted to. He could have set himself free in an instant.
All he had to do was say, Caesar is Lord. And they say,
great, that's what we were waiting for. You're free. Just a little compromise.
He could have done it with his fingers crossed behind his back. He didn't have to mean it. He just
had to say it.
Now think about this for just a moment. As far as we can tell, Paul, who was initially known as
Saul of Tarsus, grew up to an upper middle class environment,
best we can tell. He was on a career track that would have led him probably to the Sanhedrin,
maybe to be the high priest. He was among the elite and the affluent in Israel.
He describes himself as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He essentially traded in his prosperous upper
middle class lifestyle to a different career track that included imprisonment,
countless beatings, stonings, frequent journeys. He says danger from rivers and robbers from his
own people, from the Gentiles, toil and hardship, many sleepless nights, hunger and thirst,
often without food, facing cold and exposure. And he did it because of the lordship of christ in
his life is this the life you would choose for you and if this was your life and you had the
opportunity to trade it in for the old upper middle class lifestyle would you do that paul had a
friend who made that choice his name was demas have you heard of demas demas was a companion of
paul's he was a friend of paul's and while he was under house arrest,
probably while he was writing to the Ephesians, Demas would have been near him or with him or
supporting him. But when Paul gets to the end of his ministry and he's writing to Timothy, the last
letter we have from him before he is executed, Paul makes this statement. He says, Demas has
abandoned me because he was in love with this present world. Demas looked at Where being a follower
of Christ took him and said, you know what? This is just not worth it. The pain,
the hardship, the suffering, prison. I didn't sign up for this. He was in love with this present
world and went back home where life was easier.
Paul was not in love with this present world. He was a prisoner for Christ because,
as he put it, he counted all other things rubbish for the sake.
for the surpassing glory of knowing Christ his Lord.
He wouldn't trade knowing Jesus, walking with Jesus, for compromise on his faith for an easier
life. Would you?
Do you have more in common with Paul or with Demas? I've known people,
you probably have too, who started off walking with Jesus, following Jesus. They found that they
wanted to be a Christian. And then they found it got hard. And then they found they weren't
popular. And then they found that it involved suffering. And they said, this is not what I signed
up for. And they bailed.
They were not prisoners of Jesus like Paul was. They were companions on the journey until...
the journey took them to a hard place. Are you a prisoner of Christ? Are you a companion of Christ?
There's a difference.
Here in Ephesians, Paul is making the point to those who might think that his theological guidance
is suspect since he's under house arrest in Rome. He's making the point that he's not under arrest
from the Romans. He's a prisoner of Christ.
And I think it's good for us just to pause and say, he would not compromise.
When you are tempted to compromise, what do you do?
When you are tempted for life to get a little easier, Jesus certainly didn't want me to go through
this, did he? No. We have to be like Paul, ready to suffer for our faith.
That's what he's establishing when he says, I'm a prisoner of Christ. He also says, I'm a prisoner
of Christ on behalf of you Gentiles. Think of taking the gospel to the Gentiles was not a vocation
that Paul had dreamed up for himself. Paul, when he was a child, did not think, when I grow up,
I want to travel and take the message of the gospel to the Gentiles. He didn't know that message.
And even when he was converted, it wasn't his first impulse to say, I'm going to be a missionary
and take the message of the gospel to the Gentiles. In fact, turn for just a minute to the book of
Galatians. So it's, we're in Ephesians, go back a few chapters to Galatians chapter 1.
Because here's what Paul says about the call that he received to be a missionary.
Galatians 1, look at verse 14. He says, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age
among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to
reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.
He says, I did not immediately consult with anyone. He goes on with his biography. Here's the
point. Paul got this calling to take this message to the Gentiles directly from God.
He had been given a specific assignment from God. He'd been set apart as the apostle to the
Gentiles. The whole reason Paul was a prisoner in Rome was because he would not violate his
conscience. Also, because he was fulfilling the calling to bring the message of the gospel to the
Gentiles. He was in prison on their behalf. These Gentiles should not be put off by the fact that
Paul's in prison. They should not think his message is suspect because he's under arrest.
The whole reason he's under arrest is because God has called him to serve them. Again,
he had the get out of jail card free in his pocket. All he had to do is say,
Caesar is Lord, can I go now? So why doesn't he play that card? Because of what it would do to his
witness to the Gentiles.
His calling as a missionary. When news gets out that Paul was out of prison because he said Caesar
is Lord, which is what he's been telling them you can't do, that would have shipwrecked the faith
of many of the Gentiles he had come to preach to. Paul's in prison because he loves these people.
He doesn't want to do anything to violate their conscience or to show them, to cause them to
question. You remember when Satan came to God in the book of Job,
the first chapter of Job, and he says, you know, Job, the only reason he follows you is because he
hasn't faced suffering or hardship. If he faced suffering and hardship, he'd bail. And of course,
we know what the answer was for Job. He didn't fail. He proved faithful. Here's the question for
us. What would you do in the face of suffering and hardship? Not just so that you don't compromise
your faith, but so that you maintain your witness for a watching world.
There are people watching you. There are coworkers, fellow employees. There are people in your
neighborhood. You have... reputation as a Christian, there are people who are watching how you live
your Christian life. And one of the reasons we should walk faithfully in the face of hardship and
suffering is because of the people who are watching us, because of our love for them. Your
compromise could derail somebody's faith in Jesus. For their sake, you walk in obedience and you
remain faithful. Paul says, I'm a prisoner of Christ. on behalf of you Gentiles.
And then he says, interestingly, and I'm a steward of the grace of God. He says in verse two,
I assume you've heard about God's call on my life and about the stewardship of grace that was given
to me for you. I love that phrase, the stewardship of grace. Think about what it means to be a
steward of grace. Back in January, we talked about stewardship and we talked primarily about
financial stewardship and how we're to manage our time and our treasure and our talents in a way
that brings glory to God. He's given us these things and he wants us to manage them.
You remember the parable that we looked at that talks about the one unrighteous steward who instead
of investing what his master gave him, he buried it. He was the unprofitable steward.
It's the job of a steward to take what has been given to him. And to put it to work so that it
grows. It's like a financial advisor. If you hired a financial advisor and you said,
here, I'm going to give you this money and I want you to shepherd this money for me so that it
grows. And 10 years from now, you come back and he says, here, I kept your money and it's the same
as you gave me. You would go, that's not what I gave you this money for. So that would be the same
10 years from now I gave it to you. So you'd invest it so it would grow. God gives us what he gives
us so that we can invest it and it will grow. And Paul says,
I've been given as a stewardship, the grace of God. God has given me grace first for my own soul,
but so that I can steward that grace and see it grow in the lives of others.
He didn't just give grace to Paul for his own spiritual circumstances,
although that was certainly part of it, but he gave grace to Paul so that he would take the grace
he'd been given and he would invest it and steward it, see it multiply.
And I want all of us to see here this morning, Paul is not unique as a steward of the grace of God
because anyone who has received the grace of God is now a steward of the grace that they've been
given.
God had sent Paul a long way from home to bring the message of grace to the Gentiles so they could
be saved so the church would grow. That's how Paul invested the grace God had given him.
That's how he stewarded the grace. He went on these missionary journeys because he was a steward of
God's grace. There were people who were far off from God and he came with this message from God as
a steward of grace to bring them near. So the question for us is, are there people in your orbit,
in your life, in your world who are far off from God? And how can you be a steward of the grace
that God has given you to help bring them near? Let me give you two very simple,
easy assignments that can help you steward the grace that God has given you this week in the lives
of those who are far from God. Assignment number one, look for the right moment to ask somebody
this week, how can I pray for you?
It's a simple question to ask to somebody. We were in Charlotte, North Carolina this week at a
pastor's conference, had a great time at the conference, went out to lunch with some friends. Our
waitress at the lunch place that we went to was from Eastern Europe. She had a thick Eastern
European accent. We talked to her about where you're from. And before she left, we said, we're
about to pray for our meal. Can we pray for you? And she smiled real big and she said, well,
you can pray for my kids. And we said, how many kids? I've got a daughter who's 17. I've got
another daughter who's five. You can pray for them. So we said, we'll do that. She was not
offended. She was not put off that we asked if we could pray for her. It's just a simple seed you
can plant in somebody's life to say, is there a way I can pray for you? You want to shock the
person at the Kroger when you're checking out with your groceries? Just say, thank you for checking
us out. Can I pray for you? Is there something I can pray for you for? I'm going to be praying on
my way home. How can I pray for you? That's just a simple way to steward the grace of God in your
life. Here's another way to do it. Very simple. You can ask somebody or more than one person,
do you have a place to go for church on Easter? Would you like to join us?
People will not be offended if you invite them to church on Easter. In this culture, it's not.
We're still in a culture where to invite somebody to come to church with you on Easter is an
acceptable invitation. Now, there may be somebody who bristles or somebody who gets stiff-necked.
That's okay. Paul had that too. He had people who got stiff-necked with him when he brought the
message. Stiff-necked enough to stone him or beat him. You probably won't get that from somebody
if you invite them to church. But you'd be surprised how many folks would go, that'd be nice.
We don't have any place to go. We'd love to come with you. Or if you have kids,
next week kids are going to be singing at the beginning of our service. If your kids are going to
be singing next week at the beginning of the service, invite relatives or friends or neighbors,
come hear your kids sing at church. Our kids are singing in the kids choir. Do you want to come
hear them sing at church? Folks will come to hear kids sing if they might not come for any other
reason. You don't have to travel hundreds of miles on foot like Paul did.
Now, maybe that's what God's calling you to. But you don't have to do that. You don't have to
suffer like he did, although God may lead you to that. But you should be thinking about what it
means for you to be a steward of the grace that God has given you and make sure you're not burying
it.
So again, here in Ephesians, Paul says, if you want to know about this idea of God uniting Jew and
Gentile, where it came from, it came not from me, but came through me.
I'm a prisoner of Christ for your sake. I am stewarding the grace of God for your sake.
And he understood that God had not only saved him for his own sake, but for the sake of others. He
was pouring out his life for others. And Paul is able to point to his life as a faithful missionary
and say, my life gives credence to my message. One reason you can trust this message coming from
God is because my life bears witness to the fact that God is at work through me. That's his
portrait of himself as a missionary in this passage. So we've seen that. Let's look at the mystery
that he has come to reveal to them. He wants them to see. That the source of what he is telling
them about uniting Jew and Gentile in one body, this did not come from his fertile imagination.
This is a message he received. The unfolding of this mystery is not speculation,
it's revelation.
That's exactly what he says in verse 3. This mystery was made known to me by revelation as I have
written briefly. He's talking about what he just wrote to them in chapter 2. This mystery that I've
just written to you briefly about in chapter 2 was given to me by revelation.
A mystery in the Bible is not a puzzle you solve. You know, we watch mystery movies and we're
always asking, do you think he did it? Do you think she did it? Who do you think is a guilty
person? We're trying to solve the mystery. When Paul talks about a mystery, he's not saying this is
a puzzle you're trying to solve. He's saying instead, this is something that was hidden that is now
being revealed. It was in the dark, it's being brought to light. Paul says before Jesus came,
There was a very limited understanding of God uniting all humanity together in Christ,
bringing Jew and Gentile together to form the church. There were seeds of that in the Old
Testament, but it was hidden until Jesus came and until after the resurrection of Jesus,
the Holy Spirit comes and brings revelation of the mystery.
In the Old Testament, you had a few jigsaw puzzle pieces and no box top. When the Holy Spirit
comes, you get the rest of the pieces and the box top. Now you can understand the mystery.
We are seeing now what God has been up to all along, Paul says. Verse 4,
he says, the insight that he has into what God is doing should be obvious to them as they read this
letter. And in verse 5, he says, his understanding of this mystery was not made known to the sons
of men and other generations. as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the
Spirit. The Old Testament prophets didn't have the revelation that the New Testament apostles and
prophets have. Paul is one of those apostles. He was not one of the original 12.
There was some question about his apostolic authority because he was not one of the original 12.
But Jesus appeared to him post-resurrection on the road to Damascus. called him to be an apostle,
and the other apostles eventually affirmed that apostolic gift on Paul. So he was one of a limited
number of men who were acknowledged as apostles, who had had a firsthand face-to-face
commissioning from Jesus to be the authority in this establishment of the church.
And when they talk about prophets in verse 5, Paul is referring to people like Apollos,
or like Timothy, or like Titus, or others who were not apostles, but who were prophetically
proclaiming God's truth. They were receiving revelation from God about what was true.
Keep in mind, they did not have a New Testament that they could go to and say, how do we find out
what's true here? So they had the Holy Spirit giving them direct revelation about the purposes of
God. We tend to think of the word prophet meaning somebody who tells the future, but the word means
more than that. It means someone who is divinely inspired to speak the message of Christ.
In one sense, you could say they're a preacher. A preacher is a prophet.
Paul's understanding of what God is doing in redemptive history is coming directly from the Holy
Spirit. My understanding of what God is doing and has done in redemptive history comes from this.
This is where I get my understanding. I don't get direct revelation from the Holy Spirit about the
plan and purposes of God. I get illumination from the Holy Spirit. I am led by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is active as I study God's Word. But I'm not getting new revelation or new truth.
I've been given the once for all message delivered to the saints that came through the original
apostles and prophets. So to the Ephesians, Paul is saying,
what I'm telling you about God and his purposes and plans to unite Jew and Gentile, this mystery
that is being revealed, I didn't dream this up. This came to me from the Holy Spirit.
You're probably familiar with how Peter talks about this. He was another one of the apostles,
and he says that God directed him and others into truth and understanding of...
God's purposes before the Bible was completed in 2 Peter 1 he says no prophecy of scripture now
this is interesting because Peter is talking about the writing of New Testament scripture so he
knows that what's being given is God's new revelation no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's
own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as
they were carried along by the Holy Spirit Paul had had that experience of Direct revelation,
what he's sharing about Jew and Gentile being united in Christ, came directly from the Holy Spirit.
That's how he knows this. That's why he's proclaiming this. And as I said, this doesn't happen in
our day the way it happened in Paul's day. Because we have what the Bible calls a more sure word.
The prophetic word fully confirmed is here in the Bible. The Holy Spirit continues to give us
insight and illumination and understanding and guidance. But he is not giving us new revelation of
the purposes and plan for God. God was in Paul's day revealing what had been hidden.
That revelation is now complete. And you have it in your hands or on your devices whenever you need
it.
Finally, in verse 6, Paul restates what is this new premise that he's been declaring all along.
This mystery, he says, is that the Gentiles are, and he gives three things here,
that they are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus
through the gospel. So let's talk about each of those. They are, first of all, fellow heirs.
That means we're equal heirs to the promises of God with believing Jews.
Jews don't have more access or more... claim on the promises of God than we do.
We are fellow heirs. This takes you back to chapter 1 in Ephesians, where in Ephesians 1.11,
he says, in him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance. And I told you when we were in that
passage that it's less about what we've been given and more about what we've become. When he says
we have obtained an inheritance, the inheritance we have obtained is that we are now God's,
he's inheriting us. In the Old Testament, There's that language about God,
the people of God being his own inheritance. And so when it says we have obtained an inheritance,
he's saying we've been folded into that inheritance as the people of God.
In fact, Ephesians 1.11, I shared this with you when we were there, in the Legacy Standard
Version, it says, in him we also have been made an inheritance. The New English translation,
in Christ we too have been claimed as God's own possession. And then,
In chapter 1, verse 13, Paul says, we were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the
guarantor of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
I love what David Wells says. He says, knowing that you belong to God, that you are his
inheritance, that changes everything. And it does. Knowing that you belong to God and that you are
his inheritance gives you security and peace and purpose no matter what's happening in your life.
If you're in Christ, Paul says, whether you're a biological descendant of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, or you are not a Jew but you're a Gentile by your heritage, you are equally God's
possession.
This is what it means that you are a fellow heir. It's not about what you get from God.
It's about being his possession, his inheritance. Now, when you are his possession, you're in his
inheritance. You do get things from God. Being his inheritance means that you do benefit from
belonging to him. In fact, it's interesting. If you do a study in the New Testament,
which I did this week, I'm the word inherit. or inheritance, what you find is that most often that
word is talking about inheriting the kingdom of God or inheriting eternal life.
Most of the time when those words are used, it's either talking about inheriting eternal life or
inheriting the kingdom of God. When you become a part of God's possession, you are brought into his
kingdom under his reign and you inherit eternal life.
Eternal life is not Just about the duration of your life. It's about the quality of your life.
Inheriting eternal life doesn't mean you're going to just live forever. It means that you are going
to have a quality of life, a zoe life, an abundant life. We taste it now.
We sample it now. One day we will know it in fullness. This is the already of eternal life.
But there is a not yet where we will experience the quality of life that God has inherited us for.
We'll experience that in abundance. And inheriting the kingdom doesn't mean that you're now all of
a sudden the king. You know, you think I inherit the kingdom. I guess it's mine. I'm in charge. No.
It means that you are brought into the kingdom, that all of the rights and the privileges as a
citizen of the kingdom now belong to us. And we live today under the kingship of Jesus.
And we experience today, we taste today, what the kingdom blessings are.
One day we will know those fully and completely. When we were in Charlotte this past week,
we attended, all of the sessions we attended this pastor's conference began with singing.
I just have to tell you, these people sing. like they're trying to sing louder than the person next
to them. I mean, the room was loud with singing and it was glorious.
And you're there, you've been in those situations where you're together with brothers and sisters
worshiping and it's loud and it's moving and hearts are stirred and you think, this is glorious.
That's a taste.
That's the already... But there's a not yet of that kind of worship that one day you'll experience
where your heart will be so overflowing with praise when you inherit fully the kingdom of God.
So as fellow heirs with the Jews, We are now God's inheritance, his possession,
and together we are the inheritors of the kingdom of God and eternal life. Peter says in 1 Peter 1,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he's caused
us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an
inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you. You are an inheritance. You will receive an inheritance.
Verse 6 says, in addition to being fellow heirs, you are members of the same body with your Jewish
converted brothers and sisters. And we won't spend a whole lot of time here. I'll just note Romans
12 calls us members of one another.
Paul will use that same phrase later. chapter 4 of Ephesians. And this is part of the mystery.
Jew and Gentile who have grown up hating one another are now members of one another.
Just for fun, I decided to ask one of the AI chatbots what it means for the Bible to call us
members of one another. So I went to Grok. Grok is who I went to. And you've got to be careful with
chatbots. Let me just say, I saw a research project that was done by some theologians where they
ask a number of different ai search engines or chat box they asked them uh theological questions
and they said the chat bots get them right about 65 of the time so don't look to ai as your source
of authority on biblical truth but in this case i think grok did okay i said what does it mean to
be members of one another he said it isn't just a loose association or voluntary group it's an
organic spiritual reality created by union with christ through faith being members of one another
he said means you belong to other christians and they belong to you your spiritual health and
growth are tied to the community hurting one part affects the whole similar to how injury to one
part of your body impacts the whole person in essence The Bible teaches that Christianity is not
meant to be lived in isolation. The moment someone becomes a believer, they are joined to Christ
and through him to every other true believer. This creates a profound mutual responsibility and
blessing. We need each other, we strengthen each other, and we reflect Christ's body in the world
together. That's pretty good for a chatbot, right? He goes on to summarize it this way.
I say he like it's a person. Grok goes on to summarize it this way. This truth promotes humility.
No one part is superior. Promotes unity despite differences.
And promotes active love within the church. It's a beautiful picture of how God redeems individuals
into a connected, loving community. In Christ we are members of one another.
You are needy and you are needed.
People will often ask about or will talk about having a personal relationship with Christ. And
that's right and that's true. We do have a personal relationship with Christ. We need a personal
relationship with Christ. But it's more than a personal relationship with Christ.
It's a relationship as a part of the body together relating to him. You are part of a family of God
and we gather together in this family meeting regularly because we need one another. to fulfill
what God wants to do in us and through us as his body. Finally, the mystery of being one in Christ
means that both Jew and Gentile, all of us are partakers of the promise.
This is a reference back to what Paul said in chapter 2 in verse 12, where he said Gentiles were at
one time strangers and aliens to the covenant of promise. He says,
you used to be strangers to the covenants of promise. Now you, they, we are included in the
covenants of promise. The Jews saw the covenants of promise exclusively for Jews.
Paul says, no, that's the mystery. God is opening up the covenants of promise to Gentiles as well.
The Bible, by the way, is filled with promises from God. In fact, I have to pause here for just a
minute and talk about how we are to respond to the promises of God that we see in His Word.
You know the old gospel song from the early 1900s called Standing on the Promises?
Did you ever sing that growing up? Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about, but there's
this song, Standing on the Promises of Christ, my King. Is that it? Yeah. Savior?
The chorus, it's Savior, but I think the verse is King. Standing on the promises of Christ my King
through eternal ages. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Second verse, standing on the promises that cannot
fail. When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail by the living Word of God,
I shall prevail. Standing on the promises of God.
Standing on God's promises, this was a huge theme in Charles Spurgeon's preaching.
He would frequently talk about the promises of God in Scripture. And then he would say,
your job is to take those promises back to the promisor and ask him to fulfill his promises.
He said prayer is essentially pleading God's promises to him,
saying, do as you have said you will do. That's what prayer is. He called the promises of God in
Scripture an inexhaustible mine of wealth for a believer. And he said this,
he said, all the promises of our covenant God are ours to have and to hold as our personal
possession. They are distinctly intended to be taken to him and exchanged for the blessings which
they guarantee. God is a promise making and a promise keeping God.
And you should identify his promises and you should claim those promises before him.
You should say, Lord, this is what you promised. Make it so. But notice here in verse six,
the word is singular, not plural. He's saying you become a partaker,
not of the promises, but of the promise. So what promise does he have in mind?
Of all the promises that God makes, what's the one that we become partakers of?
I think the answer is in 2 Corinthians 1 where the Bible says all the promises of God find their
yes in him. That is why it is through him we utter our amen to God for his glory.
The promise the Gentiles have become partakers of is the promise of Christ. The promise of a
Messiah. The promise of a Savior. The promise of the Gospel. The promise that your sins can be
forgiven. Hallelujah. The promise that you will be transformed more and more to the image of
Christ. The promise that you are given new life. The promise that you have a hope and a future.
When Paul says back in verse 2, I was called to be a steward of the grace of God, this is what he's
stewarding. This promise is the grace that he's bringing to the Gentiles.
And it's a message that we are called to first believe for ourselves and then share with others.
This is how we receive the grace of God and steward the grace of God.
So have you laid hold of the promise of God's grace? Are you a partaker of that promise?
If you haven't laid hold of it, God is speaking to you today by his spirit saying,
this promise is for you.
Receive it. Become a partaker. You can today receive God's grace and become an inheritor of this
gospel promise that your sins are forgiven. that you have new life in Christ and that you have a
hope and a future. You can turn today from following sin and self and you can turn to follow Jesus
and become an inheritor of that promise. You can lay hold of that promise.
It is yours for the asking today. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the mystery being revealed.
We thank you for the glory of this mystery and the glory of your grace, the glory of the promise of
a Messiah who would bring that grace to make it available to all who will call on your name.
Lord, I pray that we would, we who are recipients of your grace, would also be stewards of your
grace. And I pray for any here who have not yet received your grace, who have not yet laid hold of
that promise in you. Lord, I pray that today would be the day when their hearts would be stirred
and they would open themselves up to receiving the glory of this promise and walking with you,
knowing that it may mean suffering, knowing that it may mean hardship. It undoubtedly will.
Help them to see that the riches of your grace are worth anything that they might experience in
this life. Help us all to see that and help us not to falter. as we seek to follow you.
We ask these things in your name. Amen.