00:00:00:46 – 00:00:27:41
Clint Loveall
Hi friends. Thanks for joining us here towards the end of the week. For real this time as we continue through Ephesians, we’re in the third chapter. A little bit of, self-reflection might be too strong a word for what Paul’s doing here, but there there is a little bit of order biographical stuff here. Paul doesn’t talk about himself a lot in terms of his backstory.

00:00:27:49 – 00:00:54:58
Clint Loveall
He certainly put it out there and we know what it is, but he he is usually so busy focusing on a theological doctrine or on advice or counsel for a church that he he’s not generally one to give a whole lot of personal information, but we get a little glimpse of it here. So let me read a few verses, then we’ll come back to it.

00:00:55:03 – 00:01:29:10
Clint Loveall
Of this gospel. I’ve become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

00:01:29:15 – 00:01:55:10
Clint Loveall
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him. I pray, therefore, that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you. They are your glory. So again, I think Paul assumes that the Ephesians are aware of his story.

00:01:55:15 – 00:02:17:33
Clint Loveall
And the interesting reference here. Paul does this in at least one other place, referring to himself as the least of the apostles or the least in this case, the saints. Again, making it clear, reinforcing this message that he is consistently used, that it is not about what we do, it is not our works, it is not our status.

00:02:17:38 – 00:02:39:48
Clint Loveall
This grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ. So, one of the things I think we have to admire about Paul, Michael, is his sense of absolute clarity for his call. I think many of us have wrestled and seasons in our life for what does God want of me?

00:02:39:48 – 00:03:06:54
Clint Loveall
What does God ask of me? Where is God leading me? And in the meantime, what God always wants is for us to be faithful to Christ and turn to him. But there are moments, I think, where we wish we had a clear path of what that would mean for us and what that would ask of us, and whenever Paul speaks of his mission, it’s with this kind of, crystal clear vocational certainty.

00:03:06:59 – 00:03:22:21
Clint Loveall
I was brought to the faith to go preach the gospel to Gentiles. I admire how clearly he leans into that idea and how much it captures his sense of who he is and what he’s called to do.

00:03:22:26 – 00:03:52:30
Michael Gewecke
That’s a really helpful insight. I think that it’s really easy to mistake some of our current cultural ideas of, you know, religious celebrity, almost. I don’t want to push it too far, but you have some people who are preachers, pastors, church leaders who do so on very large stages with really bright lights, and they bring big bands, and there’s a really big kind of culture that surrounds them.

00:03:52:35 – 00:04:19:26
Michael Gewecke
And I want to be clear that I’m not trying to be critical of that. I’m not try to dismiss it sight unseen. So I want to be clear that there’s ways in which God uses that kind of ministry and really powerful ways. But I think your point, Clint, really stands and needs underscored that when we think of Paul, we need to understand he is not the keynote preacher at a lot of these large conference and event and bright lights.

00:04:19:26 – 00:04:50:49
Michael Gewecke
That’s not who he is. His clarity comes from his purpose and his mission and his purpose and mission, quite frankly, takes him through, traveled an unpleasant crowd. Think about how much of this letter he’s already spent dealing with rivalries and division and mistrust and literally walls of hostility have been in the texts that we’ve read. So Paul is dealing with mucky human stuff, and right now he’s doing so from a place that might even be considered.

00:04:50:49 – 00:05:06:24
Michael Gewecke
He uses this word, my sufferings for you that they might lose heart over. Right. Paul’s aware of the fact that his calling is taking. So taking him to very difficult places. But for him, that clarity of purpose is the thing that keeps him on task.

00:05:06:28 – 00:05:37:21
Clint Loveall
It’s a little hard to imagine a modern preacher in an auditorium of 10,000, 10,000, referring to himself or herself as the least of the saints. Yeah, I like the idea of I know that I’m at the bottom, I know that I don’t deserve. I know that God has been gracious to me. And then you know that that clarity does not mean that this calling is easy.

00:05:37:26 – 00:06:09:01
Clint Loveall
It is a struggle for Paul. But I think that sense of certainty about what his mission is certainly does inform him. You know, as as you’re unpacking that mic, I can’t help but think one of the things we know about Paul is that in most of the churches, we are aware that he interacted with. He also fought with some some number of them, challenged him or disagreed with them or went off script from him.

00:06:09:12 – 00:06:34:03
Clint Loveall
So yeah, Paul is an amazing figure and I think we see a little bit of that here. You know, it’s just it’s just a verse, but the least of all the saints. And the grace was given to me to do this thing and, that whether or not on the whole, you like Paul, don’t like Paul. Think whatever you think of Paul.

00:06:34:03 – 00:06:59:49
Clint Loveall
I think one of the things we have to grant him is that sort of singularity. He’s he’s not going to stop doing what he believes he was called to do. And that is to share the good news of Christ with everyone, but specifically with those who have been on the other side of the fence. The other side of that, a hostile wall or wall of hostility, as he calls it.

00:06:59:49 – 00:07:04:23
Clint Loveall
And I and I think I do admire that about him.

00:07:04:28 – 00:07:27:48
Michael Gewecke
I think I’ve got to be very, very careful here. And, Clint, you’ll keep me in check if I cross the line here. I got to be careful not to get on the soapbox, but I want to point something out here that I think is really indicative of some of Paul’s other letters as well. And I think that we see it here, verse nine, to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God.

00:07:27:48 – 00:07:50:34
Michael Gewecke
There’s a lot of Christians throughout the centuries who have really loved the idea of mystery that still exists today. People love the idea that there’s all of these complex, unknown mysteries that the Christian can. In many ways, I’m going to betray my point. I already muck around in that, that we can sort of think about this and think about this.

00:07:50:45 – 00:08:10:51
Michael Gewecke
We’re going to get all of this sort of special knowledge that has always existed in the church. Okay. And a text like this on the first glance, mystery hidden for ages. That’s a really tempting place to go to talk about the look, all these mysteries. But I just want to point something out that this is embedded as it is in other books.

00:08:10:51 – 00:08:32:46
Michael Gewecke
I would argue that this is embedded in Romans. I’ve also point to it in Corinthians here, that the plan is to make everyone see the mystery. The mystery always exists, I think. And now I just step back from that soapbox. But I think that mystery always exists in the New Testament for the purpose of not hiding, but making plain.

00:08:32:51 – 00:09:06:43
Michael Gewecke
It exists for the purpose of, so that God might reveal something that we didn’t know before. In other words, the thing of great value is not the knowledge of the secret. The thing of great value is the publicly available, the reveal, the understanding that now comes on the other side of it. And that might seem trivial. Maybe that seems like semantics, but I think that is actually essential because the Christian task is not to revel in the quiet, secret stuff, it’s to revel in the basic central revealed stuff.

00:09:06:48 – 00:09:08:33
Michael Gewecke
And that is Jesus Christ.

00:09:08:38 – 00:09:36:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think the church has taken confidence in the idea that of all the things we don’t know, God has given us enough to know. That gives us plenty to do, right? That charts a clear enough course. And while it does not provide all the answers, and certainly it doesn’t unlock all the mysteries of the universe and and the timing of God’s plans unfolding, we have enough to follow Christ.

00:09:36:37 – 00:09:51:30
Clint Loveall
We have what we need to pursue faithfulness. I correct me if I’m wrong, Michael, but just what up? A week or two ago, there were some number of Christians who professed that, you know, the rapture was at hand.

00:09:51:34 – 00:09:53:56
Michael Gewecke
As has happened countless times.

00:09:53:56 – 00:10:32:58
Clint Loveall
Yeah, that’s just we we love that aspect of the secret. But here Paul says just the opposite of what God has done in Christ is to make the secret known. He has revealed, uncovered, and that that has been the plan of God all along. Now I want to talk about the next part of that, because I this is the part that I think that I love and I’ve been a little careful about my own soapbox so that through the church, the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known.

00:10:33:03 – 00:11:04:48
Clint Loveall
The idea here that Paul identifies and lifts the church as the active agent of making known that that the church is called individual Christians. But but as a whole, the body of Christ is called in partnership with God to help reveal these things, to make people aware and to share this mystery and to share the gospel. This is a this is a great word.

00:11:04:53 – 00:11:34:55
Clint Loveall
But there are certainly moments that Paul deeply, deeply celebrates the institution of church. I selfishly my, admittedly biased. I wish there were more of them, but I would say this is one of them. This thing that God wants to do. Paul goes so far as to say it happens through the church, and the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known.

00:11:34:55 – 00:11:49:18
Clint Loveall
That’s the business the church is in making what God has done known and again, a very difficult but simple calling. And I, I really appreciate the words of that passage.

00:11:49:22 – 00:12:29:29
Michael Gewecke
That also stuck out to me. And maybe the word that I want to lift out is, a word that if you hadn’t been reading with us throughout this whole study, it might not stick out to you, but specifically through the church. How many times has this letter already included through Christ, right. The idea is that the gospel always puts us into movement, and that by God’s divine grace, the church would be a mechanism of that movement that through this rich variety, beautiful language, that through this God is going to be able to do some revealing work in the world.

00:12:29:42 – 00:12:59:26
Michael Gewecke
So certainly not. And nor should we take it to mean the kind of revelation that is perfect and supreme and all sufficient in Jesus Christ. But it is still God at work, so that through the church we might make known that, that even all the rulers and authorities in heavenly places would see in the life and through the life of the church the truth of this thing that had been a mystery and is now been revealed.

00:12:59:31 – 00:13:24:10
Michael Gewecke
What does that look like? Let’s let’s get our head out of the clouds for a second. Really, what this means is that people look at the church who should have a dividing wall of hostility, who should be defined by its differences, and instead see Gentiles and Jews living and serving together. And we’ve said this in a thousand different ways because of how tightly wound this book is in terms of its core argument.

00:13:24:14 – 00:13:46:21
Michael Gewecke
We’ve heard this over and over and over again. This isn’t new if you’ve been with us, but it’s another way of saying that the revelation of Christ should live through us in a way that it is compelling, even to the rulers and to the authorities in heavenly places. This is an astonishing claim if we really hear it, and it’s an invitation for us to take church and by church.

00:13:46:21 – 00:13:56:06
Michael Gewecke
I want to be clear, not our buildings and not the stuff that we do in them. The people that are the church, the called out ones to take that task seriously.

00:13:56:11 – 00:14:20:16
Clint Loveall
Not only that, Michael, but I think if you follow the thread there at the end of the second chapter, we saw this idea that we, the people of Christ, are built into the structure that we are part of the temple, the work of God, the place of God, bound together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. So what does this now mean?

00:14:20:16 – 00:14:43:22
Clint Loveall
It means that regardless of who you are and how you got to Christ, whether you came from the pagan temples, whether you were announced the various gods of your home and your office and your family, or whether you were Jewish, and you had to learn that this covenant that you always thought you understood has now given way to something different, something fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

00:14:43:22 – 00:15:18:36
Clint Loveall
Regardless of which of those camps you come to come from, you come to the cross at the center and now you are knitted, bound, built in Christ for the work of making known the wisdom and beauty and grace and work of God. I think there’s just this is really good material. When you when you want to throw yourself against what is the church, what is the purpose of the church?

00:15:18:36 – 00:15:46:24
Clint Loveall
You know, if you asked a lot of people, what’s the church for that you’d get a lot of answers. Caring for people, helping people, preaching. But I mean, this is a pretty good place to start when you boil it all down that the church would share the wisdom of God in the rich variety and how he made known and make known the work of Jesus Christ.

00:15:46:24 – 00:15:52:25
Clint Loveall
That’s that’s that’s a really good answer to what is the purpose and reason for the church.

00:15:52:30 – 00:16:15:34
Michael Gewecke
And then, I’m drawn here. Interestingly, the commentary that I most commonly bring up here in the study literally doesn’t have anything to say about verse 13. And that makes sense. It seems like a throwaway phrase. I pray that you might not lose heart over my sufferings for you there, your glory, but it ties back if you look just ahead, verse one of chapter three.

00:16:15:34 – 00:16:42:54
Michael Gewecke
That’s the reason I, Paul, and a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. Well, why then might they lose heart over his sufferings? Well, because he’s suffering for that cause. He’s suffering for the cause. His argument is to proclaim the gospel to the Gentiles who has him in captivity. Right? If this letter is written by Paul, and if he’s doing so in captivity, it’s not in a Jewish prison.

00:16:42:59 – 00:17:15:43
Michael Gewecke
It’s not. It’s not as if the dividing line works out that way. No, it’s it’s the secular powers, right? It’s the people that Paul has gotten crossways with. And it’s the politics of figuring that out of how how you can convince these people that. And here he is. He’s saying, no, the fact that I’m not in a place of power and prestige, the fact that I’m not in a place of freedom, should, for you be a demonstration of the celebration of that the task that’s before us of of showing and revealing this work that God is doing.

00:17:15:43 – 00:17:45:07
Michael Gewecke
This is, in other words, a cost that Paul believes needs paid because it’s the cost of showing people what Jesus Christ intends. It’s the cost of God’s hidden mystery and will now being publicly, laid bare. And the question is, will people always respond to that positively? Absolutely not. And Paul wants to redirect, I think, to people away from saying, no, this isn’t failure in a sense that you should be ashamed.

00:17:45:19 – 00:18:10:27
Michael Gewecke
No, this is actually something that you should look to, as a form of support for the argument that’s being made that that God’s cosmic will is so vast and so great that I’m even willing to to put my own suffering, in play so that it can be seen and heard. I mean, yeah, it’s a it’s a real conviction of putting your mouth where your, or your actions, where your mouth is.

00:18:10:31 – 00:18:45:01
Clint Loveall
I think that Paul in general is a helpful corrective to the idea that somehow faith makes life easier. I think Paul would wholeheartedly say that faith makes life better, but I think he would push back against the idea that it makes life easier for Paul. The faith invites some hardships. It’s hard to be faithful. It’s hard to be Christ focused.

00:18:45:01 – 00:19:17:57
Clint Loveall
It’s hard to turn from yourself and from sin. It’s hard to forgive. It’s hard to love people that are hard to love. I, I, I think Paul understands that the faith, while a wonderful thing, is a difficult thing, demanding thing. And I think as we read Paul’s story, it really in some, in some way. Gives us some protection from this idea that if I just do my faith right, then life will be easier.

00:19:18:09 – 00:19:27:45
Clint Loveall
I’ll always get the results I want and everything will go my way. That that’s is not the story of Scripture. Certainly not the story of Paul.

00:19:27:49 – 00:19:51:52
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. I think what we discover is that the faith demands of us no more and no less than what Jesus Christ was willing to bear for us. Which is, by the way, exactly what he said. And as Paul live that out, he shows us, I think, in the first generation of the church, that it will always be an uphill battle.

00:19:51:52 – 00:20:19:27
Michael Gewecke
And Clint, interestingly, not for many of the reasons that we think it would be or should be, but simply because as he does the work of calling people to unity, calling people to peace, calling people to love, calling people to this kind of self-giving task while doing that. That alone is enough to drive people, to push back and to create hostility.

00:20:19:31 – 00:20:35:24
Michael Gewecke
And the reality and truth is, Paul counts that as a small cost for the opportunity to be on the part of Jesus Christ, revealing this great good news, good news for the world. And I sincerely hope that we would be inspired to do the same in our own lives.

00:20:35:29 – 00:20:51:38
Clint Loveall
Yeah. I want to thank you for joining us this week, specifically today. We appreciate you being with us. Appreciate your interest in the word and in this book of Ephesians and your willingness to, dig in with us and follow us as we continue to go along.

00:20:51:43 – 00:20:53:13
Michael Gewecke
We’ll see you next week.

00:20:53:18 – 00:20:53:54
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.