Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Purpose of the Mystery*

(Ephesians 3:10-11)

 

We’ve been studying Ephesians 3:1-14 under the title, “It’s a Mystery to Me.”

So far we’ve looked at the prisoner, the plan, and the proclamation of the mystery.

Today, in verses 10-11 we look at the Purpose of the Mystery and there is some almost */stunning/* information contained there.

In talking about the purpose of the mystery, we are also talking about the purpose of history itself.

Among the amazing discoveries we will make is that the church, the body of Christ, the complement of believers between Christ’s first and second comings, plays a key role in history.

Finding meaning in history continues to elude mankind in general.

Is history just the random succession of events, each effect having its cause and each cause its effect, yet the whole betraying no overall pattern but appearing rather as the meaningless development of the human story?

Was Henry Ford right when in 1919, during his libel suit with the /Chicago Tribune/, he said, ‘History is more or less bunk’?

That’s a human perspective, but God sees something else.

The Bible sees a great purpose to history.

And *it* all centers around the person of Jesus Christ.

Someone has wisely said that history is his-story, and if you leave him out of it, it’s no wonder you can’t understand it.

But once we get it straight that history centers around the person of Christ, things make a lot more sense, so let’s look at the purpose of the mystery of the church where, not surprisingly, we will find Christ.

*The Purpose of the Mystery*

* *

The purpose of the mystery is made immediately clear in verse 10:   so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This is only the second use of the word “church” in Ephesians, although the church has been in the background all the way through.

The mystery in one word is the church.

And the purpose of the mystery and of the church is to display the manifold wisdom of God.

The great overarching purpose of everything is to glorify God.

We read in I Cor.

8:6, “ yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

Peter has the same theme in I Peter 4: 11, “ whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.”

It may not look like it yet, but everything is aiming at one purpose and that is the glory of God.

Now, one way that God is glorified is through the demonstration of His manifold wisdom.

The word translated “manifold” is used only here in the New Testament.

It literally means “many colored.”

It is the word used in the Greek version of the OT to speak of Joseph’s coat of many colors.

It calls to mind a rainbow, or the sparkling beauty of a diamond, cut to capture and reflect in dazzling beauty the multiple colors of light.

This, Paul is saying, is what the many-faceted, dazzling wisdom of God is like.

God is the one who has created a whole universe to demonstrate his mighty handiwork as we read in Psa 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

The more we learn of the expanse, the choreography of its trillions and trillions of parts, and yet the unthinkably delicate balance of its structure, the more we should see the manifold wisdom of God, although He seldom gets the credit.

Fred Hoyle, an English Astronomer who was originally an atheist but came to believe in a Creator based on the balance in nature said: *“*Some supernatural intelligence must be directing the evolution of life and indeed the whole cosmos.

The universe is an obvious fix – there are too many things that look accidental that are not.”

He went on to compare the random emergence of even the simplest cell to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein."

Hoyle also compared the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik’s Cube simultaneously.

The creation around us certainly demonstrates one of the facets of God’s wisdom.

God’s multi-faceted wisdom is also exhibited in His prophetic prowess shown hundreds of times in the Old Testament.

His wisdom is demonstrated in the many miracles that have accompanied revelation over the years of human history.

But what is astounding about this passage in Ephesians is that His manifold wisdom is being demonstrated through the Church.

That is astounding on several levels.

To think that this imperfect, sin-laden church should be the means for demonstrating God’s wisdom to angelic beings seems improbable indeed.

So, let’s look closer at the individual components of this display of God’s wisdom – let’s look at the agent (the church), the audience (angelic beings) and the authority (Christ Himself)

 

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*The Agent – the church*

* *

Notice verse 10 again: “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known.”

Who is this church?

Well Paul has made clear previously in chapter 2 that it is comprised of the multi-national, multi-cultural group of believers who have been, according to 2:16, “reconciled to God in one body through the cross.”

They are believers – seen by the world as a bunch of fanatical misfits, harmless at best, or helplessly lost intellectually at worst.

But God’s view is very different, and it is so important that we get His perspective.

In his view, the church /is/ the mystery.

And their presence in one harmonious, selfless, equal body renders them Exhibit A of the manifold wisdom of God.

We are not prone to see ourselves quite in this light, but, Beloved, it is important that we do.

I cannot read this passage without being reminded of Paul’s glorious words in I Corinthians 1.  Let’s turn there and begin reading at verse 26, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

(so far a pretty good description of us, wouldn’t you say?)  27) But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; (I don’t know if you want to think of yourself quite in those terms, but folks, if we believe in Christ, this is pretty much the category that a lot of the world puts us into.

We should glory in it, frankly, for they did the same to our Savior)  28) God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29) so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

30) And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31) so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Listen, here is the absolute bottom line to that passage of Scripture.

/We are the winners.

We are the winners.

/It may not look like it now, and it may not be obvious in our lifetimes, but in Christ, we are the winners.

See, the battle isn’t over because someone laughs at or mocks our faith.

The battle isn’t over when someone speaks disparagingly of our Lord – not by a long shot.

Two years ago at this time the Colorado Rockies were hopelessly mired in fourth place in the NL Western division – not mathematically eliminated but basically needing to win virtually every game.

I’m sure that everyone here remembers vividly what happened as the Rockies went on a tear winning 21 of their last 22 games to power their way into the World Series.

Had they lost even one more game, they would not have made it.

They were down to their last strike at one point before rallying to win.

They had to score 3 in their last at-bat against the best closer in the game, San Diego’s Trevor Hoffman to win the wild-card playoff.

In baseball, it’s never over until it’s over.

The point is, history isn’t over yet, folks.

(And I want you to know that I threw away a perfectly good Dodger illustration to use the Rockies).

The world can have whatever view it /wants /of God’s chosen, the church, right now.

They may laugh and mock and scorn to their heart’s content, but the last at bat has not happened yet, and once it does, I assure you on the basis of the Word of God that we are the winners.

And that is one of the reasons we will exhibit the manifold wisdom of God because sometimes it sure doesn’t /look /like we are the winners.

Nevertheless we are and the day is coming when throughout all eternity, our salvation will be a never-ending reminder of the manifold wisdom of the grace of God.

I think there are at least a couple of ways that we demonstrate the grace of God.

The first is by the fact that we are saved at all.

As we’ve seen before, there is not a single one of us that /deserves/ salvation, so I think there will be constant amazement over our individual salvation.

Angels will say to each other, “Can you believe that Dave McNeff is part of the church?

That self-righteous, weak-willed, proud for nothing, morally-challenged reprobate!

Man – only by the manifold wisdom of the grace of God could he be here!”

And don’t laugh because they will be saying the same thing about you!

But in any even greater way as emphasized in Ephesians 3, it will be the fact of the combining people of completely diverse backgrounds into one equal body of Christ – that will really demonstrate the wisdom of God.

That is why I think the homogeneity principle of the Church Growth movement is so nefarious.

It says the way to grow a church is to appeal to a single cultural group.

But don’t you see that that absolutely *defeats the purpose of God to display His manifold wisdom in showing that sin-caused alienation between disparate peoples /can/ be removed.

* People of disparate backgrounds who have been redeemed by Christ /can /work together, /can/ honor and respect one another, /can/ love each other.

Listen, that’s a precursor of */heaven/*.

Get ready, it’s coming, and it truly should be reflected /now/ in our local congregations where our neighborhoods are of mixed heritage.

Unbelievable as it seems, the church is the agent for displaying the manifold wisdom of God.

The universe is scratching its head.

*B.

**The Audience – The Angels*

* *

Now, if you thought that the church being the agent for displaying the manifold wisdom of God was a bit startling, wait until you get a load of the audience.

Who is it that God is wanting to make this display for?

Our tendency would be to say, “Well, for people.

For the world around us.”

And there is a wonderful sense in which that is true.