God's Glory is the Reason Why our Affliction is Divine Intervention

God’s Glory is the Reason Why Our Affliction Is Divine Intervention
Ephesians 3:1-13

The Church has been made a spectacle to both men and angels not because of our health, wealth and prosperity. The church is spectacle because to this very hour and since the beginning, most Christians have often gone in hunger and thirst, being poorly clothed, often homeless and forced from their homes, persecuted and slandered as though they were the filth of the world to the intent that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (i.e. demons- compare 3:10 and 6:12).

I have been reading about people like Dr Samuel Thomas; an Indian man whose family runs a large orphanage in New Dehli. Recently, Dr Thomas’s orphanage has come under siege by violent radical Hindus and his father has gone into hiding. This past March, Dr Thomas was arrested under false pretenses by radicals disguised as policemen (Givers International).

Then there’s Pastor Chai Zhouhua, he was arrested at a bus stop on September 11th 2004 and charged with producing and disseminating banned religious literature. After being tortured by electric cattle prods, he and his wife were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison and over $30 000 in fines (China Aid Association).

Have you heard about the three Indonesian women who were arrested in May 2005 and charged under the Child Protection Act for teaching Sunday School to Muslim children. They were each sentenced to 3 years in prison as well as fined. Islamic extremists trucked in 9 truck loads of protestors and coffins for the women in case they were released.

How is the purpose of God going to be accomplished if so many of his servants are allowed Christians to suffer this way? Why doesn’t God intervene?

What about the man training to be a missionary who fell asleep at the wheel and kills a pastor’s wife and mother last Monday. That could destroy both men’s faith, and possibly cause them to leave their ministries. Why didn’t God intervene?

Suffering for the gospel is nothing new- Paul, the prototype of the missionary is also the archetype of suffering. We find him in Ephesians, writing his letter from prison. Read Ephesians 3:1-14.

I. The “for this reason” that Paul is speaking about in verse 1, is everything that he has said so far- let’s quickly summarize that then:
· 1:4-6 “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

· 2:1 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…”

· 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

· He says all that to set us up for his main point in 2:12-13 “…that at that time you [Gentiles] were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
Paul is emphasizing the profound historical magnitude of the cross which resulted in our inclusion with Israel; there is now neither Jew nor Greek.

II. In verse 2 Paul describes his ministry as stewardship; the dispensation (oikonomia) of the grace of God which is the truth about the breaking down of the wall between the Jews and the Gentiles.

This is a brilliant way to portray the ministry of an evangelist. Did you ever consider sharing the gospel a form of stewardship? We think of how we use tangible resources like money and land and other materials as stewardship and administration. But the gospel is also a resource to be stewarded and we are to be good stewards of this resource.

It’s like Jesus’ parable of the Talents- don’t bury it! That’s how the gospel works- its economics of the Kingdom.

III. V. 3 “That by revelation there was made known to me the mystery.” The mystery is that God’s plan has always been to include the nations with His covenant people Israel and everything that has occurred- the killing of Abel and Cain’s expulsion, the flood, Babel, the calling of Abraham, the captivity of Israel in Egypt, covenant with Israel at Sinai, the construction and destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the diaspora- it has all been for the purpose of accomplishing this mission.

This is a mystery that was hidden in God since eternity: the Church. To be specific, Paul explains the mystery this way in verse 6, “6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel.”

We often speak of the gospel in individualistic terms of how God ransomed us from the consequences of sin and redeemed us by his blood, but the cross accomplished something else: it broke down the wall that separated the rest of humanity from God’s Covenant people.

Paul uses a triad off terms in v. 6; his poetic use of redundancy here underscores the conclusiveness of our union with Israel: we are now fellow heirs, the same Body, and partakers of the promise.

According to the gospel, it is now unlawful for us to separate Israel and the church. Likewise, it is unlawful for us in the church to discriminate between nationalities. There are no ethnic churches! We are no longer English and Philipino and Korean and Chinese and Hungarian- we are the people of God, the Ecclessia, the true Israel of God and the descendants of Abraham.

But what about the promises that God made to Israel that still need to be fulfilled? If the church has replaced Israel, then God has not fulfilled His promises- that makes Him a liar. First of all, the church does not replace Israel, Israel continues as the church. And second, all God’s promises are yes in Christ! If we are fellow heirs of the promises then any promise that God made to Israel in the Old Testament is a promise to the Church.

If God promised a Temple in the Old Testament, then the church is that temple. If he promised a city, then the New Jerusalem is that city.

When Paul wrote to the Gentiles in Corinth, he called is their, “fathers [who] were under the cloud, [and] passed through the sea, [and] were baptized into Moses in the cloud and sea, all ate the same manna and drank from the same water.” (1 Cor 10:1 ff.). He was talking to Gentiles about events in the history of Israel as though those events happened to them.

And he refers to a distinctively Jewish ritual as though it were a ritual of the church. “…Christ our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven…” (1 Cor 5:7-8)

There is now neither Jew nor Greek, we are all one in Christ. To separate Israel from the church is to say that Israel has no part in Christ- that is the worst kind of anti-Semitism. The gospel is for the Jews first and then the Gentiles.

All this is nice theology and I am glad to hear it for a half an hour, but so what? So what?! It was enough to cause Paul to take the message to the ends of the world, to endure 40 lashes minus one time four. Can you imagine what his back looked like?

It’s enough to compel Dr Samuel Thomas (who could have had a promising career) to risk his life for orphans with the love of Christ and the message of the manifold wisdom of God that they too can be people of the covenant.

It’s enough to compel pastor Cai Zuohua and his wife (who could have run a flourishing publishing business in booming China) to risk it all in order to distribute the mystery of the grace of God given to Paul for our behalf.
It was enough to cause three Indonesian ladies to give up a decent contract with the Indonesian Department of Education in order to share what has been revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and Prophets of old that even Indonesian Moslem children can be grafted into Israel and made fellow heirs and partakers of the promises made to Israel.

IV. Paul is a model missionary. He says 4 things in describing his calling to be a missionary that I think are applicable to all Christians, because verse 10 says that the duty of the church is the make known to all the manifold wisdom of God which involves suffering to bring the gospel to the nations so that we can make known to the demons God’s eternal purpose in Christ.

1. In v. 7 Paul, using “grace gift” language to explain how he became a minister, which was according to the gift of the grace of God. In other words, our mission to preach the gospel is a gift… from God. If we cherish gifts from loved ones, why would we neglect a greater gift from God?

2. Paul calls it the effective working of God’s power. Other translations don’t use that adjective, “Effective.” In fact, the Greek does not contain that word at, but the translators of the NKJV were right to insert it because effective is implied by the word working, which in the Greek is an adjectival verb which modifies “power” (energeion dynameos). It means that the power works effectively to accomplishing what it sets out to do.

What it means is that if God calls you to a particular ministry, it is an effectual call- it cannot be resisted. You cannot run from God’s call to ministry. Some people have to end up like Jonah in the belly of a whale before they will go to Ninevah and tell their enemies about the grace and the mercy of God.

3. We see that Paul considered himself the least of all the saints (v. 8). In saying that, Paul is a model of the kind of humility that should mark the servant of God. Although he is chosen to communicate something that has been a mystery since eternity past, hidden from angels and the saints of old, Paul considers himself the least of the saints, just as John the Baptist was the least in the Kingdom of God. If anyone wants to be great in the Kingdom, they must be servants to the least.

We also see here illustrated in Paul the saying, “not many wise, not many noble, God chooses the foolish out of this world”.

4. Finally, Paul’s’ ministry is to preach. To preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. How else can we preach his unsearchable riches then to preach the whole counsel of God contained in His Word. Preaching is the power of God to convert lost sinners and bring them into the Kingdom- there’s no other way, but by preaching- it’s God’s means of grace to draw people to Christ.

With this ministry, we are promised boldness and access with confidence through faith. We are no longer outsiders, the curtain has been torn, the wall has been torn down, there is access to the promises through faith in Christ.

Conclusion:
That is why Paul can say in verse 13, just before he breaks into prayer, that his tribulations, his afflictions, his chains are not to distress the Ephesians, but for their glory.

Why did God not intervene last week to prevent a missionary from killing the wife and mother of Bob Dobson? That was an intervention! It is for some glory that we do not know yet.

Why do Dr Thomas, pastor Zhuohua, Mrs Ratna, Mrs Eti and Dr Rebekka and millions of other martyrs and believers endure rags and poverty and slander and beatings and chains?

How is the purpose of God going to be accomplished if so many of his servants are allowed Christians to suffer this way? The Purpose of God is fulfilled in the display of His Glory which is the manifold wisdom of God that His plan has been since the beginning to tear down the wall of separation by Christ’s suffering which is being completed in us so that faith may come through the preaching of the gospel to those who were once aliens in order that they may have an opportunity to achieve the chief end for which men have been created, which is to exalt God and to enjoy his exaltation forever..