Ephesians 3:8-9

Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

Yesterday, I ran in the rain like a giddy child. I ran the last stretch home at a sprint, lungs bursting, heart pounding, grinning from ear to ear like a dog with its head lolling out of a car window. As I ran, I was listening to the lyrics "I love the king and the king loves me" on repeat. Simple but utterly profound. I love the king and the king loves me. Simples. And yet, how hard to cling to that in the

middle of life? How easy to lose that childlike giddy feeling of being loved, the thrill of knowing that the creator king is mindful of me every hour, minute, second? Paul tells us that grace is specific. This grace. Not that grace or someone else's grace. My grace. The specific apportioning of grace given to me to do what God would have me do today. Paul's commission to the Gentiles was an act of grace and his doing of it was done standing in grace. God’s grace is enough for whatever he has lined up for us. We, like Paul, are called to make plain, understandable, accessible, the unbelievable richness of God. Jesus is boundlessly beautiful, good, pure, holy, loving. How to make that plain? How to speak it, show it, live this story in a way that others can make sense of? Whoever God has graciously given you to speak his story to, his promise is the grace to do it. More grace please, Jesus. More knowledge of just how boundless you are.

Ephesians 3:7

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of god's grace given me through the working of his power.

It is easy for me to think of being a servant of Christ - easy to think but not to act on - but I was stunned by this verse's insistence that it is the Good News that we are serving. The word, the gospel, is our master not simply Jesus. The word has a life of its own: spreading, flourishing, moving, returning at a rate that confounds authorities and overcomes opposition (Acts 4.17, 6.7, 12.24). Spreading is what the Good News does. We are not needed but graciously wanted, asked and equipped as co-labourers. We sow seeds, we speak words, we live, breathe, act Good News, but we do it in cooperation with God's grace, anointed and enabled by his power. And so what does this mean practically? For we are reading a practical book here. To be a servant is to receive orders, to act on behalf of, to work for, to give yourself in service of. And this is not just any old master. This Good News is radical, peacemaking, reconciling, accepting. A beautiful boss to be working for. And so what's our office? Where's our desk? What's on the don's agenda? We have been appointed a particular, peculiar, unique set of circumstances in which to serve this mighty word. Be an agent of good news today. Be a willing slave and listen out for your instructions.

Ephesians 3:4-6

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

This morning, I listened to a sermon that hurt. Matthew 25.1-13. What do I care more for? The burning success of a ministry or the oil of intimacy? A lamp for outward show or the indispensable day to day connect with God which keeps that lamp burning? The wise prioritize oil. (Matthew 25:4 “The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps”) So often, I am a fool. Tangled up in doing, preparing, ministering. Too busy to sit at His feet and be awed by mystery. Too preoccupied to cultivate intimacy then hoping for a quick fix: can I borrow some oil? 

But relationship isn't transferable. No one can love Jesus on my behalf. No one can rejoice in my salvation for me. The bridegroom loves with abandon and he wants a bride who does the same. Oh to hear him say, "I know this one! She's like Mary. I know this one. She loves to sit at my feet. She loves to hear what I think and listen to my heart. She never forgot the goodness of being loved by me and being mine, such mystery always retained its wonder to her. I know this one."

But I am a foolish one. A Martha who needs to learn to be a Mary. An heir who sometimes can't even be bothered to stop and love the one who adopted her. Oh to be wise today. To ask for oil not just a lamp.

How much do I value intimacy with Jesus? How much am I awed by the fact that I, Gentile, outsider, one standing far off, should be welcomed into the king's court, given the privileges of a son, desired as much as a bride? It is a mystery indeed. Beautiful, deep, unfathomable riches. Romans 11.33-36.

Ephesians 3:1-3

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.

If we know anything about God we know it because He revealed it to us out of grace. And such revelation is not only for our own benefit and delight but for others. God chose to tell Paul about his plan for salvation amongst the Gentiles not to puff up Paul's ego or provide opportunity for him to show off newfound knowledge but so that he might give such knowledge away. Do we view what we know of God this way? If God has graciously revealed to us that he is our Dad do we seek to share that wonder with others? For such revelation is given that it might be given away: a gift to the fatherless by one who now knows what it is to be in God's family.

It is easy to be envious of the specificity of Paul's call. How often do we long for a written in the sky, flashing neon light moment of revelation where God tells us exactly what to do? And yet, when God gives revelation it might not be a popular or welcomed message that we are called to pass on. Paul's revelation and his sharing of it put him in prison. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. All sent to speak a painful message to a rebellious people unwilling to listen, asked to speak words regardless of whether the hearers heeded them or not. You only need look at Hosea to know that obedience to revelation may take incredible courage and have unwelcome consequences. And yet grace is administered not only in the message but also gives us the means to speak it. Micah is given the power to declare Israel's sin. Micah 3.8. We do not give away our revelation on our own. Words are promised and provided. And so, scatter seeds of what God has given with abundance today.

Ephesians 2:19-22

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

A fitting passage for a Tuesday when I normally pray for our team here in Barnwell. Unity is essential. There is something mysterious here: that we are not only individual tabernacles for the Trinity (John 14.23) but the community in which God chooses to dwell and through which He makes himself known to a watching world. We are his witnesses. We are those who demonstrate who Christ is (John 17.22-23) and what it means to be his Disciples (John 13.35) and we do so through our love for each other. So much is at stake if we fail to love our brothers and sisters. The truth of the Good News is tarnished by our failure to be loving ambassadors. No pressure then! But again there is the hope of the passive: we are not the master builders of this grand architectural project. God is. He's building himself a suitable home and we are the materials he's using. He knows exactly what we’re like but He has still chosen to make his people the place where he can live. This doesn't let us off the hook. Love is a doing word. God's in charge of ensuring the project gets finished but to be united as his body is the cry of our hearts and the work of our hands. And so, love, pray, serve, build up, and do it extravagantly. There's no place for petty squabbles in this kingdom.

Ephesians 2:14-18

"For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit."

My spirit is unsettled this morning but there is great comfort here. Christ is the prince of peace. He is peace to the individual soul and to the entire community. He brings peace between the most disparate and unlikely. He brings peace by revealing our fundamental alikeness. Far or near, Gentile or Jew, middle class or working class, Israelite or Palestinian - we all share the same sin, the same need, the same failure to fulfil the righteous requirements of the law. But christ has fulfilled the law. Matthew 5.17. All of it. And in doing so he has paved the way to peace. We can have peace with each other as we realise we are all in the same boat. We all need reconciling to the father. We all need the blood of the son. The cross is the ultimate leveller: at Calvary god pronounces his verdict on humanity even whilst he frees us from such a verdict. This is what it takes to be right with god. This is what it takes for anyone, everyone, to be right with god. Romans 3.22-24. And so, this morning, i pray for peace for myself and my community. I ask to be a peacekeeper, a peacepreacher. One who believes in an alternative to hostility, one who proclaims the peace found at the cross, the body that reconciled us, the broken flesh that healed us, the wounds that make us whole. Isaiah 53:5

Ephesians 2.11-13

"Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you 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. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ."

Another case of the in and the out, the endless temptation to make others on the outside once we are insiders. The uncircumcised creating new kinds of circumcision for the purposes of exclusion when the only circumcision that really matters is a surgery that cannot be carried out by human hands. Jeremiah 17.9. It is the heart that needs to be circumcised. And yet we have forgotten that this is a procedure we did nothing to initiate. Brought near. Carried home. His blood. Paul is emphatic in his use of the passive. We may have come back but first something brought us to our senses. Luke 15.17. Israel is rebuked by Jesus for its exclusion of the younger son. The Gentile graft imitates the root but now there are other younger sons to resent. Who do we secretly believe doesn't have a share in the kingdom? Divorced, gay, single mum, charismatic, conservative, convict? But there is no slave free Gentile jew male female now. It is new creation creating circumcision that counts only. Watch out for arrogance today. Remember what it is to be estranged, excluded, cut off and hold the door open for the unlikely stranger. For Jesus warns us that the final in and out will surprise us. Matthew 7:21-23.