June 14, 2026 | Stewards of Revelation - Servants of the Gospel

I don't usually um preach um sermons on special occasions like Mother's Day or Father's Day or Fourth of July.

We just kind of plow through the text.

But I have made a change in my sermon this morning about 10 minutes ago.

That this morning I feel led to address the men in here.

I'm not dissing the women.

You'll be encouraged as well.

But I feel led to address the men in here.

And it's interesting, we'll never have this combination of men together again.

The exact men that are in this room right now will never be together again in the history of ever.

Some of you are visiting, some of you are here, you won't be here next week or again, and this is the combination we have that God wants the men in here to hear this word.

Before we do that, I want to pray.

Let's pray.

Lord, I know as a man of all the struggles that I have the temptations, the anger, the fears.

And I know the men in here feel the same way in a variety of areas.

And there's stuff we can't even talk about.

There's stuff we don't even like to voice.

So we bring it all to you this morning.

And Lord, we're not gonna set anything aside so that we can focus on you.

We're gonna focus on you through it all.

Because you know it all.

And you're not calling us to set ourselves aside and our issues and our problems.

You're calling us to focus on you in the midst of all that.

So I pray for the men here this morning.

That you would speak your truth to them.

In Jesus' name, amen.

You know, summer officially starts next week, and over the summer, this is what can happen.

You can either grow significantly, or you can drift.

There's no such thing as a neutral summer.

You're either growing in the Lord or you're drifting away from Him.

Someone has called the summer as the great swan dive for church people where they go down and onto vacation and they're they don't go to church as much, they don't give as much, they don't spend time with the Lord as much.

It's like a swan dive.

But we know that following Jesus is not a seasonal hobby, but is a life-altering reality.

That we don't say we'll just follow Jesus over Christmas and over Easter, and when the summer hits, we'll just kind of dip down, we'll see you in the fall.

No, summer is gonna be a time for you to grow in the Lord.

Now you may wonder, what in the world am I talking about?

What do you mean grow?

Well, you may think, oh, you mean do I need to read the Bible some more?

Sure.

Go to Bible studies some more?

Sure.

Go ahead.

Come to church?

Absolutely do that.

But the kind of growth I want to talk about for you here this morning, especially as men, is what does it look like for you to grow in Jesus by serving others?

Grow in Jesus by serving other people.

So when the end of the summer hits, you'll say, I grew in Jesus because I was stepping out by faith and serving other people.

Let's look at that this morning as we turn to Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

In Ephesians 3, we're gonna have an encouragement of a man on fire for the Lord.

And I don't know about you, but when I see people taking steps of faith, especially men taking steps of faith, it encourages me.

Recently we sent my oldest son overseas for a few weeks to figure out some vision the Lord may be giving to him.

He's gonna be over there in Kosovo for a while, hearing from the Lord.

They Lord, do you want me to hear permanently before he goes back and finishes up seminary?

But I love to see men take steps of faith, some fire, and some zeal, and it encourages me.

And that's what we have the Apostle Paul doing this morning.

So let's start with Ephesians chapter 3, verse 1.

Ephesians 3:1

For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles.

Well, we notice something very important right away.

Paul does not primarily identify himself as a victim of Rome.

He says that he is a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

Rome put him in chains, but Paul believed Christ was sovereign over the chains.

And I want to make sure all the men in here hear me this morning.

Listen to this.

Your circumstances do not have to change in order for you to serve the Lord.

I know there's some of you may say, my circumstances have to change before I serve the Lord.

That is not the case.

Here you have Paul in prison.

And he didn't think, you know, once I get out of prison, then I can serve the Lord.

But he is in prison, still serving the Lord.

And so, guys, I don't care what circumstances you are in.

You may be a caregiver, you may have something debilitating going on in your life right now, but there are no circumstances that you are in right now where you can't be serving the Lord, no matter what it is.

He continues on.

He says, For this reason, I, Paul.

And I love what he says, for this reason.

So I think what he's trying to do, he's about to pray.

If you look at verse 14, he also says, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.

He starts that in verse one.

He's about to pray, but then he gets so excited about what God has called him to that he pauses for the next 13 verses and explains to you his excitement and his zeal in serving the Lord.

And so he pauses the prayer that we'll pick up at another time.

But look at verse 2.

Verse 2.

If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief.

By referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit.

It talks about this mystery.

We're going to talk about the message of the mystery, we're going to talk about the revelation of the mystery, and we're going to talk about the stewardship of the mystery.

Once again, look at verse 2.

It says that if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace, which was given to me for you.

And you know the idea of a steward is that you don't own it.

You don't own the business, you don't own a home.

Perhaps you are stewarding it.

And Paul is like, I am steward of this mystery.

I did not make up this gospel.

I did not make up this Jesus.

I am simply trying to steward it and give you the gospel.

Verse 3.

That by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in brief.

Now, when we talk about this mystery, I want to make sure you understand what is going on, all right?

When we think of a mystery, we think of something that is concealed that needs to be made known to us by our investigative qualities.

So I'm about to tell you something, and I don't want you to be alarmed.

And I'm speaking to the men in here who will get it.

So here's the deal, all right?

So guys, get this.

I'm not making this up.

On Thursday night, at night in the dark, two people came into our church fully masked with flashlights, looking around.

After looking around for a while for something to take, they ended up taking the golf cart in the lobby.

And they drove it out through the door, and our cameras picked them off, driving away with this golf cart.

But it was all staged.

The owner of that golf cart, if any of you know, is Jamie Cook, an elder in our church, who's a very jovial guy who likes to mess with everybody.

So we thought we would mess with Jamie.

So we staged the theft of his golf cart.

Amen.

We sent the video to him while he was lounging on a beach in Florida.

And he was freaking out.

And he was thinking, I sure hope the church has insurance to cover my golf cart.

But we wanted him to relax on his vacation, so we had to break it to him that it was all staged.

That was a mystery that we had to figure out.

And you know who came up with that idea?

Guess who came up with that idea?

Me.

But what we got going on here in this mystery in the gospel is not something we can figure out.

It's something that has been revealed by God.

And we would not know this mystery unless God revealed it.

And here is the mystery.

Look at verse six.

To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

So here's the mystery: Jews and Gentiles can come together in one body through Jesus Christ.

And this inclusion of the Gentiles was hinted at in the Old Testament in a variety of ways, but it's full-blown in the New Testament that Jews and Gentiles have the same privileges through Jesus Christ.

And did you notice the three fellows in verse 6?

Verse 6 says, to be specific that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Three fellows.

They are fellow heirs.

The Gentiles get all the salvation inheritance.

They are fellow members of the one body of Christ, and they are fellow participants in the believing of Jesus and all the promises that go along with it.

And Paul's like, my purpose is to proclaim the gospel so that Gentiles will know that they can get in on this good news.

He saw this as his driving purpose in life to tell people, specifically the Gentiles, about Jesus.

Now, my guess is, I know many of the men in here, my guess is many of the men in here at this phase, this stage of your life, you feel like you have no purpose.

And so I want to tell you about one man.

He does not go here.

It's a man that I'm going to tell you about.

I'm going to change some of the stories, uh, some of the details of his story.

But he's a man, lives in hot springs.

He's a man that doesn't feel like a man.

I'm not talking about some genders gender dysphoria stuff.

I'm talking about this man feels emasculated.

His wife nags him.

His wife publicly makes fun of him.

His job is super boring.

There's nothing challenging for him.

He doesn't feel like a man.

And so he, in order to feel like a man, he's a believer in Jesus, so he can't go and do all the sinful things of the world.

So he wants to do things in the world to make it feel like a man, so he goes and buys lots of guns and shoots him.

And he goes to group viewing parties of ultimate fighting to feel like a man.

And yet, he is still feeling emasculated, he is still feeling purposeless in life.

And I want to tell you, I want to talk to the men in here who feel that way.

That you need to know that there is a great God man who loves you, and his name is Jesus.

And he came to forgive you of your sins.

And he didn't come to make you not a man or not to feel like a man, he came to encourage you to find forgiveness in him and in him, get this find purpose.

And my brothers, one of the greatest purposes you can have in life, and one of the riskiest adventures that you can ever be on is opening your big mouth and telling people about Jesus.

If you want some purpose in life, how about step up into your God-giving calling to tell others the good news about Jesus?

And you may think, well, so you mean purpose for me would be going around telling other people, men, about advice about God.

No, you're going to tell other men about what God has done, not how to shape up their life.

You're going to tell men that they're wicked and evil in their sin, and yet there is good news.

A Savior has intervened and they can be reconciled to God.

You are proclaiming a message, you're not giving out advice.

I believe, men, that God has raised you up to open your mouth to tell others about Jesus.

And that's what Paul is doing here.

He's not dispensing good advice, he's proclaiming the good news.

Look at verse 7.

He says, Of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power.

So God revealed this grace-filled mystery to Paul, and it was his privilege to proclaim it to the Gentiles for their benefit.

And Paul, look, he calls himself a minister.

And this word for minister is also the idea of being a servant.

So one of the primary designations for Paul in his life was to be a servant.

And man, I just want to tell you a heads up.

He is called to be a servant to the church, not a critic of the church.

Servants and critics may see the same things, but critics just sit around waiting for someone else to take care of it.

Servants step up and say, Okay, here I am.

Where can I serve?

Do you view yourself and your primary designation in life as you are a servant of Jesus Christ, that whatever He says you will do no matter what it is?

Or do you view the commands of God as optional?

Do you view your times at church as a hobby?

Seasonal hobby?

I want to introduce all the men in here today to something very unmanly, and it's something called hobby horsing.

If you don't know what hobby horsing is, you can look it up online, but I will not demonstrate it to you this morning, but show you what hobby horsing is.

Hobby horsing involves this a horse on a stick.

And I'm not making this up.

Hobby horsing is often done by kids who will go into competition, and instead of paying all that money to do equestrian stuff, which is expensive and dangerous, they will act out some of the similar things on this.

So you'll have competitions, they'll gallop, they will do jumps, and they will be judged hobby horsing.

Now, men, if I ever see you on one of these, church discipline right away.

But get this.

Like getting on a real horse just seems kind of expensive, seems kind of dangerous.

I I really I really believe that that some people think you have believers and then you have disciples.

Believers get you saved and get you into heaven, but if you're really serious about Jesus, you're going to be a disciple.

And so there's, I guess you could say there's hobby horsers and there's there's people who are doing it for real.

And I want to let you know right now that according to the Bible, there is no distinction, there is no separation.

If you're a believer in Jesus, you are a follower of Jesus, you are a disciple of Jesus.

There is no split there.

And so if you find yourself hobby horsing, not wanting to take the risk of stepping out and serving others and following Jesus, reevaluate what's going on in your life.

We're not a group of people who see the gospel as a hobby.

Once again, how should we view ourselves?

Look at verse 8.

Paul says, To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.

Do you notice?

Paul calls himself the least of all saints.

The literal translation is the word leaster.

He probably says this because he viewed himself as a chief of sinners.

Think about the Apostle Paul.

He approved the stoning of Stephen, he dragged believers out of their homes.

He was a religious terrorist.

And here he is, decades later, still shaking his head, saying, you know what?

I'm the leaster.

I can't believe that God lets me do this.

And so I was thinking about Paul saying he's a servant, he's the leaster.

And I was thinking, you know what?

I'd love to be known as Leicester Lancaster.

Like I am Leicester.

I am here, and I can't believe I get to do this.

I can't believe I get to tell people about Jesus.

I can't believe I get to preach the word.

We should all see ourselves as Leicester.

And look at this proclamation that he does.

Once again, verse 8.

It says, To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.

Wow, we get to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ.

Now, unfathomable doesn't mean that we we can't fully understand it, well, that's what it means, but it doesn't mean we can't experience it.

We can experience the unfathomable riches of Christ.

We're adopted, we're chosen, we're redeemed, we're forgiven, we're reconciled, and yet there is this depth in understanding Jesus that is going to last a lifetime.

I guarantee you, you will.

Not be bored in heaven.

Once you learn something new about Jesus, there'll be something else new about Jesus.

The imagery is like, you know, you have this guy walking around what he thinks is a lake, and he's he's walking around the lake, and he realizes that's not a lake, that is a little jet or a little spin-off, a little arm of the entire ocean.

The depth of Christ is unfathomable, and we experience it now, and we'll experience it forever and ever and ever.

And this experience gets cosmic.

Look at verse 10.

So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places, so the angels and demons are looking on.

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So right now we have this manifold wisdom of God in the church, and the demons and the angels are looking on.

One of my professors at Dallas Seminary, Harold Helner, he's like saying, you know, this manifold wisdom is the idea of like a multifaceted, multivariated stained glass, and the light of Christ shines through.

And then those in the spiritual realm, demons and angels, look on and are blown away.

But they're not looking on and going, you know what?

Look at that social club down there.

Look at all the activities they have.

Wow, what a great seasonal hobby.

The angels and demons are not saying, wow, they're so into hobby horsing.

No, no, no, no, no.

They're looking at this church where Jews and Gentiles and sinners from a variety of backgrounds have been brought together.

And not only should we be blown away, but the cosmos is blown away as well.

Only God could have pulled that off.

Verse 12.

In whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in him.

So the idea is that now only Jews, not only Jews, but also Gentiles, have confidence to approach God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And this is one of the things I want men to understand is that if you believe in Jesus, if you trust in Christ, you don't have to shrink before the Father and occasionally tell him some things here and there, but you have boldness to go in before the Father and lay your entire life before him.

That's something you didn't have before you're a believer.

Now you have access, you're accepted by the Father through Jesus.

This is a big deal.

And let me tell you why it's a big deal.

I finished a book this week called The Things We Never Say.

The Things We Never Say.

Not a true story, but it's a good story.

It's about an older man approaching retirement.

And he's thinking about ways to kill himself.

He has some sadness in his life.

His mom had some mental health problems, and his sister died when they were young.

But not only is he thinking about killing himself, but he also starts shoplifting.

He's rich, he has money, he doesn't need to shoplift.

Just needs some adventure, I guess.

And not only that, he found out later in life that his wife committed adultery, had an affair when they were younger.

And his wife doesn't know that he knows, and he's not going to tell her that he knows.

He's an outwardly happy man.

He's a jovial man.

But he doesn't really tell people about what's going on inside of him.

He doesn't tell people these things.

And here's the whole point of the book.

The issue is why doesn't he tell anybody?

The things we never say come to this conclusion.

Because most people don't really care.

They don't want to hear it.

And if they do want to hear it, they're not really going to understand.

And so many men, we don't say anything to anybody, we just suffer silently.

And if that is you in here, men, I want to tell you this first.

You have complete and full access to a father who cares about those things because he cares about you.

And so bring your most messed up, dirtiest, nastiest life, thoughts, whatever, bring them into the throne room, lay them before God because you can talk about those things to him.

And then I could talk about you need to open up to other men and share stuff.

And I get all that.

But I want you to know you have full and complete access to the Father to lay out all those things you never talk about.

And then Paul finishes up like this.

He finishes up in verse 13.

He says, He says, Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory.

Well, it's interesting.

He's in jail.

Why is he in jail?

Because he's been proclaiming Jesus.

He's in jail for proclaiming Jesus to Jews and Gentiles.

But once again, men, your circumstances don't need to be changed before you start serving the Lord and other people.

Paul's in jail, still serving the Lord.

So this made me think about a few things I just want to share with you really briefly.

Uh, it first thing I want you to think about is men and women as well, is that before you can really start serving other people, you have to come to your point in your life where you say, Is this real?

Maybe your inability to serve others and to go all out for Jesus is because you really don't think this is real.

You don't really feel like Jesus, maybe he didn't really live the way everybody says he lived, maybe he didn't really rise from the dead.

You need to figure that out.

You need to come to a conclusion.

This is real.

And you have are you have been, man, a target of God's grace.

Because until you realize that the gospel is real and you're a target of his grace through faith in Jesus, you're never going to grow and follow Jesus and serve others.

So we'll start there.

Is it real?

Spend some time before the Lord, talking to other people with the word open, is this real?

But also spend some time, man, if you say, Yeah, this is real, this is real.

Okay, if it's real, then why aren't you going all out?

I know we're sinners, we're gonna do foolish things, but but for real, if this is real, if the gospel is real, which I believe it is, if he really was buried after dying on the cross for our sin, really rose from the dead, like that's a big deal.

So I if this is real, then I really should tell people about this good news.

But I don't.

So what's going on?

I I there's a phrase that has stuck with me, and I want to make sure that you get this.

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just tell you this phrase.

It says this most Christians are educated beyond their obedience.

Most Christians are educated beyond their obedience.

And that line really sticks with me because we we tend to think what we need is more sermons, we need more podcasts, we need more Bible studies, we need all this stuff before we can obey.

And men, I want to tell you, a lot of you are fat.

You have had so much poured into you, you've eaten so much spiritually speaking, and you're not working it out, you're not working it off.

You've been educated beyond your obedience.

It's time to start obeying, and one of the ways you can start obeying is by talking to people about this gospel of Jesus Christ.

And you may say, I don't know what to say, I feel like I'm gonna mess it up.

And so I just want to I just want to give you a little insight in my life, okay?

You can ask my wife, but I am the I'm one of the most unmanly men when it comes to doing anything around the house at all.

I'm not talking about cleaning, I'm talking about fixing things.

And so my wife, poor wife, she bought this huge, huge thing that she wanted to cover our our back porch like a sunshade canvas thing.

And she was out there trying to put it up, and and so I went out there to help her yesterday.

And I'm very unmanly, unhandy, can't, and really, it would take a good man several hours to put that up.

He he he would a handy man would know what to do, several hours, probably half a day to do it.

Uh, someone could watch YouTube videos and figure it out.

Well, I put it up in about 20 minutes.

And the way I did that was I put this huge thing up by using bungee cords, tying it around trees, using old hooks on the house from the 70s, and it looked janky when it was up there.

It looked terrible.

But you know what?

It was done.

I looked out there this morning, it's like drooping in the middle from the rain.

Looks terrible.

But you know what?

It was done.

I still need to fix it some more, but I'll fear a way to rig it.

I'm telling you that because look, you don't have to have everything together before you talk to someone.

You don't, you don't have to take another apologetics class.

We don't have to give you a class on how to share the gospel.

You say, well, what if I may mess it up?

Well, go ahead and mess it up.

If Jesus has changed you, you know about his life, death, and resurrection, then open your mouth and talk about it.

Even if you mess it up a little bit, it's okay.

We don't have to have everything figured out before we step out in faith.

And so I land by talking to you once again about horses.

Some of you men, at one time in your life, you were getting it done for the Lord.

You were a race horse.

I mean, you were so on fire, you telling people about Jesus, sapling people.

You're just you're on fire for the Lord, and and now you're older, and just admit it, you you're tired.

And you may view yourself as a horse that's been put out to pasture.

And you say, Well, my whole life now, I still love Jesus, but my whole life is about grazing and resting, grazing and resting, grazing and resting.

Well, let's throw out the idea that you were this racehorse.

You may have been, but I want to give you an image that hopefully will encourage you.

Rather than seeing yourself as a as a racehorse that's been put out to pasture, how about you view yourself, men, as like an old war horse?

You're seasoned, you know, you've been in the battles, you've taken the arrows, you know, and what you know more than anything else is that you can trust the rider.

If the rider says, charge, let's go.

The rider says, Let's go to the left, let's go to the left, go to the right, go to the right.

You trust the rider.

And as the Lord is leading you and guiding you in your life, you may not have as much energy as you used to have.

You may feel weak, you may feel tired, but you're still in the battle.

You're still following Jesus.

He is not done with you in any way, shape, or form.

You may not know what the future holds, you don't know what's next, but one thing you do know is that there is a writer who does.

And he has a plan that he is working out for your life.

So trust him.

So trust him.

Let's pray.

Lord, I do I do pray and I I give you all the men in here who've who've who just feel blah, or maybe they're bored, they're not excited about you.

I just ask that you would you would stir them up.

Even when we lack passion and zeal and and energy, that you would give us just a fresh vision of your love for us, a fresh vision of your care for us.

And for the men in here who do feel emasculated or they feel depressed, or they they feel maybe even suicidal, that they would bring that all to you.

They feel like they can't talk to anybody about it.

Maybe they can share with a pastor, maybe they can share with another man.

But no matter what, they can share with you.

And you'll be the rider, the one who is leading them and guiding them through the battle they're facing today, the battle they're facing tomorrow, until you take them home with you.

Let the men and the women know in here that the work you've begun in them, you will finish it all the way to completion to the day of Christ Jesus.

And so, Lord, may all of us find complete and absolute trust in you.

In Jesus' name, amen.