Apocalypse Now: Part 7- On Being Grounded

Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our

lead pastor, Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message

would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you

to the life changing love of Jesus.

May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today.

Before we get into our text today, one of the things we do

that is an expression of our unity together is we practice a

confession almost every single week.

We say these words, they're a truth telling moment where we

express both the the difficulty and the brokenness of life, but

also the reality of how God sees us.

And it's our way of sharing the Gospel with our own hearts and

with one another. And so I'm going to say the

first line and then we together say the second line.

If you're visiting today, just wanted to give you the heads up.

It's like our our moment of liturgy is right here.

So for anyone who loves liturgy, like brace yourself, it's going

to come and go, but this is what we say.

We say we're badly broken. We're deeply loved.

Isn't that true? It is true.

There are days when maybe we don't feel it or where there are

some competing thoughts going on.

We lean on it with such strengths because it's what God

says about us, not what we think about ourselves or about our

neighbor. You may have some disagreements

over some things, but what God says is that person is beloved

to me just as you are. And so when we say that, we're

affirming something and we're actually standing against the

currents of this age that want to divide and separate and

fracture further. So we're a people of the gospel

that belong to Jesus that declare the door is open for

anybody to walk through that door and become a part of the

family of God. Amen.

All right, so here we are in Ephesians.

We're starting chapter 3 today. And I just want to for those who

may be new into the series or for those who are like, man,

it's already been seven weeks, Johnny, I don't know what

happened this morning, let alone seven weeks ago.

Let me just give you sort of the summary of chapters 1:00 and

2:00, and then I'm going to locate us as to what's going to

come next. So we sort of know where we are.

Like the blinking. You are here on the map of the

Epistle to the Ephesians. So Paul starts with explaining

that the life, death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus is

the apocalypse that changes everything for everyone.

Our series is called Apocalypse Now, and that does not mean that

giant choppers are about to come like whizzing through and that

we're caught up in some wild film.

It means that the veil has been torn, that the covering has been

lifted, that our eyes have been opened and we see something that

we didn't see before. And what Paul shows us is that

walking in the way of Jesus, we should expect a series of

ongoing apocalypses in our life. I'm always looking to see Jesus.

What do I, what have I not seen about you and your Kingdom yet?

What have I not seen yet? Even though I may have heard it,

even though I may have thought I understood it, I haven't had my

eyes opened. And so Jesus is the central

person and work this apocalypse is about, He goes on and he

shows us how without God's intervention, all people, can

you say all people, there you go, good, So all y'all right?

And all the other, all yours, all people are spiritually dead.

They're separated from God, they're fractured in their

relationships, and they're enslaved to sin, to the powers

and principalities. When Paul talks about powers and

principalities, he's kind of going to shake up some of our

Western materialistic worldview. The kind of things like tables

and cheeseburgers and cars and houses are it.

He's like, no, no, no. Look, God made the physical,

material world, but he also made equally real the spiritual

world. And that there are powers and

principalities, both angels and demonic beings, angels who have

turned from God's rule. But there's also these sort of

ideas and things that work throughout culture trying to

subvert the Kingdom and the rule of God.

And there's these powers and principalities at work.

And the people, apart from the saving work of Jesus, all people

are enslaved. But Christ has conquered the

powers of sin and death. Christ is risen and ruling above

all things. When the early church said Jesus

is Lord, they weren't just subverting Rome.

They were subverting the powers and principalities, the Kingdom

of darkness that was seeking to destroy God's work.

Jesus is Lord over all. So any ideas that we've got that

are drawn more from sort of Middle Ages that the devil is

the ruler of hell? No, Jesus is Lord of all and

hell is a place of judgement for the devil and all those that are

walking in his way. And Jesus is Lord even there.

Jesus Lordship is total and those who are in Jesus share in

his blessings and the realities of his life both now and in the

age to come. What that means for you is that

you no longer have to try and earn your way to have an

experience of union with God. You have union with God because

of Jesus. Therefore, all the dividing

lines of race, of gender, of economy, of power, of ethnicity

are erased. God has made one new humanity

through Jesus. We all have new life in Him, and

that life is entered into by grace.

It's a gift given, not something earned, not based on your

status, not based on where you came from, but based on Jesus as

a gift. You enter by grace through

faith, through an allegiance and a commitment to Christ alone.

We are saved from death and saved to life in the way of

Jesus and we are saved together. The book of Ephesians is writing

to a community all y'all, and so when you hear the you come up

throughout the readings of Ephesians it means us as a

people. Not a series of individuals just

randomly thrown together, but a family that belongs to one

another and has community with one another.

And what was radical was Paul was saying this wasn't just for

the Jewish people. It was Jew and Gentile united as

one new family. And the church, this united

people that encompasses us as a local church, all the other

local churches faithful to Jesus in this town, in this nation,

around the world. And not just today, but for all

of time that the church has existed, they're all together as

a family. So you got a big family.

You got to know that your family is vast, and some of them will

really annoy you as much as you annoy them.

It's just true, right? But we're family.

We have a bond that goes beyond our preferences, that goes

beyond our personalities. It's a unity found in Jesus.

And this church is the temple now, where God dwells and where

his glory is displayed to the ends of the earth and beyond and

beyond. We'll get to that.

Now, where are we heading from where we are today?

Well, we'll get into more of the the second-half, the

application, but we're still in the opening half of the letter.

And that opening half, chapters one through 3 is written to help

us understand the apocalypse of Jesus so we can kind of get our

minds and our hearts around it before we get our lives around

it. And that's where we go with

chapters 4 to 6, is the help to apply the apocalypse of Jesus

more directly. And we'll look at the

functioning of the church as a community together, where each

person has a place and a function and a role to play.

We'll look at the processes of spiritual formation.

How do I grow into the ways of Jesus and live a life that more

and more reflects the Kingdom that I'm now a part of, not the

Kingdom I came from? We're going to look also at the

impact of the gospel on our relationships within marriage

and family, within the workplace, and we'll look at

what it means to resist in the unseen realm.

That's some good shorthand for talking about the powers and

principalities, the unseen realm.

It helps us remember, oh, I come from a pretty secular,

materialistic worldview and that informs me so much in the media

and in the in the news and the conversations that I have.

They're just this under underlying assumption.

But the biblical worldview challenges that and says there's

more going on than you can just see.

And how do we deal with those parts of that unseen realm that

are antithetical to God's Kingdom?

But today, today we have a digression.

Today Paul starts to say something and then it's like,

well, hold on, time out. And he steps over to the side to

explain and express something. He starts in verse one,

something that he's not going to pick up again until verse 14,

which Pastor Jason will be covering next week.

And what he begins to do is pray.

What he's going to do when we get to the the what he started

is he's going to pray. And that's actually a very

normal response for Paul. He pivots from teaching an

excitation into worship and prayer.

It's like he gets just caught up in the grandeur of what he's

talking about. He's like, oh, hold on a moment,

I got to actually pray right here, or I got to worship God.

You're so great. It's like breathing in and

breathing out. But something manages to stop

him short here. Why?

What could possibly interrupt Paul's urge to pray?

Well, there's a situation that he's in, and it's a situation

that will raise some questions for his audience about whether

they should be listening to this guy or associated with this guy.

So it's something that needs to be addressed.

For Paul, the apocalypse has changed everything, including

our response to suffering and persecution.

Paul pauses here, and what he does reveals to us how grounded

he is in the realities of God's Kingdom.

What does being grounded in an unsettled age look like?

You ever feel like it's an unsettled age out there?

Just like I'm nervous to turn on the news this morning, Who knows

what could have happened whilst I was sleeping.

I'm nervous to say anything to anybody because they might take

me the wrong way and just assume that like I hate them and I'm

the worst human in the world ever, right?

Does it feel like Babble out there when nobody can understand

each other and just misinterpret each other left and right?

It's an unsettled age, and we're living with this pervasive sense

that something's not right, and then it bubbles up in real world

things. We've moved from sort of this

age. Mark Says is an Aussie pastor

and thinker and writer. And I heard him talk recently

about moving from an age of anxiety to an age of action

where all of that ick that you've been feeling online and

you've seen like, hey, young people in the room.

Do you ever see, like, some real conflict going on and people

being, like, slightly unkind to each other online?

Yeah, You ever see that? Adults, Do you ever see that?

Have you ever participated in that?

And then it's moved from the digital to the real world, and

it's starting to come out face to face with people.

It used to be, we'd say, man, you'd never say that face to

face. Now people do.

It's unsettled and unsettling out there.

In the past, we've seen seasons like that and we've seen people

who have embodied a groundedness that has brought massive

transformation. So historically, I was just

thinking through like people like Abraham Lincoln, people

like Corey, 10, Boom, who hid Jews from the Nazis and ended up

being in a concentration camp and then survived all of that

with her faith not just intact, but rich and overflowing.

People like Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned and then when he

was finally released, brought about massive change in a

nation. People like the Reverend Doctor

Martin Luther King Junior, who refused to play by the rules of

the enemy and would not combat hate with hate, but chose the

way of love, grounded people who knew who they were, who knew

what they were about. Mark Sayers also wrote this book

called A Non Anxious Presence, and I think that's brilliant

shorthand to picture what groundedness should look like.

A non anxious presence. The world is unsettled.

It's it's a hot mess, right? You as a follower of Jesus in

the body of Christ, do not have to play by the rules of

engagement that the enemy has set out.

You get to walk a different way. So for Paul, the apocalypse has

irrevocably changed how he understands himself, his

calling, and his standing. So I'm going to open the

scriptures, but would you, would you pray with me here?

I was travelling for a few days at a conference and I got back

in from Indiana last night. The only person I can blame for

the scheduling of preaching right after travel is myself.

So just have grace for me. And as I pray for you and us, as

we open the word, would you just maybe just say a quick prayer

for me might get us out on time. You never know.

There's just too much in here that wants to come out.

And so do yourself a favor, pray for me that I would be clear and

concise. All right, Father, thank you for

the Scriptures. God, this word that is precious,

that is you speaking to us and giving us wisdom and life and

showing us Jesus and the Kingdom and more.

God, to just see it with our own eyes and our broken

understanding isn't, isn't sufficient.

We need You, Holy Spirit, to open our eyes, to see wonderful

things out of your word, to comprehend what you were saying

to us specifically today as a church and as individuals, we

ask that you would guard our minds and our hearts and our

bodies from anything that would seek to interfere with paying

attention to you. And I pray, Lord, that anything

that comes out of my mouth that is just me, that would that

would just pass on by, but I make myself available to you,

God, that this word would be formative for me and for each of

us here and for us as a body, and that through it you would be

glorified. I ask you Jesus name, Amen.

All right, So what does it look like to live in light of the

apocalypse? Paul's experienced something.

He's talked about it and here he is.

And what he begins in Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

I'm teaching from the NASB, which is a slight more technical

translation. You heard it read from the NLT

or some weeks we're using the message so it's a more hearable

translation. But for teaching purposes, I'm

working with the NASB. And in verse 1, he starts, he

says for this reason, which is Paul linking back for the reason

that God has both overcome the cosmic break and the covenantal

break and has joined all people, Jew and Gentile together to be

the new temple in the Spirit. For this reason, I, Paul, the

prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.

And then in my translation, there's an M-1 of those long

dashes. This is Paul going, oh, hold up.

He does a hold up moment because he's just said I'm a prisoner

for the sake of you Gentiles. Because of the work that I've

been doing, sharing the gospel with and bringing in the

Gentiles through the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have now been

imprisoned. Many believe he was imprisoned

in Rome. And so Paul is somebody who

manages to offend the religious establishment and the political

establishment and is put in prison.

And that was a great source of shame.

Culturally. You've been imprisoned.

Obviously you've done something wrong, or at best maybe you

haven't. But to be associated with you

puts me at risk. And So what does Paul do with

that? Well, I see a great humility

flow out of Paul in these opening verses of chapter 3.

Because what I would be tempted to do is be like, yeah, I'm a

prisoner because of the work I was doing for you, but check out

my credentials. I I've lived a clean life.

I was like super high up in the Jewish church.

But then I met Jesus and I repented.

And like, it's been wild out there, people.

I've been all over the place preaching the gospel, planting

churches. I'd be like, listen, it's OK,

I'm fine, but I'd be pointing at me.

Paul doesn't do that. I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ

Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles.

The humility kind of continues. He goes, if indeed you've heard

of the administration of God's grace, which was given to me for

you back in the day, this would be like Billy Graham getting up

and being like, hi, I'm Billy Graham.

Oh, if you've heard about me, like maybe you have, maybe you

haven't. I don't know.

Let me just make sure, like it's Paul, he was known amongst the

religious world and he has been ministering for a while amongst

the gentile world. He's not a stranger, but he

doesn't lean on his own reputation.

If indeed you've heard about the administration, this is a word

that means like the management of a household.

Paul's picture of his loving pastoral care of the church is

looking at it more like a household and a family than an

organizational structure. If you've heard of the

administration of God's grace, which was given to me for you,

that by revelation, that's the word apocalypse, that by

apocalypse there was made known to me the mystery.

As I wrote before, briefly, he's referencing what he's already

said or some other letter. His other letters are longer.

He's referencing, look, I just unpacked the mystery of the

gospel. You can see it, it's right

there. And there's this little moment

where he, he speaks of things having been made known to him by

revelation. It wasn't his brilliance.

Paul was a brilliant thinker. There's other letters in the New

Testament that kind of reference like man, it's kind of tricky to

understand. Y'all right?

He's like, you got to read carefully.

Paul was a brilliant thinker, but he didn't get here by his

brilliance. He got here by an apocalypse, by

his eyes being open to see things in a different way.

There's a humility at work here. We see it elsewhere in this

passage when he uses the word minister in verse 7.

That's actually the word servant.

I'm a servant of the gospel. A servant doesn't tell the

master what the job is or how they'll do it.

A servant says, what would you like done and how would you like

me to do it? That's Paul's posture in all of

his brilliance. What would you like me to do and

how would you like me to do it? He just makes himself available

to the Master Jesus. He also later on says that I the

very least of all the Saints, and Ben Witherington in his

commentary on this says it's basically like he's saying I'm

the least, I'm the most least that there can be.

He sort of makes up some Greek here to try and express his view

of himself. Paul doesn't raise himself.

He lowers himself in order to raise Jesus.

In verse four and five, he says by referring to this, what I've

written before, by referring to this, when you read, there's an

expectation that the people who hear this letter are going to

come back and read it again and again and again and again.

There's an expectation that you and I, that all of us would come

and read again and again. When you read, you can

understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.

So now it's now it's understandable, it's

comprehendible. Which in other generations was

not made known to mankind as it has now been apocalypsed,

revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

It was through the Spirit that people are given revelation and

calling and power. Previously things weren't made

known like in the way of rational thinking and

understanding in other generations, but now it's been

apocalypsed. Not because these people that

have received this revelation are more brilliant, but because

this was God's timing and God's plan to reveal it to His

apostles, which is a common word at the time for sent ones and

his prophets. So living in light of the

Apocalypse means it's not about me or us, it's about Jesus.

It's all about him. He is the central one and our

credentials, whatever. I've seen God use all kinds of

people. In fact, the New Testament shows

us in the Gospels that he's going to use fishermen who are

uneducated. He's going to use tax

collectors. He's also going to use Paul, a

highly trained religious leader, whatever.

He'll work through you and your context if you will make it all

about Jesus. So being grounded means the

humility that says it's not about me, it's about Jesus.

But it's also comes with a clarity and we'll continue on

verse 6. Paul says to be specific, so he

wants to like make sure that everybody knows this is what I'm

saying, 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 of which I was made a

minister. That's the servant word

according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me

according to the working of his power.

So Paul knows that this calling was a grace from God, it was a

gift to him, and that he needed some attending power at work in

him to fulfill this calling. He's clear about that.

But the real heart of it is that the Gentiles are now these three

fellows, right? They're fellow heirs, so they're

going to inherit something. And if we know our scriptures

from the Old Testament onwards, the promise of inheritance

initially is a a promised land, but it's also a promised Kingdom

and there is a Kingdom that is now and not yet.

And the church are the inheritors of that Kingdom with

Jesus. That's wild.

You're not called as ones who are just going to be like

enslaved in the Kingdom of Jesus.

You are Co heirs. You inherit it.

That's a big deal. And we are fellow members of the

same body. So it's not like, well, we're

all going to inherit it, but we're going to keep like the

Jewish people over here and the gentile over here, and we'll

have two bodies. He said, no, no, no, we're one

body. But then there's this other one,

fellow partakers of the promise. And when I made my notes, this

is a little insight into how, like preparation work goes.

You do your initial work and you sketch out.

This is where I think we're heading with this text for this

moment, with this people. And then you sit with it and you

pray through it, and you let the Lord speak.

And I initially had written down the word promises, because who

knows that? There's a lot of promises of God

in the Bible. There's many promises.

And we as ones in Christ have the authority to pray the

Scriptures and to hold on to those promises and even to tell

the Father, you said this, so I'm holding you to it.

You said this, You said you'd give me abundant life, Jesus.

So I'm asking, would you give me abundant life?

You get to do that because you're in Jesus.

But the text actually says the promise, one promise, a specific

promise. And my brain went, whoa, whoa,

whoa, whoa. What is the promise that Paul is

referring to? And all of this kind of happened

towards the end of the week and I was travelling and I just

didn't have the moment to drop a note over to our tech team and

be like, hey, guys, can you drop this whole bunch of other

scriptures into the overhead? So the fact it's not on screen

is totally my fault. And they will probably tell me

later. You could tell me on the

morning, but I didn't even get to that.

So sorry tech team, but here we are.

I want to read these for you. This isn't Luke so the end of

Luke in chapter 24 and you get to hear all of this in my pseudo

British accent instead and he says this Luke 24 verse 4.

Luke 24:4

At first service thought that was funnier than you did so

that's fine. Now Jesus said to them, These

are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you,

that all the things that are written about me in the law of

Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and

he said to them, So it is written that the Christ would

suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that

repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His

name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending

the promise of my Father upon you.

But you were to stay in the city until you're clothed with power

from on high. So this is kind of right at the

ending of Doctor Luke. He was a physician.

His account of the life of Jesus.

Now we just flip over to the book of Acts.

And he summarizes it again in Acts 1 when he says, gathering

them together, Jesus commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but

to wait for what the Father had promised.

OK, great. Well, what is that which he said

you heard of from me for John baptized with water, but you

will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

I want to tell you, church, we typically kind of reverse into

these things, much the same as we do when we're dealing with

things around politics. We start with our existing lens

and then we try and read the scriptures and the Kingdom

through that. I want to tell you that's like

looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Everything just looks a lot smaller and narrower.

We are to read the culture. We are to read all of life

through the lens of the Kingdom. We, we look through the Kingdom,

we look through the lens of Jesus to behold all other

things. And I know that some of us

probably come from some theological backgrounds that

would be like, uh oh, you've got kind of some, maybe some at

least an orange light on like, where are we going here?

Baptism with the Holy Spirit. And some of you are like rubbing

your hands, like, let's go. I get that.

One of the beautiful things about this body is this some

diversity. I just want to show you what the

Scriptures say. You have to do something with

that. Then Jesus says to his

disciples, wait, they've seen him, he's resurrected, they

believe in him, he is Lord. He has breathed on them in

John's Gospel and said, received the Holy Spirit.

We believe that when you come to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit

dwells within you, a comforter, a counselor leading you into all

truth, That river of life that wells up within you that bears

good fruit. Lovejoy, peace, patience,

continue the song in your own time, right?

It's all there that's birthed by him, but he actually tells his

disciples, I want you to wait until you receive the promise of

the Father. That promise comes in Acts 1,

when in Acts 2, right? So they gather, they wait.

Acts 2, Day of Pentecost comes and the Holy Spirit is poured

out on them and there's tons of flames appearing on their heads

and they speak in languages they don't know.

And thousands of people come to Jesus and the church is

launched. They knew Jesus, they believed

in him, He was Lord. He told them to wait, to be

empowered by the Holy Spirit being poured on them so that

their ministry would be effective.

How many of us wake up each day going like, man, I really love

Jesus, I'm his, but I just beat up.

I don't even know how to deal with the relational fractures

going on around me. I don't know how to deal with

the corruption in the place I work.

I don't know what to do about the political divisiveness in my

nation. Don't even get me started on

what's going on globally. I just feel under it and pushed

down and powerless. And I think Jesus would say to

us, are you willing to wait on me for the promise of the

Father? I'm not telling you.

Well, let's continue on Acts 19. This is the birth of the

Ephesian church. We covered this in the first

week. He says, beginning verse one.

Now it happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul

passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus and found

some disciples. He said to them, did you receive

the Holy Spirit when you believed there was something not

quite right? It's like I can't put my finger

on it, but something's off here. Let me just ask a few questions.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit? And they said to him, On the

contrary, we've not even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.

And he said, into what then were you baptized?

And they said into John's baptism, what Jesus said, John

baptized with water. Paul said John baptized with a

baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who

was coming after him. That is in Jesus.

And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands

upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking

with tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all.

Look, when the Holy Spirit is absent in some fashion, it

shows. And when the Holy Spirit has

been poured out in power on His people, it shows.

And you might be uncomfortable with some of the ways that it

might show, but you will not live in the power that God has

for you in this age where we live in enemy occupied

territory. This is not neutral ground.

You won't live with power until you yield to the fullness of

what Jesus wants for you. He says it's a promise, a

pledge. Write also in.

Galatians chapter 3 verse 14 because you might be like, well

Galatians 3:14

how do you know that it's all to do with the Holy Spirit isn't to

do with land. Well, Galatians 313 Christ

redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse

for us for it is written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree

in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would

come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the

Spirit through faith. So I think when Paul says here

their fellow heirs, their fellow members of the same body, and

their fellow partakers of the promise in Christ, he is talking

about the empowering work of the Holy Spirit that has not just

been poured out on Jews, but also on Gentiles.

That very thing was the reason that the church council in

Jerusalem. I think it was might be wrong on

that, but it was one of them where it was the Jewish church

where like we can't hold back here, can we?

Maybe that was Antioch. Clearly, clearly the gospel has

come to the Gentiles because the Spirit is moving amongst them.

We see the evidence of it. We come in 2000 years later with

a prebuilt doctrine around these things.

Paul just had language for the experiential reality of the

power of God working through regular people like you and me.

And it was not just for the apostles, because the same thing

happens at Ephesus. And it is the normative function

of the church throughout the New Testament that we see God's

people equipped with God's Spirit for God's work.

Paul has a clarity that hangs on knowing who sent him, how he was

sent by grace and that God was with him and the God is with us

too. So living in light of the

apocalypse is both this humility but also this clarity that

brings us to a purpose. Verse 8, he says to me the very

least of All Saints. And Paul saw himself this way

primarily because of his persecution of Jesus people,

right? That's where he begins is

persecuting Jesus and the church to the very least of All Saints.

This grace was given a gift received to preach to the

Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to enlighten all

people as to what the plan of the mystery is, which for ages

has been hidden in God who created all things.

Paul understands his purpose, which helps him be grounded.

He's not thrown off by different things going on around him, not

even his imprisonment. Paul knows my purpose is to

preach the unfathomable riches of Christ.

That means there's a depth to the beauty and wonder and

mystery and majesty of Jesus that we will never Plumb.

You will never get to the full depth.

So just this morning I was walking and praying in my

neighborhood. If if you've ever thought like,

I need to cross the street, there's a crazy guy.

I think I was the crazy guy this morning.

I was walking the neighborhood, praying, talking to the Father,

and I was praying and I was like, God, I need more words to

tell you how wonderful Jesus is, which is ridiculous because he's

the Father and He knows how wonderful Jesus is.

But I just needed more words. Would you reveal to me the

unfathomable riches of Christ so that I can proclaim that?

You get to be a. People who proclaim Jesus to

everybody because that's part of the purpose preach the

unfathomable riches of Christ to let everyone know the plan Paul

says to enlighten all people all y'all and all the all y'all's

out there is there anything further than all y'all.

I feel like we've maxed out in Texan at that point but be

further than that right as to what the plan of the mystery is

which for ages has been hidden in God who created you all

thinks it's not hidden now and everybody's welcome to the

table. We get to proclaim Jesus has

done it all and if you will unify yourself to him, we're.

All welcome in Why Well, verse 10.

I just think it's just fascinating.

So that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known

through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the

heavenly places. So that the Church by her very

existence will declare truth to the heavenlies you.

Might be wondering like. Is anyone paying attention to

our social media campaigns? Are people checking in on the

YouTube feed? Do the, does the city know the

stuff that we're doing? The heavens are watching people,

both those who love the Lord and are leaning in like, I didn't

know this was the plan. And those who were reposed who

were like, uh oh, we got a problem because you know, it's

6:00 AM and the church in Texas just woke up and they're

together. They're not fighting anymore.

They're together. They're not dismissing one

another. They're honoring each other.

We've got a problem, people. The multifaceted wisdom of God

that goes beyond as singular understanding.

We think there's like maybe one thing God is doing.

He's doing a lot of things all the time through everything.

The polychromatic wisdom is shown in a multi colored family.

One of the things I have delighted in over the three plus

years that we've been here is seeing the increasing diversity

of River City Church that is beginning to really represent

the diversity of New Braunfels. Because Jesus is for everyone.

And when we limit ourselves to one expression, it's like just

saying I'm not going to go to the potluck and enjoy the many

forms of food out there. Our small.

Group does a shared. Meal most weeks, we always theme

it. We want to try the food from

everywhere. People.

I want to hear the song and see the dance from all the different

cultures people because there's so much going on there that

expresses the wonder of God's created order, right.

We're like, yeah, I'll take mashed potatoes and meatloaf,

thank you very much, which are great.

I love those. You just don't want them every

day. Maybe you do.

That's OK, But the Church exists to express this multifaceted

wisdom to the heavenlies. From the now to the not yet the

Kingdom to come, from the earth to the heavenlies, the existence

of the Church proclaims the reunification of all things to

all things. The Church is the embodied

declaration of God's victory and God's ultimate plan that has

been placed in the middle of a battle raging in space and time

that gets to declare to all things that it is finished.

Jesus has done it and. We wonder why the powers and.

Principalities seem so fixated on tearing down the integrity

and the unity of the Church. Don't play that game.

How do we resist it? Well, what did the early church

do? The early church was scandalous

to the surrounding culture because Romans and Jews and rich

people and poor people and slaves and masters and men and

women shotgun horror ate at the same table.

All of the cultural divisions were thrown aside and people

were like fumbling their way into what does this look like?

I've not eaten with you before. I've not served somebody.

Before I've been served this, I just want to say there's a

difference between hospitality and hosting.

I love hosting. I love receiving hosting.

Hosting's a beautiful gift, it really is.

I'm not dismissing it, but hospitality where we treat

people like family means everybody gets to do the dishes

and help each other out and bring something to contribute.

The early church became a fully participatory experience and

they did all of this with a confidence.

Verse 11. I will wrap up someday.

Promise. This was in accordance with the

eternal purpose. Are we good?

Yes. Seven.

I got 7 of you with me. Great, I'm going.

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried

out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and

confident access through faith in Him.

Just an aside that through. Faith in him could also be

through his faithfulness. Greeks are the lambiguous.

Sometimes I like to roll with both of them.

Like Paul was deliberately inserting some vagueness.

Because it can mean both by keeping your eyes on Jesus or

and leaning on Jesus faithfulness.

Because who knows these days when we just struggle and we're

like, I was not faithful today. Jesus was still faithful.

Just come and hold on to him through boldness and confident

access. What does this mean?

The the words in the Greek literally could be translated

more like through freedom of speech and freedom of movement.

That hits everybody. 'S political button at that

point, like, oh, where are we going?

But here's the thing, that freedom of speech, the boldness

and that confident access, that freedom of movement is not

geopolitical. It's the throne room of heaven.

You have authority in Jesus to walk into the throne room to

speak with the Father and to say what's on your heart and mind.

Even when it's messy, you get to do that.

But we sometimes are so fixated on our inalienable rights that

we want to do that at the local level.

And I think that's like going and arguing with the mayor when

you've got access to the president.

Why would you do that? Why are you fighting here over

things when you can go to the top and the top?

Isn't the president the top? Is the father.

The Son. Holy Spirit, and we have been

given freedom of movement into the throne room whenever we need

to, to come and speak what we need to say.

We've been given freedom to speak in the name of Jesus

against the powers and principalities as we see them at

work in the world around us. But you will not do that if you

are not experiencing the power of God at work in you, because

you'll find yourself oppressed by the powers and

principalities. You're no longer slaves.

Arm yourself with the Spirit of God, speak the truth in love,

and see the Kingdom change around you.

Paul endures his suffering and frames it by understanding it in

the context of a cosmic covenant or socio political battleground.

It's all going on. His willingness to endure this

hardship is an expression of love and value for the Gentile

people, he says. I asked you not to become

discouraged about my tribulations and your behalf,

since they are your glory. I'm willing to go to jail and

sit here imprisoned for the sake of bringing the gospel to you.

That's how beloved you are. Don't need to be ashamed of me.

You don't need to be afraid for you, right?

This is how the Kingdom transforms how we see things

now. Church, this does not have to be

complicated. In terms of like.

Empowerment. I would just encourage you, like

Jesus says, wait for the promise.

Why don't you do that? I just asked the Father, would

you give me this promise that is there in the Bible?

Like you don't even have to fully comprehend what's going

on. And I'm not saying that you're

going to like be tongue speaking, prophesying people.

I'm saying that that the experience should be that you

are empowered people who are bringing about Kingdom

transformation around you. OK, The spiritual gifts are

going to maybe break some of your categories.

It's OK. It's OK.

But it doesn't have to be complex.

The first church was messy and unromantic.

When you read the New Testament, it was, it was really messy, but

they turned the world upside down through some very, very

simple ways of being together. They worshipped and studied in

the temple. They ate together in their home,

sharing what they had with anyone in need.

Right? Acts 2.

Just go read it and you'll see this is what they did.

So one practice for you to live the apocalypse this season is to

open up your table at school. It could be just making a shift

at how you do things when it's lunchtime, right?

Or having a midweek meal or something in your home or your

apartment, wherever you're at, where you intentionally gather

people who are different from you in terms of your

perspectives but are unified in Christ.

When you together say we love Jesus.

Jesus is Lord, Jesus is ultimate.

All of our arguments will be settled in him, and I'm willing

to gather beyond my little tribe over here.

We are declaring the unity, we're embodying the unity, we're

confounding the powers and principalities, and we're

letting all of our neighbors who maybe don't yet know Jesus and

his Kingdom and a skeptical and suspicious go.

Something's going on here that's real because these people who

should hate each other love each other.

These people who should avoid each other, break bread

together. What is happening to simple

embodying? But we can remember together the

story of Jesus. We can break bread.

We can take communion. We can rehearse the narrative of

the Gospel in our lives and from scriptures where we can guard

holy unity and where we can treasure sacred diversity.

Because the consequences are cosmic in scope.

You should know that all the powers of.

The heavens and the earth that oppose God will Marshall against

such belonging. If you are bold enough to step

into this way of living, you should know there's going to be

some pushback, which is why again I'm saying like be a

partaker of the promise in Christ Jesus.

Make sure that you've had that time to wait on the Father and

say God, I I need more than my power to do this.

I need you at work, in my life and then as.

You gather listen to each. Other learn each other's

stories, celebrate together and then pray boldly together.

When the people of God, in unity, in the name of Jesus, by

the Spirit of Christ, pray, stuff happens.

Because we're not just dealing. With material, material matters.

I'm so glad we got the snack pack drive.

That is an expression of the gospel going on, right?

We care about those who don't have enough, and we bring what

we have and share it. Praise God, but in prayer we

pray boldly because we want to see things align with the way of

Jesus. When I was walking the

neighborhood this morning, I just started praying.

I just like overcome with a sense of needed to pray for the

men in my neighborhood. I don't know, it's like they're

all neighborhoods are vast here, right?

But I'm just walking and praying and I'm praying for the breaking

of bondages in men's lives. I'm praying that they'd have

freedom from things. I'm praying that they would have

joy in Jesus, that they would encounter his life and his

purpose that they would like, wake up.

Your life is not just like doing your job and paying your taxes

and trying to keep the family happy and together.

You have a purpose that is cosmic.

And I was just like praying. That's why I was the crazy guy

that you'd walk on the other side of the street like, oh, you

got 2 choices. If you see me walk in the

neighborhood, you can like cross the street or you can join me in

prayer, Right, Let's go, right? The spirit.

Of God moved. In me this morning with an

assignment and I prayed, took action.

The sufferings of the Church should not.

Frighten or shame us, it's to be expected.

Those who suffer for the sake of spreading the Gospel show both

the worthiness of God and the belovedness of the ones Jesus

misses the most. So we need to start using the

rights that we have in the Kingdom, our free speech and our

confident access to seek God together.

We have a prayer night coming up on October 8th.

I want to encourage you to participate in that.

We've got the Shine the Night campaign where we can be in our

own neighborhoods, loving people well and in moments that the

Lord would provide, talking about His goodness and His life.

We have ways to show up and embody, and it doesn't happen

just here. I'm a voice for an hour,

whatever it's been. Sorry, thank you.

But you have all week together to make a plan, share a meal

with people, share Jesus with people, spend time every day

asking God to empower you by his Spirit and let's see what

happens in this place that we call Hon.

I'm going to pray. Would you stand?

Father, I just want to bless the church gathered here.

I thank you God that whatever. Sufferings may come against us.

Jesus, You are worthy and we don't need to be frightened.

Jesus, you are worthy and we. Don't need to be ashamed, would

you? Empower us.

Anew by your Spirit that we would make much of his name and

share the gospel, that we would pray boldly together that we

would live as the church in this city to confound the powers and

principalities and to witness your love and your life to our

neighbors and our friends. And may we go now, Lord, and the

love of the Father under the lordship of Jesus, by the life

of the Spirit, for the glory of God, the good of all people, and

our joy. Amen.

Thank you for joining us today. River City Church is all about

experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and

community, and we hope that you've been able to experience

that today. As grateful as I am that you've

spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no

substitute for full participation in a local church.

I love it when River City people listen to other pastors, but it

is those who show up week after week faithfully giving their

support and time and resources that make all of this possible.

If we can help you get connected to a local church, pray for you,

or support you in any way, click the link in the description and

let us know. If you'd like to financially

support the ministry of River City, click the give link on our

website in the description. Don't forget to subscribe and

don't forget to share this with your friends.

Thanks so much for listening. May the Lord bless and keep you

in all grace and peace.