The Cosmic Significance of Personal Ministry

Secular historians tend to concentrate as they look

backwards on history, on the rulers, on the powerful, on the

wealthy, on kings and statesman and Queens and presidents and

politicians in generals and all the mucky muck and all the VIP.

That's how we look back on history.

It's called several different names.

We call this heroic history, we call it top down history.

We call it, according to Thomas Carlisle, Great Man history,

where we look through history as it shaped through a few elite

and powerful individuals. When you come to Scripture, it

has a different perspective. As I was preparing this, I was

reading Acts 4 this week. I want you to see the

perspective that Scripture brings.

We could call it providential history all the way back in Acts

4. The church has just been born

and you have Peter and John healing a lame beggar outside of

the temple. And this beggar begins to make a

scene glorifying God and pouring out praises and Thanksgiving on

the apostles who have just healed him, showering gratitude

on them. And then it records of the

people who are witnessing the event.

They were utterly astounded, is what it says.

And Peter says, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this?

Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety

we have made him walk by our own power or holiness and devotion?

God has made this man strong whom you see and know.

And the faith that is through Jesus has given this man perfect

health in the presence of you all.

And as Peter and John are healing this man, I want you to

see who takes notice of their ministry.

It goes down not only all of the people, but it says the priests

and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came among

them, and they arrest them and they put them in custody.

And it keeps categorizing all of the people who are witnessing.

And Luke makes this list of who else takes notice, The rulers,

the elders, the scribes, Anas, the high priest and Caiaphas and

John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly

family, They're all watching this ministry.

And then it was in that moment that Peter stands up and

confesses the famous words of Acts 412.

By the name of Jesus Christ, there is salvation and no one

else. But there's no other name given

among men by which we must be saved.

That's the context of those words, verse 13, they saw the

boldness of Peter and John and they said these are uneducated

common men and they were astounded.

They were astonished. And so Scripture, when you read

it, it gives a measure of focus to rulers and authorities and

powers. It does give some focus to them

and it gives some focus to the apostles.

But even these, these cosmic authorities, these, these

powerhouses, they're a, they're a contrastive backdrop.

They're the foil of the story. There's some measure of

authority that's given to Peter and John.

They're important characters, but they are passive

instruments. Listen to the language.

Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles,

goes on to Acts 312. Why do you stare at us?

He said As though by our power or by our power, piety, anything

is coming to place. Acts 410 by the name of Jesus,

this man is standing before you well, and he says they were

filled with the Holy Spirit. It's a passive verb, a matter of

fact. We're commanded to be being

filled by the Spirit. Just to show you can't do this.

This is not in your own power. So wordly kings and rulers are

not the focus. Peter and John are not the

focus. God is the focus.

Acts 433, specifically His eternal plan, His grace and His

power. That's what he wants to

highlight and the rich and the influential of the world where

the foil, the backdrop that highlights this truth that God

works his grace and power through ordinary spirit filled

believers. And that's the perspective of

Scripture. We could call it providential

history, God moving in and through the instrumentation of

individual Saints and his church.

We could call it history from the margins because God is

pleased to use the lowly and the uneducated and the common men,

the vulnerable and the weak, and God used these men and women to

turn the world upside down. He takes this perspective and

applies it to you as the individual Christian.

In First Corinthians 1, he says, consider your own calling,

brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise

according to worldly standards. Not many of you were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in

the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the

world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and

despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to

nothing, things that are, so that no human being might boast

in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in

Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom and righteousness and

sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, let

the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

Having this perspective, turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 3 with

this in your mind. And in Ephesians 3 you've got

the VIPs, the cosmic authorities in the heavenly places, the

kings and the rulers. They are not the focus.

God is the focus of Ephesians 3, and Paul calls himself here the

least of all the Saints. He is a channel of God's grace

and power, and the rulers are the foil.

Cosmically, they are the backdrop.

They are the audience. They are not the workers.

They think that they possess grand power and grand authority

until they have to deal with this reality of the power of the

church. And they think that they are

strong until they're forced to come to grips with their own

weakness and powerlessness in the face of God's ministers and

God's church. And so here's the point.

Paul says that in his personal ministry, this is true for him.

It's true for you and your personal ministry.

And in your participation in this church, you become a

theater for the cosmic authorities and rulers and

principalities of this world. And in the heavenly realm.

You are a theater. And we are a theater.

And this is what we're showcasing, God's grace, God's

power, God's riches, and God's wisdom.

This is the cosmic significance of your personal ministry.

Read with me Ephesians 3. We are in verse 7 this morning.

Paul says this of this gospel. I was made a minister according

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

working of his power to me, though I'm the very least of all

the Saints. This grace was given to preach

to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to

light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for

ages in God who created all things, so that through the

church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the

rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This was according to the eternal purpose that he realized

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

with confidence through our faith in Him.

So I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you,

which is your glory. So in Ephesians from verse 1 of

chapter 1 until now, Paul has been working out your identity.

Remember where you were. He said chapter 2, verse 11 and

12. Remember where you were.

Remember who you were. He says you were now chosen in

Christ. You were chosen in Christ before

the foundation of the world. You are predestined for adoption

in Him. You're redeemed through His

blood. You've been given an inheritance

in glory, and the Holy Spirit has been given as a promise or a

guarantee of the inheritance until you acquire possession of

it to the praise of His glorious grace.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins, but you have been made

alive with Christ. You are members of the body.

You are partakers in the promise in Christ through the gospel.

This is unchanging. This is eternal.

This is who you are. This is your identity and

building on that foundation as you come into chapters 2 and

three and four, he says part of your identity are the spiritual

gifts that God has given you. This these gifts match the

calling and election that came in chapter 1.

And so he's given you these giftings and your personal

ministry and what God has equipped you to do is of

monumental and cosmic importance.

Paul called it last week. This is a stewardship of grace.

We call it sometimes spiritual gift gift is implied in the

Bible. It's you've been given

spirituals, you've been given a stewardship of grace and

responsibility. Remembering you're not saved by

good works, You're saved for good works which the Lord has

promised and prepared beforehand that you should walk in them.

And so as you come into this, he shows the cosmic significance of

your ministry of those works. And he first he says that when

you're serving according to the grace he given you, you can take

notes here. Number 1.

He says you are a theatre of God's grace and power.

You are a theatre of God's grace and power.

He begins in verse 7. You can read again with me of

this gospel. Actually, gospel is the that

word is going to be grammatically.

Everything else in the passage is going to be grammatically

tied to that. This is what we're talking about

of this gospel. I was made a minister according

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

working of his power. That can be your mantra that you

repeat to yourself again and again and again of this gospel.

I was made a minister of this gospel.

I was made a servant, and it says it was according to God's

gift of grace. It was given to me, a passive

participle. You didn't earn this.

You didn't choose this. You weren't expecting this.

This happened to you. God poured out His grace, His

stewardship of grace, and it it shows that you and Paul are

passive recipients of God's enabling power.

So he's not ministering according to his own power and

glory like the other apostles. It was God's grace given him.

And we even know the moment this that this happened for you.

We know it's the moment that you're saved.

But for Paul, it's on the Damascus Rd.

Was he expecting what happened to him?

Did he earn it? Did he deserve it?

Was he anticipating it? No, it's instantaneous.

It's miraculous as he's converted in a in a moment, he

goes from breathing threats and murder to being a preacher of

the Kingdom of God. And so on the road, it said that

Paul was traveling to Damascus and a light shone from heaven.

It was brighter than the sun, and he fell to the ground.

And a very dramatic moment. All the other people are on the

ground and they, they can't see what's happening.

They can't hear what's happening.

And Paul is surrounded by this light, and God enables him to

stand up and to receive his calling, and he appoints him,

that passage says, as a servant. That is the same language that's

used in Ephesians 37. He says of this gospel, I was

made a minister. It's the word diakonos, a

servant of this gospel. I was made a minister to preach

the gospel for him to Gentiles and Jews and kings and rulers.

And this is what I want you to see about his ministry.

It says he was made a minister according to the gift of God's

grace. So you are a theater for his

grace and power. I want you to see first that you

are a theater of His grace. Your ministry is a testimony to

the grace of God. And I want to go back and just

remind you, if you were here, there's a recap.

If you weren't, last week was all about grace.

And he says that you received this grace.

It begins for you as a believer in Ephesians 28 and 9.

For by grace you have been saved through what faith?

This is not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not of

work, so that no one can boast. You are his masterpiece, created

in Christ Jesus for good works. And at the moment that you're

saved by grace, you are entrusted with grace.

You become a conduit of grace. You're given gifts according to

God's grace. Like Paul, you're given

stewardship and responsibility to serve with urgency.

And the call is to steward that grace, to engage, engage in

ministry, to love on the church and the world.

It's grace received, grace entrusted, and then grace

stewarded. You are responsible to steward

that grace. And when you minister according

to your purpose, you demonstrate God's grace to the world.

They can see it in you. And this word grace as used in

Ephesians 3, when you look it up in the Greek lexicon, it's

really interesting. He says that it takes on a very

concrete and tangible definition here.

It means an acceptable and exceptional effect produced by

divine generosity. That's what grace is, an

exceptional effect produced by divine generosity.

It's the effect of God acting graciously, producing what it

says is real, tangible outcomes. If you want to see it today, if

you want to see it in action, I think of Tarinda Lester who came

to this church with an urgency. She came here burdened to

counsel individuals and she came into this church and she she

began to counsel here. I see people come through every

Thursday coming up to her. She transitioned the rooms to

transform the rooms behind Houghton Sunday School into

counseling rooms. And she's got by her energy and

through her passion, we now have the combined efforts of 14

individuals who are going through multi year biblical

counseling training in this church.

Again, it's her passion, her conviction.

That's grace. And it produces real tangible

outcomes for people in our community outside of these

walls. What does that mean when her

grace is displayed? It means that there are people

who are calling this church saying, is there a counselor

here who can help me with the abuse that I've survived?

Are there people in your church that can help me in the

difficulties in my marriage? And the answer is yes.

And I get to say, not only do we have counselors, we have

multiple counselors. And let me see if I can.

Let me see who's best to put you in contact with.

That's God's grace, and it's transforming real people in and

out of this church. It's incredible.

That's God's grace displayed. And this lexicon goes on to show

this word Grace, when it's used, is emphasized in the Bible as

gifts being given to a Christian that's beyond their status.

It's gifts given to Christians that they don't deserve and that

they don't expect. A good model is David, King

David, the youngest son of a shepherd and a farmer who was

expecting nothing. And God used him to establish

the bloodline and the throne of Jesus Christ.

So we say by grace, this young shepherd boy was anointed king

by grace. Paul, the least of all the

Saints and the greatest of all the sinners, is given a mission

of cosmic significance, and by grace it is.

You have been saved through faith, and this is not your own

doing. It's the gift of works.

You were given a new set of gifts matching your new identity

in Christ. So God has given you

extraordinary divine favors, remarkable gifts with

exceptional effects in the world.

And this demonstrates to the watching church what are the

grace and power of God. And most importantly, as

emphasized here, you're showing the world the grace and the

power of God. And this is beyond what a person

deserves or expects. If you look in on to verse 8,

this is obviously what Paul is saying.

He's he says though to me though I'm the least of all the Saints,

though I'm the very least of all the Saints.

This grace is given. He he feels worthless, unworthy

in the original language. He he says it literally and with

incorrect grammar. I am the Lister of all the

Saints. And so people speculate on why

he uses this. It's for emphasis, but some say

it's because he it's a superlative.

He's saying I am the least of the least and I'm the bottom of

the barrel when it comes to Christians.

And other people are saying he's playing on his own name.

Remember his his word. The word Paul now means small or

humble as opposed to Saul which meant desired, the desired 1 And

so his name means little. And if you read the history

books, it says that Paul was bowlegged, short, covered in

scars, ugly. And So what he may be saying is

I'm small by name. I'm small in stature, I'm small

in faith, the littlest of all the Christians.

And now look at God's grace as it's displayed in me.

And so Paul speaks of his own personal testimony of

unworthiness in verse 7. And so I'll share some of my own

personal testimony of of unworthiness.

When I was in college at OSU, we had to take a speech class.

Anybody else have to go through that misery?

It was in speech class and I had to give a public speech in front

of 3035 people. And I remember being so

terrified that when it was my turn to stand up, my legs were

shaking uncontrollably. My knees were literally

knocking. And I knew it because no one in

the classroom was looking at me in the eye.

They were all looking at my knees, at my legs and laughing.

And I remember reading even as a kid, going back reading Exodus

where it says consecrate unto me, the first born, all those

that open the womb are holy to me.

And I thought that meant that the first born had to be a

preacher. And so I begged with God my

whole life, like, please Lord, help me not to do anything but

this. Lord, I will do anything but be

a pastor. And so again, we don't expect

it. We don't want it.

It's above our station. Who is sufficient for these

things? God calls you.

And I could say now on the other side of it, when he gave me a

new nature, He gave me a new set of spiritual gifts.

He made me desire this, and so there's nothing more than I

desire now than to be a pastor and to try and steward these

gifts well. And you can apply this to your

own life and ministry because grace here by definition exceeds

what you expect and it far exceeds what you deserve.

It's an extraordinary divine favor and you believe are given

gifts that are remarkable in their effect.

And this is to glorify God in heaven and to showcase his grace

to the world. The lexicon goes on and says,

for this reason, it's it's difficult to to contrast grace

and power. There's so much overlap.

And so I want you to see the second aspect of your personal

ministry because they go together, you're manifesting his

grace, but you are also a theater for the power of God.

And that word power also comes in verse 7.

Power is has been all through Ephesians 1, the Ephesians 2,

it's been the, the theme, the thread connecting Ephesians 1/15

to 3/9. It was in verse 19 of chapter

one, verse 21. It's the word dunamis.

It means power or capacity, the ability to act.

And so we confess that our God does not just wield authority.

He does not just possess authority, He uses it.

He enacts that authority in the world.

We call it Providence is his power.

And this divine power we've seen so far in the book.

It raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

It saves sinners by grace. It stitches together Jews and

Gentiles. And now in our chapter, it's

calling Saints and empowering them for fruitful and faithful

Christian service. According to verse 7, this was

grace given to Paul by the working of God's power.

He takes you the sinful and selfish one, and now He makes

you the fruitful and faithful one.

Why? To showcase His grace and power

by stewarding your gifts of grace.

God has given you a measure of time.

He's given you a measure of treasure, and He's given you

talents. And with it comes all the

responsibility. You look through history of all

these people we've been studying.

His power was made known through John Knox as he won Scotland for

Christ. His power was made known in

George Mueller as he took over 10,000 orphans off the streets

of Bristol and put them into a home.

And the world looks at that. They don't even, they don't have

a category for that. This is power, this is grace.

He took William Tyndale who gave his life so that we, the English

speaking world could have a Bible in our own language.

This is God's power and grace. What does it look like today?

Another servant of our church. If you want to see power and

grace, look at the ministry of Nick Dingus.

Who even now is serving in the back of the room if if you've

looked, God gave him a heart and a unique ability to surf through

technology platforms. And so if you've ever been on

our beautiful and functional church app, that's the work of

Premier Li one person. If you've seen the the church

website, if you've seen the integrations between our

technology platforms, it's because of the hundreds and

thousands of hours put forth by one faithful individual, the

servant, he goes into the homes of our shut insurance and make

sure that their streams are working so they can watch Sunday

service. He uses his knowledge as a

resource for our local association and for other

churches outside of this one. And by the way, he has a full

time job and a family. He does the work of 10 men.

This is a manifestation of the grace and power of God.

If you want to see his grace and power, you can look to the

ministry, the music ministry of Conchita Hansford and Doctor

Bell, who have been ministering in this church for a generation

or more. And you look at him and you see

staying power. It's kind of an emotional time

for me because Conchita taught me my first Bible verse in choir

in Ephesians, and now in three weeks I will preach that verse

to her 30 years later. That's power.

That's grace, a testimony to God's grace.

This is energy and faithfulness. And it comes from this mindset

that we see the Apostle Paul and his mantra and verse 7 that you

can repeat to yourself again and again.

I was made a minister of this gospel according to the gift of

God's grace. You are a theatre of his grace

and power. And if Britain were here today

and he was standing up here, he would remind you of something

that he reminds our elders over and over again.

He says that our culture carries an incorrect mindset that we

have our giftings and our strengths and we're supposed to

be competent and well-rounded. And so we want to to bolster our

weaknesses so that they actually become strengths.

And we need to focus our time on our weaknesses so that we can be

competent and independent and well-rounded.

And this is the idea that a person needs to be one stop shop

and capable of everything. That's not how the pastors here

would encourage you to to minister your spiritual gifts.

When Dale Brown and Phil Jackson and Pat Riley were coaching

Shaquille O'Neal, they didn't look at his free throw

percentages and say, you know what, you're 20% below the

average. We're going to work on that.

They said, no, we want to shepherd your gifts.

We want you to be the most dominant Sinner in the history

of the game. And that's how your pastors want

to equip you for the work of the ministry.

We want you to serve according to the measure of grace that God

has given you. So you come to this church.

There is a breadth of wisdom and knowledge and spiritual gifts,

which means you're free to minister according to your

gifts. You don't have to try and be

everyone. You don't have to try to be the

ear and the nose and the feet. So we say if hospitality is your

gift, then be hospitable and be overly hospitable.

And your role is maybe not to be a teacher and to take teaching

classes and to learn how to be an administrator and to get a

side job to try to make some extra money to squeeze into the

church. That's not your role.

We can lean on the church, go and be hospitable and don't look

around at the people that are around you and use them as the

measure of hospitality and to say, well, this is how

hospitable everybody else is. So I'm going to rise to that.

No, this is your gift. You show us how to do this.

You go and you be hospitable with the energy of 10 people.

And if you're given to speak, Paul will say, speak as one

who's speaking the very oracles of God.

So he says, speak with passion, speak with conviction

commensurate with one who's been endowed with a divine ability to

speak and to teach. And he says if the other people

around you aren't passionate in their speech, you be passionate

because this is your gift. Speak as if you're speaking for

God, because you are. It's your gift.

If you're given to serve, Paul says, then serve according to

the strength of God who has given you power and energy, and

serve with the strength of 10 men.

You need to serve in such a way that the world looks at you and

there's no other explanation. Then you have the grace and the

power of God. If you've been given the gift of

giving, then let the grace and power of God be manifested in

you. Give with the grace and the

charity of 10 families and show the world and the church

something of the generosity of God.

If you've been given the gift of mercy, then go and care for

those who are hurting with the work and the energy of 10 men so

that you can show the world something of the compassion of

God. Whatever you're made to do, do

it. Paul says in Romans 12/6, having

gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

Let us use them each according to the measure of grace that was

given to him. Church, you are a theater.

You as an individual are a theater for God's grace and His

power. And as you continue through the

end of verse 8 and on, it gets deeper than that.

Paul continues in verses 8 to 13, right?

You were a theatre of his power and grace.

But we are a theatre of his riches and his wisdom.

We are a theatre of God's riches and wisdom.

So there are things that about God that we don't just display

individually, we display corporately as the body of

Christ, or if we go back to chapter 2, as the building, God

is building this building and we are here, we are the house

managers. So individually we display his

grace and power, corporately we display his riches and wisdom.

Look at verses 8 and on as he shows the unique ministry of the

church or Paul's unique ministry to the Gentiles.

He says I was called to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable

riches of Christ and to bring delight for everyone.

What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who

created all things, so that through the church the manifold

wisdom of God might be made known to rulers and authorities

in the heavenly places? So what are we supposed to be

doing as a church corporately? According to this verse, there's

two things. We have two roles #1 we preach

to the Gentiles the riches of Christ, bringing to light for

everyone. What is the plan of salvation?

That's number one. Number two, so that through the

church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known.

We're showing his riches, we're showing his wisdom.

God's wisdom is seen in our unity, in our cooperation that

is supernatural, unexplainable. God's riches are seen through

our proclamation of the gospel. So the church is called to

preach to the Gentiles that the riches of Christ, and you get to

see his riches and wisdom in a in a really ironic way and a

really beautiful way in the context of this book.

So Paul writes this to the Ephesian churches from prison.

This is one of the four prison epistles.

Does anybody remember why Paul's in prison?

Anybody remember how he got there?

He's in prison for the accusation that he took a man

named Trophimus into the temple and he took him beyond where it

was allowed for Gentiles to go. And so Paul's accused of this,

and the cosmic powers try to stop Paul's mission by false

accusations and by mob violence and by political injustice and

by imprisonment, to which we say some things never change.

And the Providence and the wisdom of, of God is seen in the

fact, or are seen in the fact that Trophemus was an Ephesian

Gentile. And so he, he was accused of

bringing an Ephesian into the place in the temple where he

didn't belong. And so you see what the cosmic

powers are trying to do. They're trying to keep the

distinctions between Jew and Gentile.

There's no power of God as long as the church is separated and

divided. And they're trying to keep the

Gentiles excluded from access to God.

And they're trying to keep distance between the Jews and

other believers. And so by arresting Paul and

putting him in prison, Paul takes out a pen and God makes it

into a microphone as he writes this letter that gets sent to

all the churches in the region, to Ephesus, and to the untold

billions of people that have read it since then.

And in that context of taking a Gentile into where the Jews go,

Ephesians 214 to 16, he says Christ has broken down the

dividing wall of hostility, creating one man and place of

the two. And he says Ephesians 219 to 22,

not only do Gentiles have access to the temple of God.

Remember what happened when Christ died.

That thick 9 inch purple veil was torn.

It was rent in two and then the temple was leveled because those

distinctions are no more. And so not only do Gentiles have

access, they are the temple of God.

He writes this to them. He says, I, I didn't take a

Gentile, but they are the temple.

Not only do they have access, it is them.

Ephesians 36 Gentiles, our fellow heirs, members of the

same body, partakers of the same promise.

And So what the the forces of evil have tried to suppress, God

is amplifying, showing His power, His grace, His riches,

his wisdom. Ephesians 310.

So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now

be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly

places. So the very city that produced

the riot now gets a letter explaining how all of this is

fitting into God's plan. And so through the church,

that's all of us together we preach this gospel and so

manifest to everyone. What are the riches of Christ?

Riches is unqualified, a generic word saying all the benefits

that the church receives in Jesus, all the benefits that God

gives his Saints and all the privileges.

And through the church. Verse 10 The manifold wisdom of

God is proclaimed. Richard Cokin says the manifold

wisdom is the complex brilliance of his salvation plan.

Nobody could have come up with this plan that God would become

a man, and this God man would die for the sins of the world.

And he would choose Israel to be by their holiness and by their

proclamation the the vehicle of salvation to the world.

But to show human sinfulness and failure, he would take salvation

away from them and by their failure give salvation to the

Gentiles so that Gentile missionaries would win the Jews

back by jealousy. What is this plan?

This is what he's saying. No human could have come up with

this. We are.

He didn't write this plan in a playbook that He gives to angels

and authorities and spiritual authorities.

He didn't give it to kings and to Queens.

He makes His plan known through us, His church, which is why

it's so important that we serve according to our gifts, that

we're unified because we are a theater of all of these things.

The word manifold in the manifold wisdom of God, it means

many or various rich colors, and this is the in the Old Testament

they use the in the Septuagint, the Greek word is what's used in

Joseph's coat of many colors. It's the same word.

This manifold wisdom, multifaceted, many sided, varied

wisdom. And again, the complexity and

beauty of God's eternal plan is known through us.

The working out of this in his church.

It's pictured in our unity and our ministry and our gospel

urgency and our responsibility. And our passage ends in a very

interesting place. If you look to verse 13, he

says, so I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering

for you, which is your glory. It's just good for you.

When you're trying to understand what someone's saying to you or

if you're reading Scripture, whatever it is, what, what is

somebody doing with the words that they're saying?

Somebody's speaking to you when you're reading the words of

Scripture. They're saying something and

there's meaning to it, but what are they doing with those words?

Sometimes Scripture just just tells us.

We don't even have to guess. First John 513 I've written

these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so

that you may know that you have eternal life.

All of the words of first John are are being marshaled toward

that end. Well, Paul tells us in in verse

13 why he's written verses 7 to 13.

This is the pragmatics what he's doing.

He says, I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering

for you, which is your glory. She says, I'm actually, I'm

writing all this. This is great theology.

This is a great reminder of our urgency.

But it's in the original context to to comfort these Saints

because Paul is their champion. And now he's in prison.

And there's probably feelings of responsibility for what happened

with Trophimus that have now landed him in prison.

And so all of this is in his words.

And he says to them, in fact, God's grace is being known

through my ministry. God's power is being made known

through my ministry. God's riches and God's wisdom

are being proclaimed throughout the world to all the cosmic

powers and authorities. This is not sorrow inducing

work, right? This is your glory.

And he goes on say he's, he's fulfilling his calling, he's

glorifying God. What does it matter if he's in

prison when these are happening, when he's making known God's

plan and bringing to light the eternal plan of God for the

Gentiles? So they feel that Paul as their

church planner is their champion.

He says I'm not your champion, I'm your servant and I'm serving

you and this is your glory. And he says, oh, and by the way,

I'm not apprentice, I'm not a prisoner, I'm a minister, I'm

not a prisoner, I'm a servant of God.

I'm suffering for you. And that's OK because this is

what I was made for. I'm suffering for you, but I'm

your servant. This is how it must be.

This is for your glory. So for you, you too need to

remember that you have received a stewardship of grace.

You have been given physical affinities, you have been given

spiritual affinities that allow you to become the servant of

other people, that allow you to become the servant of God for

their benefit and for their glory.

And by serving the church and the world, you are a theatre of

the grace of God. And by serving the church and

serving the world, you are a theatre of the power of God.

That's the cosmic significance of your personal ministry.

And then you think God didn't. God saved you into a church, and

he puts you in membership in a church.

And so when we cooperate together, we are a theater for

the riches of God, and we are a theater for the wisdom of God

telling a story to the cosmic authorities in the heavenly

realm. This is the cosmic significance

of our corporate ministry. And of course, to this we cry

out who's sufficient for these things to be a minister of God,

for his church, to tell the story to the heavenly realms.

And remember, you didn't deserve your gifts, you didn't deserve

your salvation or your service. You didn't expect them.

You certainly didn't earn them. But now you must Marshall them

in service to the world. Paul says in Romans 12/6, having

gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

Let us use them each according to the measure of grace that was

given to him. Church, pray with me, God, who

is sufficient for these things. You have given us

responsibilities, God, that are so beyond who we are and who we

were and what we deserve. And so, Lord, we ask, simply

help us to be faithful stewards of this calling you've given us

for this gospel, of this gospel. You have made us ministers for

your glory. And we see that there are

things, God, that we forget. There's so much going on even

when we gather together. There's so much going on when we

do something as simple as serving the hungry, serving the

vulnerable, giving to our church, showing hospitality to

the to the least of these. So God help us give us the

energy to serve according to our gifts with the strength and the

energy of 10 people. God, we love you.

We want to do this not about our own strength, but as a as

vessels and channels of your grace.

May the world see something of you through us.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage

Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit

our website at www.heritageshawnee.

Dot org.