Posts
This is the sixth segment in my sermon entitled, "The Mystery of Christ".
5. The Mystery of Gospel Proclamation
(Eph 3:8b-10) "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 now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places."
-God doesn't have to use gospel preachers to proclaim his truth, he could have done it himself, he could have used angels to do it. This should change our understanding of evangelism. God has delighted to grant this ability to us his people. Now it is true that some like Paul are called to this as a vocation, in a more particular way, and they are gifted accordingly with a unique ability, but don't worry, that is not an absolute distinction. You get to participate in this too, even if it's just by bringing a friend you know to church or this ministry, sharing your testimony, talking about the gospel, bragging on the unsearchable riches of Christ. You get this privilege; God is pleased to give you the ability to cooperate with him in his work of saving souls. What could be more glorious! And yet all too often we make this into a duty. You don't have to do evangelism. You get to do evangelism.
-We don't preach ourselves, we don't proclaim our goodness or how we're such good Christian people, but the unsearchable riches of Christ, Christ's mysterious glory which is far more than we can fathom, his depths we cannot plum, it is more expansive than the heavens. His riches our unsearchable.
-Preaching is bringing to light the mystery of Christ, of God's plan in Christ, Christ is the key to unlocking every unanswered question in the human heart. This is the climactic age of salvation. Now is the day, now is the time. Life, the world, your existence, is a mystery no more. The gospel brings everything to light. This is so important for when you share the gospel with people. Use the gospel to answer the mysteries, use it to answer the big questions that people are dealing with. Is it the problem of suffering, then tell of the God who became incarnate, entered our world and suffered with us and for us in human history.
-The church's mission to make known the multifaceted wisdom of God to rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. We are to be taking back strongholds. The Gospel proclamation is not just about saving souls, it's about casting down demons from their positions of authority in the world. Some interpreters, Calvin is one of them, think that this is talking about good angels not knowing fully about the gospel and finding out about it through the church. That presents the problem to me of wouldn't the angels know about God's plan before we would, but then again you do have the verse in First Peter, where he's talking about the OT prophets prophesying about the messiah to come, and he says that "even angels were longing to look into these things". So, it's possible, but I think in the context of Ephesians that the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are demons and not good angels because Paul uses the same language when he talks about our spiritual warfare in chapter 6, verse 12: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." You see he uses the same words "rulers" and "authorities" being "in the heavenly places" and yet he's clearly talking about dark and evil spiritual forces, so I think Paul's got to be thinking about the same thing in chapter 3 verse 10. And so Paul's point is that in a mysterious way it's God's plan to use the gospel proclamation by human preachers, and the collective work of the body of Christ, regular Christians like you and me, to actually bring to bear the victorious death of Jesus over demons who are still holding people in this world captive with their lies. Demons are out there, and people are worshiping them in the form of idols of sex, money, pleasure, morality, romance, physical fitness or beauty. They are in positions of authority over the world, and our work is to dethrone the idolatrous demon-worship of our culture through proclaiming the gospel. Whatever sets itself up in the hearts and minds of people in the place of God (even if it seems like a good thing) you can be sure that the spiritual forces of evil are at work to enslave people to it. You have the privilege of working with God in the process of liberating the captives from this oppression.
-God doesn't have to use gospel preachers to proclaim his truth, he could have done it himself, he could have used angels to do it. This should change our understanding of evangelism. God has delighted to grant this ability to us his people. Now it is true that some like Paul are called to this as a vocation, in a more particular way, and they are gifted accordingly with a unique ability, but don't worry, that is not an absolute distinction. You get to participate in this too, even if it's just by bringing a friend you know to church or this ministry, sharing your testimony, talking about the gospel, bragging on the unsearchable riches of Christ. You get this privilege; God is pleased to give you the ability to cooperate with him in his work of saving souls. What could be more glorious! And yet all too often we make this into a duty. You don't have to do evangelism. You get to do evangelism.
-We don't preach ourselves, we don't proclaim our goodness or how we're such good Christian people, but the unsearchable riches of Christ, Christ's mysterious glory which is far more than we can fathom, his depths we cannot plum, it is more expansive than the heavens. His riches our unsearchable.
-Preaching is bringing to light the mystery of Christ, of God's plan in Christ, Christ is the key to unlocking every unanswered question in the human heart. This is the climactic age of salvation. Now is the day, now is the time. Life, the world, your existence, is a mystery no more. The gospel brings everything to light. This is so important for when you share the gospel with people. Use the gospel to answer the mysteries, use it to answer the big questions that people are dealing with. Is it the problem of suffering, then tell of the God who became incarnate, entered our world and suffered with us and for us in human history.
-The church's mission to make known the multifaceted wisdom of God to rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. We are to be taking back strongholds. The Gospel proclamation is not just about saving souls, it's about casting down demons from their positions of authority in the world. Some interpreters, Calvin is one of them, think that this is talking about good angels not knowing fully about the gospel and finding out about it through the church. That presents the problem to me of wouldn't the angels know about God's plan before we would, but then again you do have the verse in First Peter, where he's talking about the OT prophets prophesying about the messiah to come, and he says that "even angels were longing to look into these things". So, it's possible, but I think in the context of Ephesians that the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are demons and not good angels because Paul uses the same language when he talks about our spiritual warfare in chapter 6, verse 12: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." You see he uses the same words "rulers" and "authorities" being "in the heavenly places" and yet he's clearly talking about dark and evil spiritual forces, so I think Paul's got to be thinking about the same thing in chapter 3 verse 10. And so Paul's point is that in a mysterious way it's God's plan to use the gospel proclamation by human preachers, and the collective work of the body of Christ, regular Christians like you and me, to actually bring to bear the victorious death of Jesus over demons who are still holding people in this world captive with their lies. Demons are out there, and people are worshiping them in the form of idols of sex, money, pleasure, morality, romance, physical fitness or beauty. They are in positions of authority over the world, and our work is to dethrone the idolatrous demon-worship of our culture through proclaiming the gospel. Whatever sets itself up in the hearts and minds of people in the place of God (even if it seems like a good thing) you can be sure that the spiritual forces of evil are at work to enslave people to it. You have the privilege of working with God in the process of liberating the captives from this oppression.
No comments:
Post a Comment