The Mystery Revealed

Introduction

12. I hope you’ll get your Bibles and open up with us and study along as we study this portion of God’s Word. In fact, you may put a bookmark or your finger there in Ephesians chapter 3. We’ll be coming back to this text periodically. We look at other passages of Scripture as well, but we’ll always be coming back to our text here in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 1 through 12. Well, how are you at keeping secrets? I think I do a pretty good job of keeping a secret of something that somebody’s entrusted to me, but there’s one arena of life in which I’m lousy at keeping secrets. And that’s when it comes to gift giving. At Christmas time, if I buy somebody a gift, I want to give it to them right then.

I can’t wait to give it to them. In fact, I’m usually that person in the household that says, let’s open gifts now. And Deedra says, we can’t. It’s just April. But I just want to share those gifts. I just can’t wait to disclose the information that I have. In our text in Ephesians chapter 3, we’re going to talk about the mystery of God. The mystery of Jesus and how God had this mystery before the foundation of the world. And how it was slowly revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And I want us to just revel in the beauty of this mystery being revealed. And maybe for us more importantly, to beauty in the fact that we are participating in the revealing of that mystery.

Will you read God’s word with me this morning in Ephesians chapter 3, began in verse 1, where it says, For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. If indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in a few words, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.

To me, who am less than least of all of the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Here the inspired apostle talks to us about this mystery. This mystery which was God’s mystery, this mystery that was unfolded and was previously unknown.

1. God Had a Plan, His Eternal Purpose

So let’s talk about this mystery that again we get to participate in. It’s no longer a mystery to us, Paul says, because it’s been revealed. And we get to not only know the mystery, but blessing upon blessing, we get to participate in this mystery. And so let’s think about just four components to this mystery in our study this morning. First of all, it stands the reason, and the apostle tells us that God had a plan. This plan was the mystery. But God devised this plan. In fact, he says in verse 11 of our text of Ephesians 3, according to the eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. This plan was referred to by Paul here as the eternal purpose of God. It was God’s purpose.

It was God’s plan. Now, we take that for granted sometimes, that of course God had a plan. He had the plan of salvation. And his plan was to reconcile man to himself. His plan was to send his only begotten Son to live and to die upon that cross that through him we might have forgiveness of our sins. But that well-known and believed fact deserves our contemplation. To stop and think about that. That God purposed this plan. In our introduction, we talked about the idea of giving gifts, and there’s an adage many times said when it comes to the idea of giving a gift, we say it’s the thought that counts. And that’s the point here. That God not only had a plan, God not only brought out this plan, gave us this gift that the New Testament refers to as grace, but God purposed this gift.

2. The Plan Had Us in Mind

God had a plan. And that plan, turn back a couple pages in your Bible to Ephesians chapter 1. Not only did God have this grand plan, this eternal purpose, but this purpose, this plan of God’s from eternity, had us in mind. Look in Ephesians, this time chapter 1, and in verse 4, he says, just as he, that’s the Father, chose us in Him, that’s the Son, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now, our feeble and finite minds cannot fully understand what that means, how God chose us in him before the foundation of the world. But our inability to fully comprehend the wisdom of God does not prevent us from appreciating the wisdom of God and the plan of God.

3. The Plan Was Slowly Revealed Piece by Piece

That God not only had this plan but this plan involved us that he had us in mind before the foundation of the world before Genesis chapter one before God said let there be light before God divided the firmament above with the waters and the seas that teemed with all living creatures here upon earth before any of that devised an eternal purpose and God saw us in that purpose and in that plan would tell us in our text here in Ephesians chapter three that God had this eternal purpose that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world and then that plan began to be slowly revealed God gave this plan piece by piece throughout the scriptures. Look here in our text again in Ephesians chapter 3, back to the third chapter of Ephesians.

Look in verse 9, speaking of this mystery, the mystery of Christ, the inclusion of both Jews and Gentiles into the plan of God. Notice what he says about this mystery in Ephesians 3, verse 5, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. Then skip down to verse 9. And to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ. So God had this plan, this eternal purpose that he purposed before the foundation of the world, this plan that included you and I.

And now God is going to reveal that mystery. But Paul says he did not reveal it in times past, but to us through the holy apostles and prophets. Two things I want us to contemplate about that. Number one is recognize the privilege of living in the time that we live. That, as Paul would say in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we live in a time when that which is perfect has come. We have the perfect revealed will of God. We are wiser than Abraham. We know more than King David. We understand the plan of God more than Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, and all the prophets lumped together ever did. We see what God was doing. And we participate in what God was doing.

I want you to think, we won’t turn back through there, but I want you to think, beginning in Genesis chapter 3. I want you to think about the prophecies that were given. There in Genesis chapter 3, where we were first introduced to the need for this plan, when sin entered its ugly face into that beautiful garden and forever marred this creation and forever altered man’s relationship with God. That in the midst of that dark and dreadful scene was one ray of light, one glimpse of hope when God gave the first prophecy, and the first glimpse into this eternal purpose, this mystery of his. When he would say to that serpent who was being cursed that the seed of woman would one day crush his head while having his heel crushed.

If Adam and Eve overheard that prophecy, they surely had no idea the full meaning of what that meant. But God gave a little bit of that mystery. One piece of the puzzle, we might say, was laid upon the table. Now let’s think about that as an illustration. Do you like doing puzzles? My family and I do puzzles from time to time. And you pour out, you get this big box, and you look at the picture on the front of that box, you see the number of pieces that are in that box, and then you dump all of those pieces out on the table. And you turn them all right side up. You look for the corners and the edges, and you get all of those things.

We all do the puzzles together. I don’t want to brag, but I did a puzzle during this quarantine. I did a puzzle the other day, and it took me four days, only four days to put it together. And the outside of the box said three to six years. That’s how smart I am. But anyway, if you ever you’d like putting puzzles together, and you pour out those pieces, and you’re trying to piece those puzzle pieces. You know, or you trust at least, the manufacturers of that puzzle, that they all go together and they all assemble to make this picture. For our illustration, I want to change it up a little bit. We all probably do the same thing when you put a puzzle together. You prop up the cover of the box so that you know what.

But imagine that I gave you a bag of puzzle pieces, but I didn’t give you the box. I didn’t give you the picture, the final picture. And so now you have to take those individual puzzle pieces and blindly try to make something out of them. And you put one, you pull one piece from that pile of 500 pieces, and you set it down in the table. You know that’s the picture, that’s a piece of the overall picture that will be painted when you get it all put together. But you have no idea from that one piece what the puzzle is going to look like. Because it’s a mystery. I think that kind of illustrates the way God revealed his plan. In Genesis chapter 3 to the serpent, he put one piece of the puzzle.

When he said, the seed of woman will crush your head. Well, that piece of the puzzle set on the table. It’s an important piece of the puzzle. But we have no idea what that meant. And how that would fit into everything else. And throughout the Old Testament, throughout the patriarchal and the mosaic pieces, God laid piece after piece on the table of that puzzle. He would speak some of the pieces of the puzzle would be given through Abraham and some of the pieces through men like David or Solomon and the prophets, put a lot of the pieces in. But again, no one knew what the final picture was going to look like. They all knew that they would assemble together, or maybe they understood that, that the pieces would somehow assemble together and reveal the mystery.

They knew this was the working of God. But what Paul is saying in our text is it’s not until the New Testament. It’s not until our time that all of the pieces are put together. And we can stand up from the table and take a couple steps back and see the beautiful plan of God revealed. Look with me. Hold your finger again here in Ephesians 3 and go to the words of Peter in 1 Peter chapter 1. And I want you to think about how blessed you are to live at this time. In 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter is talking about this mystery, this plan of God and how it was revealed and how we live at the envy of all generations. 1 Peter chapter 1, let’s look at verses 10 through 12.

Speaking of the salvation that Jesus offers us, he says, of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you. Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them, that’s the prophets, to them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. Peter reinforces the thought that Paul has given us in Ephesians chapter 3, when he says, when it comes to the salvation that we’re now participating in, those prophets prophesied of this.

They put pieces of the puzzle on the table, and they wanted to know, curiosity, and all of us would want to know. They wanted to know when they spoke those prophetic words. Let’s use an example, Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, when he spoke and wrote the words of what we know as Isaiah chapter 53, of the suffering Savior. By his stripes we are healed. Isaac. Isaiah wanted to know what did that mean? How is that going to be fulfilled? How does that fit into what else has already been said? How will this culminate in the plan of God? Peter said, Isaiah and those other prophets, they wanted to know. But they didn’t know. All they knew is what the piece of the puzzle they were given looked like.

They wanted to know. But the last phrase there in verse 12 of 1 Peter 1 also says that there’s another class of people besides the prophets who wanted to know. He says, which things the angels desire to look into. Even the angels in heaven wanted to know. And seemed to be in the dark somewhat by what is this going to look like when it’s through? I know this may be taking a little bit of liberties with the language of the text, but when it says the things which angels desire to look into.

4. God’s Plan Was Christ

And that angel on the cloud leaning over and looking down at earth below and saying, What’s God doing? I know that was God who spoke those promises to Abraham. What does that mean? And then the angel looking again over the edge of that cloud and looking down on Isaiah and hearing the prophecy of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all these others and saying, God, what are you doing? How does this fit with that? And how is it all going to come together to fulfill your eternal purpose? Both Peter and Paul say, we now know. And we know that this eternal purpose, this plan devised by God in his infinite wisdom before the foundation of the world, was all about Jesus Christ. Go back to our text in Ephesians chapter 3, and let’s look at a couple verses there.

In Ephesians chapter 3, let’s start in verse 6. Ephesians chapter 3, Paul talking about that mystery of God, the mystery of Christ that has now been revealed. Ephesians 3, verse 6, he says, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. This part of the mystery was that Gentiles would be included in that, but not just included into some kind of Jewish system and not just a part of the Judaism club, but that they would be a part of Jesus Christ. That was the plan. In one word, God’s eternal purpose, God’s plan was Christ. Read a little bit further in chapter 3, Ephesians chapter 3, look at verses 11 and 12 again. According to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.

Every piece of that puzzle that was laid on the table by prophets in the Old Testament, every piece of that puzzle was painting a portrait of Jesus Christ. That’s what the finished product looked like. It was Christ. That was the plan. He was the plan. Again, hold your fingers in Ephesians 3 and look what Paul says to his young apprentice Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 3. And in verse 16. He says, and without controversy, 1 Timothy 3.16, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. Let’s pause there. He’s talking about the same concept. This is the plan. This is the eternal purpose, the mystery of godliness. And here it is. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.

5. The Plan Culminated in the Church

We could spend all morning talking about that rich verse there. But suffice it to say that Paul says, this, without controversy, this is the mystery of godliness. And he goes on to describe Jesus Christ. He was God’s plan. Paul says, we, Gentile and Jew alike, can now participate in that wonderful plan, in that wonderful person. Now, Paul is going to go on to say in Ephesians chapter 3 that God had a plan. He had an eternal purpose that he purposed before the foundation of the world. And that plan was not made known in ages past, but was slowly revealed piece by piece of the puzzle was laid upon the table. And that plan, the final picture was of Jesus Christ. But that plan culminated in the body of Christ, the church.

Look at Ephesians chapter 3. This time look at verse 10. To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Paul, in speaking of this eternal purpose, which was Christ Jesus, says that the manifold wisdom of God will be made known by the church. Now let’s stop and think about how the church is going to make known the manifold wisdom of God. At first glance, we may read that verse very quickly and say, that’s a verse about evangelism. The church is supposed to go out and teach the manifold wisdom of God. Now, there’s certainly a sense in which that is true, but that’s not what Paul is saying here. Because he says, notice that the church makes known the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and powers in heavenly places.

If it was my responsibility as a member of the New Testament church today to make known the manifold wisdom of God according to this verse, I wouldn’t know how to do it. Because I don’t know how to get in hold of those principalities and powers in heavenly places to tell them. And so he doesn’t say I’m supposed to go on my neighbor, neighbor’s door and knock on the door and tell him about the manifold wisdom of God. Now, again, other passages of scripture speak to the importance of evangelism, but what he’s saying here is that the church, in a passive sense, makes known the manifold wisdom of God. As those pieces of the puzzle were being laid upon the table, prophets of old that were supplying those pieces by inspiration.

And even angels were wanting to know what’s going on here. What is God building? What is this going to be? And when the puzzle is complete, even the principalities and powers in heavenly places can see that the plan was Jesus Christ. And in his church and his people, they could see the wisdom of God. I don’t want to trivialize this concept. But those angels that wanted to know what God was doing. When that last piece of the puzzle was put in, and it was revealed that this was all about Jesus Christ and Him sacrificed, and it was all about His body of believers, that they all stood back in awe and said, That’s what He was doing. And they, along with us, go back and look at every prophecy with new eyes, don’t we?

We go back to Genesis 3 and say, that’s what he meant when he said that the seed of Mormon would crush the serpent’s head. That’s what Abraham was doing. That’s what David was talking about when he said, You’ll not leave my body in the grave and my soul in Sheol. Now I see what he was talking about. When he was talking about all would come to Jerusalem, and the law would pour forth from Mount Zion. We go back and we look at that in new eyes, and we see the wisdom of God when we look at his plan that culminated in his church. Back up to Ephesians 1 again, Ephesians chapter 1, and look at two verses there. Ephesians 1 verses 22 and 23, where he says, the apostle says this, and he, again, that’s the Father, put all things under his, that’s the Son’s feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Let’s apply that passage to our study this morning. He feels all in all. Jesus was the plan. He fulfilled the plan of God. He’s what every piece of the puzzle was pointing to. But Paul says the church is the fullness of Him. In other words, Jesus didn’t come to just show us what the puzzle looked like. He didn’t come just to fulfill prophecy and say, we’ve checked those boxes off. All those things that were prophesied now have been done. He came for a purpose. Yes, to fulfill prophecy, but prophecy was pointing to something rather than just its fulfillment. It was pointing to God choosing us in Him before the foundation of the world. And every saved believer who becomes a part of His body is the fullness of Him who feels all in all.

Conclusion

What a wonderful time that we live in. That we can see the manifold wisdom of God in the completed plan. And we can be a part of that plan. Will you pray with me, please? Dear God and Father in heaven, we’re so thankful for your love, for your grace and your wonderful plan. So thankful for the prophets of old, though they did not fully know and understand their part in that plan that they revealed it. We’re so thankful for your Son who fulfilled that plan to every detail and did so willingly. We’re so thankful that you would include us, that we could be, as His church, His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Thank you for our opportunity to know your will and to be a part of your plan.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.