©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

09/28/03

Behind The Scenes

Ephesians 3:10

9/28-03 Behind The Scenes

EPH 3:10 in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

After all of my side-tracks last week

I’m going to bring us back to Ephesians 3:10 this morning

and see if I can help us gain a little more understanding of what’s happening in this remarkable statement.

If you’ve been with us in our study during the past few weeks

you will remember that it is this statement made by Paul in Ephesians 3:10

that Paul has been moving us toward

from the very beginning of his letter.

All the information he has given us along the way

concerning the recreative work of God in our lives,

all the information about us personally -

about God placing His Spirit within us,

and His creating an eternal Father/child union between us and Him,

and about His pouring out His kindness, and grace, and compassion upon us,

and all the information about His creation of His Church -

this remarkable work of God in which we are joined to one another

in ways that literally form us into a living, growing dwelling place of God Himself on this earth,

Paul gave us all of this information

as essential background through which we could then understand

what it means for the manifold wisdom of God to now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

There are things taking place on this earth

that our God wants us to know about,

things that are central to the very purposes for which God brought us into existence,

and yet things that most people are utterly unaware of throughout most of their lives.

In just a few minutes

I’m going to let us eavesdrop on some of those things,

but before I do

I need to help us adjust our assumptions and perceptions about the unseen world around us.

When we human beings talk about something that is “real”

what we usually mean by that

is something that we can relate to through our five senses.

If we can see it,

or feel it,

or smell it,

or hear it,

or taste it

then it’s REAL.

It is something that exists in reality in this physical world.

But when we start thinking about what we sometimes call “the spirit world”

our natural instincts makes us tend to relate to whatever or whoever may exist in that world

as being less “real”

because we cannot communicate with it through our five senses.

When we think about a “spirit” or a “ghost”

we just naturally think of something

that is all thin and unsubstantial,

something that has no real substance to it.

When we think about God Himself

we tend to do the same thing.

But when God talks with us about the unseen world around us

He makes it clear

that it is in every way even more “real” than anything we can communicate with thorough our senses.

Maybe it will help to state it this way.

There are two distinct sections within this world God has created for us.

There is one section, the section in which we exist,

that we can communicate with through our 5 senses.

There is a second section that coexists right along with this one

that our senses cannot perceive.

The personalities and beings in this second section, however,

have the ability to communicate with both sections.

They can see and hear both us and themselves.

These two sections of creation coexist together

and interact with one another constantly.

We are given tiny glimpses of these two sections co-existing repeatedly throughout Scripture.

Do you remember that incident that took place between Jesus and His disciples following His resurrection?

JOH 20:26-29 And after eight days again His disciples were inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst, and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

That passage is great stuff for us

because it places these two sections of God’s creation side-by-side.

Was Jesus any less “real” in the few seconds between His entrance into that room

and the time when His disciples could see Him and touch Him?

Of course not.

All He did

was to alter Himself in such a way

that the human senses could recognize and respond to Him.

This room in which we sit right now

is filled with several hundred people.

But there are many other beings present in this room as well,

beings that are just as real,

just as “alive” as we are,

but beings that we cannot sense with our physical senses.

At the top of the list of those beings is God Himself.

He’s right here with us,

with you this very minute.

And there are angels

and demons present with us as well.

And our God tells us

that the beginning of all true faith,

the starting place for all true Biblical faith

is our choosing to accept the absolute reality of that section of creation that we cannot see or hear.

Or more specifically,

choosing to accept the reality of the Creator God in that unseen section,

even though we cannot directly communicate with Him through our senses.

Do you remember that statement in Hebrews 11:6?

HEB 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is...

The first step in all true Biblical faith

is realizing that our 5 senses in no way define the limits of this real world,

and that there is, in fact, an absolutely real unseen world around us,

and the Creator God exists in that world.

...for he who comes to God must believe that He is...

He is what?

He is there!

He is here!

That isn’t all that’s involved in Biblical faith, of course.

The author of Hebrews goes on to say,

HEB 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

He’s there

and He is good to all who turn to Him,

to all who reach out to Him.

Isn’t that fascinating?

Not only is true faith not some sort of blind leap,

in reality it is simply choosing to stop the charade long enough

to open our eyes and acknowledge the way things really are.

But my point is simply this -

just because the unseen world around us is not visible to our physical eyes,

don’t ever allow yourself to think it is therefore in some way less real.

The truth is

it is far more real

and more permanent than anything we can communicate with through our senses.

Everything we can communicate with through our senses right now

will one day utterly cease to exist.

It’s all disposable,

temporary.

In fact God tells us that He will one day remove it all utterly from existence.

But everything that exists in the unseen world

will continue to exist for all of eternity.

Paul says it so much more simply and clearly -

2CO 4:18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

OK, now with that as background,

I want to us to listen in on a couple of conversations

that I believe might have taken place in that unseen world

on two very important days in the flow of human history.

The first takes place the day Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

Satan steps into the presence of God with a little sneer on his face and says to his Creator,

“So how’s this new creation of Your’s going, God?

A little trouble in paradise?

What a shame! And after all you did for them, too.

Tough luck, that.

Look at that!

You created the most remarkable world for them to live in.

You surrounded them with beauty and wonder that never ends.

You even let them see You face-to-face at the end of every day,

walking with them in that garden of theirs.

And still they turned away from You.

This whole “free-will” thing just isn’t working out the way you planned, is it?

I could have warned you, of course.

Looks like they, too, prefer my way to yours.

And I have a feeling it’s going to get a whole lot worse, too.

You just watch, God -

it won’t be long before You’ll become nothing more to them

than a little bit of profanity they spew out of their mouths countless times a day

when things don’t go just right for them.

‘Oh God!

Oh God!

Oh God!’

That’s all Your going to be to them now -

just a little curse word,

like a little bit of spit in their mouths.

Tough luck, God.

Looks like You did it wrong again.”

And in response

God says nothing.

And then we’ll move ahead a few thousand years

to that evening when Jesus Christ hung dead on the cross.

Once again Satan enters the presence of God and speaks.

“Well here’s another one of Your banner days, oh mighty Creator!

It looks like “plane B” had about as much success as “plan A”.

If they wouldn’t respond to Your presence with them in the Garden of Eden,

what possibly made You think they would flock to You

when You crawled inside one of their bodies and lived with them in their filth?

Not only did they not like You,

they seem to have hated you even more than before.

Look at that.

You healed their diseases,

You restored their broken bodies,

You even brought a few of them back from the dead,

and they responded to You

by beating that body You were in almost beyond recognition,

and spitting on You,

and ripping the flesh from your bones,

and then nailing you to that cross until your body died.

Have you got a “plan C”?

If so I just can’t wait to see it.

It looks to me like I win again.”

And God responded by saying nothing.

But then something began to happen on this earth,

something Satan could have never anticipated.

It started with Christ’s lifeless body coming back to life.

But that was only the beginning.

From that point on

God began to reveal to us, His creation

mysteries that had been hidden in Him from before the foundations of the world,

mysteries about the heart of God

mysteries that we could never have even begun to understand

until we saw the Son of God lifted up on that cross for all to see.

He brought a special group of apostles and prophets onto the scene as His messengers

and entrusted them with what He called the “GOOD NEWS OF GOD”.

And it was good news indeed,

unlike anything the human race had ever heard before.

Rather than pouring out His wrath on His creation as we would expect

in response to all of our rebellion and blasphemy against Him,

God used that cross of Jesus Christ

as the platform He had been waiting for since He first chose to bring man into existence,

the platform from which,

for the first time ever,

He could allow us to look into His heart.

And from that platform He spoke of His love for us,

of His compassion for us,

of His longing to pour out on us His kindness,

and His forgiveness,

and His grace.

JOH 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

2CO 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

2CO 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

HEB 13:5 "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,"

And in response to His words

and to the demonstration of their truth though the life, and death, and resurrection of Christ,

a remarkable thing began to happen on the earth.

Some of His creation stopped their running,

and their hiding,

and their frantic, driven efforts to find some purpose or meaning in life

long enough to listen to these strange words coming from our God.

With many of us

at first the words came to us more as a longing, a feeling than as a conscious thought,

like a gentle fragrance filling the room,

or a distant, haunting melody.

Could it really be?

How could our God want us?

Why would He even care?

But then, as His words and their remarkable reality

took on form,

and shape,

and substance in our minds

some of us stopped running away from Him,

then turned,

and knelt before Him,

and responded to His offer of kindness,

bringing to Him the only thing He asked from us - simple faith that He was telling us the truth.

And, wonder of wonders,

for the first time ever

people began to see the heart of their Creator

and, in response to what they saw,

they began to fall in love with their God.

First a few dozen,

and then a few hundred,

and then a few thousand,

and then more and more and more

as Jesus Christ REV 5:9 ... purchased for God with His blood men and women from every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

people who found their hearts COL 2:7 ... overflowing with gratitude,

people who, for the first time ever,

found within themselves a MAT 5:6 ... hunger and thirst for righteousness...

people who discovered JOH 7:38 From their innermost being ... rivers of living water...flowing out of them,

people who knew both sides,

who knew life without the love of their God,

and life with His love,

and people who would never choose to leave His presence again.

And Satan had no idea what to do.

Power he understood.

Warfare he understood.

Rebellion he understood.

Lust, and hatred, and winning and loosing he understood.

But people who knew their God honestly

and loved Him deeply

he could not understand.

And so he began to wage his warfare of lies,

trying to destroy what he saw happening on the earth.

“God doesn’t really love you, you know.

You’re not really His type.

What? Do you think you’re like the Apostle Paul?

Or Saint Peter?

I don’t think so.

He loves you when you do everything perfectly...maybe.

You can’t trust Him, you know.

Look at some of those things He says to you.

Now honestly, do you think that stuff will work in REAL life?

He’s out to cheat you,

to rob you of all the really good things in life.”

And Satan’s warfare of deception continues to this day.

But everything God wants to say to Satan

and to all those who have aligned themselves with him in the unseen world

He now says clearly,

powerfully,

moment by moment through His people, His church.

EPH 3:10 and the manifold wisdom of God is now made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

You see, from the very beginning of all that is

there has never been a Plan A and a Plan B.

There has always, only been one plan in the heart and mind of God.

It was a plan that understood perfectly

the nature of love

and the nature of free will

and what would bring about the kind of relationships He wanted

between Himself and the people He created.

He knew His power alone would never draw us to Him.

He knew this incredible world He created for us would not do it.

He knew the only thing that would ever bring in us

a true, deep, heart response of love to Him

was if He could create a way in which we could first see His heart response to us.

He needed a way in which He could allow us to see into His heart,

into the depth of His love for us.

And there was only one way.

Allowing us to see His response to us when we’d done everything right would never do.

We would always assume His kindness to us

was simply His response to our obedience to Him.

No, what He needed was a world in which we truly had the freedom to rebel against Him,

a world in which we could honestly shake our little fists in His face,

and turn our backs on the God who brought us into existence.

And then, in the face of that rebellion,

with all the pain, and suffering, and anguish it would bring,

then and only then would He be able to show us the depths of His heart

as we watched the way in which He responded to our rebellion against Him.

And what we saw as we stood there in our defiance,

our lives filled with chaos and pain because of our own sin against Him,

what we saw was our God

taking our sin onto Himself

and paying the debt we owed Him

with His own death in our place on the cross.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son...

And for those who listened,

and who dared to look into the heart of God

and responded to the love they saw there,

for the first time God became not just our Creator,

but our Father,

our Savior,

our Redeemer,

and our Friend.

What a plan!

EPH 3:10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

And the whole thing rests on one crucial point -

our ability to hear correctly what He is saying to us through Jesus Christ.

And that’s why Paul says,

or rather why he does what he does next

in this letter to the Ephesians.

We can’t do much with this until next week,

but I at least want you to hear it in context.

Listen to the words that follow this statement in Ephesians 3:10.

EPH 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

The success of the whole plan

rests on our ability to hear His love.

But we’ll pick it up here next week.