01 Jan 1/4/26 Ephesians 3:1-12 “The Big Prayer”
1/4/26 Ephesians 3:1-12 “The Big Prayer”
Well, I hope that you are all settled in to your New Year’s resolutions. Maybe there are people who have started on a Daniel fast. We used to do that at the beginning of the new year. No matter what you do this New Year; please remember to do it for the glory of God. He is first and foremost in all we do. I think that because my birthday is on New Year’s Day, I discovered something that some don’t learn until later. I remember staying up until midnight once waiting for the New Year. In the olden days they had someone like Guy Lombardo play the music. Sometimes Robert Goulet would sing. Anyway, I remember that I discovered at an early age that this celebrated day is just like any other day. There was no real difference to me. What I’m trying to say is that this week is like any other week only it is a week later. However, I think that things change a little when we become Christians because we now realize that God might be using us a little different this week than last and that is good. Anyway, our Scripture today talks about doing something a little different. Let’s see what we can learn.
There is a pastor named Mike Leiter who used to work at a Christian bookstore. He had only been there for a short while when he noticed 2 kinds of customers. The first comes in slowly, nervously and when asked if he needs help, he will say ‘no thanks’ and continue to look. He is uneasy about being in a ‘religious’ store. They don’t want to be seen in there and many times they walk away empty handed. The second kind come marching in and asks for a certain book. He finds it and gets out his cash and is out in no time. Now the question is this. Why does one customer walk out empty handed and the other got what he needed? The answer is boldness and confidence. The 2nd customer had the boldness to ask.
The same principle applies to our walk with Jesus. Millions of people, and maybe even some here today, live with many of their needs unmet because they don’t have the boldness and confidence to pursue them. For some people, they walk out of Sunday worship week after week with nothing. I have always said that if you put nothing into worship then you will get nothing out of it. For some prayer life is meaningless because they feel all their prayers are unanswered. One of the main reasons for this is that they don’t have the boldness to ask and the confidence in our Lord Jesus Christ that He can answer our prayers.
Before we begin on the lesson today, I would like to talk about this for a moment. It is actually part of the reading but we aren’t going to focus on it. Does everyone know the secret to making friends and keeping them? Here is a little tip and it is for free. Whenever you are trying to make friends or impress someone, you never talk about yourself. You talk about the other person. The same thing is true in our prayers. If we continue this reading, you will see a prayer that Paul prays for the Ephesians. Paul prays for things that will help to further the Kingdom of God. He prays for God’s glory. When Jesus prayed at Gethsemane, He prayed that not His will be done, but the Father’s will. So, if you find yourself in a spiritual rut or if you feel stagnated, which we all do at times, then change your focus. Put your focus on the will of God for anything that you pray for. I think you will find a difference.
Paul begins our reading by talking about the mystery of God. His audience is much more in the dark than we are here today. Most of us know the mystery of faith but these people had never heard of it before. So, the Ephesians and many others to whom Paul preached needed gentle guiding and then reinforcing. Paul was very good at this. He laid the story on the line and then told the people exactly who Jesus was. Then He asked people to become Christian. Next to Jesus, Paul had the best way of witnessing that there has ever been.
I think that in today’s world, witnessing has become a lost art, at least in this country. Satan has got us running down all sorts of rabbit trails. Abortion, homosexuality and many other social justice issues take precedence over everything else about God. One of the first mysteries that we have to learn is the mystery of faith. All these extraneous things I just mentioned mean nothing unless you have accepted Jesus Christ into your heart. I try to preach that Jesus Christ died for your sins. Everything He did was just for you. Once you confess your sins and invite Him to be Lord and Savior of your life, then He will lead you.
This is why your prayer life is so important. This is why you need to get out of your rut. We have to deconstruct our lives. I will do all I can to bring you closer to Jesus but I’m probably not going to lead you into the various social issues of our time. I will let Jesus lead you in these things because He is a far better leader than I can ever imagine to be. If He is telling you that your ministry should go here or there, then go. I will support you all the way. But just remember that Jesus will not tell you to go places that are against His will as mentioned in the Bible. You see, Satan is very good at sounding like Jesus. Don’t be fooled by this imposter. Follow Jesus. Follow the real deal. We have far too many following falsehoods.
Anyway, up to this point, Paul hasn’t told them what the mystery is, exactly. So now he begins by telling them that it is the administration of God’s grace. Paul was granted grace. If you remember, he used to persecute Christians. He was a murderer. Even though he was responsible for many terrible things, including not understanding the Scriptures even though he spent a lifetime studying them, God granted Paul grace. God granted this criminal grace. And now Paul is extending this grace to all who will listen. Paul has been totally changed and the Ephesians and others can see this.
This is something that we have to be aware of today also. Some of you have grown up in the church. You cannot even remember ever not being a Christian. I think that is the best way to be. You don’t remember ever being without grace and you should praise the Lord for that. So, you know grace. You should be able to pass grace on to all you meet. Don’t get caught up in all the social issues of the day. They have nothing to do with the grace Jesus wants everyone to have. Most of the time, these are the issues where we need grace and grace can only come after we come to know Jesus. Sometimes we put the cart before the horse.
Others of us came to Jesus later on in life and we remember all too well what it is like to live without grace. We remember times where we had no place to turn. We remember when we had no hope and everything was caving in on us. This is the premise of many a revival meeting. There are many, many of our friends and neighbors who don’t know Jesus and live in no hope. Through these meetings hopefully we can administer God’s grace to others. We will do this only for the benefit of the kingdom.
Then Paul tells his audience that the mystery has been revealed to him. Paul is not being conceited here. I think that the secret might have been given to him on the road to Damascus but it might have been a little later. Anyway, I think that he is just stating the facts. It is no different than my telling you that I know exactly where I will be when I die. I have been given the responsibility of helping as many people as I can to know this for sure in their lives. This is not a mystery anymore but it was before the time of Paul.
Up to this point in time, salvation had been pretty much reserved for the Jews. But now this was all changing. Paul is bringing the message that Jesus Christ is not just for the Jews but He is for everyone in the world. And this is the mystery that he is beginning to unfold. This was quite a deal for these early people and it is for us today also. You see in our modern world, especially in this country, we like to think that Jesus is for us but not so much for other people. We like to have country clubs we call churches. We certainly don’t want the Muslims or the Hindus coming to Jesus and definitely not the really poor. I mean absolutely no bad will toward any of these groups because they are all welcomed by Jesus. And if they can be welcomed by Jesus, then it is up to us to welcome them also. The mystery is that whether we are Jews or Gentiles, Buddhists or Christians, we are all heirs to the throne of Christ. We are all members of one body and we share together in the promise of Jesus. I would guess that there are many fundamentalist groups that would not preach on this but it is necessary. It is our job not to discriminate against anyone who wants to come to know Jesus. All we are to do is invite, invite and invite.
In the next few verses Paul talks about sharing this mystery. He tells again how he is the least of the people. He is the bottom of the bottom. Still God chose him to take this message and spread it. I think that this is the most important aspect of evangelism. Many in our modern world go around thinking they are better than everyone because they have Jesus in their hearts and they know where they are going. This is the kind of thinking that will make churches shrink. This is the type of thinking that will cause us all kinds of grief because it is flat out wrong thinking. It’s not quite stinkin thinkin but it is close.
We have to consider ourselves to be the bottom of the bottom. If we are going to win people over to Christ we will never do it by arrogance. We will never do it by talking about ourselves as I have already mentioned. We need to go to the place where people are living. We need to be worse off than they are. We need to be able to assure them that we know the pain they are living with. When they see that we are just like them, they will listen. And we are just like them because we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The only difference between them and us is that we have a place to go with our pain, our shortcomings, our sin. We have Jesus Christ and we want to share Him with all we meet.
Paul is telling us that now this wonderful mystery is available to all through the church. From kings to peasants, the Good News is for all. You never see Paul backing away from the rulers and the priests. He ministered to all he met. This is why he was stoned and flogged. This is why he was constantly being thrown in jail. Paul had Jesus in his heart and Jesus uses this. He went to places where no one would dare to go. He went there because Jesus tells him to go.
We are no different today. It is easy to minister to those who are just like us. It is a little harder to minister to those who don’t have as much as we do. But it is almost impossible to minister to those in power in this country. We do not have many people like Paul in the world today who will stand up to authority.
Paul lays all this out because we may now approach God or Jesus. This was rather unheard of during the time of Paul. People went through the priests in order to go to God. They would never go directly to God. So, this is something quite new. They now had a personal God who they could go to directly. Wow! This is good stuff!
Many people know nothing about this today also. We are the only religion in the world that has a personal God, a personal Savior. In all other religions you had better bring a sacrifice or stand in a certain way or wear the right clothes if you are going to try to get in touch with God. All us Christians have to do is ask. All you have to do is put your minds to God and He will be there. There is nothing between us and God and we should praise the Lord for this. This is the Good News. This is what Epiphany Sunday is all about.
People always tell me that they are too bad to come to Jesus. They have done so many bad things that they feel they are unworthy of God. Well in one way they are right and in another, absolutely wrong. You can never be too bad to come to Jesus. However, you may not be worthy but then none of us are worthy. Therefore, we all need Jesus. You can have Jesus who will intercede on your behalf so that you can come directly to God. Jesus Christ is waiting for our friends and neighbors to confess their sins and accept him as their Lord and Savior in their lives. Then they too will have what we have. Our problems may not be fixed and we all know that. But we now have someone, the very maker of the universe and everything in it, who we can take all our problems and troubles. This is something to rejoice about. This is the mystery of God laid bare. Praise the Lord.
As I stated earlier, we are sometimes like the bookstore customer who doesn’t ask for help. We lack boldness and confidence. This even applies to me as sometimes I find myself going through the motions of prayer. I heard of a pastor that suffered from this when a colleague told him, “John, pray big prayers.” So, He prayed that a country would be changed because these people were going there on a short term mission trip. That is a big prayer.
In a moment I’m going to try to pray a big prayer for all you folks. It will happen because each person here is perfectly capable of doing whatever God requires of you. There are no exceptions. That is because we have a God who is personal and loves us beyond what any imagination can imagine. Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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