God's Wisdom on Display - Ephesians 3:1-13

Church, how many of you have a display case at home that maybe shows off trophies you've won or like your prized possessions? I imagine many of you have that type of thing. Last month, I went to a Royals baseball game. You can go into the kind of hall of fame area, and you can see some of the trophies that the Royals have won. I haven't been to the chiefs stadium where you can get in and see the trophy case, the display case that has all the Super Bowl trophies. Earlier this year, I took my parents to the Nelson Atkins Museum, which is just a display case. If you've been there, it's a beautiful building, but the building is just a display case for all the things inside of it that they are trying to show off, trying to impress with it. We're just overwhelmed with at times. In your own house. You may have something like that. Hey, here's some trophies I want, or here's something I just really value. And I put it on display so that others can come see it. It's there to be seen. You know that God has a display case? Also? His display case is the church. So what Paul's going to say in Ephesians 31 to 13, that God, through the church, is displaying his wisdom to the world. Now, unlike the Nelson Atkins, or the royals display area, or your own display case, which is a static thing. It's just there. Once it's built, there it is. The church is this living, growing organism. The body of Christ that's displaying God's wisdom in all of its suffering and weakness and failure and tatteredness. The church is God's display case. It's where he is displaying his wisdom. The main idea of our message today is very simple. God displays his wisdom in the church. And Paul impacts that in Ephesians chapter 3. If you have your Bibles turn there. This page 977 of the house Bible. As you're turning there, a little background, if you're new to Northman, if you're visiting with us for the 1st time, we have been working through the book of Ephesians, in chapter one and 2 of this letter, Paul in chapter one, highlights how those who are in Christ, who have put their trust in him, have been adopted by God, have been given an inheritance by God, have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, who they were given by God. All these amazing things, all these blessings that we have as followers of Christ. And then he shifts into chapter 2 to talk about this major division that existed in the 1st century between Jewish people and Gentiles. And Gentile was just anyone who wasn't Jewish. So if you go to the Old Testament, God called Abraham and said, Abraham through you, I'm going to create a nation, a multitude of people that will then bless the whole world and reconcile humanity back to God and to each other. And then Abraham had Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob, and God works his promises. The people grow and become this massive people who are in Egypt, God calls them out with Moses, and then says, now you're my people. And then he starts working through them. By the time Jesus comes on the scene, there was a massive temple that God had said, build for me, where I'm going to dwell, and that's where you'll connect with me. There was a room inside that temple called the holy of holies where once a year, a high priest from the nation of Israel, from the tribe of Levi, would go in and make atonement for all the people. And God says, that room is where I'm dwelling especially. Now, they knew God lived everywhere, or God was everywhere. We said, in this place is where you're going to connect and deal with the sin in the nation. Within that temple, if you were here last week, Matt talked about this, there was a, I mean, it's a massive complex. So if you've ever been to Jerusalem and been on the temple mount. It's huge. football fields size. There was a section for the Gentiles. So they could come in and be in this kind of section. And then there was this massive wall, like a physical wall, and on it, it says, no Gentiles beyond this point. So if you didn't have the backstage pass to get into the next area, you weren't allowed, and Gentiles weren't allowed. And if they went across, the Jewish nation, they had authority from Rome to execute someone who crossed into their temple. And so there was this real divide that existed between Jew and Gentile, and Paul's teaching is going to show that that divide has been broken down in Christ, which was God's plan all along. But when we open up chapter three, we see 1st that Paul is suffering for God's display case for the church. Look what he says, verse one, for this reason, that's everything in chapters one and two. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you, Gentiles. He says, so everything I've said before, then Paul says, hey, I'm a prisoner on behalf of you Gentiles. Well, how did Paul become a prisoner and where is he in prison? Paul is in Rome. About 4 years before this, 4 or 5 years before this, Paul had come to Jerusalem. Now he was already a believer. He has spent many years going around the Mediterranean area and planting churches and sharing the gospel, getting into trouble, having good times and tough times, and he went back to Jerusalem, and he was in the temple, and he was fulfilling a vow. He had taken some other Jewish men. And while he was in there, some Jewish people from Asia came and said, hey, Paul brought this guy, Trophimus, into the temple, passed the wall. Now, Trophimus was a Gentile from Ephesus. He didn't go in there. Paul didn't do that, but they accused him of doing that because he had been seen with this guy. So what had happened, Paul's hanging out in Jerusalem with a Gentile. Jews and Gentiles don't get along in the 1st century. They don't really associated all. And here's Paul associating with this guy. And all the Jewish people in Jerusalem knew that Paul did this, and they didn't like him for it. And they said, oh, he took him into the temple, past the dividing wall. And so Paul then gets arrested for that. A mob has formed. Paul then begins to defend himself about how Jesus had called him and how Jesus had appeared to him. And then Jesus had told Paul, you can read this in Acts 22. He said, hey, Paul, I'm going to send you to the Gentiles, and then the mob just exploded. And so the Roman authorities took Paul and said, hey, we got to hold on to you. We got figure out what's going on. He went to trial. He ends up being transported to Caesarea, just away from Jerusalem, because the people in Jerusalem were plotting to kill him. And he ends up in prison there for 2 years. He eventually appeals to Rome. He gets on a boat, he gets shipwrecked. He has all these adventures. He ends up in Rome, where he is when he writes the letter to the Ephesians, and he's been in prison there about 2 years. Now, he's under house arrest, so he can have visitors and people are coming to him and he's sharing the gospel. But he says, look, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles. When he says on behalf of you Gentiles, he means it. He said, I was in Jerusalem, and I was accused of taking a Gentile beyond the barrier wall. which I didn't do, but I have been sharing the gospel, the good news with Gentiles. And the gospel is more shocking than taking a Gentile across this barrier wall. Here's what Paul's message was saying when he went over. He said, look, the holy of holies, where only one Jewish man once a year could go. to atone for the sins of the people. He says, that area, access to God's very presence is now open to all of humanity. Jew, Gentile men, women, because of Christ. The reason there is this barrier and only one person once a year was because God's holy, in his holiness, in our sin, don't get along. That his holiness would be very detrimental to us in our sin. And so he said, once a year, one guy can come in and atone for that. But Jesus, when he was crucified, it says the veil dividing the temple from the holy of holies was split in two, the message being that access to God has been granted to everybody. So Paul's going around saying, I didn't just really bring a Gentile man across this physical barrier wall in the temple. He's been teaching that everybody, Jew and Gentile, has complete access to God. And he says, I'm a prisoner. Here's a prisoner in Rome, but look what he says, I am a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He says, yeah, Rome has me in house arrest, but I'm not their prisoner. Jesus is the one that put him there. Says Jesus has me in Rome, under house arrest, for you Gentiles. And then he says in verse two, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you. That's the whole thing, God had called Paul to go to the Gentiles, and he said, you're going to suffer when you do this. which is God's plan. We see this in the gospel, that God, the son, becomes human and suffers for us and then is glorified. And so Paul says, I'm just walking the same path. I'm suffering now, but there is coming vindication and redemption and glorification. He says, I'm doing this for you, Gentiles. Paul's suffering for God's display case. Look down at verse 13. So what we have in chapter 3, verse one and two, Paul begins a prayer. He says, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ, Jesus on behalf of you, Gentiles. And many of your translations probably have a dash right there. If you look down to verse 14, that same phrase for this reason appears again. What happens is Paul is probably dictating his letter. So he's speaking this and someone's writing it down. And he says, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Then he's going to say in verse 14 how he's praying for these Gentiles. But when he says he's a prisoner, he then gets sidetracked, but on a sidetrack that matters, where he says, I need to explain to you what it means that I'm been sent to the Gentiles and what the gospel is and what the message is. And then he comes back in 14. We'll pick up that part next week. But he has this aside, and at the end of 13, he kind of brings it to a close. He says, so I ask you, the Ephesians, not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you. Which is your glory. What a weird thing to say. Paul's in prison. The Ephesians are likely going, I don't know if this, like, belief we have is the right one. The guy who told us about this is in prison. He's suffering. Is this the way it works? And he says, look, my suffering is for your glory. I'm suffering so that the gospel can go out to more people. He's in Rome, and it says for 2 years. He stayed under house arrest and people came to him and he shared the gospel with them. Those who are in Caesar's court and others says, the gospel still going out, that I'm right where God wants me, and that's for the glory of the Gentiles. And by glory, he means their salvation, that they can hear about Christ and learn about him and find salvation in Christ. And so Paul says, I've been suffering for God's display case. He then, in verses 2 to 9 begins to unpack, that God's wisdom is found in the mystery of the gospel. By show of hands, you know, congregational interaction. How many of you like a good mystery novel or a good mystery movie? Yeah, I love them. A good one. Now, there's some bad ones. Anything made by M. Night Shyamalan is a bad one. We can talk later, write on Connect card. But a good, you know, murder mystery is just a good mystery. I love Sherlock Holmes, the knives out movies are great, where you're watching this story unfold or you're reading it, and you're just waiting, like, how did this happen? Who done it? How is this going to resolve? And then at some point, the detective stands up and you have the scene where they reveal how it all fits together and all the pieces come together. Even after you've watched the movie or read the book, if someone says, hey, what kind of movie or book is that? You would go, oh, it's a mystery. You know the answer. When we say mystery, Paul's going to say a mystery is something that wasn't revealed. And then it has been revealed. And so he said, there was this mystery. a thing we didn't know. And now God has revealed it. And he says, God's wisdom is found in the mystery of the gospel. Let me read verses 3 to 9. And then I'm gonna unpack them. He says this. It says, how the mystery was made known to me by Revelation. As I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men and other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 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, him for ages in God, who created all things. Paul can put a lot of words together. We can be honest. Paul can string a lot of words together with commas and stuff. So let's unpack this bit by bit. Paul says the mystery was made known to him by revelation. So if you go read Paul's story, he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul had been a persecutor of Christians, who was heading to Damascus, to arrest Christians. Jesus comes to him and says, hey, why are you persecuting me? Paul then becomes a follower of Christ. And then he says he goes to Jerusalem and eventually heads into the wilderness where Jesus reveals to him the mystery, how God's plan of the son becoming human and dying on a cross and rising again makes sense of the Old Testament. So in a sense when Paul goes into the desert. Jesus shows up and he's like the detective who says, let me put it all together for you. And he puts everything together. And Paul says, the Spirit has revealed this information to the apostles, those were the original followers of Jesus and the prophets. So not everyone was getting this type of revelation. There was a small group of people, that God said, I'm going to work through you to get this information out. That's why Paul, when you read his story, was doing all sorts of miracles. He raised a dead person, he healed a lame person. He struck a guy blind who was opposing him. He did all sorts of miracles. All of that was to validate that he was from God. Because anyone can show up and say, hey, I spoke to God last night, he told me something. I would be cautious if anyone's saying that. The God spoke to me directly and he told me something. And they were cautious when Paul showed up and then he raised the dead person. And then he healed a blind person. Jesus himself said it one time, if you won't believe the things I'm saying, at least believe the things I'm doing, all the miracles, these miracles are validations. And so there's a small group that received direct revelation from God. Paul said, I was one of that group. But then look what he says, as I have written briefly. The Ephesians are reading about what Paul had been given by Jesus. That's what the Bible is. The vast majority of humanity is going to read about what God has done. It's going to hear from scripture about what God has done. We're not having direct revelation from God, like Moses or Paul. Paul says he was unique in that regard, and now he's written it down. That's why we stress here at Northon. We're going to read the Bible. We're going to unpack the Bible. You're not going to find you a pastor sitting in a closet at night praying, God, tell me what to say tomorrow. Give me direct revelation. He's already done that. To Paul. Two Matthew, 2 Mark, 2 Moses, and they've written it down. You're going to find your pastors going, God, show me what you've said. Help me to understand it so I can then communicate that to our people and how to apply it. So that's why every week you're going to have a stand up here and explain scripture. Paul says, I was told this by Jesus directly. I'm now telling it to you. And he says, this mystery hadn't been revealed before. God had a plan that he was working through time from the moment Adam and Eve sent. In fact, before they ever were created, God said, here's how I'm going to fix the problem that's coming. God knows the end from the beginning and everything in between, and he has a plan. And that plan involved calling Abraham, some 2000 years before Jesus was born, 4000 years from our day. That plan involved calling Moses. That planning called involved calling David to be king. It says, David, you'll always have a son on the throne. The whole Old Testament was God working. And now, Paul's saying, we didn't know how all that was going to work out. We didn't know how it was going to fit together. How was God going to keep all of his promises? And the answer is, in Jesus. He says, this is the mystery that was hidden for the ages. And then he ties that mystery directly to a part of it, which is that the Gentiles. Look at verse six. He says, this is the mystery. So he's revealing it. It is not hidden. It's not like, oh, we don't know. We need to go pray about it or say, God revealed to me the mystery of Paul that you gave him. Paul tells us what it is. This is the mystery that the Gentiles, our fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel. And gospel just means good news. It's the good news that God is accomplishing his purpose. So what's the mystery? Paul's saying the mystery is that the Gentiles who are outside of God's chosen people until this time are now being included, which was God's plan all along. This is how God was working to redeem the world to himself and humanity to each other. He says the fellow heirs. They're going to receive the inheritance that God's chosen people at the time, the Jewish people say, we're going to inherit. They're partakers of the same body. They're in the same family. And they're partakers of the promise to Abraham. We hear this, and it's not shocking to us. We read this, a predominantly Gentile church. And we're not shocked. There's no kind of religious divisions today that existed in Paul's day. Here's what Paul's saying, though. And it would have the same kind of tension we have today. Paul saying, God has changed kind of the immigration rules or the citizenship rules of his people. Prior to this, it would have been. Are you descended from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, into the 12 tribes? Are you a Jewish person? Are you following the Mosaic law? There's the requirements to be part of God's people. And Paul shows them and says, hey, God was cool with that. God set that up, and now God's changed it and said, if you want to be a part of God's people, trust Jesus. Which means the temple that existed in Jerusalem is no longer relevant. God had a purpose for it, and now he's moved on, that the sacrificial system had a purpose to point to Jesus, Jesus has shown up, God's moved on. Circumcision, had a purpose, God's moved on. He says, faith in Jesus is now the kind of badge of citizenship. You can feel how people would not have been happy about that. Like there would have been an uproar. Our country's wrestling over immigration. Every country wrestles over immigration. And if you start changing the rules, you go, who gives you the authority to change the rules, that's what they were asking, Paul, and Paul says, what God does. Because God became human. and died on a cross and rose again. He's opened access to everybody. And Paul is saying, that's the mystery that the Gentiles. The whole world now, when they put their faith in Christ, they become fellow heirs, members of God's people, partakers of the promise that God has for his people. And that's what he had intended all along. That's the mystery. And Paul says of this gospel, verse 7, I was made a minister. He said, I was made a servant of this, according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. Paul says, nothing about what I'm doing is my own power. Paul is not doing his miracles because he's special. Paul says, I'm only doing miracles because God's working in me. That's God's power working, not his own. It says, to me, though, I am the very least of all the saints. The literal translation of that would be, I'm lesser than the least of all the saints. So if you could find the least saint. If you could find that, like the bottom of the barrel saint, Paul says, if you could dig a hole, I'm down there. And we think, Paul, come on. Yeah, you wrote a large part of the New Testament. You pretty awesome. But Paul knew, he had stood at the feet of Stephen when he was stoned and held the coats of the men doing it. He had persecuted Christians himself, had had Christians put to death, had Christians put in prison. So when he says, I'm lesser than the least, he means it. He's not making up something. He's not being hyperbolic. You go, oh, I'm really kind of awesome, but let me act like I'm not. You know, he was horrible. And he admits it. He said, I was opposed to God in what he was doing. I'm the very least of all the saints. He says, but God has given me grace to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. That word preach, by the way. Don't be confused. We use that word preach today to kind of say what I'm doing right now. If you're standing up on a Sunday, you preach. The word in scripture just means to proclaim it's closer to when someone evangelizes. So if you go out and share your faith with someone, that's the word we would use. So it would be better for Paul to say, look, for the ESV to say, this grace was given to proclaim to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. Everyone does that. That's not just something a pastor does. Although the word preach sounds like, hey, that's just something a pastor does. This word is all of us. But Paul says, I've been given this task to go proclaim God's riches. And to bring delight for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created everything? And that mystery is that God's reconciling the world to himself, Jew and Gentile, and to each other. In Christ. But he doesn't end there. He doesn't stop there. He goes on in verses 10 to 12 to show that the church displays God's wisdom. So Paul said, God's given me this task. He's revealed this to me. He's shown me what the mystery is. I'm telling it to you. He's called me to proclaim this message to the Gentiles. about the unsearchable riches of Christ to open their eyes so they can see who he is. He says, so that God did all of that. Why? So that through the church. The manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. What is Paul talking about? Let's start with this idea of manifold wisdom. The word is, in the original language could also be translated multifaceted. It was used often of works of art that were very complex and detailed. So think of a tapestry that had a lot going on in it. That would be this word. Polypochylos is the word. Many things. Multifaceted. Think of an engagement ring. That when we look at that, it has all these facets on it, right? And the reason we cut diamonds that way is so that they sparkle more. They radiate more, all the facets of what's going on. Paul says this, so that through the church, the multifaceted, the richly complex wisdom of God might be known. What is this wisdom? Here's just a few of the things. God was reconciling sinners to himself. How was it that God was going to redeem the world. Humans who had turned against him, had rebelled against him, had offended his holiness, needed to be redeemed, in Christ, dying on the cross and rising again, that he was reconciling Jew and Gentile. In the Jewish mind, that's the greatest divide in the world, between the Jewish people and everyone else in the world. And now, God is reconciling those 2 groups. He was defeating the hostile powers. So when you read the biblical story, we're not the only ones in the story, us humans, we are definitely a part of the story. God creates humanities as take care of my creation for me. But God had created a whole host of spiritual beings. We use the generic term angels for them. And some of these angels had fallen away from God. We don't know exactly why the Bible doesn't tell us, but they had rebelled against God, Satan being the leader of that group. And they were now, the Bible tells us. Paul tells us in Ephesians that he is the prince of the power of the air. Go read chapter 2. that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, that we as humans aren't the only ones in the story. There's this whole angelic realm that exists, a spiritual realm that exists beyond the physical things we see. And Paul says here, that God through the church is displaying his multifaceted wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, that what God's doing in the church, like here at Northman Church, is displaying to spiritual powers, God's wisdom. Both to, I think, the angels that stayed with God, and who are saying, God, how are you going to fix this? These humans, what a mess. This whole thing is so complicated. It's so tangled up. There's no way you're undoing that knot, and they're watching, and they see how he's doing it, and they turn and they praise God, for his wisdom and his love and his compassion, that as the church does what the church does, these angels that are on God's side, turn and said, you are so amazing. But then there's also other fallen angels, other spiritual beings, the hostile powers in the heavenly places. who are opposed to God, and God saying, look at my church, I've done it. I've accomplished it. I've reconciled humanity. I brought harmony out of disharmony. I brought reunion out of disruption. I brought love out of hate. I've done all of this in my son, and the church is the display case for that. We're not God's wisdom. God's wisdom is God's wisdom, but it's there in the church being displayed. We're like the Nelson Atkins Museum. And God's wisdom is all the art inside, and we're just there to display it to show it. He says, this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. that we can come into God's presence because of Christ. Paul says, the church displays God's wisdom. But unlike the Nelson Atkins Museum, Or the display case in your home when you go home today, if you have something that is highlighting your treasured possessions or maybe your trophies, you would look at, it's a static thing, it's just there. That the church is this living thing. And that each day, we are called to live into that and be the type of display case that actually shows God's wisdom. Because we can by our actions, and our attitudes, and how we treat each other, blur that wisdom. We can make it where it won't be seen. And so that calls us to really hard work. Two things I want you to see from this, that as we leave today, we can take what Paul said to the Ephesians some 2000 years ago and apply to us. The 1st is this. God reconciles humanity to himself, and each other in the church. The 2 himself part we get is easy for us, often. We can go, hey, I'm cut off from God. He reconciles me in Christ. So now God and I are good. And off we can go and just be on our own. It's just me and God hanging out. That's cool. Except, the entire gospel is that God reconciles us to himself, and then to each other. And then we often have a problem, right? Because, let's be honest, we don't get along all the time. We know the world doesn't get along. We know the world is at odds. We live in a culture full of divisions and barriers, divided between people. We have racial animosity in our country. That's every country in the world, by the way, has racial animosity. We have socioeconomic animosity between people. We have cultural differences that keep us divided, geographic differences that keep us divided, All the divisions all over the world that keep people divided. In the world, wants to be in unity, that's obvious. It's how do we get to that unity? I mean, one way to get the one way the world. People in the world, groups in the world have offered us, if we could just get rid of everybody else not like us, then we would all get along just fine. Right? If I could just get rid of everybody that's not on my team, then we're good. And we've had countries try to do just that. Let's exterminate everyone that is not us. Or you could take kind of John Lennon's approach, and the song, Imagine. Imagine there's no heaven. God's the problem, this fictitious thing that humanity has created. If we just got rid of him, then we would all get along. Well, we've gotten rid of God in the culture, and we're not getting along very well. We haven't found any unity in that Paul's answer is Christ. If you want to be unified to God, you have to have Christ. And if the world's going to be unified to each other, it will be ultimately in Christ. But that gets lived out in the church. And that's hard work. That's hard work. That means the people we don't get along with. that we don't like. when they show up at church. God calls us to get along with them. Now, I don't have, in my life, I've never had like a distinct group of people. that has caused deep pain to me, where you could say, hey, this group, not any of us, but the group. But there are people alive who have gone through wars. And they would say, this country was fighting this country and there's deep animosity between those 2 groups. In Paul's day, Jews and Gentiles didn't get along. A lot of Jewish people had been killed by the Roman Empire. A lot. Like 1000s and 1000s had been crucified. Paul would have seen that. The Jewish people would have seen that. And Paul's out here saying, hey, us Jews and Gentiles got to get along. That's not easy work. Peter, who was the closest friend of Jesus during his life on the earth. He was the one that God came and said, Peter, the Gentiles are going to be a part of us now. And Peter had a hard time with that, but he said, let's baptize Cornelius, this Gentile. He's one of us. But later in Peter's life, he was having meals with Gentiles and some Jewish people showed up and said, why are you doing that? That's not right. And he quit eating with the Gentiles. And Paul had to show up and kind of to his face, say, Peter, you're not doing it right. And Peter said, I'm not. He had to change. But that means how, we know it's hard to reconcile, but that's where God's wisdom is displayed as he reconciles humanity to each other, and ourselves to God. And that's why we have to keep Christ as a center of all that we do as a church. As soon as we put anything else at the center of our life. That's the thing we're gonna want to unify around. That's the thing where we find our unity. So at the center of your unity, you say a sports team, then you're just going to unify around that, and can that hold that unity? No, if it's a country, you're just going to unify around that. Will that thing hold? No, it won't. It's Christ who's overcome the grave, who is God himself. That is the one that we can unify around. As he reconciles humanity to himself, through us proclaiming the good news, and to each other. But that's why we have to have church. You can't say, well, I'm going to follow Jesus and just not be around people. The wisdom of God is displayed when we show up here. And we bump shoulders and rub elbows, get on each other's nerves, meet people that we maybe are going, you know, I have some prejudice against that group of people, the too rich, the too poor, the skin's too pale, the skin's too dark. I don't like their language. I don't like what they did, the country they came from. And we have to say, we have to be reconciled in Christ. That was Paul. That was the work he was doing. And that's what we have to do. And the 2nd thing we see in this is that when we do that, it could be difficult we could suffer. Your suffering for Jesus may be someone else's glory. Paul said, I'm in prison for you Gentiles. Don't be upset about that. He says, it's for your glory. Paul found himself in prison by doing God's work. So let me say this very quickly. If you're suffering because you did something wrong, immoral. Your suffering isn't. For Jesus' glory. Peter says this in one Peter, he says this. For this is a gracious thing when mindful of God, when endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure it? He said, there's no credit to that. Sometimes we find ourselves suffering and we would go, yeah, I'm suffering. I earned it. I did a dumb thing. I messed up, and now I'm paying the price for it. But often we'll find ourselves. Paul found himself suffering because that's where God had him on assignment. He was in prison for having shared the gospel. Some of you in here are going to suffer just by telling friends and family, coworkers about Jesus, and you'll suffer for it. We need to acknowledge this, that that suffering is real suffering. Paul says, look, I'm suffering. It's hard. If Paul had his way, he would have been out of prison. He said, but God's the one running things. I don't get to decide where I'm assigned. He has me here, and I'm suffering. He says, I'm suffering for you. So we don't need to deny suffering. As if, okay, well, God has me here, so it's all wonderful. It's great. Paul said, look, I have had great days. I've slept in really nice beds and I've slept on the street. Wherever God puts me, I'm going to be content with that, but he would prefer to sleep in the nice bed. Said I'd rather be here than here, but God, whoever you put me, that's where I'm going to be. And there will be times that you are suffering for Jesus, may be someone else's glory. And it may be that just the circumstances of life, you've done nothing wrong, and you find yourself suffering. We had a couple in our early service, and I was talking with them, the young daughter has been struggling mightily with health issues. been at children's mercy, and the ICU has gotten out of the ICU, and she was saying, man, God, is this so faithful? We have like 5000 people praying for us. And she didn't know what I was going to preach. And she said, you know, We've heard people reach out to us and say, I don't know how you're doing this. We said, well, God, just God's good. And they've given their life to Christ because through this couple's suffering. The gospel has gone out for others glory. And so as you suffer, for Christ, in whatever place he puts you, just know that God may be working that for someone else's glory. Also know, it's suffering. So you don't have to go, well, and what God wants me, so I need to put on a happy face and smile and think everything's wonderful. Paul didn't do that. He says, I'm suffering here in prison for you. And that as we serve Christ, yes, we will suffer at times. And we can acknowledge that and lean into that and gather around those who are suffering and care for them, but know that it may be for someone else's glory, that God may be working through your suffering, so that someone else can hear of Christ. Someone else can hear your story, see your pain, and see your faithfulness as you display his wisdom. And they may give their life to Christ. That was Paul's plea that's our plea here at Northland. God's wisdom, his displayed in the church. Our worship team's gonna come up and lead us in a time of worship. If you're here and you're going, I've never given my life to Christ, but I want to. I wanna talk more about that. Here in the back corner. Blake Hearson, one of our pastors and his wife, Jennifer, are back there, you can go talk to them. If you just want to pray, maybe you're suffering. You're saying, God, use my suffering now so that others may find you, and you just need strength in that. You can head back there and they will pray for you. We would love to be a part of that for you. Anything God may have you wanting to do, talk about, or wrestle with today. Just head back to that back corner during that song. If not, as we sing, worship him. and his magnificent wisdom, and know that it's displayed in the church here at Northland, and in the church gathered all over the world. Will you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for today, for your grace and mercy that you have called us, as you did Paul. A different way. You called him with direct revelation. You call us through that revelation. But Father, you have called us to proclaim the good news of Christ so that your wisdom can be on display. We pray that for Northland Church, that we would display your wisdom, of reconciliation, of love to the world each day of our life. Here when we gather, and when you send us out today to all the places you have us, that you would be glorified. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.