Ephesians 3:1-10
I wanted to say two things before we jump into our passage. One is, I want to thank you guys, and this isn’t an attempt at false humility. I really mean this, and I think it a lot. I just felt like saying it today. I want you to know I appreciate how much patience this church has had for so many years, some of you, because sometimes I’m not very good at communicating. I’m not good at doing what I do. And I find myself often thinking about things that I could do better, and it’s a conversation usually I just have with my pillow. But I realize sometimes looking back now that this church is, I’ve served this church with all my heart. And at the same time, this church has also stuck with the vision that I’ve had. And I just want you to know, I think about that. I treasure that, and I’m aware of things. And what I’m saying probably means nothing to most of you, but if it means something to some of you, I want to tell you I appreciate your grace and prayers and constant, you know, diligence in the cause of Christ. And this local church, you know, the local church is very special. People just see churches, and they think there’s a church, and there’s money there, and there’s people, and they probably do all these things. But a beautiful, special, chaotic thing that’s often very, very messy and very difficult to keep on course, and especially when the course is a very narrow road. So I want to tell you guys, thank you for that. Your prayers for myself, my wife, my marriage, my kids, the leaders of this church, the vision of this church, the finances of this church, the outreaches and programs of this church, those are all incredibly powerful spiritual things that have I think way more weight than we ever would really understand and so I wanted to say that and then I want to say a second thing and it seems to me that signs and wonders happen in clusters from what I’ve kind of noticed in my time in church they’ll come and go and but they’re always sort of brewing and when I say signs and wonders. I mean healings. I mean people having dreams and visions from God, people feeling like the Lord has spoken to them, having encounters with supernatural beings, having just all the different signs and wonders we see happen in the Bible. And I just want to encourage you and stir this up because in the last week or two, I’ve had a number of people give me testimony of some really neat things that the Lord seems to be doing. One couple told me the other evening, and this is a couple I’ve known for a very long time. They were in bed. It was Thursday night, Friday morning, and the wife awoke to a voice singing the words, the glory of the Lord is here. The glory of the Lord is here. And she told her husband, is that, do you have a new alarm? And why are we waking up at 3 a.m.? And the husband woke up and said, what are you talking about? My alarm is still, you know, Apple iPhone. And she’s like, no, I heard this singing. And so they concluded that they had heard an angel, or she had heard an angel. She heard it loud and clear for a long time, just singing over and over, the glory of the Lord is here. The glory of the Lord is here. And they discerned that that was a comfort given to them in that particular spot. And I guess they went back to sleep after that. And I’ve had several others in the last week or so share with me dreams, very vivid dreams that are very symbolic, kind of like the dreams we see in Scripture, where something happens and it means something. Sometimes dreams are a warning. Sometimes they’re just a gift from God. Sometimes they’re attacks from the enemy. But I’ve heard a number of dreams in the last week that have been given in the church. So I just want to say that, to say, keep your eyes and ears open.
Tell your neighbor, keep your eyes and ears open.
One of the verses we’re going to read today, verse 10, it talks about how the church deals in heavenly places. Okay?
Guys, very important. The church deals in heavenly places. We operate in heavenly places. So we’re in the natural, but we’re also, if we’re willing, often, maybe always, can be open to what’s happening in the supernatural. And one last thought, you might say, well, how do I, I want to get a dream, or I want to hear an angel. I heard someone, Andy, who came here, he said this a few months ago. It really locked in, and I’ve prayed this. He said, you never have to worry about anointing if you’re seeking God every day.
You never have to worry about anointing if you’re seeking God every day. And that has just become something, and I’ve kind of always known that and lived that way, tried to. But as a Christian, I want to encourage you as you’re seeking God, you don’t have to wonder if God’s going to show up to your quiet time. If you seek the Lord in a quiet time, whether or not you feel like he showed up, he showed up. The very act of seeking the Lord invites the presence of the Lord. Then he chooses to manifest himself to us as he would, not as we would. Thank God. You know, we don’t want to make God in our image. So our call as Christians is to seek God in obedience every day.
And then sometimes you change your oil and mow your lawn and, you know, cut your leg and, you know. Skin your knee. Skin your knee. And then other times, you know, you have a wonderful experience where the Lord just blesses you with his presence. All right? So let that be stirred up among you. I just want to, again, I periodically want to hear these things I like to tell the church. It seems that among us, the Lord is speaking in some really sweet ways. and pay attention to that. Pay attention to that.
Pay attention to that. I’ve found, I’ll just say a little more because I feel there’s a tiny bit of hunger for this. I have found if I will shut my brain off of the things of the world around 8 or 9 o’clock p.m., my night’s sleep is way better and my ability to hear the Lord in my sleep and when I wake up is also much better. In fact, Job says, it says in the book of Job, he gives to his beloved even in their sleep.
He speaks to them while they’re sleeping, and it talks about all the different, some of the ways he does that. So I would encourage you to do the very anti-American and unpopular thing of put your phone away around 8 or 9, read a book, play your guitar, listen to a music, do a puzzle with your spouse, or if you’re alone, maybe go take a walk in the evening, clear your mind, you’ll sleep better, and that’s not a formula, by the way. God made Saul prophesy when he was sinning, you know. So God works the way he wants. But in general, preparing our heart in that way is good. Now, let’s go to Ephesians chapter 3. Ready, fire, aim, the grace of God. We’re studying Ephesians verse by verse.
This is the fifth Sunday. And we’ve been looking at how the gospel transforms our lives. We reviewed the history and foundation. I won’t go back into that. And we’re really starting, beginning last week, to see the outworking, Kind of the theme I said of this book is that if we understand and receive the gospel of Jesus, it will transform our lives. So we spent the first two or three weeks just looking at theology. And Paul had a lot of deep, weighty theological statements. And he’s like, all this stuff’s been done for you. This is what it means to be a Christian.
This is who you are in Christ. And I said it as the chapters then went on, on that foundation of this is who God has made me to be. This is what I can be in him if I latch on to him, if I seek after him. And then the outworking of our lives, of that in our lives, is what we start seeing next. And so last week was sort of the beginning of that. It was, you know, the idea of breaking dividing walls. Because the gospel is for all people, there is unity possible, and we can break down walls that we have against other people. And this week, Paul goes just right in. It is a call to action.
And if I could just sum it up in one sentence, it would be that God has elevated us, And then therefore, we are then called to elevate every other person around us in response to that. And this is a, you’re going to, we’re going to read this and you’re going to read it and you’re like, Jeff, how did you get that out of what we’re about to read? And I want to tell you, like, sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the theology of a passage. And it’s also easy to get lost in the theory of a passage. And it’s dangerous. Both are dangerous. Getting lost in theology is saying, yes, we’ve been redeemed and we’ve been justified.
We’ve experienced propitiation and the atonement. And wow, God has called us to the nations, and you don’t even know your neighbor’s name. Okay? Lost in the theology of it. Oh, I know all this stuff, but I’m not doing anything. And then the other part of that, which kind of is the same, is we get lost in the theory. That’s a great theory, Paul, that all this happened. Let me go home now and live my life the exact same way. And we are called through the power of the Holy Spirit for this to change our lives and move us to action. Okay?
So let’s pray and read this passage, and then I’m going to talk Ready, Aim, Fire, the grace of God. Let’s pray. Lord, we ask you to stir up signs and wonders and gifts, voice of God, hearts of repentance. Your word says in the old days that young and old will dream dreams and see visions, that you want to appear to your people in these dark days, that you are like a light.
And we don’t seek a sign, but your word says eagerly desire these things and long for them. So we just say as a church, in a very natural, numb country to the spiritual things, we ask that our eyes would be open to supernatural, beautiful things of God.
We ask that as we read your word this morning, You would give us insight and wisdom, and that it would bring about change in our lives.
That we would not only be people that know the Word, but we’d be people that do the Word of God. And would you move in us to that end? We submit our lives to you now, Lord. We submit our plans to you now. I believe some of us as we’re praying, you have some plans. And the Lord would have us take those plans and put them in his hands.
Lord, we submit our plans to you. We submit our course to maybe fix our life in the next month or two. And we say that may not work. We want you to come and bring direction in our job, in our singleness, in our marriage maybe, or almost marriage.
In things that we’re longing for. we want to
say like Mary said be it done to me according to your will
so we surrender to you and I ask that you bear fruit this morning as we look at your word we thank you for it in the name of Jesus Amen alright Ephesians chapter 3 if you’re new to the Bible just look in your table of contents it’s toward the end
and let’s read Today’s passage is 1 through 10.
For this reason I, Paul… Hey, what’s the reason? Does anyone know? Here’s what he’s talking about, everything we just talked about for the last month. All that God has done for you and I. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of the Gentiles, you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace, which was given to me for you, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before, in brief. And by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.
To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given to me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light what’s the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in heavenly places.
We’ll stop there. So, as I said, a lot of theology and theory there. We’re going to talk about practicing it. This passage is crammed full. If you read it, I read that passage, and I’ll be honest with you guys. I read it, and I was like, Lord, like, you have books of the Bible you don’t understand. I really struggle with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John. I just, like, When I read them, I have to slowly read multiple translations, get out the message.
And when I read this passage, I read it, and I’ve been reading this for several months, studying for this, and I’m like, Lord, let me read it again. I want to read it again. I want to read it again. And as I read it and read it and read it, I started just seeing a very simple thing happening in this passage. And it is that Paul just over and over and over in these little 10 verses declares that he has been given the grace of God. And that his mission and his calling is to give it liberally to everyone that he meets. And then he puts that onto the church and says in verse 10, you too. And so I want to illustrate, I was looking at this passage and I really do see as I read through it over and over.
I saw at the beginning he’s sort of talking about, get ready, you have this given to you, and then take aim, this is who it is for, and then at the end of this passage, fire, let it out. And so by way of illustration, I met up with my friend Daryl Dixon, and he loaned me his crossbow. And I just want to use this as an illustration. And don’t worry, I only have two arrows, Just bolts is what they’re called. So this is a crossbow.
And it’s real. It shoots things. It may have slayed things in the past. And don’t worry, it’s not loaded. But were I to aim it and shoot it, I just want you to think about this idea of ready-aim-fire with a weapon. Okay? Crossbow.
It’s kind of like amazing looking, isn’t it? I kind of want to go shoot something. So, a zombie.
Daryl’s watching online right now, so he knows I’ll have that back for him. So I want you to think about ready, aim, fire. Did you ever ready, aim, fire something? Ready is the preparation. Aim is like, who is this going to? And then fire is pull the trigger. Looking at that pattern, just using that as a pattern for this passage, The first thing that Paul shares in the first three verses of this letter, I would say we call this the ready. This is what has been given to you. As I said when I read it in verse 1, the first three words he says is for this reason.
He’s talking about his calling. And he has spent several chapters, the first part of this letter, talking about what has been given to the church. what we’ve experienced in Christ, that we don’t live in darkness, we live in light, or at least we have the capacity to, that we are not people that are hopeless, but we are people with hope, that we are not people that are destined to die without promise, but that we are people that have promise given to us. And even now in this life, if right now you’re so depressed that you want this to be the last day of your life, the gospel says there is hope and promise for you that things can change through the power of God working in you. So we are people that are people of light, not darkness. And he talked about that for the first couple chapters as we’ve read about this.
He over and over, so he starts this passage in verse 1. He says, for this reason. He’s reminding us of that foundation. We just talked about breaking down walls. It’s interesting, too, as you look at it in verse 3. He says, as I wrote to you before in brief. And I wonder, Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter. He probably wrote it in several sittings. So it could be that like last Thursday, he wrote what we call chapter one. The chapters are not inspired, by the way.
The chapters are man-made. So we’ve divided it up into chapters. So he wrote several paragraphs. And then, you know, something horrible happened. Or he was hungry for a few days. Or he went into delirium because he didn’t have water. Or the other prisoners were criticizing him. Or who knows what could have happened.
But he, you know, and then maybe later on, a week later, he comes back. He’s like, where did I leave off in this letter? Oh, yeah, verse 3. I wrote this before you in brief. I think he’s referring to the first two chapters. He says, I just covered all this to you. I just gave you the short version. Go to Romans. You’ll get the long version. But I gave you, Ephesians, the short version of the theology of how your soul has been touched and beautified by God.
And then he over and over talks about his calling. And I’m just going to recap very quickly. In verse 1, he uses the phrase, for the sake of you. He’s talking about this calling, and this is about to get all into theory. So I’m trying to build the theology, and we’re going to get past the theory into application in just a second. But we need to just be reminded of this because Paul reminds us of it. He repeatedly in this passage over and over and over hammers in this idea that we are called, something has been given to us, and we are to give that to other people. Your life is not for you only. You’re here for others.
And so a few of the examples of that. In verse 1, he says, for the sake of you. In verse 2, he says, a stewardship was given to me for you. In verse 3 and 5, he talks about things that were made known to him for others. Then in verse 7, he says, I was made a minister of the love of God, the grace of God, to preach to others. Then in verse 8, he says, again, this grace was given, and the grace was given me to preach. And again, you might read this, and you might think, well, big deal. Like, what does all this mean? He’s just over and over, and I just want to hammer this in before we get to application, over and over. He’s laying this foundation, this bedrock of your life and my life.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a preacher, a mechanic, a doctor, a soldier, a teacher, a housewife. It does not matter, guys. The bedrock of your life is that the love of God has come and saved you, and you then have a beautiful responsibility and privilege to take that and share it with other people. And teenagers, that includes you too in the hallways of your high school. Everywhere we go, we are people. We are lightbearers of this message. So, looking at the bounty we’ve given, this thing that has been given to us, and then preparing to give it away. That’s the ready section, the first few verses. Then he summarizes again, looking at the next section, I would call this aim. He summarizes who this is for. Now, we just looked at this in the last couple passages, but Paul is just, he’s very repetitive. Don’t you need to be repetitive sometimes? How many times did you have to teach your kid to tie their shoe? Did they learn it on the first? Probably not. Or ride a bike. How many times? I have four kids. I taught all of them to ride a bike. And when you’re a parent, you’re running next to a bike trying to hold your kid up.
Like, you realize how old you are? One of my kids got on the bike and rode it. No training. How did he do it? I don’t know. The other three, it took some time. And so, in the same way, Paul, There’s a lot of repetition here because he wants us to get this thing down. He wants us to realize. So in this next section, he reminds us who this is for. In fact, he even says it, as I just said in verse 3. He said, I just told you this in brief. In verse 4, he uses this little phrase. Look at verse 4. And by referring to this, again, we’re just looking at his language.
He’s referring back to what he just talked about. And we looked at that last week, and that was the breaking down of walls. It was in verse 6, he talks about that he’s just reminding us of this language. Looking at verse 6, he uses the phrase, fellow heirs, fellow members, fellow partakers. And he’s talking about Jews and Gentiles all being together people that can receive the grace and the mercy of Jesus. So this massive amount of grace has been given to us. And what do we do about it? And as a church, this is where the application starts. I mean, even if we just stop and look at verse 6, he says the Gentiles. And so in our context, that would mean anyone that you or I might have a wall against.
And we talked about that last week. That person is a fellow heir. That person is a fellow member. That person is a fellow partaker of your promise. So any sinner or any saint that you or I might have any wall against because of their ethnicity, because of their religious belief or non-religious belief, because of their history, because they’re a registered sex offender, whatever it might be, when we put a wall up, and I’m not saying not to have boundaries, but he’s saying the love of Christians, the grace of Christians that came to us, it came to you without boundaries, so it has to be given without boundaries.
It’s sort of like, oh, I’m so thankful. I said this last week, but just to repeat, I’m so thankful that you’ve lavished me with your love and you’ve given me your love and you’ve forgiven me of all my dark past, but now I’m going to create a wall so that other people can’t come in and get the same love. That’s exactly what the church of the day did, the Pharisees. So you’ve got to give more money. You’ve got to wear a different thing. You’ve got to act differently. How dare your disciples eat and not wash their hands first? You know, all those little rules. And so he’s this idea of the fellow, they’re your fellow partakers. Everyone is invited. The church does not choose who walks We don’t choose who takes communion. We don’t choose who gets prayer.
We don’t choose who we do or don’t forgive. The grace of Jesus is for all who believe, guys. Like, for example, I’ve baptized dozens and dozens and dozens of people. And I always interview the person. And here’s the question about baptism. Will I baptize you? Tell me about your relationship with Jesus. What is your relationship with Jesus like? Well, I grew up going to church, and my mom and dad were really there a lot, and I went Wednesday a lot, too, and I went to Sunday school. Okay, tell me about your relationship with Jesus.
Well, sometimes I give money, and I’ve read some of the Bible, and I colored some coloring books in VBS. Tell me about your relationship with Jesus. And sometimes I discover that the person has no relationship with Jesus. The very foundation of baptism scripturally is that we have a relationship with Jesus, because baptism is a picture, Scripture says, of us coming under the water and out of the water and being cleansed and dedicating ourselves to Jesus. So sometimes I have to turn people away from baptism and say, well, I want you to think about your relationship with God because what you’re doing is a beautiful sacrament that says that you are washed from your sin through the blood of Christ and that you’ve repented and received his forgiveness.
And that’s what baptism is. That’s why I’m slow to baptize small children because they don’t understand that sometimes. I would never turn away someone from baptism because of the color of their skin or their age or their socioeconomic place or their theology. Like when I’m going to do baptism, I don’t say, are you post-trib, pre-trib, or pan-trib? Like it doesn’t matter, you know? It doesn’t matter if you are Baptist or fundamental or Orthodox or Catholic or an ex-Muslim or an ex-Hindu. Those things don’t matter. The question is, where are you with Jesus?
That’s what it always comes back to. And so Paul, he’s saying in this passage when he gives us this language in verse 6 about fellow members of the body, fellow partakers, he’s again pulling those walls down and saying, this grace of God has been given to us. It is for us to give to everyone, regardless of where they’ve been through. And some of us work in very difficult populations where that’s hard.
Jackie is a chaplain. He’s probably seen some really tough things. Rachel works with young ladies who have about to or going to get an abortion very soon. And, you know, I could go around the room and just talk about all the different demographics. Chris Quinn has talked to us about all his years as a principal and some of the heartache he’s seen as kids come into his office. And, you know, in each of our situations, we’re going to be faced with, is this person a fellow heir worthy of the love of God? Not because I deem them worthy, but because God, through Christ, has opened the door to salvation for them. And everybody is invited, guys, every single person. Paul, again, just with his, what’s the word? I should know this because I’m going over it with my daughter.
What’s the word when you reuse some emphasis? Hyperbole.
Hyperbole.
He uses hyperbole here. He just over and over. And that’s maybe why sometimes we get lost in it. It’s like you just keep talking about grace and grace and grace and blah, blah, blah. Well, let’s go to the fire part and talk about what then? Because here’s my question. Again, you might read all that and you might say, big deal. Big deal. We’ve all been saved and salvation is for whoever would. Big deal.
Big deal. So what? And so here’s the question to just get right up in my face and right up in your face. Is this happening in your life?
Is this happening in your life? is the fact that you and I have been saved by grace, wondrously, by the love of God, not because of what we’ve done. We didn’t earn it, he gave it to us. And he then says, give that to others. Here’s the question. Here’s where we go from theory and theology to practice. And this is what I think the church can miss because we can overstudy this so much and walk out of here and feel really good about ourselves because we’re clean as a whistle because of the blood of Jesus.
But the question is, is there anyone in my life that has experienced me giving this away as Paul talks about over and over and over and over in this passage? Have I given it away? Because like this crossbow, if I’m Daryl Dixon and there’s a zombie running at me and I’m not loaded, it doesn’t matter how many times I pull the trigger. If I don’t fire, nothing happens, okay?
If we don’t fire off, if we don’t give away what has been done to us, nothing happens. So this is a question. Here’s a little question. Do people feel welcome around me?
Do people feel welcome around me, in my neighborhood, at my job?
Am I giving it away?
In 7 through 10, I’m going to reread it to you and just look at all the times he talks about giving it away. Because you can miss it in the theology focus. Of which I was made a minister, the gospel. I was made, minister means serve. okay? You’re not like washing your own feet here. We wash others’ feet. So there’s one, of which I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me according to the working of his power. To me, the least of all saints, this grace was given to preach. There’s another one. This all happened so I could preach it to others the unfathomable riches of Christ. Verse 9, to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery for the ages which has been hidden in God. I know you’re confused about what that means. Here’s the bottom line.
Bring it to light. There’s a verb in there. Take what’s been given to you. Preach it. Share it. Give it. Bring it to light. Verse 10, in order the manifold wisdom of God might be now again, there it is, made known by the church. You see what’s happening here? He’s saying this message that’s been given to you, he says it four times in this little passage. Fire, fire, fire, fire. Over and over, give this thing away. Bring it to light. Preach it. Share it. Boldly proclaim and welcome others into your life.
Blessing.
And I’ve never hunted in my life. My dad was a big hunter, which turned me off to it. Not in a bad way. I just thought, I don’t like all these deer parts everywhere. And so I have nothing against it, but it just wasn’t what I did. But if I was hunting, I would imagine maybe you guys, maybe you hunters in here can tell me if this is true. You go hunting, you got your crossbow all lit up. Look at me, I’m being prejudiced right now. And I’m a good old boy. My dad was a Tennessee redneck.
And my mom’s Italian, so that’s what I’m a mix of. I would imagine if I were hunting, this is not loaded, that I would not do this the whole time I was hunting. Wow, man. Look at that scope. It’s incredible.
Is this how you get the animal? Am I winning, guys, or girls who hunt? This is not how you hunt? Look at this. It’s got some horsepowers.
Got bolts, arrows. They’re red. Look. White accents and crimson. So pretty. Oh, gosh. Hey, look. This looks adjustable. This is a bougie crossbow.
Do you see my point? Would I ever win? Would I ever hunt? Would I ever catch? I pray. I wouldn’t. Okay. We do that with the gospel. We sit there and stare at our belly button, and we get lost in the moment, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t, but the question is, Does what has been put into us ever come out?
Because, guys, all this is useless if it is not applied.
And we are called to be doers of the word, not just those who hear and know the gospel. But Paul, in this passage, as I just pointed out to you, just says over and over, give it away, Preach it. Let it out. Turn the light on. So, am I a welcoming person? This is just a question to ask, and I was made to ask this question this week. Do people feel welcome around me? I want you to ask yourself that question. Do people feel welcome around you? Do they feel grace coming off of you, Or do they feel something else? I want to throw this seven numbers up on the wall. I’ve shared this with you guys before.
This is a sociological study that I dug into years ago, and it really helped me understand how I can be when I’m with anyone, whether it’s just my daughter or just my wife or with you or in the yogurt aisle at Walmart. This applies everywhere you go. Everywhere you go, there’s seven kinds of people. There’s negative threes, negative twos, negative ones, zero, plus one, plus two, plus three. And a negative three is a person that adds nothing. In fact, they take, they’re like a spiritual, social vacuum cleaner, and they suck the energy out of the room.
And before you start feeling guilty and sad for yourself, I’ll just tell you I’m there a lot of the time, so I get it. Sometimes we’re having a bad day. It’s not going well. We walk in a room, and we just suck the energy out of it. Two, a little less. Negative one, a little less. A zero would be when I go into a room and I just sort of don’t take, but I also don’t give. And again, this is a sociological study. It’s not about church, but it really does apply to us as we think about the gospel being given to others. And then a plus one is someone that’s sort of like, yeah, I can add a little bit. Yeah. And then a plus two is someone that might add a little more. And then a plus three is a person that just comes and adds a tremendous amount.
And as we think about that, I want to teach you an acronym, and you’re not going to believe this is true, but I really just did learn what RBF means. I just learned this acronym, so we’re going to show you a picture.
This is a phenomenon, and I want to teach everyone in the room, but I just learned this, and it is, say it with me, it’s resting bulldog face.
Okay? Resting, would you say that with me? Resting bulldog face. All right, so we have a picture of RBF. Now, some of you think this is cute. My wife grew up with bulldogs. They always had an English bulldog around. So when she saw that, she said, he’s so cute. I was like, no, his teeth are out. He’s about to bite my leg.
So just pretend he looks really mean.
And I say this lightheartedly, but again, I want to ask you, is the gospel being practiced in my life and in your life? That’s the question as we think about the application of this passage.
Resting bulldog face.
When I go into a room, when I go to church, Is the visage that I present, the countenance, the affect that I have on people, is it one that is hostile, teeth-barred, unfriendly, unwilling to make eye contact? Maybe you’ve got issues. Maybe you’re in massive depression. Maybe you just had a horrible sin or maybe something awful just happened to you. And I’m not saying there aren’t times that we’re not a negative three. I’m not saying that we should be shiny, happy people holding hands all the time. But as a Christian, in general, do people feel welcome around me? And this week as I studied this passage, as I said, I read it over and over again.
And I studied this several months ago, so I had an idea of where I felt like the teaching wanted to go. But I really did grapple with it because it’s very hard for me to do things just to do them. I really, I need to feel something. And a lot of times I don’t, and I’ve learned just to operate without feeling. It’s called faith, by the way. But I do grip the passage. And as I read it over and over, I saw this thing that I’m telling you guys, this repetition of Paul just saying, we’ve been given so much and we are called to give it out. And so I decided I was going to do an experiment and I was just going to try to be as nice as possible to everyone I met this week so that I could try to live out this passage.
Now, I usually am pretty nice to people. Like, I try. I try. If I didn’t notice you this morning, I’m sorry. If you feel like I walked by and I didn’t acknowledge you, I was just so busy. But in general, I try to be nice. I try to acknowledge people in public, strangers. And this week, it was a challenge for me because I had several doctor’s appointments. One was, some of you guys remember, a couple of months, years ago, about three years ago, I had several surgeries on my knees and was walking on a cane for a while.
And I had a big visit this week with my orthopedic doctor, and he had to do x-rays. And when you go to a doctor, it’s kind of fun to suffer a little bit. Like, does anyone else like that? Like, you’re, you know, like, I mean, it’s not man flu. Girls, I like this too. Some of you are shaking your head. Let me say it this way. When you’ve been through a lot and you go see a doctor, don’t you just want someone to take care of you? Because most of the world won’t take care of you. So this isn’t man flu.
This is just, I’ve been through some hell, and I want someone to pay attention to my wounds who has the knowledge, and I’m paying a lot of money, and maybe can help me. And so that was an opportunity. I was in there, and, you know, I was hurting a little bit, and he was pushing on things. But the other one I had, I had a big appointment this week. It was my year post-eye surgery. Some of you guys know this. Some of you don’t. But last year, I woke up one morning, and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. And it subsequently led to seven eye surgeries in one year.
And three of those were in one week. Several issues happened. At one point, they dropped the front of my eye into the back of my eye. So I woke up and was blind again. And they told me, okay, you’ve got to go get another surgery in three weeks. They got to go into the back of your eye. And this isn’t fun stuff, guys. This is not fun. This is, I mean, when they do eye surgery, I had seven in one, like in a six-month period. Here’s how they go into the back of your eye.
They can either pull your eyeball out of the socket and come in from behind, or what they did to me, thank God they didn’t do that, they take forceps. They put three, they’re called cannulas, I think is the right word. It’s a little, it looks like a moon base, and it sticks to your eye, and then it has a hole in it, and they stick a light through one in the white of your eye. Then they put a second one on, and they stick a laser through the second one. And then the third one is the worst. It’s bigger because they have to fit forceps through your eye that they can open and grab things and move them around. So all this happened while I was awake. Seven times it was awful and an immense amount of pain.
I mean, it was an immense amount of pain. So when I talk about going in there and just wanting someone to say, like, hey, like, hey, like, you know, let’s check on you. Like, it’s not this, like, unhealthy need for sympathy. It’s just wanting to feel like maybe I’m better now. Maybe I’m doing okay. Like, those of you in the room who’ve had cancer, and you finished your chemos, and you finished your surgeries, and you finished your radiation, and you’re going for that scan, you go in there and you feel a little like a victim because you have been. And you are just hoping that scan comes out clear so that you can maybe live the next year of your life and feel like I’ve got a future when you’ve been planning on dying the whole time. So we go into those situations. And in the eye doctor, it’s a miserable place. I mean, it’s like the DMV.
You know, it’s no one’s happy. There’s people sitting in there groaning with like patches on their eye and stuff. And so I walked into that with the attitude of, I kind of have the right to be anxious, angry. Don’t bother me. I’m going to be down. I want to be in my business. Leave me alone.
But I just prayed, whether it was the Walmart shopping excursion, the knee doctor, the eye doctor, anywhere I went. I just decided I am going to be as nice as possible to every person. And it was challenging in that eye doctor. I’m going to tell you. But boy, what an experiment. And it was wonderful, guys. Did you know if you’re nice to people, you’re happier? Did you know to frown or make no expression, it takes like 17 muscles of your face, but to smile takes like four or five, I think it is? Don’t quote me on that. Everyone frown. Everyone smile. Is it more pleasant?
When you’re having a bad day and someone looks at you and smiles, am I approachable?
And so counterintuitive to maybe walking in feeling like a victim, instead forcing myself to be a person that is, guys, maybe even over-welcoming, maybe even over-gracious, Maybe to the point that people say, what is wrong with him? Why is he so happy? Why? We’re in the eye doctor and I got something sticking out of my eye. And he’s smiling at me, talking to me.
It does something to people. And I had several neat experiences just smiling at people. Go to Walmart, guys. Go to Walmart and just smile to every person. Look him in the face and smile. You will be shocked. You will be shocked. Go to Bobby Jones. That’s the worst one.
Evans is easy. Grovetown is super easy. Go to Bobby Jones’ ghetto Walmart. That’s what I call it. And smile. Look at every person. Kids in your high school tomorrow, when you’re walking through the halls, instead of this, or instead of, where’s my phone? Instead of this, you know? What if you and I just walked along?
That’s another thing I did. I purposely, Jennifer’s like, don’t shake it too much. I’m serious. She’s like, don’t shake it too much. You’re sending a message. I was like, all right.
And I had some incredible experiences.
One of the things I decided to do at my eye doctor was just go, I went to Panera and I bought 13 bagels and two tubs of cream cheese. It’s like 20 bucks. And I brought it in. I just said, I brought bagels for everyone.
I got so many thank yous. Why? Just because God loves you. Is there blueberry in there? You bet there is blueberry in there. Another thing, Jennifer and I were eating breakfast one morning. We went out and had breakfast. And there was a couple there. And I had my Bible. I was reading it at the breakfast.
And they prayed. And they were next to us. So I just looked over, because normally I wouldn’t have done this, because my life’s so bad, my eye hurts, I’ve got all these problems. We do. I’m not discounting that. But I just made myself do what Paul says here, just give grace to other people. And they prayed for their meals, so I looked over and I said, it is so nice. I felt like I’m really an adult now when I said this. I said, it is so nice in these dark times to see someone thanking God for their food. And we had the neatest little conversation about our faith.
It was awesome.
Bless you. And many, many other things.
Ask yourself this question as we’re closing.
And maybe you don’t need to ask yourself because you might cheat and lie. Maybe you could ask the 10 people that know you the most. All right, church, we’re getting all up in your face now. Maybe ask the 10 people that know you the best. And this is just a simple question. am I a welcoming person?
Do I project grace and welcome to other people or not?
And what a gift it is to meet people through bagels, at breakfast, through smiles in the eye clinic. I told you guys a couple weeks ago, Abby and I were talking to one of our new neighbors who’s a rental and we’ve been giving them tomatoes from our garden. And just a couple weeks ago, and she, a lady, she’s retired. Her husband passed away, and she’s about, I think she’s about 70. And she plays pickleball.
And we’re chatting in the tomatoes, and she said, she said, you know, you’re the only neighbor that talks to me.
Wow. And I said something about, God bless you, dot, dot, dot. So Paul says, we are light shiners, life givers, hope bringers, that the fragrance of Christ is always fuming. And the last little bit I want to point out here is in verse 10. In order the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. Did you know when you live a life that leaks the gospel and gives grace to the strangers, did you know it touches heaven? He just said it. He said, this is given to the church and it goes out and it’s preached to the authorities and those in heavenly places. Your kindness and sharing the grace of Jesus to other people. And it may be a smile. It may be a bagel. It may be a full gospel presentation. It may be sitting with a girl that’s going to have an abortion and showing her a different way. It may be sitting with a student in your school and showing them a different way. It may be sitting with your friend who’s failing algebra and telling them, you know, I pray and I get the equations.
I don’t know. For each of us, it’s different. But in some way, when we let the gospel out of our lives, instead of just being about us all the time, somehow it says it touches heavenly places. Isn’t that amazing? Like when we operate in that way, we are operating in heavenly places. So you are released to be kind, share the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus with others.
Ready, aim, fire. Amen? All right, let’s stand and let’s pray.
