Sunday 10 August 2025

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons.Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 10 August

Speaker: Mike Bullard

Sermon Title: The Manifold Wisdom Of God

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 3:1-13

 Today's reading is from Ephesians chapter three, verses one to 13. For this reason, I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. For the sake of you, Gentiles. Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. That is the mystery made known to me by the revelation, as I have already written briefly in reading this, then.

You will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that. Through the gospel, the Gentiles are as together with Israel members together of one body and shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I'm less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past, was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God's should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose, which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

I ask you therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. Hear the words from the Holy Bible.

Morning. Uh, shall we pray? Lord, thank you for the words that we've sung and been read and we've shared in holy communion together. We are not our own. We were bought with a price. Thank you for that, Lord, that you have taken ownership of us. That gives us security, but it also, Lord lays upon us an obligation to serve, guide us in our lives, Lord, that we would serve you.

Give us understanding of your word that we might serve you in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. I wonder if you think about. Uh, writers of fiction in history. I asked the question about who might be the most prolific fiction writer in history, and I started thinking, I thought, first of all, I thought maybe Tolkien, maybe The Hobbit or something like that.

And it's 120 million copies or the Lord of the Rings, uh, 150 million copies. And I thought perhaps CS Lewis with all the Ani and all the other things he wrote, uh, that's 150 million as well. And I thought, that's a lot of books to have written fiction. And then, uh, I then it, it got a bit bit larger. Um, JK Rowing, the Harry Potter stories, 500 million copies have been sold.

Amazing numbers of books, but really they're not that many compared with the greatest two fiction writers of all time, one of whom is Shakespeare. And they estimate 2 billion copies of Shakespeare's works have been published. And all sorts of languages, but mainly English, 2 billion. And there's one other person equal with Shakespeare.

I wonder who that is. Have a look on the screen. This is who it is. It's Agatha Christie. She wrote, there's 2 billion copies of works of Agatha Christie being published. 66 detective novels and 14 short story collection. In her all the, the work she's written, she's best known as a writer of the mystery genre, so she writes mysteries.

She's known as the queen of mystery. Mystery is very pop. What is a mystery? Uh, a mystery really is a story that goes in a direction. At some point, something is revealed and it changes direction. You thought that's was unexpected, but not completely unexpected because earlier in the story, there was a seed planted that was then realized later in the story.

So if you think about the mystery story, the Butler did it. It is revealed, but you realize, ah, of course it was the butler. I thought it was the lawyer. But actually later in the story, you realize back when the murder was done, the butler left the room and the lawyer was still in the room. And so something is revealed that was earlier in the story.

And later in the story it gets unveiled and all of a sudden you realize the butler did it all along, or something like that. It all makes sense. Here's the Bible. You know, the New Testament refers to eight things as mysteries, unveiled things that are unveiled in the New Testament that were hidden in the Old Testament.

Things that were surprising. If you see the of the story and then all of a sudden the New Testament comes, you think, I didn't realize it was gonna end up there, the, but you realize the clues were there in the Old Testament. When we read the New Testament, the mysteries are revealed. We can see what God's ultimate purposes are when the mysteries are revealed.

They were kind of hidden in the Old Testament and they're revealed in the New Testament. Eight things in today's read. A mystery was talked about. One of the mysteries. There are others. This is one of them, one of the major ones. Uh, it's in a ch a chapter three of Ephesians, which we read and notice in the reading, I've highlighted the word mystery three times in those first few verses.

Sure you've heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. That is the mystery made known to me by revelation. As I've already written briefly, it's a mystery revealed. In reading this, you'll be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. And in verse six, this mystery is that through the gospel, the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel members together of one body, share us together in the promise of.

Jesus. The time came to reveal the mystery in Christ that God's plan was not just for the Jews. The mystery was God's plan was for the whole world. And the purpose of the Jews was to be the ones who would bear that, uh, the message of that to the rest of the world through them would come Messiah. And they would, they would first of all be the nation that other nations would look to, to see what this God was like.

And then the Messiah would be born through them and the message would go out to all nations. That was unexpected to many of the Jewish people. They didn't think God was gonna end up loving the whole world. They thought they were special. They were special, but not in the way they thought. We're the chosen ones.

We're the ones. God's not interested in the Gentiles. He's only interested in us. Just look at all the attention we get. We've got the temple, we've got the promises. We've got special provision. We've got the land. We're special. I didn't realize God had chosen them for a purpose. The purpose was that all nations would know him.

That was the purpose. And when the mystery was revealed through the gospel, that Israel and the Gentiles as a pulses are one body, one body sharers in the product together in Christ. That was a mystery. It freaked out the Jewish believers, uh, and lots of people too. The key mystery in the New Testament that it reveals God's purposes all along were for all people everywhere, but it was easy to imagine.

The direction of the story was only towards Israel. That God was interested only in them. But if you look through the story, remember in the mystery early in the story, the seeds are planted that you can actually work out who'd done it, what happened in the, in the Bible. So let's take. Of Abraham in Genesis 12.

God's gonna, he calls him out. He's gonna bless him. He's gonna make his name great. He's gonna, you're gonna be a blessing. I'm gonna bless those who bless you. Curse those who curse, curse you, and what's it say the last line. And all nations will be blessed through you. The seed of the ultimate mystery was already there in Genesis 12.

Sometimes they missed it. But the seed of the, the unveiling of the mystery was already there. I, Isaiah 49, it says this about the servant who would come. It's too small a thing that you would be my servant to bring Jacob back to him to restore Israel. Israel was gonna be restored, but it's too small a thing just for Israel to be stored, restored.

I will also make you a light to the Gentiles that my salvation might reach to the ends of the earth. So the Messiah was gonna come not just. Israel, but for all nations, the the cell go to the ends of the earth. So in the New Testament, this mystery is revealed in Christ, Israel and the Gentiles together.

One body, Paul says he uses this word, this prefix is son. One body shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus. Three times he uses this prefix. He's in the past, they were separate, but now the. Come one, share us together in the promise in Christ. It's foreshadowed in the Old Testament. It's realized in the New Testament.

Now, let's go on to verse seven. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I'm less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given me. I'm gonna emphasize Paul received grace for a purpose. He had a job to do. The first thing he received grace for to preach to the Gentiles, the boundless riches of Christ.

Now we think about Paul. He went through all the world, the known world, the Mediterranean world, preaching the gospel, uh, to the Gentiles. He did that well. It's fantastic. We read about it in the New Testament, but that's only the first thing he received Grace for. Here's the second and verse nine, to make plain to everyone, the administration of this mist.

Which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. Paul received grace for two reasons. One is to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and secondly, to make known, make it plain to everyone. What is the administration of that mystery? When we use the word administration, what do we mean? It's how it's working itself out.

How's this meant to be done? It's not random. We don't get to choose how the church is built. It's gotta be built on. That God gives it. And Paul says part of it is to reveal how things meant to work itself out. Not just that he's gonna preach, but what is the church gonna look like? How's the gospel meant to go out to the nations?

That's the grace that Paul is given for these two things.

I'm gonna talk about that 'cause I think. We get the first one. We get that Paul is meant to preach the gospel to the nations. I think we highlight that all the time, and I think we almost never highlight what Paul's talking about in the second part. Let's go on verse 10. His intent, God's intent was that now, when is now, now.

In the time he was living in, and I think the whole New Testament time through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose. The accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians chapter one, verse eight, talks about the eternal purpose that all things will be headed up in Christ, things on heaven, things on earth, things under the earth, that everything is summed up in Jesus, that he'll be Lord of all.

That's God's eternal purpose in Christ. That was one of the other mysteries that everything was gonna be summed up in Christ. That's how Ephesians starts. And I think this is one of the most misunderstood verses in the New Testament. Paul says, now, through church, the manifold wisdom of God is gonna be revealed.

It's shown in the church, not just to society, but to the powers, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. Something's happening in the church that speaks to the heavenly powers. And it's really important. We know what it is that talking about something is on display in the church that speaks to the powers.

Now, powers, we don't talk about that much in our society. I don't see that in the newspapers. I don't see it on news. The rulers and authority realms, we don't. That's not something we talk about in our with very, in the ancient. Very common. Who are the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms? And in the Bible we read about spiritual beings who have some sort of jurisdiction over the nations.

Uh, we have, we. The Prince of Persia. We have Prince of Greece, we have the Prince of Israel. In the Book of Daniel, it talks about spiritual warfare and God is resisted by these princes, by these spiritual realities that are there. Maybe they're angelic beings. The Bible assumes they exist and that they give shape to culture and to government and human institutions.

They like. They set the vibe of the culture, their spiritual bit. In charge of cultures and places.

We've almost totally neglected this in the western world because we had, we had a, a God, uh, who was transcendent. Uh, above time and space, but when the mo, the Gospel was preached, often missionaries went to indigenous cultures. They didn't just talk about a God who was transcendent. They talked about all these other spiritual beings in the middle.

And a ologist called Paul Hebert wrote a book called, or he talked about the excluded middle. In the Western world, we've totally forgotten about the powers. We talk about God. God is the highest God. If you like, in the third heaven it talks about, but there's this other space in the middle which is occupied by the powers.

Ephesians talks about this quite a lot and he talked about the excluded middle. We've missed this idea that there are powers in God rules over all, where these powers that, um, are ruling other small areas and actually many times in rebellion against. These powers divide nations. They think they're in control of these nations.

That's what they've taken. They've usurped authority over the people of the world, and they take authority over nations and they influence cultures and governments, et cetera. When we talk about rulers and authorities in the Bible, we're talking about this kind of level of spiritual beings and realities, localized deities that impact society and culture, not divine like God is.

They're created beings. They're not human. They're spiritual. We don't see them, but we see their influence, darkness, fear, oppression, these sort of things. And Paul says, now through the church, something is being revealed to these spiritual powers. Something that wasn't made known before. They kind of had free reign before they ruled over nations.

The Jews and Gentiles, they were separate. Uh, after the promise to Abraham, God made a special promise to the Jews. The nation separated out, and there were these powers involved in that. God's manifold wisdom was not on display. God's manifold wisdom. Another way of saying God's multifaceted wisdom. It's the wisdom that has many different expressions, but somehow it's all one.

This is how God deals with the nations. We have a, a, a hint on a picture of what it's gonna be like in the book of Revelation. So he's Revelation seven. Let's go to the next one. Uh, what's, where's God going with the nations after this? I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the lamb.

They were way wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands and they cro out in a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. Here's God's vision for the nations. They're all. Circling the throne of the lamb. And they're worshiping. They come from every nation on every tribe, every people brought together by the lamb.

They've been saved by Jesus. I put it to you. This is the future of the world. It's the future of the nations. And what Paul's saying is that's meant to happen in the church now. Now through the church manifold. God, which brings all people together in Christ is meant to be revealed to the powers through the church now.

So all of the ethnic diversity, we all have an ethnicity, we all have a background, all of that, and sometimes in society that causes division, black, white, rich, poor, this group, that group, constantly in history, these groups. And Paul's saying Now in the church, all of those things must be dissolved because we come together under one Lord.

It doesn't matter. Jesus transcends your background. The most important thing of your identity is not your ethnicity. It's the fact that you are called by God to be his child. All nations come around the throne before the lamb. Whatever the diversity we have in our society. It's relativized. It needs to be dissolved in the church.

A church that has ethnic divisions and treats people differently on the basis of their ethnicity shows favoritism and prejudice. That church is not demonstrating God's wisdom. It's, it's allowing culture and society to demon, to, to dictate who's important and who's not important. God doesn't want that.

It's so different. In this for the church, people can still believe in Jesus in that reality, but they're not fulfilling. God's calling for their life and the church will not be the church that demonstrates God's wisdom to the powers. You will have no authority in the spiritual place. So people, sometimes people, they talk about spiritual warfare and they speak lots of words, but if the church does not overcome the ethnic tension and divisions that society has, we've got nothing to say to the powers.

'cause we're just demonstrating the rule that they had over the nations. We just continue it in the church and what we're really saying is Jesus is not Lord here. These guys are, if we have one Lord, and that's the future to bring us all together. Paul's saying it's gotta be demonstrated in the church now.

Don't wait for heaven. Start it now. That's what he's saying. It's not just to preach the gospel for people to be saved. It is that. But it's also how are we meant to gather once this happens? The communities that are brought about Paul doesn't, doesn't plant a gentile church and a Jewish church and this church and a Roman church, the church is one in one place.

He, he brings them all together, read particularly about Philippians in Acts chapter 16. It's made up of people, whoever comes to Christ, they come into one community and they start to glorify God together. Okay, so let's get to this one. Uh, back to Ephesians three. Next one.

Uh, back. Yes. His intent was now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. That's what God intended. Now the mystery is revealed. He's gonna, he's gonna make known his wisdom. He's gonna make known the Lordship of Jesus, not just at the end of time, but in history in the church.

The. Of God according to his eternal purpose, which is to bring all things under the lordship of Jesus. That means that how we meet together is really important. It's not just getting together. There's gotta be a dissolving of ethnic conflict, tensions and all that stuff. It's the manifold wisdom of God, in fact.

I bought a manifold. This is, this is, uh, I think it's off a tractor. A farmer gave it to me, right? And, uh, you know, a manifold. This is profound because a manifold illustrates. The history of the world, both in the spreading out of the nations and the coming of the nations together in Christ. See the manifold fuel line, let's say the petrol tank is down here and the fuel line comes up usually underneath the car, and it comes up in the old style, in the carretta, and it mixes with air, and that mixture goes down into the.

Into the engine, but the engine's made up of, in this case, how many cylinders? Four. Right. It's, it starts with one fuel line and spreads out into four. This is the book of Genesis. God starts with one couple and they spread out to the nations. Different culture and different languages. They separate out.

That's the, the start of the history of the world. Like that. It goes into history, into the engine. What happens on the other side of the engine? Oh, this is heavy. Um, the many come back into one. It goes in, you know, the exhaust goes out in the exhaust and goes down the other side as one. God's plan is like that from one couple.

All the nations spread out and then history happens. And on the other side of history, what's gonna happen? Are they gonna stay separate? God's plan is gonna bring together in Christ. The manifold wisdom of God is both the separating out to the nations, but also the bringing together the nations under one head, Jesus Christ, that all might be reconciled to God through wherever people come from.

In the past, the nations were separate. There was no uniting force. All we had was empire. The Roman Empire brings people from different backgrounds and unites them under Caesar and the, and the, the rule of Caesar, the government, the, the fort. During an economic force, every empire works like that, including the British Empire.

The whole colonial enterprise was about dominating cultures. One culture would suppress the other cultures. There's always suppression and injustice to suppression of culture and language domination. Jesus doesn't work that way. He wins people over through love and truth. He doesn't suppress your culture.

He invites us into God's kingdom. Whatever our background, you don't give up your ethnicity or your culture. Or your language, you come together as one in Christ. We are joined in Him and in him. We are reconciled to God. At the end of time, we're gonna work towards this idea that all nations are gonna be gathered around the throne, all worshiping together.

Uh, like a manifold come together under one head. That's what happens. And Paul says, I want that to be the case. God's plan. His intent was that now in the church, that would be not just at the end of time. Now

the Jews and Gentiles made one in Christ and all nations being made one.

Now there are other mysteries of the New Testament. There's a hardening of Israel for, and they will come in, but the, the plan is that they would all come into the one church. There is a, there are promises to Israel given in Romans nine to 11 and there's kind of a hunting, but in our generation we're seeing that softening.

Jewish people are coming to Christ, which to me says Israel's like a clock on the wall telling us, uh, how close we are. Uh, because at the time that the Jews come back to Christ, Paul says, that's the time of the resurrection. We could be just almost there. We demonstrate God's wisdom and hit the lordship of Jesus over all nations.

By how we treat one another in the church. The old rivalries have to be put aside. This is spiritual warfare, straight to the powers, their reign is finished. You guys don't rule anymore. You're not ruling over the nations. There's a new king town, Jesus rules over the nations, and this group of people demonstrates that.

That's the case. It speaks to the powers, it tells 'em their reign is at an end because Jesus is now Lord, they are not Martin Luther King in the us. He said 11 o'clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the nation. What did he mean? What happens Sunday morning Church in, in the US What he, what he was saying was.

As the church in America, the white and the black church, we'd so bought into this idea that we are separate, that we were having separate churches. We never mixed black people and white people would never get together. That's so not the gospel. So the church had drunk this Kool-Aid and said, yes, we're separate.

Society says we're separate, we're gonna be separate. People even had theologies of separation. Totally wrong. Paul said Now through the church, the church is the key to the reconciliation of the world. It's key to the unity of the nations 'cause only here in Christ do we have a reason to show that we're together and united and saved in him.

We are meant to be a foretaste to the world of the future that God is gonna bring all together.

I've got a dream, not, not like him, but I have this idea we've got a workplace. In that workplace there are people from different, and as you often get in society, there's tension between these ethnicities out and the management of thinking, how do we fix this problem? Productivity's down, the workers are not happy.

Everybody's upset. How do we fix the problem? And they look around for someone to fix the problem and they, they see, well, that guy or that girl, they seem to be able to bridge the gap. They seem to be able to relate to both groups. And they say, would you have a chat to these people about the differences?

'cause you seem to be able to connect with them. Can you have a chat and start to bring things together? And all of a sudden people start talking and start to becoming better relationships. They start to be reconciled and afterwards, people ask these people, you do that. Where did you learn that? And what do they say?

I learned that in church and that if we become the people God wants us to be, we become the agents of reconciliation in the world. Not just in theory, but because we learn how to relate to people from different backgrounds because that's what the church is. United in Christ. We accept people from all backgrounds.

And so when I go into my workplace or my family, my neighborhood, wherever it is, I take that reality with me as an agent of reconciliation to bring peace to a world that's divided. What takes place here has this potential to change the world. Most conflicts are ethnic based conflicts throughout the world.

We can transform that if we work, if we meet together,

Paul ends the chapter like this, uh, next one in him and through faith in him. That is Jesus. We may approach God with freedom and confidence, who may approach God. People from all nations may approach God with freedom and confidence. Together, brothers and sisters, one body ask you therefore. My sufferings for you, which I,

the powers don't like the gospel and they don't like the impact of the gospel on the nations. 'cause it, they lose their power over these people. When Jesus is Lord of all nations and we display that they've lost their power and eventually they lose their power over the culture to divide people, the enemy works to limit the spread of the gospel and to divide people so that they're not united in Christ.

This becomes the picture of the future, the seed. Of the, the blessing that God wants to bring into the world, the freedom that God has for us in Christ, all of us, whatever our background, may that be what's lived out among us, and then let it become what is lived out the world. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for what you've done in Jesus for us. He's given his life. That we might have forgiveness and reconciliation with you. And Lord, I thank you that in being reconciled to you, Lord, we are also reconciled to one another. Help us live that out in the way we gather because your plan, Lord, is to bring all nations things in heaven and on earth together under the lordship of Jesus that he will be Lord of all.

Not just in the future, Lord, let it happen now in our midst, in our lives, in our families, in our church, and ultimately Lord through us into the world. Grant us grace for this to live it out. In Jesus' name, amen mean.