The Grace, Mystery, and Humility of Salvation

Ephesians 3:1-13

I did a quick search on the internet and discovered that Jews are going to hell. They will be joined by Catholics and atheists. Liberal Christians are going to hell as are gays and Islamic terrorists. To my surprise I discovered that aliens will also go to hell. If I had looked longer than just a minute the list could be much longer.

I am continually amazed that people can be so definitive about something they have no authority to decide. I like to point to the thief on the cross. If you had asked people in his neighborhood, particularly people he had wronged, if he would go to heaven, they would have shaken their heads and laughed. But Jesus told him, in the last moments of his life, (Luke 23:43) “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

I read once that on the Judgment Day, many eyes will be opened and many mouths will be shut. Too many people are far too sure about who will be saved and who will not be saved.

This morning I am picking up in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians from where I left off last June. I preached last year from chapters one and two and this morning we will look at the first thirteen verses of chapter three.

Paul begins in verse one with:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
and then breaks off. Paul is dictating this letter and the scribe is writing on a scroll what Paul says. Paul breaks off because he has another thought and he does not come back to what he began to say until verse fourteen when he says:
For this reason I kneel before the Father,

If Paul had been able to work with a word processor, he would have deleted verse one, but a scroll was too valuable to throw away. So before Paul prays his beautiful prayer in verse 14, he goes back to review some of his themes of the first two chapters.

In these twelve verses, three words stand out: grace, mystery, and humility. And so this morning I will talk about the grace, mystery, and humility of salvation.

In these verses Paul talks about grace as God’s divine kindness to himself and to the Gentiles. He writes in verse 2:
Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you,

I preached last week about Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Paul was blinded by the brilliance of the light of Jesus and then led to Damascus where Ananias came to him with the healing and filling of the Holy Spirit. Ananias also came with Jesus’s message, that Paul was to bring the good news of Jesus to the Gentile world.

Paul was zealous in his pursuit of followers of Jesus who he considered to be heretics. He served the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by persecuting these heretics who were followers of Jesus and Paul viewed Jesus himself as a betrayer of the Law of Moses who deserved to have been crucified. So when Paul was blinded by the appearance of Jesus to him, he was understandably shaken. (Acts 9:3–5)
3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.

Saul asked, “Who are you Lord?” Saul knew he was experiencing the supernatural. What do you think Saul thought when he heard the answer? “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” “Oh (insert your own expletive here)! I am in big trouble.”

Saul knew what he deserved. He deserved to be killed for having worked against Jesus. He had stood as witness when Stephen was stoned to death. He had continued to persecute those who followed Jesus. He was the enemy of those who followed Jesus and now he was on his knees, blinded by the light of the risen Jesus who was asking him why he was persecuting him. The Torah proscribes the punishment for this. (Exodus 21:23–25)
23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Paul knew what he deserved. But Jesus did not kill him. Jesus did not punish him. Jesus gave him what he did not deserve. That is the definition of grace, giving what is not deserved. By the grace of God, Saul was healed of his blindness, filled with the Holy Spirit, and given the assignment of taking the gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles. Paul writes in verse 7:
I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.

Grace, grace, God’s grace.

You and I are no different. While we may not have killed any followers of Jesus, we were following our own agenda and we continue to follow our own agenda. Our human nature which chooses ourselves over and over again, works against what Jesus wants for us.

Paul wrote in (Romans 5:8)
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus does not wait until we are worthy of being rescued; “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

We are saved by the grace of God. We have been given what we do not deserve. Paul goes on to write in Romans 5:10 that we were God’s enemies. We deserve destruction just as much as Saul deserved destruction. But we have been loved with a love that is beyond our comprehension.

We do not deserve being rescued by Jesus. We cannot earn what Jesus has done for us. We will never be able to repay Jesus for what he has done for us. We have been saved by grace.

Earlier in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he wrote: (Ephesians 2:5–9)
it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Salvation is God giving us what we do not deserve. We are saved by grace.

Paul writes about the grace of salvation and four times in these twelve verses he talks about the mystery of salvation.
Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 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. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Saul, as a zealous defender of the Torah, the five books of Moses, thought he had it all figured out. Yahweh was Israel’s God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Obedience to the Law of Moses was the way to salvation.

Each nation had their gods. The Egyptians had one hundred fourteen gods and goddesses. The god of the Philistines was Dagon. We remember that because when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant in battle with Israel and put it in the temple next to their god, Dagon, in the morning Dagon was found prostrate before the Ark of the Covenant.

When Jonah was at sea and the storm was raging, each sailor called out to the god of their nation for help and the captain of the ship was upset that Jonah was not calling on his national god for help. The Romans worshiped a main pantheon of twelve Gods: six gods and six goddesses: Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vesta, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercurius, Neptunus, Volcanus, and Apollo.

Yahweh was Israel’s god because Yahweh chose Abraham and promised he would make him a great nation. Yahweh chose Israel to be his people and he gave Moses laws to keep them separate from the other peoples of the world. Let me remind you of the divisions that existed between Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles.

Jews were one nation, led by Moses out of Egypt and into Canaan by Joshua. But then over time divisions arose. There was a civil war, and by the time of Jesus, there was a deep-seated, one thousand year old prejudice against the Samaritans.

The history of the Samaritans began with the breakup of King Solomon’s kingdom into the northern kingdom of Israel (with its capital, Samaria) and the southern kingdom of Judah (with its capital, Jerusalem). The northern kingdom set up gold idols to be worshiped as a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem and for two and a half centuries the two kingdoms made alliances and broke them, made peace and then fought against each other.

Finally in 722 BC, Samaria was captured by the Assyrians. Thousands of Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel were deported and the country was repopulated with foreigners. The foreigners intermarried with the Jews who remained, which from the view of the Jews of Judah, made the Jews in the northern kingdom ritually unclean. They were put into the class of lepers and other outcasts.

There were centuries of  history that separated the Jews and the Samaritans. In John 4:9 when John recorded the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well and the woman asked Jesus: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” John felt it necessary to insert an explanation for his readers: “For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.”

When Jesus sent out the twelve disciples to minister in his name, he told them: (Matthew 10:5) “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.”

In Luke 10, when Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, he needed an example of someone who was among the most despised by the religious establishment to be the one who helped the person in need. So Jesus chose a Samaritan for his parable to say that even a Samaritan is the true neighbor when he helps someone in need.

In Luke 17 when Jesus healed ten lepers and only one came back to thank Jesus, what is astounding is that this healed man was a Samaritan. Imagine that?

When Jews crossed over into Samaria on their journey to Jerusalem, upon leaving Samaria they shook the dust off their sandals as judgment against the Samaritans.

At the heart of Israel’s disdain for the Samaritans was the fact that they had contact with Gentiles and intermarried with them. That is why they were defiled. So as bad as the Samaritans were, the Gentiles were even worse. The Gentiles are what made the Samaritans bad.

Remember that Matthew, the writer of the gospel, was a tax collector and considered unclean because of his frequent contact with Gentiles. He was a religious outcast because of his association with non-Jews.

As religious Jews, Peter and his fellow disciples were forbidden to have any contact with Gentiles. If a Gentile entered a home, it was considered defiled until the evening. If milk was drawn from a cow by a Gentile or bread or olive oil was made by a Gentile, it was forbidden to eat or drink it.

Add to this the humiliation of having the Romans, Gentiles, occupying the land God had given to them and you see how deeply separated Jews were from Gentiles.

Jews were God’s chosen people. Of all the people in the world, God chose Abraham with whom he made a covenant. God instructed his chosen people not to intermarry with other people on the earth. God worked to create his own people, a people holy and dedicated to him. The nations had their gods, but Israel had the Creator God of all the world. God chose Israel and Israel believed God belonged to them.

The line could not have been drawn more clearly. The barrier could not have been better constructed.

But then Jesus came and in his death and resurrection the barrier was overcome. Jesus died not just for Jews, but for Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish followers of Jesus had a difficult time understanding this and it took three Pentecost experiences for these prejudices to be overcome. At the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Jewish followers of Jesus and Peter preached the first sermon of the church. Then, when persecution broke out, the gospel of Jesus was taken to Samaria and when Peter and John went to investigate, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the despised Samaritans. The third Pentecost occurred when Peter was praying on the roof of a house in Joppa and received a vision that what had been considered unclean was now clean. He went to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, and there the Holy Spirit was poured out once again. Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles were all brought into the family of God by the one Spirit. The barrier of prejudice was overcome.

This is the mystery Paul proclaims in this letter. In Ephesians 1:9–10 he writes:
9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

We take this for granted. We know that Jesus came to save the world. We are here at RIC this morning because of that. But the Jews did not know this and when Paul began his ministry to the Gentiles, opposition arose in the church. This was a huge shift in their understanding. The Jews were God’s chosen people and now the whole world had been chosen by God. This was a great mystery.

Paul refers to another mystery concerning salvation. In verses ten and eleven he writes:
10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The church stands as witness to hostile heavenly beings that they have been defeated and the end is approaching. We see what is happening on the surface here on earth, but in the supernatural world there is a continuing battle taking place about which we know very little. To discuss this in more depth would be to speculate in a way that would not be helpful and most likely not accurate, but I mention this to say that salvation is far more complicated than we can imagine. When someone turns to Jesus and accepts his hand to be rescued and brought into the kingdom of God, it seems there is a supernatural component to this event. It is not just one person choosing to follow Jesus; a battle takes place that we do not see. This is a mystery.

It is a very simple act of surrender to Jesus that brings us into his kingdom. It is not complicated. It only gets complicated when we try to understand the process of salvation. And as much as we try to understand, we will never completely understand because salvation is a mystery. We are too limited in our understanding to know how salvation works. All we know is what the man born blind told the Pharisees in John 9 when they said that the man who healed him was a sinner. The man born blind but who could now see said, (John 9:25)
“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”

Why was I saved and not others? What about people who lived before Jesus? What about people who have never heard of Jesus? What about people who were abused by people who said they were Christians? We have so many questions about salvation. All we know is we were blind and now we see. All we know is that Jesus is working to rescue people he loves.

Salvation is a mystery and even angels, the created beings who preceded our creation, are fascinated by the work of Jesus to rescue us. (1 Peter 1:10–12)
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Paul talks about the grace of salvation, the mystery of salvation, and the humility of salvation.

8 Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

Paul speaks of himself as less than the least of all God’s people, but that is not how Paul thought of himself when he began his ministry.

There is some dispute about when Paul wrote the letters that are in our New Testament, but if you follow the general time-line of his letters you see an interesting progression. One of his first letters was Galatians. When you read his introduction you can feel the sense of importance he had about himself. (Galatians 1:1)
Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,

Paul makes a big deal in this letter that he got his information straight from Jesus, not from others. (Galatians 1:12)
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Paul is dismissive of the other disciples of Jesus who he visited in Jerusalem. (Galatians 2:6)
As for those who seemed to be important—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance—those men added nothing to my message.

Paul takes on Peter, the leader of the disciples, and tells how he rebuked Peter in the church in Antioch. Paul is brash and confident in this letter.

But some time later when Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, there is a bit of a shift that tells me Paul has matured as a Christian. (I Corinthians 15:9)
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Do you hear the humility in Paul that was missing in his letter to the Galatians?

Then at the end of his life he wrote to the Ephesians and to Timothy and in these letters we see the progression of Paul, the spiritual maturity of Paul, the process of sanctification at work in Paul’s life. (Ephesians 3:8)
Although I am less than the least of all God’s people

(I Timothy 1:15)
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

Paul moved from “an apostle sent not from men nor by man,” to “the least of the apostles” and to “the greatest of all sinners.”

This is a pattern we can observe in the church. There is a zealous confidence that is seen in those who are young in faith that you do not see in those who have followed Jesus for many years. Humility develops as we hold on to Jesus and allow his salvation to work itself out in our lives. We become aware that we are far less perfect than we thought we were. We become aware that truth is not as simple as we once believed.

Young faith is often very confident about truth and it takes time to see the nuances of truth. It is not that we put less faith in Jesus, in fact our faith in Jesus deepens, but we are more able to see how much we do not understand and how much grace we need to extend to others who do not see things the way we do. With time we become wiser and realize that we are all broken people, trying our best to follow Jesus and love others in his name.

As Paul matured, he put less confidence in his own ability to make things happen and more confidence in Jesus to work through him. In Walter Wangerin’s book, Paul, a Novel, from which I read last Sunday, he writes of Paul who overpowered people in the beginning of his Christian ministry with his brilliance and charisma. At the end of his life, there was a different Paul. Still brilliant, but with a humility that allowed the power of God to shine about him. At the end of his life, the erosion of his rough edges had created a more powerful man of God.

We carry the mystery of salvation that we have received by grace with humility. We have been saved. We hold the hope that at the end of our earthly life, Jesus will take us into his kingdom as he promised. But it is not our place to say who else will be there with us.

We can say that some behavior is not consistent with faith in Jesus. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

We can say that some theologies are not consistent with faith in Jesus. (1 John 2:22–23)
22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

But we cannot say who is and who is not going to be in the kingdom of God. As I mentioned in the beginning of the sermon, on the Judgment Day, many eyes will be opened and many mouths will be shut. It is Jesus who will judge the living and the dead, not us.

On the one hand I have confidence in Jesus to save me, but on the other hand, I will be amazed and grateful when I discover that I am actually in his kingdom. My only chance for being with Jesus in heaven is that he will bring me with him. It will not be because I have lived a good life or because I deserve it. It will be because Jesus loves me and will do for me what I cannot do for myself.

Salvation is a mystery. We are, as D.T. Niles, famously said, “One beggar telling another beggar where to find food.” There is no place for us to be arrogant, saying who will and who will not be saved. We can only be grateful that Jesus has saved us.

In my life there are people who were much more deserving than me to be saved. My father was a wonderful man. People loved him. He was good and kind. Why he died completely indifferent to Jesus is a mystery to me. I have friends who are much better people than I am and yet they are not drawn to faith in Jesus. Salvation is a mystery.

I am grateful that by the grace of Jesus, despite my sin, despite my actions, he drew me to himself and I was able to surrender to him. I am grateful that he has been patient with me over the years and allowed me to grow in my faith.

Hold on to Jesus. You don’t deserve his love. You did not earn his rescue of you. You will never be able to repay him for saving you. You are the recipient of his amazing love. You are saved by grace.

Salvation is a mystery. Look with the angels at the amazing work of God in your life and in the world. Rejoice that you have been brought by Jesus to work with him as he rescues the lost in the world.

And hold with humility the grace and mystery of salvation. By grace you have been saved so that no one can boast.