Over the last few weeks we’ve been examining Ephesians 3:1 – 13 and we’ve been looking at this theme of confidence in the midst of suffering. When suffering comes knocking on your door, where do you find confidence? When sin and trial and temptation come knocking on your door, where do you search for confidence?
Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 3:1 – 13…
1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles – 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
In verse 13 Paul says “don’t lose heart when you see me suffering for you”. Paul is sitting in prison on false charges writing a letter to the Ephesians and in this portion of his letter he instructs the Ephesians to remain confident. How could Paul say this given the circumstances of his situation? I think Paul had found the secret of remaining confident amidst his own suffering and that confidence enabled him to exhort his readers to do the same. But how? How did Paul not lose heart in the midst of his own suffering?
Over the last few weeks we’ve learned that Paul remained confident because he had a redeemed view of himself, he knew who he was captured by, he knew that he was a steward of God’s grace and he knew he had been given a great revelation.
Paul remained confident in the midst of great suffering because the reflection he saw in the mirror was the reflection of a man that had been changed and was being changed by God’s grace. He wasn’t a prisoner to his sin and he wasn’t a prisoner of any man. He was a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He was bound to Christ in his life, death and resurrection. There was nothing on this Earth that captured Paul’s attention other than Christ.
And he wasn’t just a recipient of God’s grace. He was a steward or a manager of God’s grace. The grace that Paul had received didn’t cause him to be a selfish hoarder of God’s grace it caused him to be a generous and courageous proclaimer and contributor of God’s grace to others. He knew that God’s grace wasn’t just for him. He constantly and compassionately invited and welcomed others to come and experience the same grace he had received. This massive revelation of the gospel of God’s grace in the presence of Christ gave Paul extreme confidence. And it gave him the ability to call his listeners to the same radical confidence he lived with.
Where does your confidence come from? Sometimes I search for confidence in my ability to get things done or my ability to do things right. I look for confidence in my ability to earn a good reputation or my ability to build a good life for myself. But at the end of the day, all of my abilities to perform and accomplish and work hard leave me in a pit of my own insecurity and inability.
At the end of the day I fall terribly short of being the man who has it all together and in those moments I realize once again that true and lasting confidence does not result from my effort or my work or my accomplishments.
This is where verses 6 – 7 help to build out a fresh vision of what it means to remain confident in the midst of suffering and difficulty and uncertainty. In these two verses Paul teaches us that true confidence is rooted in trusting that God will make us into the people he’s designed us to be through the promise of the gospel.
#1. Paul found confidence in the promise of the gospel (6)
Think about the words heir and member and partaker for a minute. These words remind us that we’ve been promised an inheritance, we are not alone in this world and we have equal access to our Father in Heaven. Paul says that, “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The playing field has been leveled. No person is more special than the next. Regardless of your past sin, your current struggle or your future failure, every person who has trusted in Christ can remain confident in the truth that God will make us into the people he’s designed us to be.
God does not discontinue the work he begins in his people until we are finished. He doesn’t save us to leave us in our mess. God doesn’t say “come belong to my family just as you are so that you can be the same person tomorrow.” God says “come be a part of my family just as you are so that I can change you into the person I designed you to be.” God has promised to make us into new creations in Christ Jesus. He has promised that in Christ we can become sons and daughters of the king instead of enemies of the king. He has promised us the inheritance of Heaven where there will be no more pain and no more suffering and no more sin. The promises of God are a sure foundation for our confidence.
Where do you find your confidence? When you struggle with that ongoing sin. When you begin to think there’s no hope. When you feel helpless to change your circumstances. When that backpack full of fear over your shoulder gets so heavy you think you can’t keep moving forward. When the storms of life batter the house of your soul to a bloody pulp and it feels like the house is going to topple over. Where do you search for confidence?
I admit, when all the fury of Satan and sin and the world gets thrown at me, I often feel like I’m going to crumble. I feel weak. I feel insecure. I feel like a failure. I feel alone. I want security and I want to be successful and I want to be acceptable. When my backpack full of fear gets so heavy that I think I can’t take another step, I go to God’s Word and I go to God’s people and I go to the foot of the cross. God’s Word reminds me of the promises of God. God’s people speak the truth of the gospel to me boldly. And in the shadow of the cross my backpack full of fear is lifted onto the shoulders of my Savior.
I am not the same as I once was. I used to search for confidence in my accomplishments. I used to search for confidence in my abilities. I used to search for confidence in my success. But I’m not the same person I used to be and I won’t be the same person tomorrow. I am confident in that truth because the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches me that I am an heir to the benefits of the Kingdom. I am a member of the same body with other once-upon-a-time enemies of Christ. I share in the same promises of the gospel that every other child of God shares. My confidence is rooted in trusting that God will make me into the person he’s designed me to be through the promise of the gospel.
#2. Paul found confidence in being a gospel-made man (7)
Gangster movies are one of my weaknesses. I’m not talking about movies that revolve around growing up in the hood. I’m talking about gangster movies of the mob sort. I’m Italian and part of my family lineage has mob ties in it’s past. But it’s not just the ethnicity or the family lineage that feeds my weakness for gangster flicks. Part of my weakness for gangster flicks is fed by my hunger for a picture of what a confident man looks like. The men in these films were known to be made-men. They worked hard to be successful and they leveraged their abilities (as destructive as they were) to make themselves into men who were respected, revered and accomplished.
But here’s the thing, the characters in these movies weren’t just self-made men (although they definitely relied on themselves to become who they were), these men were made-men who were made into men by the mob around them and the mob boss above them. Their confidence was rooted in the efforts of sinful human systems of deception and criminal enterprise.
These wise guys (as they were often called) remind me a lot of the apostle Paul because Paul was a made-man. At one time he was a self-made man who was made into a selfish man by a religious system of mob-like oppression and violence. But all of that changed the day Jesus knocked him off his high horse. From that day forward, Paul was no longer a self-made man who’d been made into a man by a terrorist organization. Paul was now a gospel-made man who was made into a real man by the hand of his enemy.
This is why Paul says, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power.” Paul found true confidence in the powerful work of God’s grace making him into the man that God had designed him to be. Paul was no longer an enemy of Christ. He was now a minister of the gospel. Paul had received the gift of God’s grace in return for all the war he made against the Savior. All of Paul’s self-made power was stripped away by the powerful work of Christ at the cross. Paul’s confidence was now rooted in being a gospel-made man by the power of the gift of God’s grace.
Where do you find your confidence? When you think about the dreams and the desires you have for your life. When you think about what you want the most. When you realize that what you’ve been working your fingers to the bone for just doesn’t satisfy you like you thought it would. When your stability is threatened. When your security is threatened. When your hopes get crushed. When all of your hard work, regardless of how good or bad it is, goes up in smoke. Where do you go to find confidence?
The only place to find true confidence is at the foot of the cross. In the shadow of the cross, self-made people die to themselves and become new people who are being recreated into the reflection of Jesus. When you look into the mirror, what is the reflection you see? Do you see an unlovable person? Do you see a failure? Do you see an ugly person? Do you see an unwanted person? Do you see an insecure person?
The cross of Christ changes your reflection. As you follow Jesus, you simultaneously become more aware of your own sin and more aware of the grace of God in the cross of Christ. True confidence is rooted in trusting that God will make you into the person that he designed you to be through the power of the gospel. This truth enables weak men to confidently confess their sin and cling to the power of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The obedient life that Jesus lived for me gives me the confidence to live in obedience to God’s Word. And when I stumble in sin, the obedient life of Christ gives me confidence that his perfect life was given at the cross for my sinful life. When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death as I fight against the power of Satan, sin and the world, I am empowered to walk confidently because the tomb of my perfect Savior is empty. My hope isn’t in the here and now. My hope and my confidence rests in the power of the empty tomb. True confidence is rooted in trusting that God will make us into the people he’s designed us to be through the promise of the gospel.
Conclusion and personal application…
How do we apply this message? How do we take what we’ve learned here and put it into action? I think the best application of this message is to ask some diagnostic questions. Think about a sin that you’ve been struggling with. It could be lust or anger or selfishness or bitterness or cynicism or skepticism or resentment or backbiting or gossip or substance abuse or sexual-addiction or jealousy or laziness or any host of things like these. Now interrogate your sin with these questions.
- What sin do I struggle with? When do I struggle? What do I do when I struggle? What do I want when I give into that sin? What does that sin promise me? What relief do I believe I will get from pursuing that sin?
- What gospel-promises do I need to trust in? How does God’s Word promise to fulfill my desires in this particular area of sin? How do these promises in the gospel build my confidence to resist sin? Who do I need to confess this struggle to? Who do I need to ask to hold me accountable to trusting the promises of the gospel?
As we’ve looked at this text we’ve taken a hard look at how the promises of the gospel give us true confidence and shape our confidence. Think about how a promise can shape you. If someone promises to pay you double-time at your job it shapes the way you work. If someone promises to love and cherish you forever it shapes the way you relate to them. If someone promises to buy you lunch it shapes the hunger in your stomach. And all of these things I’ve mentioned are Earthly things. They are things that won’t last forever.
How much more should the promise of the gospel shape you right now? Here’s the thing. The promise of sin will always taste better to you until the consequences of sin taste worse. Sin promises you immediate gratification of your desires but it carries the consequences of eternal death. The gospel promises you eternal gratification of your desires with the consequence of eternal life. There’s no lasting confidence to be found in the pursuit of sin. Lasting confidence can only be found in the promises of the gospel.
Paul knew this to be true and that’s how he was able to encourage the Ephesians to remain confident and not to lose heart when they saw him suffering for them. Paul’s vision of confidence was rooted in the person and work of Christ where all of the promises of the gospel come to a point in the cross and the empty tomb.
The promise of the gospel gave Paul confidence and the gospel itself shaped Paul into the confident man he was. Where have you been searching for your confidence? Where have you been listening to the promises of sin? Where do you need to begin listening to the promises of the gospel? True confidence is rooted in trusting that God will make us into the people he’s designed us to be through the promise of the gospel.