When our kids started talking for the first time, our life got really interesting, as it often does.
In all the speaking that my children have learned, one word has become the most complicated out of all of them. That is the word “why.” Don’t you love it when a kid finally learns the word “why”? Because they just want to stick that word everywhere. You tell them it’s time to go to bed, they say, “Why?” You tell them not to do something, and they say, “Why?” You tell them you’re going to do something fun, and they say, “Why?” And then they start looking at the world around them, and they start paying attention to things, and they want to know why about everything. Why are the trees green? Why is the sky blue? Why are you a boy? Just the craziest stuff.
But there’s a reason for that. The reason we start at such an early age asking that question, “Why,” is because we were designed in the image of a God who has a purpose for everything. He is a purpose-driven God, and he does not do anything whimsically. He doesn’t do anything haphazardly. He doesn’t wake up one morning and say, “You know, I think this would be fun today.” Everything God does, he does with a plan and with a purpose that he intends to accomplish with that action.
And so we were created in the image of this God who loves doing things on purpose and having a purpose. When he created us, he created us to have that desire for purpose. We don’t like to think of things that don’t have meaning. In fact, we get frustrated by things that don’t have an apparent purpose to us, an apparent meaning. Philosophers have been asking for years, “What is the meaning of life?” And they wrestle with that. Many people have come to the conclusion that there is no meaning in life, that we’re just here to exist. We try our best to survive and have fun, and then once this life is over, that’s all there is. And these people go on to live very depressing lives, because they have no purpose for waking up in the morning. They have no purpose for doing anything that they do. A life without purpose is a life not worth living.
So God created us to love purpose. He created us to ask the question, “Why?” We were designed to look for understanding. And so we do. Even as Christians, we ask questions all the time about the purpose behind what we see and what we experience. Why did God create everything? Why does anything exist in the first place? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? There have been people who have even questioned the purpose in that. Couldn’t he have done it any other way? And I’ve heard people ask the question before, maybe you’ve wondered this yourself: if God knew that the man and the woman were going to eat of the fruit, why did he put the tree in the garden in the first place? It’s a thought-provoking question, isn’t it? If God knows everything, and he knows what’s going to happen, and he knew they were going to eat, why would he even put the tree in the garden?
We like to ask “why,” don’t we? And we like to have answers to our “why” questions. But I want to remind you this morning that our God does not do anything by accident. Everything he does has a purpose, and everything he does is good. Now, that’s hard for us to believe when God allows bad things to happen to us. That’s hard for us to believe when we’re feeling the pain, or feeling the loss, feeling the suffering. It’s hard to believe that God actually has a good reason for the things he does. But this morning I want to remind you, and maybe tell you for the first time, God has a purpose in everything that he does.
He had a purpose when he launched the plan of salvation into action, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the unity of the church, which we talked about last week. I shared with you the mystery of the gospel, which Paul talks about earlier in chapter three: that God has revealed this mystery that has been hidden since the foundations of the world, that God is intending to bring all things together in Jesus Christ. He has broken down that dividing line between Jew and Gentile, and he has established this truth that in the gospel there are no dividing lines, that everything is made one through Jesus Christ. There is no racial division, there is no denominational division, there is no cultural or social division that properly exists within the gospel. If there is division, if there is disunity, that is not coming from the Lord. That’s coming from man. In Jesus Christ, God has brought all things together.
Then Paul spent some time talking about how he has been called to be a minister of the gospel, and he is the most unexpected servant, because he was an enemy of the gospel. He was an opponent of the church. He was trying to bring division and disunity. And God took this enemy of the church and made him the greatest ally of the gospel. He has shared with us how God has graciously used him to be this messenger.
But now, in verses ten through thirteen, Paul shows us why. Why did God initiate this plan of salvation? Why bother going through all this trouble when he could have done it differently? Why the plan of salvation? Why the plan of unification? Why do things the way God did? God revealed the answer to Paul, which he then reveals to us here in this letter. In fact, in these short verses, we actually find three very compelling reasons. I want to share these with you this morning, because they give us insight into the wonderful mind and wisdom of our God. They show us how deep God’s plans actually run, how deep his purposes go. That should be an encouragement for us this morning, and a reminder that God knows exactly what he’s doing, that he is good at what he does, and we can trust him to do what is right.
So what are these three reasons that Paul gives us for the gospel?
The first reason: to make God’s wisdom known in heaven
The first one might be quite unexpected for you. In verse ten, Paul tells us that God’s purpose in the gospel is to make his wisdom known in heaven. For those of you who were in Sunday school this morning, this is the cross reference I was telling you about.
And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.
So the first reason God executed this massive plan, to allow the sin curse to come in, to create the children of Israel, these people who were separate from the rest of the world, to send his perfect Son through that lineage into the world, to die on a cross, rise again, and then create this big body which is the church, the reason God did all of this was because he had something about himself that he wanted to show to a very specific audience. And notice that audience is not an audience that is on the earth. Do you see that? His primary audience that he is revealing this to is not an earthly audience, but a heavenly audience. He says, “Unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places.”
In Jewish theology, they had a very deep understanding of the angelic world, and they actually had names for the ranks of heavenly beings. So when you see Paul talking about principalities and powers, using these words for rulers of various realms, he’s actually talking about tiers of angelic beings that the Jewish people would have understood from their theology. Paul is saying here that in the gospel, in Jesus Christ, and in the church that has been created through Christ, God is actually teaching a lesson, not to mankind first, but to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. And he’s doing that through the church. He took people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue, who were divided, who were different, who have all these different social and cultural varieties, and he brings them together in one body, unified around one person, which is Jesus Christ. And he’s letting this story play out over thousands of years, from Adam and Eve to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus Christ, and now through the church age. This story is playing out, of unification, of redemption, of grace, of mercy, and God is revealing all of these things about himself. But he’s revealing it to the heavenly beings.
Now you may be asking “why” right now, and saying, “Justin, why do I need to know this? Why should I care?” Because I want you to consider that those heavenly beings have a benefit that you and I don’t have. They have actually looked in the very face of God himself. They have worshiped in the very presence of God for millennia. We don’t know how long they have been in the presence of God, but these beings have lived and existed in the presence of God for thousands and thousands of years, worshiping him, watching him do incredible things. They’ve watched him build this story and make it play out over all these millennia, all these centuries.
And what’s interesting to me is that while they have been in the presence of God for all this time, looking him right in the face, they’re still learning things about who God is. Do you see that in the text? The heavenly host that has lived in the presence of God is still learning who their God is. That means that God’s character, God’s being, God’s wisdom, God’s mind is so deep, so wide, so infinite, that even the angels in heaven are still wrapping their minds around who God is and how deep his wisdom goes.
Paul said that God has done these things for the purpose that the principalities and powers in heavenly places might know the manifold wisdom of God. That word “manifold” means multifaceted, multilayered. It means it’s not just a surface-level wisdom. You can’t just open one book and learn everything there is to know about God’s wisdom. He’s saying God’s wisdom runs so many layers deep that even the angels are still learning and trying to understand how wise and how powerful God actually is. The angels are still learning how merciful God is. The angels are still wrapping their minds around his grace, his power, his authority, his dominion, his strength, his wisdom, his plans, his purposes. God is so big, so strong, and so mighty that after all this time, the angels are still saying, “Wow. This God is wise. This God is powerful. This God knows what he’s doing.”
And I want to ask you this morning: if the angelic beings are that overwhelmed by the wisdom and the mind of God, how much more should you and I be in awe of God’s wisdom and God’s mind? Every encounter a human has ever had with an angel has been overwhelming, because the angels are so glorious, so strong, so big, that humans actually fall on their faces before angels. If these beings are that overwhelmed, what this tells us is that if they haven’t figured it out yet, we’re nowhere close. There are things about God’s mind and God’s character and God’s being that we are still going to be learning throughout all of eternity. You could sail the seas of God’s character forever in any direction, and you will not find the shoreline. God is infinitely wise, infinitely glorious, infinitely powerful.
And if this is true, then why should we not trust him more than we trust ourselves? Why would we ever think that we know enough to challenge God? Why would we ever think that we could make a better plan for ourselves than he could make for us? If we could only wrap our minds around the depths of God’s knowledge and wisdom and power and glory, we would stop trying to be enough for ourselves, and we would fall on our faces before the holy God and say, “God, you are great and I am small, and I trust my life to you.”
Paul was given full revelation of this, and at the end of this chapter, all he could say is in verse twenty-one:
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
He just starts stacking these clauses on top of each other, trying to give God enough glory and enough honor for who he is and how wise he is and how powerful he is, and he can’t find enough words to describe how great God is. And he got to see it. God revealed it to him. We’re getting secondhand glory as we read the Scriptures. Paul saw it, and he can’t put it into words. Folks, if God is that glorious, that wonderful, why would you not trust your life to him? Why would you not fall in worship before his feet?
So God had a good reason for doing what he did, because in the gospel of Jesus Christ he makes his character known to the world in ways that we could not have seen any other way. Even the angels could not fully understand it without God doing what he did. Was the gospel necessary? Yes, because in the gospel, God’s character is exploded in glorious power.
The second reason: to exalt his Son, Jesus Christ
The second reason God made the gospel what it was, was so that he could exalt his Son, Jesus Christ. Look at verse eleven. Everything Paul has just said about the gospel, about being God’s servant, about the purpose of revealing this to heavenly beings, he says in verse eleven:
According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Before anything existed, there were three beings that existed eternally: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three beings were perfectly satisfied with one another, perfectly glorified in one another. They had a perfect relationship, a perfect union, and they were in such perfect unity that they are one being. They existed before anything else existed. And they love to glorify one another. The Father loves to show the glory of his Son. The Spirit loves to show the glory of the Father and the Son. The Son loves to magnify the Father and the Spirit. They all exist to glorify one another, because they are all infinitely glorious.
And God wanted the world to understand, and he wanted the heavenly beings to understand, how glorious, how loving, and how merciful his Son Jesus Christ was. But if there was no gospel, the glory of Jesus Christ would never be seen in all of its different facets the way that it is when we tell the story of the gospel.
I want you to think about how much glory Christ receives through the gospel. We were sinners. We were rebels. We had rejected God and rejected his glory. We had decided to do things our own way. We had rebelled against the Almighty Creator and Father of Lights. But his Son had so much love, so much mercy, so much grace, that he did not want us to receive the wrath of the Almighty God. And so he stepped out of heaven, came down here to earth, loved a sinful race to the point that he died the death of a betrayer, so that you and I would not have to die that death. His love was displayed to us in the gospel. His redemptive power and his unifying work were displayed so powerfully in the saving and bringing together of the church that we never would have known if God had not done things the way he did. He had to do what he did so that the full glory of Jesus Christ could be seen and appreciated and worshiped.
Now, if you go and read the book of Revelation, you get to chapter four and chapter five, and the heavenly beings are gathered around the throne and they’re worshiping. But I want you to notice what happens. A Lamb walks into their midst, a Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world. Jesus Christ steps center stage in heaven, and the angelic beings fall down before him and they say, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Even heaven worships Jesus for being so wonderful and so mighty and so loving that he would come down and die in the place of unworthy sinners. What a glory. What a love. What a majesty that God would do something like that.
Isn’t that wonderful? But we never would have known it. We never could have worshiped him as the Lamb that was slain if the gospel story had not been written. Jesus dying was not an accident. It was a perfect plan that magnified the glory of an Almighty God.
The third reason: to grant his people access to him
He did it to make his wisdom known in heaven. He did it to exalt his Son, Jesus Christ. But lastly, he did it to grant his people access to him. Look at verse twelve:
In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.
God has designed this whole plan from the beginning, all the way back to the tree getting planted in the garden. God designed this whole plan from beginning to end so that you and I could have a special, intimate, eternal, and bold access to the Father of glory that we could not have had any other way. Apart from Jesus Christ, we would be strangers. Apart from Jesus Christ, we would not appreciate the relationship with God that we now get to have. Not just as servants, not just as robots that are required to worship him, but as grateful sons and daughters who have been adopted by a merciful Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is by this perfect plan that you and I have been granted an eternal and bold and confident access to the Father in heaven. At this very moment, you could bow your head right now and speak to the God of heaven, have an audience with him, receive his ear, receive his attention, receive his presence, receive his blessing. You have an unhindered access to the God of heaven that you would not have any other way. The gospel makes that possible. The blood of Jesus Christ makes that possible. In a few minutes, we’re going to partake of communion as a reminder of that body and that blood that welcomes us into the presence of God. But understand, this big story was written so that you and I would have a special relationship with God that we should never take for granted.
Faint not
Paul understood these realities. He was so moved, so touched by what God had revealed to him, that in verse thirteen he speaks directly to the Ephesian church:
Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.
As Paul began to understand the depths of God’s wisdom and the depths of God’s mercy and grace that are revealed through the gospel of Christ, he told the church, “Don’t worry about the things I’m suffering for you. It’s worth it to get to know this truth and share it with you. This is your glory.” He is so convinced, so convicted of God’s wisdom and knowledge in the gospel, that he was willing to suffer and die to make that truth known.
Let me ask you this morning: are you so convinced that God knows what he’s doing that you are willing to follow him into great suffering, and maybe even the loss of your life, so that his glory could be seen? Are you so convinced of God’s wisdom and God’s glory and God’s power that you’re willing to follow the Apostle Paul in laying down your own life so that his goodness and his grace can be made known to everyone? Do you stand in awe of the great mind of God? Are you moved to worship Jesus Christ for who he is?
And I wonder, how often are we taking advantage of that invitation to enter into the presence of God? Thomas Watson is a famous historical Christian writer. I just saw this last night and I said, “I’ve got to make sure I say this this morning.” He said, “Jesus Christ was more willing to go to the cross than we are to go to the throne of grace.” I want you to think about that. Jesus was more willing to go and suffer and die, he did that with more joy and more willingness, than you and I have when we go before God in prayer.
Are you taking advantage of the unhindered access to God that has been made available to you through the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because, folks, we have a mighty God. We have a wise and powerful God, and he knows what he’s doing, and he knows how to take care of you. He knows what to do with your life from beginning to end, so that you might know his glory to the maximum degree.
The invitation that I extend to you this morning is to simply bow before him and worship him in all his glory. Cast your life upon him. Trust him with your life. He will not mess it up. Trust him, and do not be shy to enter into his presence, because he paid a great price to make that possible.
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