Page 87 - Ephesians

“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the
sake of you gentiles--”

Notice 4:1, “I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord”. He finally
got to it! You see, he started off telling you something, then got
side tracked. He went into this long parenthesis, as if to say, “I’m
not quite ready to tell you what you must do through Him. I’m not
finished telling you what He has done for you.” So he starts all
over again, summing up our wealth in Christ.

If you read it carefully, you’ll see that he’s really not off the subject
at all. He’s reviewing what has gone before. “I haven’t told you
enough yet,” he says, “Jesus has done more. Let me tell you one
more time, before we get into your responsibilities.” I think it
would help you to understand the message of this chapter if you
see how he writes it. These three words help me get there.

In this chapter there’s a message, there’s a prayer and there’s a
song. 1-13 he gives a message. 3:14-19 he drops down on his
knees in prayer. And then in 3:20-21 he bursts into song. With
each of these sections there’s a principle which sheds light on
how I can enter my wealth. Rather than give you the three
answers, let’s take them one at a time. Let’s look at the message
of chapter 3:1-13. Glance down please at these verses; verse 3
“Mystery”, verse 4 “The mystery of Christ”, verse 9 “The
mystery which for ages has been hidden in God”. What
mystery?

If you look at verse 6, it looks like the gentiles are fellow heirs.
Fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise.
It looks like the mystery is, that the gentiles are included. But, if
you read it carefully, the mystery is bigger than that. It includes
that but that’s not his point. The mystery is not that the gentiles
were allowed to come in, precious as that is. It’s wider than that.

Throughout this epistle and its sister epistle Colossians, the
mystery is that the gentiles have been brought in to what? Union