Ephesians 3:1-13 // Kim Serban

In Ephesians 3:1-13, the message centers on the mystery of the gospel and the church. Explore Ephesians 3:1–13 and Paul’s teaching on the mystery of the gospel, God’s grace, and the church’s role in revealing Christ. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.

The sermon applies the text to relationships and Christian community, showing that spiritual maturity becomes visible in the way we love, honor, serve, forgive, and take responsibility for one another. Biblical conviction is connected to everyday choices rather than left at the level of ideas. The result is a call to build relationships that reflect the character of Christ and strengthen the people God has placed around us.

Along the way, the message engages themes including Ephesians 3:1-13, the mystery of the gospel and the church, ephesians 3, role in revealing christ. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Ephesians 3:1-13 teach about the mystery of the gospel and the church? It also considers how should the mystery of the gospel and the church shape the way Christians live?

For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.

What does Ephesians 3:1-13 teach about the mystery of the gospel and the church? | How should the mystery of the gospel and the church shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Ephesians 3:1-13 in everyday life?

Ephesians 3:1-13, the mystery of the gospel and the church, ephesians 3, role in revealing christ, the mystery of the gospel, the church

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  platform. Anybody shout it out? Drums. Yes, Dustin. I'm like, there's a reason I like to sit right here because when you sit right here in this spot, like you can just feel it. I just I want to feel it like just bouncing off of my chest. And I I apologize. I know some of you struggle in the room, but I'm like the louder the better. like I want it to drown out everything in here and bring a single focus to me. I know that's a little over the top. I'm sorry. Um I I do respect that some of us don't like it as loud. It's okay. But I don't know. Maybe I grew up in a or maybe I raised some noisy boys and so I'm just love the drums. But anyway, there you go. Um well, we are jumping back into a series that we started a few weeks ago in the book of Ephesians and we are only heading into chapter 3. So we are taking our good old time going through uh verse by verse, thought by thought. And there is just so much that God has for us in this book. I want to take just a quick second because I feel like we've kind of been back and forth with other things that have transpired and I want to review for a minute. Um the the teacher in me just so some of you may or may not know this about me either is that I have a degree. My college degree is in teaching with a specialization in English. Okay. So, you are we're about to get into the words here today and kind of dissect and I I at first when I started studying this passage of scripture, I felt a little confused. And so, I was like, well, gosh, if I'm confused about this, I'm sure that other people are going to look at this passage and have some questions. And so, we're just gonna we're just going to break it down. Um, we're going to go verse by verse, thought by thought. I'm going to pull out a few things and then hopefully land at the very end and give you some practical things to um take with you today. But a quick review, the book of Ephesians was written by Paul and it was written while he was in prison. He was in prison in Rome and he was writing this letter to the church in Ephesus. A little bit about Ephesus. It was a very prominent city in Asia Minor. It was known for its commerce and its culture, but it was also a very spiritually dark place with a lot of paganism and magic practices. And that's important. You're going to see in a minute that Paul kind of plays off of that. I love how Paul writes these very these letters and I feel like he was a masterful letter writer of almost like laying layer upon layer upon layer building off of what he had already shared. And so if I could give you an overarching theme for the entire book of Ephesians, it would be that Paul wanted us to know the riches of God's grace. And he wanted people, believers, to understand what their position is and what their purpose is in God. He takes the first three chapters. As I said, he's he's building layer upon layer. The first three chapters, which we're going to jump into chapter three here in just a moment today, he's laying his foundation. He's giving the doctrine, if you will, for what he wants them to learn and present because then in chapters 4 through six, it's time for application. And so, so you know where we're heading over the coming weeks. All of this doctrine, all of these concepts and ideas that we have been talking about over the past weeks, he is now going to put them in practice. He moves away from explaining who we are in Christ to now how we should live because of who we are. We've talked about things over the past week um about being chosen, being sealed, how God adopted us, how he redeemed us. We talked about the Holy Spirit being a seal and a guarantee for our inheritance. Do you remember that prayer out of Ephesians 1 that Paul prayed and how we can take the same prayer and pray it over those in our lives for people to know God the to know his hope to know his power. And then in Ephesians 2, we learned about how we were dead in sin, but now we are alive in Christ. And that our salvation is by grace through our faith, not because of our works. In the second half of chapter 2, Paul again, he starts dropping these little hints. He's building his case because as we head into chapter three, he is his purpose is to reveal what he calls a mystery. And I think it's a very unique word that he uses and scholars and commentators will say that he uses this mystery word because of the culture in Ephesus. As I mentioned to you already, there was a lot of magic practice, a lot of witchcraft that took place. And so Paul almost uses this play on words when he refers to this mystery that he has to share. But he lays a foundation a little bit in chapter 2. And we'll we'll kind of go back and forth with that. But I want to encourage you today. As I said, I I hope I know that often my challenge when I share with you um I'm definitely a deep thinker and so I hope that at the end of this that I will have stretched your mind a little bit, stretched your thinking a little bit. I believe that that God's word that all of it is important, even the parts that maybe are a little bit confusing to us. It's an invitation for us to maybe dig a little bit deeper. And so that's what we are going to do today. So, let's jump in. I hope that if you have a Bible here today with you that you would um open it up and maybe if you'd like to write in your Bible, you jot some things. If you're taking some notes or if you have a Bible app on your phone, um, open it up. I'm actually going to read from the New King James Version starting in Ephesians chapter 3. We're going to just take a chunk of the first five verses. And it says this, and and I might take my time here and stop a little bit and point out a few little things along the way. Um, in fact, it says, "For this reason." I love how Paul does this. And just so you know, I thought that this was so comical. Again, as uh my background in English, scholars believe that Paul started a thought here and then he stopped and he wrote a 13 verse run-on sentence. Do you remember from English class what a run-on sentence is? Oh, come on, people. You can't be out of school that long. you know, it just goes on and on and on and it never it just I mean, it's one of the worst uh writing things. We we talk a lot in run-on sentences, which is fine, but when you actually write it on paper, we need to kind of break things up to make it a little bit easier. But if you go back to the original manuscript, Paul literally wrote a 13 verse runon sentence. like this was all one big somewhat complete thought that he was trying to get across. And so he starts by saying for this reason and you'll find out uh when we share again the second half of chapter 3 he starts again saying for this reason because it's like oh wait a second. Yep. For this reason I remember I remember why I started this. Um but he says for this reason I Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles. Now, you might think that his words are insignificant here, but I love the fact that of how Paul interpreted his circumstances very simply, and he's going to do it again at the close of this long run-on sentence, because Paul was a prisoner of Rome, and most of us would define ourselves by our circumstances. But even in this small moment, Paul wanted to remind his re readers that it was he didn't care about what his outward circumstances said, what he saw. He was a prisoner of Jesus. And dare I say that I think that there's power for some of us as well. that I'm not a pharmacist for St. Thomas. I'm a pharmacist for Jesus Christ. I'm not a businessman for whatever company, it's for Jesus Christ. I whatever my profession is, whatever I might identify myself as, there's something about changing my perspective in my circumstances where I recognize that I'm where I am because of God, because of what he has done for me. He goes on to say that if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery as I have briefly written already by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ which in other ages was not made known to the sons of man and as is as it has now been revealed by the spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. It's he's he's a little he's he's elaborating here. There's a there's he just keeps going and going and going. But let me back up here for a second and give you a little bit of understanding about some of the things that Paul has just said. Um he uses this great word here, dispensation. Um, dispensation is just a fancy Paul way of saying that he's speaking about an implemented strategy that God had, a plan that he had for his church and that he made Paul a part of understanding that plan. He gave him a dispensation of the plan. And then he refers to this revelation because he wants to make sure that people realize that he didn't make this up, that this was not his invention, that it was a revelation that came to him from God and that he is only a messenger of this truth. It honestly cost Paul a whole lot for him to hold to this dispensation, this mystery. And we'll see more of that as we go along because he was in prison for it. That's why he was in prison. But he says he refers to this mystery. Let me give you a definition of what this mystery um word means in the scriptures. A mystery is a truth that was hidden by God in the past that is now revealed. Now, you might kind of look at that and be like, well, why? Like, why does God keep secrets? I don't think that it's so much about God keeping secrets. I think that maybe let me give you this example. When you have children, there's certain things that you teach them along the way. According to their age, according to their maturity, as they continue to grow, there is more and more and more that is revealed to them. And it's the same way for us as two. I dare I say that some of the things that I understand now, I don't think that I would have quite appreciated the understanding of them in my teen years or even in my young adult 20 years as I do now because there's a growth and maturity that has come as I have journeyied through in my relationship and I believe you would agree that the same applies to you as well. And so it's not about God keeping secrets from his people. It's him revealing the mystery as his story and his plan and his purpose has continued. And so here it is. Let's see what this mystery is all about. verses 6 and 7, he says this, that the Gentiles should be fellows of the same body and partakers of his promised in Christ through the gospel of which I became a minister according to the gift of grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power. So this is it. This is the mystery that believing Jews and that believing Gentiles were joined together into one body of Christ into one church. They are no longer separated before God. Now I don't hear a whole lot of cheering in the room. even a whole lot of like you're looking at me like yeah okay big deal right because we live on the other side of this we didn't live we we we have to make ourselves go back to understand the original context in that day of what was the the dividing lines that were between Jews and Gentiles. Um, if all we had known were the Hebrew scriptures and all we had known of the Old Testament, we would have been completely shocked at this revelation that Paul had. And Paul wasn't the only one. You'll see him later on refer that this word was being given not just to him, but if you remember the story of Peter when he had the vision of all of the different animals that were considered to be unclean that came down from heaven and God told him, you know, to go and eat. And it was God giving him understanding of making a way for the Gentiles to come and to receive salvation. And if you read through the Old Testament, you're going to find bits and pieces of understanding that yes, it was God's plan for the Gentiles to to discover salvation. But what the Jews thought is that yes, they agreed, but they thought that the Gentiles would become Jews. They never thought that the Gentiles would remain as Gentiles and still be believers. Now, I see your eyes glazing over and it's okay. I understand that it is a challenging concept for us to think about because we haven't experienced those kinds of divisions. But if you take a moment and look at the division that does lie within our own culture, it can be economic lines and racial lines and cultural lines and political lines. And really what Paul is driving at is that God is bringing together and crossing all of those boundaries to even what you might create. Some scholars say that at that time that the believers called themselves a new society because they were no longer Jew and they were no longer gentile. They redefined themselves as a Christian, as a believer, as a follower of God. It wasn't about their economic status and their background. And I was born a Jew and I was born a Gentile and you're German and you're Italian and whatever the dividing lines may be. He was bringing together unity. He was creating level ground. He says that they are partakers of his promise in Christ. There's no more secondass citizens. Everyone comes together on the same ground. J Gentiles are now every one of us. We are now partakers, full partakers of his promise. And this only can happen through the gospel. It's only because of Jesus and because of what he did. Let's read a couple more verses. He's going to add add another little layer to what he's trying to convey to them. Verses eight and nine. He says, "To me who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all seen what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ. I love how once again, just like Paul started by calling himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ, he he inserts another little point here about his position. He refers to himself as less than the least of all of the saints. Now, you have probably been around somebody before. We we use the phrase, we call it false humility. It's like somebody who it it would be like me saying, you know, complimenting Jonathan, you're such a great keyboard player. And for him to be like, uh, no, I'm not. Not really. I'm not like you. You deny the gift that you do have in an effort to exhibit some kind of humility. But really, true humility comes from a place of not denying what our gifts are, not denying that we're good or not good at something, but marveling at the grace of God in our lives that has brought us to where we are. And in case you have forgotten Paul's story, Paul was one of those Jewish Pharisees. He was a Pharisee who persecuted Christians. I think sometimes in our in our reading and our understanding of that day, Jesus came and he turned everything upside down for the Jewish culture of that day. And some of them got it and they began to follow Jesus and they became believers and eventually were called Christians which means little Christ. But others continued in the Jewish faith thinking that Jesus was not the Messiah and that someone else was coming. And persecution took place because the Jews were not happy about these changes. and they were going to shut them down. It's it's one of the main reasons why they went after Jesus. It's what it's the reason that Paul found himself in prison. It's the reason that many of the apostles and disciples were persecuted because of this faith. And so Paul was the chief of persecutors. He constantly was persecuting Christians. He was known to hunt them down and seek them out and imprison them and and be a part of their their death. He was a part of even uh making them deny their faith. So think for a minute when he makes this comment. Surely he carries the weight of knowing the sins that he has committed. I think that we all stand in that place of seeing our lives and knowing our mistakes and knowing our failures, knowing the whether they whether they transpired in our life before we met Jesus or even now since we have met Jesus. the times that we have faltered and fallen. And Paul takes a moment in all of this to remind people that it is only because of his grace. He continues to marvel at the grace that God has given him and that God would still continue to use him. that he he still has a plan and a purpose for my life regardless of the mistakes that I have made. He understood this because of his terrible past. He didn't look at himself. It wasn't because it wasn't because he wasn't brilliant because he was. It wasn't because he wasn't a Hebrew of Hebrews because he was schooled and learned. It wasn't his degree, his diploma. It was only because of God's grace in his life. And he refers to this mystery as the uncarchable riches of Christ like a gift that was given to the Gentiles. Because again, I'm trying to paint a picture for you of the culture of that day and of understanding. And maybe some of you have have can have some similar experiences. But the culture of Judaism that day enforced the idea against anyone who was not a part basically to stay out. Here is a veil. Stay out. Here is a wall. Stay out. Here is a Here is a kosher table. Stay out. Here are our customs. Stay out. Sadly, we have a lot of these same dividing lines in our own culture today, in our own country today. But Paul says, "No, Jesus has come to break down the walls, to destroy the veil. There's no economic lines. There's no political lines. There's no racial lines. We all get to come now. And then he talks about this fellowship of the mystery. And we should not brush over these words here. I want to try to help you understand them because this is a unifying factor for us. A unity is such a a powerful word and there is such incredible power that comes from unity. But let me remind you that unity does not mean uniformity. And so Paul was trying to convey what we have in common and what we can come together in unity about. We may have different backgrounds. We may have different experiences. We may h even have different opinions about certain things. But there is one thing that we can agree on that Jesus came. He gave his life for us and we are saved according to the blood of Jesus on our lives. And I think that sometimes it would do us good, myself included, to focus more on the things that unify us than the things that separate us. Because it's not about what church you go to and it's not about what denomination maybe you are a part of or your viewpoints. It's that we all come together as believers of Jesus. And the saddest thing that I see is when the same divides that are with non-believers become division with believers as well. And so today, I challenge you that you are called to something bigger than just coming to church. You're called to live out the fellowship of this mystery. You're called to major on the things that unify us together. And in case you are still confused by Paul's words, he continues on in a couple more verses to give us an understanding of the purpose of this mystery. Let's go on 10 through 12. It says to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. Okay, let's break this down here. Let's remember what we're talking about. But we're talking about this fellowship of this mystery. How God has broken down walls. How he is bringing together diverse people from different backgrounds into one body of Jesus Christ. This is the big thing, the big theme, the big mystery. And Paul wants us to understand the reason. I love this word in here. Um, manifold. Not a word we use a whole lot today, but nonetheless, it's a great word. If you if you kind of break it in half, you could say many folds because it refers to the many sides and the multiaceted wisdom of God. It's like a diamond with all different facets of the diamond. It's beautiful. It's complicated. It's brilliant. Paul's trying to paint a picture of this wisdom. But then he says, who is making his manifold wisdom known? Who are we making this wisdom known to? What do you think? We're not making it known to ourselves. We're making it known to principalities and powers. Kind of kind of interesting here of a statement. I heard one commentator said that you are not the target. You are the tool. We're the tool in this. We're not the target of his wisdom. We're the tool. Now that doesn't mean that God doesn't desire to reveal his wisdom to the church, but it means that he is using the church to reveal his wisdom to angels, fallen angels. Now, I'm not trying to freak anybody out or frighten you or amaze you. But whether you comprehend it or realize it or not, even as we are sitting here in this room, there are angelic beings that are here with us. And I think that sometimes this is something that is often overlooked. We we we don't comprehend that there's a whole lot more happening than just my little thing. And I love how again when we when we finish up this book of Ephesians, by the time we get to chapter six, Paul is going to talk a whole lot about spiritual warfare and a whole lot about what is happening in the heavenlies. But remember this first part of the book, he's laying the foundation. He's laying the doctrine, the pieces that we need to understand. And he is taking this moment to help the church, to help the Gentiles, to help believers realize the impact of their gathering, the impact of their unity. Because what you say and what you do not only impacts this physical world around you but it impacts the spiritual world too. Your words carry authority. Your actions make a difference in the spiritual kingdom around us. our behavior, our words, they affect spiritual realms around us. And Paul does not want us to forget this. He wants to our eyes to be open. We we prayed it in Ephesians 1 where we talked about the eyes of our heart being opened. And I I'm reminded of the story of Elijah when they he was going to battle and he kept sending his servant out to look and to see and his servant would always come back. And finally Elijah prayed that his eyes would be opened. And he went out and he saw the armies of the angels of the living God that were there with him fighting. And dare I say that sometimes it would do us well to say, "God, open the eyes of my heart. There's something happening here that is in the spiritual realm that I can't see it in the physical, but God, would you reveal to me and let me see the impact and the understanding in the spiritual realm? He refers to his God's eternal purpose, which is another big theme throughout the book of Ephesians, that God has a purpose for us. And can I tell you today that God's purposes cannot be thwarted, but you have a choice whether you want to be a part of his purposes. And if you don't, his purposes will still not be thwarted. He will just find another way or another person to bring about his purposes. It's like the story of Queen Esther because Hmon issued a decree that all of the Jews were going to be killed and Mori he he did that because he had some offense towards Mori and wanted to get rid of him. And Morortei went to his niece Esther and asked her to go and plead to the king. And I love the words that he says to her. If if it doesn't come through your hand, it'll be someone else. If the Jews are not saved because of you, God will find another way because that's his plan and purpose to save them. And so the same thing applies to us. And Paul wraps up this this end here of verse 12 saying that we have boldness and we can access with confidence through faith in him. Again, he's reminding you, don't forget what you have. You have this boldness. You have access to all of this with confidence because of what Jesus has done to you for you. One last verse, verse 13. He says, "Therefore I ask you to do not lose heart at my tribulations for you which is your glory." I just think it's so interesting that Paul kind of wraps it back around. He starts out at the beginning talking about, you know, being this prisoner and then he once again refers to this his circumstances that he is dealing with. But you know, each of us has a place in our lives of circumstances that God is using for his glory. Can you imagine if Paul had not been put in prison? We would not have these kind of things to read and to understand because it would have been completely different circumstances that he would have found himself in. And and we it and and Paul admits this over and over again that I'm here because this is where God wants me to be. And I think the same thing for us as well. That you are here when I when I avail myself, when I trust him, when I say yes to him, I'm where he wants me to be regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable my circumstances might be. Okay. So, let me try to wrap this all up for you today. I did uh when my son asked me to share about this portion in the series at first I was telling our our go team this morning that I was like so excited like oh yes I love Ephesians 3. It's just oh it's one of my favorite whatever. And then I was like yeah I love the second half of Ephesians 3 not the first no uh the second half where we're going to get into Paul again is gonna uh go into this prayer but after studying this I realize that he just he had to set a framework for us to then go into this prayer where he talks about the love of God. the vastness of it, the depth and the height and the width and the length. And we're going to unpack that as we continue on. But I want to leave you with three thoughts. And I hope that um as I've tried to pick apart and um pull out some things in this scripture that um you'll see these three things because honestly there there three things that are prevailing through the whole entire book of Ephesians. And every chapter he's just telling us in a different way and he's just adding more and more to the story. The first one is grace. Ephesians is just all about grace and the gift of grace and the gift of of salvation for us. If there is anything in our self-sufficient culture that I wish that we could have such a stronger grasp on is understanding his grace and realizing that I'm I'm nothing without it. Every gift that I might think that I have, every talent that I might think that I have, every uh every thing that I would put on as like the the the pros and cons, you know, all the pros in my life, they mean nothing compared to God's grace in my life. And the way he has continued to pick me up over and over and over and use me in spite of myself. And so today, my prayer for you is that you will discover his grace. But then I also pray not only personally, but that corporately we would realize that it's God's grace that unifies us. We may come to the table with a lot of differences. We, as I've said so many times this morning, we come from different backgrounds and different experiences, but we all need his grace. We all have the opportunity to receive this gift of salvation. We are all on equal playing ground. It doesn't matter how smart you are, how rich you are, how poor you are. We all come together. We all need his grace. The second thing is position. A lot of Ephesians talks about what it means for our identity to be rooted in him. 20 times in the book of Ephesians, Paul uses that phrase in him because again, he wants to remind us of who we are. He did it in the words today. I'm not a prisoner of Rome. I'm not a prisoner of my circumstances. I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what my circumstances look like. Everything that I do, everything that I put my hand to is all for his glory. And if he can use me, even in my suffering, here I am. I say yes to it because this is my position. My identity, who I am is rooted in who God says that I am. And then finally, purpose. It's an individual purpose, but it's a corporate purpose, too. I said it before. Individually, we have a choice today whether we want to choose to be a part of God's purpose or not. Because his purpose will not be thwarted. He will either use us or he will find someone who wants to be used and he'll use that person to bring about his plans. And so maybe today you just need to be reminded that you have a purpose. He has a purpose for you. He has a part in the story for you. He has a role for you to share and we have a choice whether or not we want to be a part of that. But he also has a greater purpose for the church. I said it before, it's not just about coming here on a Sunday morning. It's not even about coming here and and serving and fulfilling your role and all of those kind of pieces. It's about the fact that the church is God's plan to share his gospel, to share his love, to share his salvation with the world around us, for it to make an impact even in spiritual realms. I love the fact when I have I have heard testimonies through the years of people that have come to this property and as they got out of their car in the parking lot, they begin to sense something. They felt something. I hope I actually hope that that happens at at any church that you would attend. That there is a presence that surrounds that place because there is something that is happening in the heavenlies because of the behavior and the words and the worship and the spirit that takes place. When a community of people who all come together united because of the grace and the salvation of God and they join their hearts together in unity as God intended because that's his purpose. That's his purpose for the church. He hasn't changed his mind. His purpose will not be thwarted. The church is still his plan and his purpose. Regardless of the bad rap that maybe the church can get, it's still his plan. He's still going to use the gathering of his people coming together in unity. So today I'm just a simple close and ask you to just bow your heads for a moment. And maybe one of these things or all three of these things in different ways [Music] I pray impacts your heart and your mind. I pray that I've maybe stretched your mind a little bit today to think a little bit differently to maybe understand even the history of God's plan for the church. But today, maybe you need to be reminded of his grace in your life. Today, maybe you need to be reminded of your identity. [Music] Maybe you need to redefine your circumstances. God didn't call us to be victims. He called us to walk in victory. is exactly what Paul was doing when he said that he was a prisoner of Jesus Christ and not a prisoner of Rome. Or maybe you need to be reminded of your purpose. Yes, God has a purpose for your life. You might need to ask him about it. You might need to talk to him about it. But it's his plan and his manifold wisdom, his multiaceted wisdom to reveal to you that purpose. And today, I pray that you would be reminded about the purpose of the church, too. that it's not just about coming and sitting in a seat and singing some songs and shaking some hands and maybe working in the nursery or parking cars. God has a greater purpose for that as well. And so would you just let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now? What does that mean? I just just open your heart to him. Maybe even ask the question, God, what do you want me to know with what I've heard today? [Music] And Lord, I pray that you would speak today God, that you would remind us of your grace. You would remind us of who we are, who you have called us to be. God, would you once again confirm your purpose in us? And God, I pray for the church today. It is your plan. It is your plan to use the church to reveal your wisdom to the world around us. Not only physically but spiritually. Lord, will you remind us, God? Remind us of what really matters, what this is really about. There's so much more that is happening than what we see with our physical eyes. God, would you open the eyes of our heart today? Would you get give us a glimpse, Lord God? Open our hearts to understand and to see your plans unfold and the impact and how you want to use us to be a part of that story. I thank you, Lord, for your grace. I thank you that you choose to use us in spite of ourselves. It's part of our shortcomings and our failures and our sin, Lord. It's still your plan to use us. And so, we come today once again and we submit ourselves to you. We say yes, Lord, to all that you want to do. Can you