{"id":4282,"date":"2024-09-01T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/?p=4282"},"modified":"2024-08-31T22:41:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T05:41:45","slug":"eph-37-8-ministry-by-grace-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/2024\/09\/01\/eph-37-8-ministry-by-grace-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Eph 3:7-8:\u00a0 Ministry by Grace of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sunday Service MVCOG - Ephesians 3:7-8 - Ministry by Grace of God\" width=\"560\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_ePvlg1QHa4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a id=\"wp-block-file--media-6f0eea0e-3bee-4e85-a303-8ee6742f8315\" href=\"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Eph-3-vs-7-8-Ministry-by-Gods-Grace.pdf\">Eph 3 vs 7-8 Ministry by God&#8217;s Grace<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Eph-3-vs-7-8-Ministry-by-Gods-Grace.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button wp-element-button\" download aria-describedby=\"wp-block-file--media-6f0eea0e-3bee-4e85-a303-8ee6742f8315\">Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul has finished explaining the mystery of the gospel of Christ, that we are saved and made New Creations in Christ, and that everyone, Jews and Gentiles in the church have the same Holy Spirit.&nbsp;&nbsp; That it was Paul\u2019s mission to explain this mystery that had been revealed to Him by God, So he can reveal it to the Church.&nbsp;&nbsp; Now, Paul will discuss his placement in the ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>of which I was made a minister<\/strong> The word diakonos is used to denote the relationship of a servant to his master, and emphasizes the activity of a servant on behalf of their master. On behalf of Christ, Paul is declaring the mystery that has been revealed to him, so that he can share this mystery with the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He didn\u2019t take it upon himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul is saying that God made him a minister to serve in this way.&nbsp; Paul considers himself a servant of the gospel: &#8220;Of this gospel I was made a minister.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul approaches his work as service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul doesn\u2019t use the Greek word for a pastor, which he could have, but rather diakonos, meaning a servant of others. Paul approaches his work as that of service, rather than that of status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul knows that his ability to minister is God-given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>according to the gift of God\u2019s grace which was given to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul serves &#8220;according to the gift of God&#8217;s grace.&#8221; His ability to receive the revelation of the mystery of God, the gospel of Christ to both Jews and Gentiles is based on the his spiritual gifts, and the leading of the Holy Spirit in ministry.&nbsp; Paul\u2019s not going to take credit himself for this, because it\u2019s all God\u2019s work, he\u2019s just doing what he\u2019s been told, as any good servant would, and using the resources that his Master has given him to accomplish the task, as any good steward of what God has given him would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God\u2019s Work, God\u2019s Way<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His ministry is \u201cin accordance with, in conformity with, corresponding to\u201d the gift from God.&nbsp; In other words, he is doing God\u2019s Work, God\u2019s Way.&nbsp; Paul wanted to be the apostle to the Hebrews, his Brethren the Jews.&nbsp; He was taught from his youth at the feet of Gamaliel, the leading Rabbi-teacher of his day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He had every expectation of sitting on the Sanhedrin, the religious Congress, one day.&nbsp; But Jesus had sent Paul to preach salvation to the Gentiles, that is the ministry that he is going to carry out, to the best of his ability.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul had the right education, background, pedigree, but everything changed when Paul met Jesus.&nbsp; When God called Paul, he became the Apostle to the Gentiles, even though He was nearly at the top of the Jewish religious world, being a Hebrew of Hebrews.&nbsp; Before he was converted Paul (Saul) <strong>was \u201cadvancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers\u201d<\/strong> (Gal 1:14), so God had to literally strike him down on the Damascus Road in Acts 9 because his zealousness of the Jewish law, which by his day had become amalgamated with man\u2019s laws and traditions which they had made equal to God\u2019s law, which Jesus rebuked them for (Matt 15:9).&nbsp; Paul is always careful that everyone knows where his doctrine is from\u2014and his former Pharisee teachers get no credit.&nbsp; He tells the church at Galatia that he was an apostle, but Gal 1:1&nbsp;&nbsp; <strong>\u201cnot from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead\u201d<\/strong> and Gal 1:11 so <strong>\u201cthe gospel that was preached by me is not man\u2019s gospel\u201d<\/strong> Paul says (Gal 1:12 \u201c<strong>I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ\u201d<\/strong>.&nbsp; Paul tells the Gentiles that he received his apostleship, and revelation of the Gospel directly from Jesus Christ.&nbsp; The lesson here is that we may learn a lot from other people about God, and may even be brought closer to the truth by them.&nbsp; But a relationship With God is only made possible by saving Faith in the work of salvation by Jesus on the Cross, and the understanding that God accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus through the evidence that God raised Him from the Dead.&nbsp; Our only infallible teacher is Jesus, the Word of God incarnate, and our only true Guide to Jesus who will never make mistakes, or take a wrong turn is the Holy Spirit whom He has sent to grow us in Christ, and get ever closer to Him!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Grace<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The standard of Paul\u2019s service corresponded to the gift of the grace of God that was given to him. Paul knows that he has been saved by the gracious gift of God.&nbsp; He knows that his salvation and his ministry is unearned and undeserved, a debt that he can never repay.&nbsp; He has received God\u2019s unmerited, undeserved favor, both in the provision of salvation for sinners through Christ\u2019s sacrificial death.&nbsp; In Phil 3:4-6, Paul lays out the case that he could make based on a lifetime of works, saying <strong>4 although I myself could boast as having confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh, I have more reason: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.&nbsp; <\/strong>According to the best righteousness to be found in the Law of Moses, as he understood it at the time, he was blameless.&nbsp; Yes, by God\u2019s grace, God has shown him a much better Way through a personal relationship with God through the Saving, Atoning Grace made possible by Jesus on the cross (see Phil 3:7-8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>according to the working of his power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The final phrase &#8220;given me by the working of his power&#8221; expresses the idea of ministry as empowered by and directed by spiritual gifts. His mission was to strengthen the Church, and in particular Gentile believers in Christ so that they too could fulfill their God-given calling and ministry for Christ.&nbsp; And, just like all of us, Paul was called to Phil 2:12b-13 <strong>work out [his] your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure.<\/strong>&nbsp; It\u2019s God\u2019s desire and His Will in what He has Called you to do that is important.&nbsp; Find out from God what you are supposed to be doing, and do it!&nbsp; Paul credits his ability in ministry to the power, and ability to act on our behalf.&nbsp; Because of God\u2019s dynamic power and ability, Paul is able to accomplish the work that God has for him to do.&nbsp;&nbsp; And God gave him what he needed.&nbsp; Where God guides, God provides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3:8a to me, who am less than the least of all the saints, was this grace given.<\/strong> As we look back in amazement at the life of the Apostle Paul, knowing that he wrote at least 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament, or about 28% of it.&nbsp; And knowing his unparalleled education in the scriptures from his youth and training under Gamaliel, we are amazed that Paul would call himself \u201cless than the least of all the saints!\u201d.&nbsp; But we have the hindsight of seeing who God transformed Paul to be.&nbsp; Paul knew who he really was, and he wasn\u2019t shy about it.&nbsp; One of the wonderful things about Paul is that he didn\u2019t spend a lot of time trying to hid and cover his sin.&nbsp; Like King David before him, he wrote down his struggle with his fleshly, sinful nature, as it warred against the New Spiritual Nature that had been born in him in Christ (see Rom 7:14-25).&nbsp; &nbsp;His solution was not will-power, not more struggle on his part, but to allow the Holy Spirit to work in him to transform him into the image of Christ, instead of listening to his flesh trying to conform him to the world.&nbsp; He chose every moment of every day to do what was right in God\u2019s eyes, not his own, to walk as Jesus walked, not as he wanted to, and so slowly, day by day God was sculpting him into who God wanted him to be.&nbsp; Paul of all people knew that he wasn\u2019t perfect, but that he wanted to continue to strive for the perfection found In Christ as we imitate Him.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul was amazed that God would use him, giving him not only the responsibility but also the power to communicate this gospel to people. This is the attitude with which we all should conduct our lives in Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul has finished explaining the mystery of the gospel of Christ, that we are saved and made New Creations in Christ, and that everyone, Jews and Gentiles in the church&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-services"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Featured-20240901.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4213,"url":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/2024\/06\/02\/eph-26-7-boundless-riches-of-his-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":4282,"position":0},"title":"Eph 2:6-7 Boundless Riches of His Grace","author":"Robert","date":"June 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtube.com\/live\/_kLi6WnY0cg?feature=share Eph-2vs6-7-Boundless-Riches-of-His-GraceDownload By grace you are saved Paul is making sure that we who have been made alive together with Christ understand that this salvation is based on God\u2019s grace. God\u2019s response to our hopeless situation is one of Mercy, the motive for his Compassion is his Love for us,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Services&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Services","link":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/category\/services\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Featured-20240602.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Featured-20240602.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Featured-20240602.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Featured-20240602.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Featured-20240602.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=1050%2C600 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Church","author":"Robert","date":"August 18, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtube.com\/live\/jAP389mDwnI?feature=share Eph 3vs1-4 Mystery of the ChurchDownload For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles-- For this reason Paul has explained that Jewish and Gentile believers have together been made into new creations in Christ, and as a result, this new work of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Services&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Services","link":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/category\/services\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Featured-20240818.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Featured-20240818.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Featured-20240818.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, 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Us","author":"Robert","date":"November 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/youtube.com\/live\/QXsDCYy6KX4?feature=share Eph 4vs7-8 Christs Gifts to BelieversDownload 4:7 But\u00a0to each one of us\u00a0 Paul has been talking about unity in the Church, and now he wants to focus on us as individual believers a little bit, he says \u201cBut to each one of us grace was given.\u201d In the oneness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Services&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Services","link":"http:\/\/mvcog.org\/wp\/category\/services\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Featured-20241117.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Featured-20241117.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mvcog.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Featured-20241117.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, 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