We are thankful for these times together. I am thankful for my brothers who have shared during these times. And we are very thankful, all of us, I am sure, for the Steward, the Holy Spirit, Who is taking things and weaving the mysteries, revealing them to us even as we have been together in these days.
I would like to continue in that vein, talking about the stewards of the mysteries. Perhaps, once again, we should turn to 1 Corinthians 4.
We were talking in the back this evening, and we were all quite amazed at how many people were here for the first time. So, even though for some folks these things seem old hat, we realize that there are many, many young people who are perceiving and seeing things by the Spirit for the first time.
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul is making this statement. Perhaps tonight we will look a bit at the reason he said what he said.
Let a man regard us in this manner: as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that a man be found faithful.
I want to point you to three more Scriptures as I introduce things tonight. One is in Ephesians 1, a prayer very familiar to all of you. Paul is speaking to these dear Ephesians, among whom he had served for three years. Now, in jail, he is writing them with great love and affection in his heart.
He knows that they are Christians. He knows they are filled with the Spirit. He knows they have been introduced to some of the mysteries. Yet he prays in Ephesians 1:15:
For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints,
do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
We all know how the passage continues, but here is the point: these are Christians. When Paul wrote this letter, he had already worked among them probably five, eight years before. Yet he was still praying for his Christian brothers and sisters that the Lord would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ.
Then there are two more verses in Colossians. Again, familiar verses; they have already been stated so far this week.
I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face;
that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,
in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
And then Colossians 1:26-27:
That is the mystery which hath been hidden from the past ages and generations; but hath now been manifested to His saints,
to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
We have heard, and have been encouraged to hear, that there are a number of young people who have not really heard much about these mysteries before. They are curious as to what all these mysteries are about.
I would like to explain something in an introductory way tonight, as simply as I can. The basic mysteries that we are discussing, and of which Paul says he is a steward, may be summarized this way: the mystery of God, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of the church.
There was an old television show—I think I have the wrong one here—where there were three doors. The announcer would say, “Now, do you want door number one, door number two, or door number three?” Behind one door you might get a car; behind another, a vacation to Acapulco; behind the third, a corkscrew. You had to choose.
Now, in the mysteries, it is simply this:
Which door do you want to open?
Let us open door number one: the mystery of God. What do you see? Christ.
“Well, I thought there was door number two.” All right, let us open door number two: the mystery of Christ. What do we have? The church.
Then there is door number three: the church. Let us open that mystery door. What do we see? Christ in you.
That may sound foolish, because we have all heard those words. As you have already heard a few times, when I went to seminary, I learned all about these things.
I mean, the mystery of God, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of the church—these phrases are all mentioned in the Bible, and I studied the Bible. I read Ephesians in Greek while I was in seminary, and boy, did that confuse me.
The point is that I not only went to seminary, but I was a pastor, a minister, and an evangelist for ten years before I went through door number one, door number two, or door number three.
I had head knowledge of these things and could talk about them from my mind and from the Scriptures, but I had never seen—seen by revelation—what was behind the doors.
Let me give you the example of the Apostle Paul. All his life, as a Jew, a Pharisee, and a young man, he had one desire in his heart. Do you know what that desire was?
“Oh, if I could see God—the Name, HaShem, the Name that is too wonderful to speak. If I could just see God. Oh, if I could just go through door number one. If I may attain a righteousness that would allow me to go through door number one.”
On the road to Damascus, door number one opened up. What did he see?
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?
“Who are You?”
I am Jesus.
“I want to see God; I get You, Jesus.” You cannot know God until you meet Jesus. You might have an idea who God is. You might say, “Oh, I studied theology. I not only studied theology, I studied philosophy and theology. I studied Kierkegaard and existential understandings of theology.” I do not even want to go into what that is.
But until you see Christ through door number one, you do not even know God. Christ is the revelation to knowing God.
Paul wanted to know God. God said, “You want to know Me? Here is My Son.” Paul came to know Abba through Jesus Christ. Hello! Isn’t that wonderful?
There I was, a minister, and here were these doors before me. One day, by God’s grace, I was doing all kinds of things. You know, a minister is supposed to preach the gospel, get people saved, build a church, do a lot of important things, and send out more missionaries.
Then, when the door opened by God’s mercy and I saw what was on God’s heart, I saw the mystery of God. What is on God’s heart?
Here is what God said:
Dana, have you considered Jesus, My Son?
He is on My heart day and night.
I want Him to have everything.
I want Him to have first place.
I want Him in that first place in your life and in their lives.
I want everything to be gathered unto Him.
That is My heart.
You want to know My heart, My mystery? It is My Son.
I love Him more than anything.
I did not love Jesus more than anything. I loved my ministry more than anything. I am just being honest with you.
Then we see Christ. You say, “Oh, well, I know Christ.” Well, do you know Christ? When Paul saw God, he saw Christ. When Paul saw Christ on the road to Damascus, he saw Christ and the church in Christ.
Jesus said, “Why are you persecuting Me?” Saul said, “What are You talking about?” Jesus meant, “When you touch the church, you are touching Me.”
There is a whole mystery there. That is why Jesus could not tell the disciples about the church until Peter said:
Thou art the Christ.
“I see it by revelation.” Jesus said, “Now you can know the mystery of Christ. I am building My church on that revelation.”
The church is built on a revelation of Who God is, Who Christ is, and who the church is in Christ. But the church has lost this revelation and this vision. So we have doctrines and precepts about the church, Christ, and God—tomes and books full of that stuff—without an actual seeing of them, brothers and sisters.
Let me invite you, especially you who are young: go through door number one—or at least door number two. Go to door number three; it leads to door number two. The main door is Christ.
As a matter of fact, there are not three doors. There is one door. But you go through that door, and it goes a little deeper into the next door, and then into the next door. Christ will tell you about God; God will tell you about the church; and the church will tell you about Christ.
Once you get involved in the doors, you may never come out again. But you will become a steward of the mysteries of God.
I am just trying to explain in the simplest kind of way: what are these mysteries? Christ and the church—very simple. You will spend your lifetime going through those doors.
Here is the problem with being a steward of the mysteries of God: it is not enough to have studied it, nor is it even enough to have seen it. It is not even enough that you preach it. You have to be it.
I actually heard some preaching on the fact that the church was the organic Christ, but it went over my head and went, “Joop”—theory.
Then I met some people who were living out Christ in the assembly. It was at Halford House and with our brother Lance. When I went to Halford House to preach the gospel, we had an evangelistic meeting. But what happened to me at Halford House changed my life, because I saw Christ in His church.
You can talk to me all you want about Christ being in the church, but it is just theory until you see people who are living Christ. Then you say, “Wow. I never saw that.”
Do you understand what I am saying? It is not enough for a steward to say, “Oh, well, I saw a revelation ten years ago.” If you are not living it out in your life, that revelation is now doctrine. It is over in the doctrinal department of your brain.
But if you pay the price to be the body of Christ, to live according to that revelation that you have seen, then you become a steward of the mysteries of Christ.
I wish I could say it is as easy as listening to some conference messages and, bingo, in you go. But here is the good news: if you lay hold of whatever door the Lord lets you begin to go through, accept that revelation, and live out of the truth of that revelation, He will show you more.
He is not trying to hide. He wants you to live out in obedience to what you have seen, and then there is more to be stewarded. Meanwhile, whatever you have seen, He entrusts into your hands to steward.
In talking about Paul’s stewardship of the mysteries, I have taken the practical line of saying, “Here is the first thing Paul did with all these mysteries that he had seen.” He had been caught up to the third heaven and everything. Yet, with all of that, first and foremost, he was a steward of the mystery of the gospel.
If you stare at the gospel long enough, the Holy Spirit will reveal that there is a lot more to the gospel than just the gospel. Then you enter into some of the mystery.
Tonight I want to share on Paul the Apostle as a steward—a faithful steward—of the mystery of grace. That is what I am calling it: the mystery of grace.
Let me read a few Scriptures to introduce this, and then let me try to explain.
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles—
if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward;
how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words.
—Ephesians 3:1-3
Underline that phrase: the stewardship of God’s grace.
Then, in 1 Corinthians 3:10:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon.
But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon.
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Our Father, we are so thankful that we can stand and hear the testimony of a man who entered the doors and was captured by the mysteries of God, of Christ, and of His church.
He walked in obedience to that heavenly vision, so that he could steward these mysteries to the saints who heard the gospel of salvation and were saved by grace.
We pray tonight that You will help us understand this mystery of grace as we watch the life of the Apostle Paul. Help us, Lord, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
To give you a little feel of what it means to be a steward of grace and apostleship, I want us to look at two little stories: one from Acts 18 and one from Acts 19, having to do with Paul’s stewardship in the churches of Corinth and Ephesus.
Paul came across Achaia and into Greece, finally arriving in Corinth by himself. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and as God would have it, he met Priscilla and Aquila, Jews who had been exiled from Rome and moved to Corinth.
Paul went home and had lunch with them, and it turned out they were in the same business. Aquila and Priscilla had started their little shop—they called it A and P—and it was a tentmaking shop.
Paul said, “Oh, by the way, I am a tentmaker.” So Paul went and probably lived in their home for about three months. They made tents, but they did so much more.
We do not know whether Aquila and Priscilla were Christians at that time. It simply says Aquila was a Jew who had been exiled. But by the time Paul had been with them for three months, they were soundly saved, baptized with the Holy Spirit, and beginning to understand the mysteries of Christ.
Paul went to the synagogue every Sabbath and argued with the Jews about Jesus being the Christ. Eventually Silas and Timothy came. When they came, Paul began to preach in earnest—not only on the Sabbath—and the Jews and God-fearers, the Gentiles who went to the synagogue, began to get saved.
God began to do an amazing thing in Corinth, so much so that the Jews said, “Get out of the synagogue. You cannot come back again.”
One of the men who was saved was named Justus—Crispus, Justus, whatever—and he lived next door to the synagogue. He said, “Paul, come on over to my house.”
Within three weeks, a month, two months, there were more people going to Justus’s house than were going to the synagogue. People were getting saved left and right. It caused such a stir that the Jews became upset: “He is taking away our business—I mean, our conference—I mean, our God-fearers, whatever they are.”
Finally, it became such a ruckus that Paul wondered, “Should we leave?” Jesus came to him in a vision at night and said:
Do not be afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace;
for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee:
for I have much people in this city.
So Paul continued there for a year and a half, working out of Justus’s house. Meanwhile, Aquila and Priscilla opened their house, people began to meet there and break bread, and the thing grew.
The Jews finally brought up a riot and brought them before the judgment seat in the middle of the city. The proconsul heard the case, and the Jews made their accusation against Paul. The proconsul said, “You have got no case.”
Especially because Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, had been saved. So the Jews got so mad that they beat up their own leader, Sosthenes, who was then ruler of the synagogue. The Jews were in total disarray.
But what a mighty work of God had been done in the year and a half to two years that Paul, Silas, Timothy, Aquila, and Priscilla were there.
We know something of the result because about three years later, when Paul writes 1 Corinthians, the church in Corinth is a testimony of God. They had the life of the Spirit. They were ministering. They understood the wisdom of God. They were full of life.
Paul, as a wise master builder, had laid the foundation in Corinth upon the grace of God. There was so much life there. The gifts of the Spirit were there. God was there. People were getting saved. It was a wonderful thing.
But three years later, the saints in Corinth needed some stewarding. Paul, the wise master builder, knew this truth: if you preach the church, you get the cross; if you preach the cross, you get the church.
Before I was clearly through any of those three doors in my own life, back around 1975, my brother Stephen Kaung said to me, “If you preach the church, you will get the cross. If you preach the cross, you will get the church.”
What did Paul do in the light of the carnality of these young Christians? There were divisions among them, problems with immorality, lawsuits, marriage, liberty, meat offered to idols, church order, head coverings, and the Lord’s table.
Some were taking the Lord’s table without discerning the body of Christ. They were eating what they wanted; some were drunk and some were hungry. Where was the love? Where was the unity?
There were gifts of the Spirit being exercised, but without the stewardship of the Holy Spirit. Paul spoke about resurrection and the second coming. But here is the point: this master builder wrote this letter with patience, with 1 Corinthians 13 love, and with directness.
He knew the Lord was leading him in this ministration of the stewardship of the grace of God. That church had to be brought under the constraint of Christ crucified.
Paul said, “I will teach you nothing except Christ crucified.” Those gifts had to come to the cross. Their divisions had to come to the cross. Their differences and lawsuits had to come to the cross.
“See what Christ thinks about these things. See if that measures up. Is that out of your old life, or is that out of your new life?” The Corinthians knew exactly what Paul meant.
While Paul wrote that letter, he was in Ephesus. This began in a whole other way. When Paul left Corinth, he took Priscilla and Aquila with him, left them in Ephesus, and went away, saying, “I will be right back.” He came back in about two and a half years.
Meanwhile, Priscilla and Aquila set up A and P in Ephesus. They opened their home to whatever Christians might be there. They waited and went to the synagogue, though there was no church there per se, except perhaps a few meeting in Aquila and Priscilla’s home.
Then Apollos came along, this wonderful young preacher who was especially strong in going to synagogues and preaching that Jesus was the Messiah. What a powerful evangelist he was.
Apollos was preaching away, but Paul had so stewarded Aquila and Priscilla in the more perfect way—the way of the mysteries of Christ and His church—that when they spoke to Apollos about it, Apollos’s eyes exploded with revelation.
Apollos said, “I have got to see this. Where is this body of Christ? You mean you do not just preach to the Jews, get them saved, and keep them in synagogues?”
Aquila and Priscilla said, “No, no, no. No longer synagogues. They are now the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Jesus.”
Apollos said, “Where can I see this?” They sent him back to Corinth: “You have got to check this out.”
I can only imagine what happened. Apollos went there and saw the body of Christ. He saw members with different gifts and abilities. He saw Christ in the midst of the people. It was mind-blowing for Apollos. Thank God Aquila and Priscilla were there.
When Paul finally got back to Ephesus, the first people he seemed to meet were a dozen or so disciples of John the Baptist. They really loved the Lord; they knew Jesus was the Messiah. But Paul looked at them and said, “Where is the Holy Spirit in your midst?”
“Who?”
To make a long story short, Paul baptized them not only into water, but into the body of Christ. They came up no longer disciples of John the Baptist, but members of the church of Jesus Christ.
In that baptism, the Spirit poured down on them. They spoke in tongues and prophesied. What a tremendous release. They became incorporated among the saints in the early church in Ephesus.
The church in Ephesus, when Paul came there, was a wonderful church, as we know from the letter to the Ephesians. Paul wisely laid the foundation of the church there despite great spiritual conflict.
In Corinth, the darkness was because of sin—kind of like New York City. It was dark with sinfulness. Ephesus was a different story. It was dark with spiritual forces.
I will never forget the first time I went to Kathmandu and experienced the darkness of the spiritual forces of idolatry in that city. It absolutely makes it hard for you to breathe.
Ephesus was such a town. It was under a principality behind Artemis, the goddess Diana, who was worshiped there. She was actually a Babylonian goddess, worshiped all over the area.
People came and worshiped, went to the temple prostitutes, sought prophetic utterances, and did all kinds of things. Then Paul came to town.
By the power of the Spirit, in that spiritual warfare he describes in Ephesians 6, spiritual forces that had been reigning and ruling in that darkened city began to be pulled down.
Many had magic books and were studying astrology, magic, and all kinds of things. As people were converted to Jesus Christ and turned their backs on all that spiritual stuff, they made a huge pile of books.
Demons had to be cast out. Counterfeit exorcists came and tried to cast things out in imitation of Paul. You know those stories.
For three years Paul worked in Ephesus, until finally the businessmen kicked him out. There are the real devils: businessmen! The silversmiths were losing their business because the Artemis trade was off; so many people were getting saved.
When Paul left town, he had not only preached the gospel and established a church that had first love, but he had also raised up and stewarded into the lives of ten young men—whom I will name tomorrow night—young stewards who could go and preach the gospel.
They had gone to Colossae, Laodicea, Smyrna, and other places, preaching the gospel. Paul had a network of young men whom he was training in the mysteries of God.
I bring all of that to you not so that you can sit there and say, “Wow, wasn’t Paul great?” No. No, no. Paul was a faithful steward.
You talk about doing a job—there it is. But I want us to look at the testimony Paul gives as to how he could do all that stuff in Corinth, Ephesus, and every other place.
We could all say it was because he was a great man. I know you have distanced yourself from Paul enough to say, “I could never be an Apostle Paul.” But the only flaw in your argument is this: you have the same grace he had.
The Lord administers grace in different measures and amounts; there is no doubt about it. I am not asking you to try to equal Paul. But look at 1 Corinthians 15 and see what Paul’s testimony is concerning this apostleship the Lord had given him.
For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
Whether then it be I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
—1 Corinthians 15:9-11
That is Paul’s testimony. Basically, here is what he is saying: “How did I do this apostleship? How was I able to steward the mysteries of God in Corinth, Ephesus, and everywhere else? By the grace of God.”
So I want to add one word, just to pique your interest: Paul had discovered the mystery of the grace of God.
You say, “Now you have gone preaching something else.” But remember Ephesians 3:2:
Ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward.
So I will ask you the question: what is this mystery of grace?
I have to back up just a little bit and talk about grace itself. How many of you like grace? Should we vote her in?
Amazing grace. Wonderful grace. Free grace. What does grace bring up in your mind? Love, forgiveness, freedom, life.
The Greek word for grace, charis, originally means beauty.
When we turn to Ephesians 2, we find one of those great definitional moments where Paul defines grace beyond any doubt. In Ephesians 2:4-10, he explains grace:
But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,
even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace have ye been saved—
and raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus:
that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not of works, that no man should glory.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.
Immediately Paul is talking about life: “By grace ye have been saved.” He raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly places. That is grace.
Forever, you and I are going to be trophies of grace. Just look up there: “There is Dana, up on the trophy shelf of Jesus. He saved Dana.”
People say, “Impossible! Impossible!” He says, “No, it is God’s grace.” You are going to be up there as a trophy too, for ages to come. When people doubt God’s love, He will say, “Look at that trophy right there. I saved that person.”
By grace you have been saved through faith. It is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. What a wonderful thing this grace is.
In Ephesians 2:5, where it says parenthetically, “By grace ye have been saved,” Martin Luther added a word to the Latin Bible. Where it said gratia, he added sola.
By grace alone ye have been saved.
Because of the darkness in the Middle Ages, the church began to define salvation as grace plus works. You had to have the grace of God to be saved, but you also had to pray for the dead saints, pray for this, pray for your brother and sister, go to purgatory for a while, and perhaps do enough works to be beatified and become a saint.
There was all kinds of stuff you had to do—works—in order to get saved. Luther was sick and tired of it. He said, “Sola gratia. Grace alone. Do not stick anything else in there as a basis for salvation.”
That is what started the Reformation. Many of us today are saved on that very doctrine: by grace alone we are saved. Nothing you can do. Nothing. It is a gift, not of works, lest you and I might boast.
Paul says in Romans 5 that, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, through Whom we have found an introduction into this grace in which we now stand.
We are standing in grace. We can taste it. We can feel it: God’s presence, His love, His forgiveness, our freedom, our conscience set free. Amazing grace. It has all been done.
But here is something that has been lost, or wrongly emphasized today. I should not say lost, but here it is: grace has two legs.
You stand by grace on two legs:
Let me put it in a phrase Jesus said, because this describes grace, really:
Freely ye received, freely give.
That is grace. Think about the very nature of grace. The very nature of grace is at least two things—actually, it is much more: love and life.
You have received love, and you have received life. When you receive love and receive life, the very nature of love and life is to respond.
Back in the ancient days, when we actually had textbooks in high school, the definition of life was “responding to stimuli.” That was the definition of life. When you are alive, you respond.
And love responds.
Suppose there is a wonderful woman named Julia. This is preposterous, but suppose she comes to me and says, “Dana, I love you. I want to marry you. I have decided I want to marry you.”
“I want to take care of you. I want to be your friend. I want to be your lover. I want to stay with you as long as I live upon this earth, because I love you, and I am willing to give you everything I have for you.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somebody loved us like that? Now imagine I hear that and my response is, “Okay, well, you can start with dinner.”
Or imagine I hear that confession and say, “Eh, sounds like a good deal.” You would say, “Dana, you bozo! Don’t you know when somebody loves you, you should at least say, ‘I love you’?”
There has to be some basic response. You cannot have the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Lord Jesus and not want to respond back.
That is the second leg of grace. We are always receiving and always responding.
That is not hard, except there are a lot of amputees walking around. There is a doctrine that says, “No, it is all grace. I just receive. I do not give.”
Those are the laziest slobs on the planet. They are not stewards. They are not serving God. They are receiving, receiving—but what?
Listen to Ephesians 2:10:
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
We are saved with a purpose. We have good works to do, all to glorify Jesus. Everyone who is born again has a list. You have got to find the list. It is behind door number two.
Your life is now free to respond back to Him. That is it. He is not going to tell you, “You have to.” What, are you a dummy? If He loves you and has given you everything necessary for life and godliness, how can you not respond?
Of course it is all grace. I do not like these percentage things: “One hundred percent grace.” “No, it is ninety-nine percent grace and one percent on your part.” I hate that stuff, because it misses the whole point.
There is a mystery of grace. In the context of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “Though I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church, yet by the grace of God I am what I am.”
“His grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored more than them all—yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”
Here is my question: who was the apostle—Paul or the grace of God in him?
Was it Paul, or was it grace? You say, “It is grace.” I say, “It is Paul.” But wait a minute. Paul says, “I labored more than all of them—yet not I.”
Now I have exposed this mystery of grace, one of the most important truths Paul stewarded to every Christian he met.
What is the mystery of grace? What is this response? I have received from the Lord, and now I am responding. I am being an apostle and building the church as a wise master builder, but I do it by grace.
What did he say in 1 Corinthians 3:10?
According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation.
By the grace of God, I, as a wise master builder, laid the foundation. Is that Paul, or is that grace?
Here it is in three simple phrases:
You respond, but it is not I; it is Christ.
You respond by grace, and then His life in you does this ministry.
What is the mystery Paul says he has wrestled to tell us about?
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Why are you straining? Why are you trying to do it by yourself? That is how most of us stewards get frustrated. We love Jesus so much, we want to respond to Him, and we try to do it out of our own lives.
We have not learned the secret of grace: not I, but Christ.
One of the most important things Paul proclaimed everywhere he went was this:
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me:
and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
—Galatians 2:20
Paul was so clear, and the saints were so clear: we respond to God, and then His life enables us.
In one sense, it is us. But no, not I, but Christ. How do you sort that out? It is a mystery.
It is a mystery that Paul can say, “I,” and at the same time say, “No, not I, but the grace of God.”
Corporately, Paul explains to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 that the church is the house of God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. What is so wonderful about the church? It works by a mystery.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
What is Paul saying? People see the church, but they say, “I see Christ.” When people came in and saw the church—when somebody was prophesying or they were worshiping—they would say, “I see Christ.”
What is the mystery of godliness? The life Christ lived, His death and resurrection, is now reduplicated in the assembly of His people.
The godliness in the assembly, the godliness in the church, is not our life. It is His life being produced in us. It is something the world cannot understand. Unfortunately, it is something most Christians do not understand, because once again, it has to be seen.
There are two kinds of people who say, “All of grace.” Some say, “All of grace, all of grace,” and they are actually the most passive people. They study and study and study and never become servants of the Lord, because they are standing on one leg.
My mother was an opera singer, so I know what it is like to be self-centered. Every morning I heard my mother warming up: “Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.”
I know one-legged grace, where somebody says, “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” just like a kid.
But you put the other foot down and say, “Oh, Lord, I love You so much. How can I respond? First, I praise You and thank You. Lord, is there something You would have me to do?”
That is exactly what Paul said: “Lord, what would You have me to do?” That is a grace response.
Let me tell you a story about how I saw a man grow his second leg.
I used to live out on Long Island. There were some young people, and there was one guy who had recently been converted—less than a year. He had a real problem with drugs in his background, but he really loved the Lord.
I would take young people to the park to witness. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a Christian more than having to go out among unbelievers and witness.
What do you think Paul meant when he said to Timothy:
I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands.
For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline.
Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel.
That is our lot if we are going to respond.
So there was this young guy, and we went out one day with about eight people. We divided into four teams, and this poor fellow got me as a team member. I always like to get other people to do my work.
We went to this park. There was a ball field, picnic areas, and all that. We went around handing out tracts. This young man was very nervous, but he said, “Okay, I will do it.”
Finally, we came to a man with a bat who was hitting fly balls to another fellow in the outfield. I said, “Charlie—oh, I gave away his name. Well, anyway—Charlie, go over and witness to that guy.”
“Me? Oh, I thank You for my salvation, Lord.”
I said, “Yes, I know. Now it is time to tell him your thank You.”
Charlie took a tract and went over there. I made my own tracts, and this one was called, “What Is a Disciple?” I said, “Charlie, hand him the tract and ask, ‘Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?’”
Charlie went over, handed the man the tract while he was waiting for the ball to come in from the outfield, and asked, “Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ?”
The man took the tract, tore it up, and said, “Get out of here. Do not even talk to me about Jesus.”
Charlie came back like a basset hound. “The guy killed me. I cannot do this. This is too tough.”
I said, “Charlie, no, no, no. Listen. We love Jesus so much. How can you love Jesus so much and not tell others about Him? Let us give it another shot.”
There were some other people out in the field. I said, “Let us go over to them.” He said, “No, no, no. I am going back to the car.”
I said, “No, no, no. Okay, one more time, Charlie. One more time. Thank God.”
We walked fifty yards and saw a man standing with someone else. As we got close, we saw that the second person was in a wheelchair.
Charlie was shaking in his boots; his knees were knocking. I said, “Charlie, tell them you are a Christian and ask them whether they are disciples of Jesus.”
He went up and said, “You know what? We are Christians.”
The man in the wheelchair burst out crying. The man standing next to him said, “This is my cousin. He just had an accident. He is paraplegic for the rest of his life. He moved here to get daily care in the hospital.”
“The two of us are living here now, and we were just praying out here in the field, ‘God, would You lead us to some Christians?’”
That second leg grew on Charlie in a nanosecond.
He realized that part of his life by grace was to share the gospel. Those people became regular members of the assembly there. The other brother—the one with the man in the wheelchair—is a precious brother to this day, with a family of seven girls, and he just loves the Lord. Praise God.
That is grace: grace received, grace responded to. That is normal grace.
We have to understand this secret. Otherwise, that witnessing step seems so tough; that service step seems so tough. But when you respond, the life of God comes through you, and you realize, “Wow, this is a mystery. It is all Him.”
But you get the credit. It is part of God’s sense of humor that you would get the credit. But that is our Lord. He loves us so much. He says, “Just respond, and I will fill in. Then you will get the credit.”
Paul became a steward of this mystery of grace. Because he understood this mystery of grace, he could steward the church of Jesus Christ.
Let us turn to Romans 12, again in an illustrative way. The life of the believer in the body of Christ is a two-legged grace.
Paul tells the saints in Romans, “By the grace of God, respond by laying your life down as a living sacrifice.”
If you want to be His servant, you must consecrate yourself. Lay down your life, your body, as a living sacrifice unto the Lord by the grace of God.
Are you ready to respond to all that grace—eleven chapters of grace and mercy? What are you going to do about it? Paul says, “Respond by faith.”
A living sacrifice on the altar: respond.
For the individual who lays down his life as a living sacrifice, he awakens as a member of the body of Christ. He was an individual, he laid down his life, and he comes up a member of the body of Christ.
What happens then? You start to meet with the saints. What could be simpler? I have grace, you have grace, we all have grace.
As we meet, different needs come up. How do you discover your gifts?
Having then gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, let us use them:
if prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of our faith;
or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry.
—Romans 12:6-7
Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each one is to exercise them accordingly. Could we agree that all of us who are saved have grace? Right?
You have receiving grace, and now you have responding grace. He first loved us, and now we can love Him back. How can we respond? By faith, we exercise grace.
You have grace, I have grace, and to the measure of faith, grace is exercised. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each one exercise according to his faith.
We come together, and there is a need. Maybe we are singing songs and having a wonderful time worshiping, but somebody says, “Can somebody start the songs out? Jerry is starting them in the key of H. We cannot sing that.”
Somebody says, “You know what? I have a guitar.” Well, bring it out. He brings it out, tunes it up, and the next thing you know, we are singing, enhanced by the grace of God through someone whose gift is being used in worship.
He does not take over and suddenly start playing rock-and-roll chords. He simply helps and keeps the thing on pitch. Wonderful.
His grace, exercised by faith, becomes a gift. Now we have gone Greek.
The connection is obvious. The Greek word for grace is charis. The Greek word for gift is charisma. Charisma is grace made tangible. Grace is love made tangible. Grace is life made tangible.
What is a gift? Suppose we are together, having a great time, and somebody says, “Man, I have a migraine headache. It is hurting me so bad.”
We all sit there and say, “Oh, we love you so much. Jesus, we love our sister. She has such a migraine. We wish there were something we could do about it.”
Then somebody says, “Well, why do you not go pray for her?” One of the sisters goes over and prays for her, and she discovers something. In the midst of December, she discovers she has the gift of healing.
How do you find that out? A need arises in the assembly, and somebody says, “Let us pray.”
Of course, on the other hand, you may find out that you have no gift of healing at all. But that is why in the body of Christ, this is a time of discovery.
As we serve together, some people begin to teach. Some find that in their teaching there is a prophetic element. We have a number of teachers even in the assembly of Richmond.
Jerry got up the first night, and that was almost pure exhortation. He exhorted us: Scripture after Scripture, exhortation. That is a kind of prophecy.
Everybody has a different measure of grace, which by faith gets transformed—charis to charisma.
When you see the gifts operating in the assembly, Scripture goes on to say: if your gift is being gracious to people, then be gracious to people. That is a gift. If you are showing mercy, do it with grace. If you are a giver, do it with grace.
What was the assessment in Acts 4 when we saw that young Christian community? They were selling property, supporting one another, helping each other, and the Jewish women were helping the Hellenistic women. The apostles were doing miracles.
What was the assessment?
And great grace was upon them all.
That is the body of Christ. That is what the Lord is looking for. You have the grace, but by faith you need the second leg—to step out and discover what the gift is.
Paul stewarded the saints. In Corinth, they were going crazy with the gifts. Paul had to steward them and say, “No, no, no, no, no. This is out of order.”
The only way you can steward a gift, if you have been entrusted with a gift, is in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, Who is the Steward.
If you have a gift and you steward it by the leading of the Holy Spirit, it harmonizes, it edifies, and it is wonderful. But if you become an exhibitionist with your gift, doing it in the flesh, you can even cause division.
This is the reality of the church. Paul could steward this. When things got out of hand, he said, “No, no, no. Do you not see? Do you not see the body of Christ? You are all together. You are all one. You are all parts of one another.”
“You cannot climb over each other. You cannot compete with each other. Do you not see Christ? Do you not see Christ?”
Paul never talked about the church as an institution. He always saw Christ in His church.
Actually, it was that third door—the church door—that opened to me by the grace of God as I listened to my brother Stephen. I saw something that has never left me since, and that was about forty years ago.
All that time, I had been looking at Christians in my congregation whom I was trying to help, teach, lead, and discipline. I was a pastor. I was busy. I had to pump up Christians.
Here came a Christian, all deflated. I pumped him up. “Oh, I am feeling better. I feel it. Praise God.” “Okay, go on now. Be faithful.”
Then here came another guy. It is very tiring work, pumping up Christians.
But when the door of the church opened up, this is what I saw: if Christ is not the Head in our midst, there is no church—first of all, not in practice.
Secondly, the church is when you see Christ in one another.
I have to admit, I knew the doctrine. But when I realized I was toying with Christ as I was toying with the saints, I knew I was out of bounds.
I had to resign the ministry. I tore up my ordination papers. I became a human being, which was quite a relief, though it took a while. I am still working on it.
But I discovered that I am a member of the body of Christ. I am connected and interdependent with other members of the body of Christ. I cannot make independent decisions anymore.
Go ahead, you can go to Moscow if you want and get a job somewhere. But if you see the body of Christ, there is more to it than that. Where are you connected? What are you doing? Is the Lord sending you there sovereignly, or are you just going because you want to go? Are you going just to make more money?
The whole issue becomes this: you are part of something now.
You are part of your brother. Brother Kenny shared so wonderfully last night that statement from Watchman Nee: “You need me, and I need you.”
Where are you going? You cannot just jump up and say, “I am going somewhere.” Well, you can, of course you can. But what are you doing? Do you not realize how much that hurts the body of Christ?
You are no longer your own. You are part of something. You are connected to something.
I see this in such a tragic way when brothers have been brought together by the sovereign design of God, and somehow Satan splits those brothers. It is truly a tragedy.
It is as in marriage: what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. When I see God-ordained men put together, and then I see the enemy split it up, it is a tragedy of tragedies.
God has worked for years to design diversity in those brothers: to give one wisdom, another a pastor’s heart, another discernment, another prophetic understanding. He puts them together, and He lets them be different.
Of course, they have to fight it out. That is the way it works. But you do not just go off and say, “Okay, I am going to join a church with all prophets.”
Every prophet church I have ever heard of goes off the rails.
Oh, if the body of Christ would just allow the grace of God to be abundantly expressed through its members, we would discover wonderful gifts.
I am so thankful that I was just a young Christian when the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit in the 1970s. The charismatic movement changed my life and changed the lives of the saints on Long Island, where I lived.
I have never seen anything so amazing in my life. I saw Christians who had been members of a church for years and had no life. They were doing things out of duty and obligation, and because they loved Jesus—wonderful.
But when the Holy Spirit poured out upon their lives, I saw people waking up, becoming part of the body of Christ, and ministering in ways that edified people.
It was an outpouring of God’s grace upon a weak church—a church that had all the doctrines but lacked the power of God. It was amazing what God did in that charismatic movement, on the West Coast, the East Coast, up and down, all around.
I believe even this group in Richmond would not have been where it was if it had not been for that charismatic movement, which touched the lives of individuals and opened them to the reality of the body of Christ.
God’s grace gets transformed into gifts, and those gifts are used for the edification of the body of Christ.
I am the first one to tell you, as a former charismaniac, that the problem with the charismatic movement was that when it fell and gifts were distributed among the saints, there was nobody to steward it.
So it went to seed. There were extremes, excesses, counterfeits, and all kinds of things that caused people to say, “I want nothing to do with it.”
The truth of the matter is that a gift from God is never to be despised. Paul said, without hesitation:
I speak with tongues more than you all.
He did not despise the least of the gifts, and neither should we—not if we are Bible believers.
I know some of you probably completely disagree with me. You have a whole other theology involved. But I am looking at how we are going to go ahead. I am looking for young people willing to take a step by faith and live out of the life of Christ, because it will express itself in gifts.
This is what happened in the Apostle Paul’s life. Paul did not start out an apostle. From his original call, we know that was his destiny, but he began as a witness of Jesus Christ.
As a faithful witness, he stepped further through the doors of the mysteries and became a teacher. As he went deeper into those teachings, he became a prophet. He began to understand the times, the second coming, and all these things.
Then one day Barnabas came to Tarsus, brought him down to Antioch, and there he taught and prophesied along with others. The body of Christ was built up in Antioch.
Then one day the Lord said, “Now it is time, Paul. I told you eleven years ago that you were going to be an apostle to the Gentiles. Now you are ready.”
Paul went out as an apostle. What gift is an apostle? Is it prophecy? Teaching? Evangelism? You cannot describe it. It is a stewardship.
“Paul, I am entrusting you to go and lay a foundation of Jesus Christ alone, to allow the Spirit to pour out His life into that church, and to build up that body.”
“When it gets excessive, when it gets carnal, those things have to be clipped off by the truth of the cross of Christ.”
Paul built the church—or, rather, allowed the Lord Jesus to build the church through him—because he said, “It was not me.”
By the grace of God, this minister of God did these wonderful things.
One more note, and then I think that is it tonight. In 1 Corinthians 4, why did Paul make the statement, “Let men regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God”?
If you read the context, you will see there were brothers who were perhaps jealous, ambitious, critical, or judgmental. They did not like the way Paul talked, the way he looked, or thought he was too strong or too weak.
Brothers began to say, “Paul thinks he is a big whippersnapper. He is up on his high horse. I am not so sure he is such a great guy.”
Paul said, “You can judge me all you want. The Holy Spirit has been working on me for so long, you cannot hurt me. The Spirit has worked on me more than you can tell me.”
He said, “You can judge me if you want. I have even gotten beyond judging myself.” But that did not mean he was therefore blameless. “Let the Judge discern.”
Paul could care less what they called him. He knew who he was, and by the grace of God he was going to serve the Lord.
In 2 Corinthians, some false apostles had come into Corinth and were causing increasing problems. Paul wanted to show the brethren that there is a dimension to stewardship that increases with faithfulness.
Whatever the Lord entrusts into your hands right now—whether it is witnessing to your parents, teaching a Sunday school class, or whatever that stewardship is—be faithful in it.
As Brother Max said this morning, let the Lord be faithful through you. Be able to say, “It is not I, but the Lord is doing this teaching work.”
Peter speaks in 1 Peter 4 about the manifold grace of God. He is talking about gifts. If you are a preacher, do not just be a preacher of doctrine. Oh, no. The letter kills.
When you speak, speak as the oracles of God, because you have been behind one of those doors. Before you share a message, go behind the doors and ask, “What does this have to do with the mystery of God, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of the church?”
“How does this bring us closer to being fully under Christ?” It is amazing the difference it makes once those mysteries begin to be opened to you.
Whatever your stewardship is, be faithful, and the Lord will give you more. If you are faithful, the Lord will give you more.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:13:
But we will not glory beyond our measure, but within the measure of the province which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you.
There are two words there: sphere and measure. Everyone who is a steward has a measure and a sphere.
You have a measure: a deposit of understanding, revelation of the mystery of God, gift, and ministry. You also have a sphere in which the Lord wants you to use that ministry.
Some brothers have a ministry of the Word that never goes beyond the local sphere. That is God’s sovereign will. For others, the Lord begins to expand their sphere.
Paul’s sphere, as his measure increased, had grown out to Corinth. He hoped to go to Rome and even Spain. He said, “I can only minister as a steward and apostle within the measure and the sphere I have been given.”
“But if I am faithful, I trust the Lord will increase my measure and my sphere.”
This motivation to grow as a steward in faithfulness is a motivation of grace. You and I, as grace-filled Christians, should be motivated to be fuller of Christ, fuller of grace, and fuller of gifts.
For us to stop where we are is completely ungracious. His supply increases as you respond.
God takes the least gift, when faithfully offered, and does great things through it.
I will end with one simple story about this mystery of grace. There was a man named Philip Jenner. Anybody know who that is?
There was a Baptist pastor named Francis Dixon who, after World War II, was a Keswick speaker in England. He traveled among churches.
This man went to a church in London, and at the end of a service somebody said, “Can I share a testimony?” He said, “Well, yes, just make it a minute.”
The person got up and said, “I got saved last year. Here is how it happened. I went to Sydney, Australia, and I was walking down George Street, which is like Broadway.”
“A little gray-haired man stepped out and handed me a tract. He said, ‘Sir, are you saved? If you died tonight, do you know if you would go to heaven?’”
“I took that tract home, read it, thought about it, and before long I had to go to my local church and find out what it meant. I got saved. I would just like to testify to that.”
Pastor Dixon said, “Wow, this is fantastic.”
Then he flew to the Keswick Convention in the Midlands of England and mentioned the story. Afterwards, three missionaries came up to him and said, “You know what? We were all saved in Sydney. This man handed us tracts.”
They each told their stories. Three missionaries testified that this man had done this. Dixon was amazed.
Then he went to another Keswick convention in the Caribbean. The pastor who hosted him told the story of how he had been in the Navy, gone to port in Sydney, and was drunk walking down George Street one night.
A gray-haired man handed him a tract and asked, “Are you saved? Do you know if you died tonight whether you would go to heaven?”
This happened six or eight times to Pastor Dixon. Finally, he went to George Street in Sydney while he had meetings in Australia. He could not stand it. He went looking for the man.
He went to a Baptist church and asked, “Do you know this guy, a gray-haired man who hands out tracts?”
By this time, he had heard of a man in India who had not only been saved through this witness but had led a thousand people to the Lord.
The pastor said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah—that is Philip Jenner.”
They went to this old man’s house. He could hardly get up. He had multiple sclerosis, I think—something that had made him almost immobile.
Pastor Dixon said, “Now let me hear your story.” Philip Jenner said, “I was in the Australian service. I was a hopeless drunkard, and one day somebody handed me a tract, and I got saved.”
“I said, ‘Jesus, I do not know what to do, but I pledge that for the rest of my life, every day of my life, if God helps me, I am going to hand out a tract to at least ten people and ask them if they have been saved.’”
Pastor Dixon told him the stories of the thousands of people who had come to the Lord because of his faithfulness over forty years.
It turned out that he had handed out 160,000 tracts, asking the simple question:
Are you saved?
Do you know, if you died tonight, whether you would go to heaven?
This old gentleman, white-haired and bald, cried and said, “I never heard of one person getting saved in these forty years of handing out those tracts.”
You can Google it: Philip Jenner, the tract guy on George Street. Read the story. It is more wonderful than I have told you. I gave you the Google version.
Listen: be faithful as a steward to what has been entrusted into your hands. You would be amazed how far the Lord can break five loaves and two fish.
You have the grace of God in you. You are full of the grace of God. If you exercise faith, that grace will become a gift that will edify the body of Christ.
We are jammed up here, brothers and sisters, because we cannot come to fullness and the satisfaction of our Lord until the body becomes mature, to the full measure of the stature of Christ.
We must grow up into the Head, and each person must share whatever supply he has with the rest of the ligaments and joints in the body of Christ.
When that happens, we will experience reviving and fullness greater than any charismatic movement, because it will be full of grace and full of life.
It will be those who understand the secret of grace. What is that secret? You have received everything that you need.
All you need to do is step out by faith, at the prompting of the Lord, and you will discover: not I, but Christ.
Nothing is quite so wonderful.
There are so many more stories I have to tell, but Kenny told a lot of stories anyway. He will make up for it.
The mystery of grace. Paul knew how to steward that.
He did not merely steward people, lay hands on them, and say, “Ah, he has got to get the Spirit. Hallelujah.” No, no, no.
He ministered the life of Christ into that person and helped him understand and embrace the mystery of grace: Galatians 2:20.
Paul built the church out of people who understood that they had been crucified with Christ and were living by a new life. They were a new creation.
That is what made the true church so vibrant. So many Christians today are living out of their old life. They need to realize there is grace as they step by faith to respond to God.
May the Lord help us to be stewards of that mystery of grace.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you told some of your Christian friends—who have been living out of their natural life—how to live out of Christ’s life? Oh, wow. There is good stewardship right there.
That is what Paul was. May the Lord help us.
Lord, we are so thankful that we all can say, “It is all of grace—grace, grace, grace, grace—free grace, life, and love.”
Oh, Lord, we feel so compelled to respond. We know that sometimes we respond in silly ways, unprovoked by Your Spirit, but we want to learn how to follow the stewardship of Your Spirit.
We want to minister by the grace of God and, having done all, say, “It was not me; it was Christ.”
Let that be our recollection when people say, “How can that person be such a good teacher? How could that person be such an apostle? How could that person be such a good witness?”
May we say with Paul:
It is not I, but Christ.
Teach us this mystery of grace. Teach us how to receive and how to respond. Teach us, “Freely ye received, freely give.”
Oh, Lord, build up Your body even in the mystery of this wonderful grace, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.