Beyond What You Can See
Sermon notes from J.C. Thompson at Brookwood Church, part of Citizens and Saints. Ephesians 3:1-13 explores trusting God when what we see does not seem to match what we know about Him.
Beyond What You Can See
J.C. Thompson · Brookwood Church
Citizens and Saints · Ephesians 3:1-13
Preparing our hearts
The service opened with an invitation to seek God's kingdom above all else. Through worship and prayer, the church expressed trust in God's provision, His good plans, and His presence even when we cannot see what He is doing.
When the picture does not match
Family pictures are supposed to capture everyone smiling, grateful, and looking their best. For my youngest son's tenth birthday, I wanted that picture. Instead, I got goofy faces, unimpressed faces, and a why-are-you-making-me-do-this face.
Sometimes life does not give us the picture we expect. And sometimes the struggle is much bigger than a birthday photo.
What we believe and what we see
There are moments when what is happening in our lives does not seem to match what we believe about God.
- We believe God is good, but this does not look good.
- We believe God is powerful, but we feel powerless.
- We believe God is wise, but what is happening makes no sense.
That is the tension we encounter in Ephesians 3.
21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
22 And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church,
If Jesus rules, why is Paul in prison?
Paul has described Jesus as above every ruler, authority, power, and dominion. Everything has been placed under His feet.
Then Paul introduces himself as a prisoner. If Jesus rules the rulers, how did one of those rulers put Jesus' servant in jail?
Paul was sent to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Prison does not seem like the best strategy for that mission.
Living when we do not understand
Sometimes the hardest moments of faith are not when we stop believing in God. They are when we still believe, but what we know about Him does not seem to make sense of what is happening.
Paul does not promise a neat explanation for every circumstance. From a prison cell, he teaches us how to live faithfully when we do not understand.
When you cannot see what God is doing, remember that God is doing more than you can see.
1. Rely on God beyond what you can see
Notice how Paul identifies himself: not merely as a prisoner, but as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
Who is in control?
From a human perspective, Jewish leaders brought charges against Paul and Roman authorities held him in chains. But Paul does not believe either group ultimately controls his life. He belongs to Jesus Christ.
Paul refuses to let his circumstances tell him what is true about God. He takes what he knows about Jesus and uses that to interpret his circumstances.
Circumstances are not a formula
We can easily draw conclusions like these:
- Things are going badly, so God must have closed the door.
- Everything is going well, so this must be God's will.
- God is not blessing me because I am not doing enough.
Difficulty does not automatically mean disobedience, and success does not automatically mean approval. We need a relationship with God, not a formula.
Ephesians has already reminded us that salvation is God's gift of grace, not something we can boast about. It has also described God bringing Jews and Gentiles together as one people.
2 in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.
4 But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.
11 Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)—
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility
15 by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace
16 and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He extinguished their hostility.
17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
18 For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19 Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.
21 In Him the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 And in Him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God in His Spirit.
Faith beyond sight
Paul does not understand everything Jesus is doing, but he knows whose life this is and who is sovereign over it.
Living by faith does not mean ignoring what we see. It means that our spiritual sight must take precedence over our human sight.
What are You entrusting to me?
Paul moves quickly from imprisonment to purpose. He describes God's grace as something entrusted to him for others.
The word translated as administration carries the idea of stewardship. Paul's encounter with Christ changed him from a persecutor of Christians into a messenger of the gospel.
Instead of making his chains the central character in the story, Paul asks a different question: God, what are You entrusting me with?
4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,
5 which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
A plan once hidden
For generations, God had been working out a plan that people had not yet seen in full. Through Jesus Christ and the revelation given by the Spirit, that mystery was being made known.
Just because people could not see God's plan did not mean He did not have one.
One body in Christ
Through the gospel, Gentiles share with Israel in the inheritance, the body, and the promise in Christ Jesus.
The irony is that Jews and Gentiles were involved in Paul's imprisonment, while his mission was to announce that God was bringing them together as one people.
We see a moment. God sees an entire story. Our inability to see what He is doing is not evidence that He is doing nothing.
A servant, not the central character
Paul does not begin with becoming powerful. He begins with becoming a servant.
Jesus is the center of the story. We are grateful to have a part in what He is doing, but we do not get to decide what His power must look like in our lives.
Sometimes God's power gets you out of prison. Sometimes His power is at work while you are still sitting in it.
2 The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.
3 Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, so he took him and circumcised him on account of the Jews in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
4 As they went from town to town, they delivered the decisions handed down by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.
5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
6 After the Holy Spirit had prevented them from speaking the word in the province of Asia, they traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia.
7 And when they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not permit them.
8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.
9 During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and pleading with him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
10 As soon as Paul had seen the vision, we got ready to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
11 We sailed from Troas straight to Samothrace, and the following day on to Neapolis.
12 From there we went to the Roman colony of Philippi, the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river, where it was customary to find a place of prayer. After sitting down, we spoke to the women who had gathered there.
14 Among those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.
15 And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
16 One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl with a spirit of divination, who earned a large income for her masters by fortune-telling.
17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation!”
18 She continued this for many days. Eventually Paul grew so aggravated that he turned and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” And the spirit left her at that very moment.
19 When the girl’s owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities in the marketplace.
20 They brought them to the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews and are throwing our city into turmoil
21 by promoting customs that are unlawful for us Romans to adopt or practice.”
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered that they be stripped and beaten with rods.
23 And after striking them with many blows, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.
24 On receiving this order, he placed them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
26 Suddenly a strong earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. At once all the doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose.
27 When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, presuming that the prisoners had escaped.
28 But Paul called out in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself! We are all here!”
29 Calling for lights, the jailer rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
30 Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.”
32 Then Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house.
33 At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. And without delay, he and all his household were baptized.
34 Then he brought them into his home and set a meal before them. So he and all his household rejoiced that they had come to believe in God.
35 When daylight came, the magistrates sent their officers with the order: “Release those men.”
36 The jailer informed Paul: “The magistrates have sent orders to release you. Now you may go on your way in peace.”
37 But Paul said to the officers, “They beat us publicly without a trial and threw us into prison, even though we are Roman citizens. And now do they want to send us away secretly? Absolutely not! Let them come themselves and escort us out!”
38 So the officers relayed this message to the magistrates, who were alarmed to hear that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.
39 They came to appease them and led them out, requesting that they leave the city.
40 After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house to see the brothers and encourage them. Then they left the city.
Keep praying without limiting God
Keep asking God to change your circumstances. The mistake is concluding that because He has not changed them, He is not working.
Paul's chains remain, but grace is still being given, the gospel is still advancing, and God's purpose is still unfolding.
You do not have to pretend the pain does not hurt or manufacture an explanation God has not given. But the limits of what you see are not the limits of what God can do.
2. Rest in the riches of God
Paul's confidence does not come from having everything figured out. It comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
He points us to three things about God: His riches, His wisdom, and His purpose.
9 and to illuminate for everyone the stewardship of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
His riches: keep digging
Paul calls himself less than the least of God's people, yet he knows he has received grace to announce the boundless riches of Christ.
Near Kershaw, South Carolina, generations have mined gold from the same ground since its discovery in 1827. As their ability to reach it improved, they discovered more of what had been there all along.
Something like that happens as we come to know Jesus. He has not become more than He was. We are discovering more of who He already is.
You can spend a lifetime mining the riches of Jesus Christ and never hear your shovel hit the bottom.
More than crumbs
Our circumstances are a terrible measuring stick for how much we possess in Jesus.
Our circumstances may say we have nothing. Faith can answer, “You have no idea what I have.” His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and hope cannot be exhausted.
Sometimes we pray as though God has only crumbs available. He is a good Father with infinite riches, and He does not grow tired of His children asking for His blessings.
His wisdom: every angle
Paul describes God's wisdom as manifold: multifaceted, many-sided, richly varied.
When I looked at the diamond for my wife's engagement ring, the jeweler turned it under the lights so we could see every angle. In our lives, we usually see only one side. God sees every side.
He sees how what is happening in your life connects with other people, the church, and His larger purpose.
Your story is seen beyond your angle
God displays His wisdom through the church to rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. What He is doing among His people has significance beyond what we can see.
A diagnosis, infertility, unanswered prayer, a missed opportunity, a failure, or a victory may leave us saying, “God, this does not make sense.”
Where you are standing is not the only place from which your story is being seen. You have one angle. God has every angle.
His purpose: eternal
God's purpose, accomplished in Christ Jesus, allows us to rest.
God is not confined by time and space. He sees the beginning, the end, and every individual moment in between. He has a purpose and a plan.
We do not have to understand everything God is doing. We need to know the God who is at work.
Do not lose heart
Paul's imprisonment is not the whole story.
- Christ is richer than you know.
- God is wiser than you understand.
- His purposes are larger than you can see.
Some of us wait to trust God until He fully explains Himself. Instead, rest in the clarity of who He is.
You may not understand the chapter you are living in, but you can know the God who is at work in it.
34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?”
35 “Who has first given to God, that God should repay him?”
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
When understanding gives way to worship
Paul responds to what he cannot fully understand with worship.
God's wisdom is deeper than he can trace. God's purposes are bigger than he can see. Everything is from Him, through Him, and for Him.
His riches are unsearchable. His wisdom is manifold. His purpose is eternal.
The picture did not change
What I had forgotten in my frustration over the birthday photo was the fuller story. Our youngest son came into our family through foster care. For years, we could not show his face publicly. We covered it with an emoji before sharing a picture.
Then it hit me: I get to show his face. I get to complain about the goofy expression because I get to share the picture and the story.
What felt frustrating was evidence of something bigger I had forgotten. The picture did not change, but my perspective did.
One frame is not the whole story
Maybe God will eventually let us see why some things happened. Maybe He will not. But what we can see is never all He can see.
Paul saw chains. God could see the gospel going to the nations.
Do not pretend it does not hurt. Do not pretend you can see what you cannot see. But do not let one frame convince you that you know the whole story.
Rely on God beyond what you can see. Rest in His riches and wisdom. Do not lose heart.
When you cannot see what God is doing, remember that God is doing more than you can see.
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, in the midst of struggle, we have asked what You are doing because we cannot understand or see. Yet You have been faithful.
Remind those facing difficulty that You see them, that You are involved, and that You have something for them to receive in this season. For those exploring faith, provide someone with whom they can share their doubts and questions.
Thank You for who You are, for Your faithfulness, and for doing more than we can see. In the name of Christ, amen.
