09-Ephesians: “Grace Is an Asset: Are You Investing It?” | Ephesians 3:1-13

Well, last week we finished our walk through Ephesians chapter 2 where we were reminded when we started that chapter that we were in the grave, that we were dead in our sins, and then we came across these two words that we keep being reminded of. But God, but God made us alive. He brought us near by the blood of Christ. And out of the two different groups of people, both Jews and Gentiles, he made one new group. He made Christians.

He made the church. And he told us why. He told us that he was building a house. He was making these living stones. And he was cutting us to fit.

He was building us together to be this one dwelling place that would house the spirit of God. And the charge for us was simple. The charge was for us to stop attending the household of God and instead to start investing in it. And so this morning, Paul is going to continue to press this idea, this idea of, are we going to invest in the house of God? And what does that exactly mean?

Now, we start this in Ephesians chapter 2. And it is what we're going to discover is that what we've been given is probably the most valuable asset we've been given, and that is the grace of God. And so for this we jump into Ephesians 3 starting in verse one where Paul says for this reason I Paul the prisoner of Christ for you Gentiles. Paul says for this reason well what's the reason? Now for this we have to again go back into chapter 2 and remind us ourselves of what Paul is talking about.

And he says this in verses 19 through 22. He says now therefore you are no longer strangers or foreigners. So for the reason why what? because you're no longer strangers. You're no longer foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus, Christ himself, being that chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fit together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also were being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. So what are the reasons?

Well, we are no longer strangers. Christ is our chief cornerstone because we are being fit together. We are being built together to be a dwelling place for the spirit of God. This is the reason that Paul is talking about. So it is for this reason that Paul then says, I Paul am a prisoner for Christ.

Now I'm just going to say this idea of of prisoner. It's it's one of those things where we can say like yes, Paul is actually imprisoned. This is true. But Paul has also become a prisoner of something else. Paul has and is saying that he has become a prisoner of Christ.

And when I say that, some of you are going to be like, I don't get it. What does that even mean? Especially when Paul in Galatians 5:1 says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And so it can sound contradictory. But let me read to you out of the book of Romans and see if we can start understanding what it is that Paul is talking about because there is a difference between being a prisoner to someone else and being a prisoner to Christ.

There's a different response. Let's go to to Romans 6:16. Paul says, "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are the one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of the obedience leading to Christ." And you're like, "Okay, Chris, that's a bunch of churchy Paul words. What in the world is being said?" What Paul is saying is every single one of us is going to be a slave. Every single one of us is going to be a prisoner to one of two things.

We're either going to be a slave to sin, represented by the enemy, or we are going to be a slave to righteousness, represented to the Lord. There is no alternative choice. You're one or the other. Now, let me ask you a question. Would you rather be a slave to the enemy or a slave to God?

Oh, you're like, "Yes." Good churchy answer everyone. But it is something that we seriously have to wrestle with. So let's go a little bit deeper and see what Paul continues to say in Romans 6. He says, "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." So Paul is indicating being a slave of righteousness, being a slave of Christ is actually of benefit.

It is a blessing because we also recognize being a slave if you will of God is being in his family. It is being his child. It is being adopted by him. So this describes Paul's the spiritual component. Paul is literally a slave.

He's a prisoner of righteousness for Christ. But Paul is reminding his audience that he is also literally in prison. So Paul is really communicating these two different things. Now, we need to pin that for a second because Paul is about to take a detour. What's really interesting is when Paul starts chapter 3, those of you that have ADD like I do, you're going to relate with what Paul is about to do here.

He starts verse one and he literally takes a detour for about 12 verses before next week we'll get back to this first thought that he has in verse one. And when you get to verse 14, he picks it up again. We're we're about to take this detour as we move into verse two. So he Paul is about to give us a behindthescenes insight into what he's been teaching and why why it is that he is willing to sit in prison. He's willing to sit in prison.

Paul doesn't have to be in prison. Now let me ask you a question. If you had a choice to be in prison or not, what would you choose? Be careful to answer how you answer that because Paul is about to tell us why it is he is willing to sit in prison. So we continue.

Let's pick up verse one. Let's get that context again. For this reason, I Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles. If indeed you have heard of the dispensation. Now, I'm going to pause here for a second because those of you that have been here for a while know that I have little big words, medium big words, and big big words.

I'm just going to tell you right now, dispensation for me is one of those big big words. It's one of those words that you hear and you get utterly confused. I will be honest. I will confess to you that for probably the first couple years that I was in seminary, which is most of my time in seminary, they constantly use dispensation. And I was like, I I don't know.

Like, what are you even talking about? But I'm going to give you a little bit of a hint. This word dispensation is not as difficult as you necessarily think. A synonym, those of you remember synonyms, something that's like it in our culture is the word stewardship. We've heard of stewardship.

Again, maybe like, all right, you just gave me another big word there, pastor. What does that even mean? I'll be honest. One of the things we we've kind of changed what stewardship means in America. A lot of churches use stewardship as like, hey, we're doing a building campaign.

We're doing a stewardship campaign. But that's not what stewardship is. It's not just about raising money. There's another word that or actually two words that work better now for this. Those of you um journey journey kids, the high school kids, a couple months ago, we had a financial class here for them. they had to do a conference as part of what they uh complete in their books.

And so they came in and we watched some sermons sermons from Dave Ramsey. And Dave Ramsey actually got a chance to talk about this. And he talked about this word stewardship and what a more appropriate way of communicating that is in our society. Now if I say stewardship, you might be like, "Yeah, I don't get it." But if I say asset management, you might go like, "Oh, oh." Now, of course, when we talk about asset management, we usually think about stock broker people, right? That's one of the things we do.

But how many of you have assets? I I hope most of you raise your hand at least a little bit, right? All of us have some measure of assets. And so, the idea is how do we manage that which we have been given? Now, the the word that Paul is using here is this word okanomia.

Now, let me ask you a question. When I say economia, what does that sound like in English? Economy. This is literally where we get our word economy. But more specifically, what economia that oi that ooas is house.

We may remember that from a couple weeks ago. So this is literally what Paul is saying is your household management. How are you managing your house? So, how are you hand managing your house? I'm just kidding.

I'm not going to ask you that right now. But that's the idea that comes from this. So, the question now becomes, what is the asset that Paul is talking about needing to be managed? What is the asset that Paul is saying needs to be managed? What is a value that interests the gentile believers that Paul is speaking to? quite literally the most valuable asset that we have been given.

We continue of the grace of God which was given to me for you. Now let me ask you a question. How valuable is the grace of God? Right? Those of you that know what I'm talking about.

Now some of you are like don't know what that means. Now, for more on that, you could go back to message five in this series called But God, where we literally talk about what the grace of God is. Now, we struggle with this. In fact, even over the weekend when I was talking with some of the men yesterday when I was down at Kosh Canyon, our idea of the grace of God or what grace is can be an incredible struggle. Because when we talk about giving someone grace, our society says, "Well, you should just continue to allow somebody to do the thing that they've always been doing, regardless of how destructive it is and how painful it is to you." That's what grace is.

Is that what God is giving to us? No. What God is giving to us is salvation. That which we do not deserve. What God is also giving us as part of his grace is the gospel.

The truth of what it is that Christ has done for us by hanging on that cross, by taking upon himself our sin in our shame, by going into the into the grave, by dying the death that we could not and raising again to new life. That is the grace of God that's being talked about. This is the value. You could almost take grace and gospel and put them together. The most valuable thing that you have in your life and ever have is the communication of what God has accomplished on the cross.

What he has given to you. You could take grace and you could take gospel and you could make them the same thing. So this thing that you yourself have received this promise of eternal life because of what Christ has done on the cross is now that thing that you have as an asset. You're like, "Oh, interesting. Now grace again is simply receiving what we don't deserve.

And we don't deserve this thing that God has given us. We don't deserve relationship with God. We don't deserve eternal life with God. We don't deserve adoption into God's life. But again, into his kingdom.

This is that grace of God. This is this powerful asset. And he's telling them, Paul is telling them this was given for you. You, these are the Gentiles. These are these non-Jews.

He's communicating to them, this is for you, this grace of God. Now, I got to tell you, a lot of times when I'm well, okay, not a lot of times, every time I'm sitting down and I'm reading the word of God, I am trying to see what is being communicated here and and I began to look at this and I began to think through this lens of an asset. God has given us this asset and how does this work in our lives? How does this work for us as believers? If we have been given this asset to manage, what does that mean for us?

Now, right off the bat, I was like, well, it makes sense because we have to invest this any good asset needs to be invested. But then I began to think this might be something hard for some people in this room because one of the things that I've learned in the 30 plus years in the Baptist tradition is that investing is anathema. I have been told investing is a sin. I've been told investing is gambling and you cannot gamble. Now, some of you are like, "Yeah, but pastor, that's only with money." Now, let me ask you a question.

If you behave in one area of your life towards something, what do you think the chances are that behavior will begin to spill over into the rest of your life? And let me see if I can communicate to you how I believe this has become pervasive in our culture. Right? All right. So, I started doing a little bit of investigation.

I wanted to know how many Americans right now by percentage are involved in the stock market in some way. And I found out that 62% of us are invested in the stock market. You're like, "Wow, that's that's actually quite a bit." But most of this is because of retirement accounts, which most of us don't really think about that stuff. It's like you sign a thing at work and then it just does its thing in the background. But most of us are not involved in any kind of investments in the stock market.

In fact, only three out of 10 people actually are invested in the stock market in any way that's not involving a retirement account. Now, why does this matter? Let me ask you this question. Again, I'm not going to try and I I'll look at brother Jimmy because I know Jimmy's like door knockocking every single Saturday. So, I know Jimmy's already investing the grace of God on a weekly basis, on a daily basis, anywhere and everywhere that he goes.

But let me ask you this question. You have to ask yourself right now, how am I investing God's grace? And then ask yourself, how am I actually doing and investing what God has given me? Okay. So, how many people and and Okay, Jimmy, we're just going to have a moment here.

How many people in this room are actively investing the grace of God that they've been given in the lives of other people around them? And then how many people are actually investing what it is that God has given them physically actually in the market and seeing it grow. Now again, we're going to be struggling with this because many of us have been taught and told it's gambling to put money in the stock market. You got to put it in the bank. Let me tell you right now, you're gambling with your money if you just leave it in the bank.

Amen. Because right now or year over year, you've lost 4% on your money. Let me ask you, how many of you would like to at least make 4% on your money? If you just kept it in a normal thing, you're losing value. I heard this thing, and I'm not going to get the entire amount.

Some family found $50,000 in like a great grandpa's mattress and was like, "Woo!" It was like from the 1940s. If that had just been invested in the market over the last 80 years, it was worth hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Okay? Now, we're not going to get into the particulars about how this goes. I want to keep it focused on the Bible.

But the thing that I want to remind us is that this idea of investing is a biblical thing. And you're like, "What are you talking about?" No, it's not. Can't be. Cuz pastor told me decades ago that it is against God's rules. It's against God's laws.

It's gambling. You won't find gambling in the word of God. You won't find it as a prohibition. But what you will find is Jesus, as he's getting ready to go to the cross, tells this parable to these three men that are given an amount of money. You guys may know it as the parable of the talents.

And what ends up happening? Each of them is given money according to their gifting. The first two, they invest it. The owner comes back. The two of them have doubled the money and they are rewarded.

What did the third guy do? He buried it. And what ended up happening? Oh, here. Let me let me connect you with the Jewish social program and and and give you some more.

No, take it away and give it to the rich one. Our God wants us to invest what it is that he has given us. Notice it has nothing to do with the return. It has to do with the fact that they actually did it. They actually invested.

They took a risk, if you will. They used their gifts and their talents. Why does this matter? Because so many of us, there's three main things that we can invest. our time, our talent, and our treasure. And when I look at the church today, most of us do not invest all three of these at all.

And in many cases, many people who claim Christ invest none of them. I'm looking at Jimmy again because I know he invests on all these things. But these are things that we have to wrestle with. God has given us time, talent, and treasure to invest. God has given us his grace, his gospel to invest.

How do I know that this is the case? Go make baptize and teach. What are we supposed to be going and doing? Investing. Now, here's the thing.

This is the thing I know because I have been this person. I have made the stupid financial decision to not invest. At a particular time in my life, I through fear pulled money out that had been invested again in one of these retirement things. And a few weeks ago, I made the stupid decision to calculate what was lost because I didn't do it. Now, most of most of you and even me for a while, it's like, well, it was 2008.

That's when everything crashed, right? No. No. I took that into account, folks. Pastor Chris could have e and Holly could have easily retired at 59 and a half if I had not made that one decision.

Now that's that one decision. But what other things have we chosen not to invest in? How often have we held back what it is that God has given us to invest into an individual life? Because this isn't just about money. Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying. everything that we have been given.

And the reason why I showed you these stats is because we have been lulled into complacency and into fear as a society. When I talk to people about why aren't you investing in your future? Well, because I'm afraid that it's going to go down. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose something. Well, why is it that you don't share the gospel with somebody?

I'm afraid that I'm going to lose a family member. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose a friend. Sound familiar? How many things have we not invested in our lives because we have been afraid? Because we have been fearful.

And so instead of letting our light shine, we instead hide it under a bushel. The thing that we need to understand is our God's grace, it multiplies. The thing that you need to understand is that our God's grace will always trend from the left up into the right. It will never fall void. Yes, there will be those times where it crashes.

Paul's in prison for crying out loud. You could look at that and say, "Well, why is Paul in prison?" Because he's sharing the gospel. All he had to do was shut his mouth and they would have let him go. But Paul continues to invest and he is being punished in this life for it even though the returns continue to pile up. And yes, are there people that reject?

Absolutely. There's going to be a downturn. He's going to go into a city. He's going to preach the gospel. If you read the book of Acts, you see this constantly.

Paul goes into a city and then suddenly they're kicking him out. They're throwing stones at him. They're beating him. They're trying to kill him. And then he moves on to the next city.

And then maybe he has a failure there. But then he goes to the next city. And then maybe he goes to one person and he invests in one life. And then that one life sparks an entire movement in that region. And the thing is is there's stories beyond Paul in this.

Billy Graham has one of these stories. We don't have time to go into it. Look at Billy Graham's life as a teenager. He was not what Billy Graham became. And yet through the life of one man speaking into his life, a movement was born.

The thing is is you will not always get some big massive huge return. You may not even ever notice it. One of the first stories I ever heard from Pastor Rudy her First Baptist Church in Eugene. He was my my youth pastor mentor. I was one of his interns.

And I remember him talking in front of the kids. And I can't remember the pastor in in England, but this pastor had gone his whole life and never had a convert except one. And he went to his grave thinking that he was an abject failure as a pastor. And yet that one young man went and became a missionary in Africa and started a movement that led tens of thousands of people to Christ. That guy went to his grave not knowing the movement that he started.

He had no idea that the investment that he made in this young man's life despite of all of the other failures, the investment in this one life started an absolute movement. Okay, we got to keep going or else we're going to be here until 5. All right. I know. Thank you, brother.

All right. Paul continues in verse three, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery. Now, the fun thing is is this word mystery is the word mysterion. And what's fun is what this word means is shut your mouth. Now, when I brought this up to the guys yesterday, they went a completely different direction than I thought.

And some of the parents are like, I may have said mysterion a time or two to my kids. But literally what he's talking about, what he's referring to are secret religions. Some of us can think of some secret religions. Religions. And what I mean is, you know, the name, but you don't necessarily know all the things they do.

And why is that? Well, because they keep it close to the vest, right? You got to join the group. Then you got to do all of the things. You got to pay all of the monies to earn the secret knowledge.

And once you have the secret knowledge, you need to shut your mouth. You don't tell anybody else. You don't talk about it unless you're out unless you're with inside the walls with the folks. So Paul continues, "As I briefly written already, by which when we read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ." So P Paul talks about that he's already written about this. And I'm just going to shoot through this in Ephesians 1.

Paul talks about he alludes to the fact that there is this mystery of God's will that that there is this time that is coming, that this mystery is going to be revealed. And Paul, he delves deeper into this idea of this mystery which then he continues in verse five which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the spirit to his holy apostles and to his prophets. So we have these other ages. What this means is previous generations that he makes known this stuff. Well, what was being made known?

He was making known something to the son of man. He makes this known and it continues to to talk about this. We'll get to this in verse six. But what he's saying is he has revealed this now by the Holy Spirit. So something has been revealed.

Now this is the thing we need to understand and this is one of the cool little nuggets. If something is being revealed that means it already had to exist. The reason why I bring this and I've been bringing this up for the last weeks is that a lot of people like to make a distinction between the Old and New Testament. That somehow the New Testament is just God writing the wrongs of the Old. That's not what's happening.

What he's doing is he is now through Christ and through the ministry of Paul, he's revealing the thing that was already there to begin with that just wasn't being noticed. And he we're told that he does this through the apostles and through the prophets. And this is the mystery being revealed that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. We've been touching on this throughout this series that that for hundreds for thousands of years that we've had Jew versus Gentile that these two groups being separate for another. But now in Christ the two have become one.

All who share in the faith of Jesus have become the children of Abraham and are children according to the promise that every single man, woman, child can be partakers of his promise. family. This is the gospel. This is the gospel. This is the good news. And this is the thing that I I wanted to to point out.

So many other religions, you have to go deep to get the secret the secret mysteries revealed. Paul is making this known for everyone. There is no secret with our God. Everyone is welcome at the table who come through Christ. Amen.

Now Paul continues in verse 7. He says, "Of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power." Now, the thing we want to focus in on here is minister. Now, some people call me minister, some people call me bas pastor. We've made minister synonymous with pastor, but they're two different words. Pastor literally means shepherd.

Minister literally means servant. That's literally what it means. It's actually what we get our word deacon from. It literally is a person who is a servant. Now, it's important for me to recognize that we also get confused by deacon because we've messed this up because we elect these guys named deacons.

And depending on what church you've been in, we haven't done this as much here at Sunrise, but I've seen this happen where suddenly it's like the deacons are the special people. They're the one that get these little thrones that uh sit off the side to the pastor and they sit there and they're sitting there in approve of the pastor and what it is that he is doing and so forth. That is not what a deacon was by any stretch of the imagination. A deacon in the first century this was like a base level common servant that there was nothing flashing, nothing special. When they are hearing Paul talk about the fact that he is a minister, Paul is coming before them in humility.

I am a servant according to the gift of the grace that God has given me. This this was like a common courier, a common person who is just serving in a household. In fact, one of the things that that this would be is a that is often given to this is a dust kicker. Someone who is literally just running back and forth and doing all of these things at the whim of the master. And that's what Paul is communicating about himself.

That's who I am. And honestly, that's what this role and the deacon roles that we have. All of us should be of this mentality. This is what God wants. I am not elevated.

Now, I know I standing up here, but I am not elevated above any of you. And there should be no pastor. There should be no deacon. There should be no elder who in any way ever acts as though they're above anyone in the family of God. Amen.

And that's what Paul is communicating here. And he's talking about this being done for the grace of God. And then Paul says something seemingly weird. And this is he says this is accomplished through the effective working of the power. Getting there.

We're getting there. The effective working of the power. So God's effective power was used to help Paul be a servant and a lowly common servant for the people. And there's more. But before we get there, we need to remember that this power that Paul is talking about here, that effective working.

Several weeks ago, we talked about different types of power. So this first power is that energia where we get our word energy. So this is this is working power that's going on. And then that actual power that is there, the working of his power, this is God's power. So what Paul is saying is God's power is literally functioning and working through him.

And so we have this dust kicker, this servant, the self-admitted common servant is powered by God himself. So then the question is why does this matter? Why does it matter? Because of what continues to me who am less than the least of the saints. this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the uncarchable riches of Christ. Paul is talking about himself in these self-deprecating terms because Paul, you might remember, and if you haven't heard this, you can go and read about this in the book of Acts.

Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, an enemy of Christ, an enemy of the early church. Paul imprisoned believers. Paul was there in and was literally affirming the death sentences of believers. Paul you could call was a murderer. Paul was an enemy of enemy of Christ.

So that's why he calls himself the least of the saints. And yet he says, "But I was given this grace." Now some of you think I am too unbelievably horrible of a person to have ever received the grace of God. Well, as far as I know, none of you are murderers. And there's really not much in our society that goes deeper than a murderer. And yet, Paul received God's grace.

Paul received God's salvation. But not only did he receive his grace in his salvation, he received an appointment to be one to invest in the lives of those around to communicate that grace to communicate that gospel to preach among the Gentiles the uncarchable riches of Christ. But it goes beyond this. Paul again, this servant, this dustkicker, gets to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in in God who created all things through Jesus Christ. This man who was a student of the Jew Jewish faith, who built his life before Christ on the exclusive nature of the Jewish relationship with God, is now in a situation where he gets to share the truth that all who believe get to share in the promises of God.

How incredible is this? But it wasn't just to mankind. This was communicated to the spiritual realm. As we see this as we get to verse 10, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the church, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. So what this is, this manifold thing, Kevin, this is not about cars.

Um, any of you plumbers, it's not about plumbing. Literally what this is is being is this is a beautifully ornate, intricate, richly detailed embroidery. just this beautiful tapestry if you will of God's wisdom is being poured out around them and it's being communicated he says through the church that is believers of that are Jews and Gentiles alike and it's being communicated to the principalities and powers which gives us indication that the angels and demons so this is talking about literally that spiritual realm that there were things that they didn't know that even they didn't understand everything that was going on in the Old Testament that God is now revealing through the church is like, "Hey guys, this is what I was doing. This is what has been coming about this entire time." Now, what Paul shares with us next confirms the fact that all of this was not new. It was not a pivot. It was not a change, but rather it was according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This literally was always the plan. The church was always the plan. Let me say that again. The church was what? Always the plan.

It was never not the plan. Us receiving God's grace was never not the plan. It was always the plan. And it was in Christ Jesus our Lord. It wasn't through religion.

It wasn't by angel, demon, or some other man. It it was by the son of God himself. It was by the creator of all things himself that this was accomplished. In whom we now have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him. We don't have confidence in ourselves.

We don't have confidence in our works. We don't have confidence in our attendance. Those who have gone be we don't have confidence in those who have gone before us. We have confidence and faith in him. And because this is true, Paul then declares, "Therefore, I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory." He says, "Do not lose heart." He's telling the Ephesians, "Do not lose heart." Why?

Why do they not need to lose heart? Do not lose heart for me because of my tribulations for you. Because Paul is literally in jail because he refuses to abdicate the faith. He refuses to give into the Jews who are like, "Hey, just communicate that the Gentiles aren't allowed and we'll tell the Romans to let you go." He's not saying that. Paul is literally sitting in prison.

He is literally taking on a lack of freedom because he will not betray the gospel. Now, every single one of us at some point is going to be faced not necessarily with prison, but we will likely get faced with someone saying like, "Look, you got to either take this nonsensical faith or me. What are you going to take?" I I remember when I was pretty new here. We had a young person in our youth group and she literally was facing this. She'd come to faith in Christ and she goes and she tells her friends, she lost them all.

All of them abandoned her. And for many in this area, if you come to the one true Christ, your family will abandon you. And that's why we talked about what we did last week, that God's family will not abandon you. Now, that has other implications because I'm just going to tell you, some of you in this room right now is like, "Well, I've been abandoned by them. I'm just going to posit this." That wasn't God's family.

And I'll let you do with that what you will, and we can talk about that later. But God's family will not abandon its own. And so Paul is willing and ready to take on this time in prison. Willing and ready and ultimately tradition tells us to give his life for the truth of this gospel. He will not give up on the investment of the grace of God, the gospel of God in the lives of people.

And this is communicating to the Ephesians that they would do the same. And so as we close this morning, we look back and we see a mystery hidden for ages has now been made wide open for all of the world to see. All of the world to see. In Christ, we learn that the outsiders have become fellow heirs of the same promise. A staggering gift has been placed in our hands.

Those of us who have Christ, we have been given this gospel. And this is the thing that I that I know because I I know this will happen for some of you like me. I I'll I'll just be honest with with the finances and the things that God has given us. I have some where I have a financial adviser who manages those things. For some, I have like a computerized thingy that does its mystical magical thing that it does in its its thing.

And for some of them, I manage those things. I'm actually finding that I can do okay with it. But that can be scary. And so I get it for some of you. If you've never managed your money in any way, it's terrifying to you.

The idea of investing and you have to practice and you have to be willing to fail. The same thing comes with the gospel and the grace of God. Every single one of us that has Christ, we have been given this infinite pool of money, if you will, grace to share. You're not going to run out. You have every opportunity to share it and have it fail.

And I'm just going to tell you, you're like, "But what if I share with somebody and they go to hell?" Well, that's on them. Because let me let me give you a little bit of freedom. You don't save anybody. I don't save anybody. Only Christ saves.

It's our job to invest in people's lives. And then we trust the Holy Spirit to come in there and do what he needs to then grow that in their lives. That's his job, not ours. And so the question then is is what are we doing to go and actually to invest in people's lives. Take somebody out to coffee, take somebody out to breakfast, call them on the phone, talk with them, talk with them at the at the grocery store, talk with them at the restaurant, wherever it is that you find yourself and you have opportunity to invest in someone, take that opportunity.

And you know what? You will you will quote lose. I hear this all the time whenever I watch any of the financial things. Anytime you invest, you will lose money. They say, but the thing is is with God's grace, ultimately you never lose.

You will have a moment maybe with Paul where you suffer because someone yells at you, you lose a friend, you lose a family member, whatever it is, but God will bring the increase in their lives. And so, may we not be the person that takes the grace of God and buries it. I do not want my Lord to come back and he's not going to take your grace. Don't take that too far. We get to keep what we have.

That is secure. But I want him to be able to come back and say, "Well done. Well done." You know, and and keep in mind that thing each according to their ability. We don't all have the same ability. I know people who it's like I I have a friend and and this is again years ago. you don't you don't know this individual.

But I remember one of the folks that used to go here, she was investing in this person's life for months and months and months and months and months and months and months and months. No decisions. Then this friend of mine who just happens to be this guy who just walks up and it's like I mean he literally just walks up and then she's like, "Yep, I want to receive Jesus." And we're talking within seconds. You're like, "What in the world?" But praise God for that. We're not all going to be that.

God didn't tell us all to be a Billy Graham and have thousands of people come forward because we talked about it. No, no, no, no. He told us just go make, baptize, and teach. And then we see the increase come from that. Amen.

So again, we what do we do with grace? We need to be investing it. We need to. And so the challenge is this week, find one person, tell them the good news. So go make baptize and teach and watch grace begin to multiply.

Watch grace begin to multiply his. So yeah, true confessions from from a pastor. And some of you are going to be like, I look down on him now because he did this. So you guys ever hear about SpaceX? You guys know this SpaceX?

Heard this? It was a big deal this last week because it went public, made our first trillionaire. Well, Pastor Chris bought two shares of SpaceX. Now, I'm fully expecting it to go at some point. It hasn't gone yet, but I'm just letting it sit there because again, I could put it in the bank and make 003%.

But I can also tell you the first day it made 25%. But again, I don't know what's going to happen. But hopefully over a long term it'll happen. But I can tell you there is something that we can put in to people's lives so much more valuable. As much as I'm thankful for that and I want to be faithful with what it is that God has blessed us with in the financial realm, I want to be ever more faithful to invest in your lives and the lives of people that God brings into my life.

And I would pray that each and every one of us, regardless of our gifting, regardless of our abilities, right, not all of us can become a trillionaire like Elvon. He's got a particular set of skills that allowed that to happen. Whatever you think of that, that's a pretty amazing thing that that happened. But then you have all of us have the ability to become wealthy in the kingdom of God because we've invested in others what it is God's given us. Amen.

Amen. Let's pray. Father God, thank you again for the blessings and encouragement that you have poured out on us. Lord, I know this is this has probably been a hard one for some of us. It's challenged us in many ways.

But I pray that this at least has sewn some seeds that even if there's there's some rough patches and maybe there's some some losses in folks lives that they can begin to see that as they invest in you and the most valuable thing that they can share with anybody in this world that they can make a difference that they can literally make a a difference an eternal difference by sharing of the hope of the truth that is within them. So Lord God, take these words, do what you need to do, land them in hearts, and may this week we actually have multiple multiple people. I would pray every single person in this room just investing in at least one person's life in a small way and that you would see that investment grow and make enormous change. Again, not for our glory, not for our personal riches, but for you and to the glory of your kingdom. And it's in your name we pray.