(Audio//Text)
Title: The Great Tangent (Part Five)
Intro:
I tried, I really did try, but I failed.
I tried to get this into one sermon, but I assume, you’d rather have two 30 minute messages than one 1 hour message. (If I’d done it all, it would have been an 8 page sermon…)
Last week I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger…to review:
PB’s Thesis:
The Cross of Christ is the only thing that can bring peace to these human divisions. In fact, every man made mandate, whether a movement or new laws put into place, does nothing but cause further resentment and drive and even larger wedge between the groups at tension.
Paul knew there was something HUGE at stake here, bigger and deeper even than the centuries old divisions and race hate between the Jews and Gentiles.
He knew the unity of these two groups through Christ would send shockwaves through not only the human world but also the principalities and powers in the spiritual places and this unity would display the supremacy of Christ over all things.
And then I asked the following Questions on practical application:
How does this apply to me?
What is my responsibility in all this?
Is this even possible?
In order to answer these questions, we will dig in to three unique words (over the next two weeks) that Paul uses to describe our access to God because of our relationship with Christ and how that should change our outlook and attitudes when we are facing daunting times.
Fortunately, Paul anticipates these questions and gives a great textual answer in the next two verses, which are the final two verses in his tangent.
(read/pray)
boldness
Greek: parrēsia
Definition: freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech, openly, frankly, i.e without, concealment, without ambiguity, without the use of figures and, comparisons
Two other interesting uses of parrēsia in the N.T.
John 10:24
Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
Acts 10:34
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
Conclusion/Application:
Because of Christ, we don’t need to mince words with God. We can just shoot straight from the heart, without any need for pomp or formality.
Why is this insane?
(Because if there is any being in the universe that deserves such formality, it’s God!)
What does this tell us about the amount of love God has for us, and how HE views our relationship?
(We are his children BEFORE we are his subjects.)
access
Greek: prosagōgē
Definition:
the act of bringing to, a moving to, access, approach to God, i.e. that relationship with God whereby we are acceptable to him and have assurance that he is favorably disposed towards us
You might recall we saw and studied this word earlier in Ephesians 2:18
For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
Dave Guzik’s makes a great point about Prosagoge and how it absolutely applies today, both across denominations and across racial and cultural lines:
Guzik:
When conflict arises among Christian groups of different backgrounds, you can be sure that they forget that they were saved by the same gospel and that they have the same access to God. One or both groups usually feel they have superior access to God.
Besides these two occurrences in Ephesians, the word prosagoge only appears one other time in all of scriptures, again, it’s by Paul’s hand, and appears in
Romans 5:2
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Conclusion/Application:
Christ has already served our introduction to God, despite the fact that judgement is to come, we are already known to God, and Christ has granted us an intimate audience with him.
Why is this insane?
God has already given us the benefits of salvation in granting up access to himself, it’s like enrolling at Harvard, and on your first day, you a given a diploma.
We are now three miles down the rabbit hole, but I MUST ask two more questions about this:
What does this teach about who controls salvation? Why?
Close:
Next week we will cover the very last of Paul’s tangent and I will circle back to answer these three questions, which I hope after today are coming into closer focus:
How does this apply to me?
What is my responsibility in all this?
Is this even possible?