Your purposes, your purpose is the anchor of the soul. And so, because of that, Lord, having come to study such a text as this, may you help us to see it. For here, we are looking at the anchor. Here, we are looking at the hope in the hour of death. Here we are looking at that which gives us hope instead of despair, light instead of darkness, shore instead of drowning. Here is our all, the purpose of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So it was Winston Churchill who was famously asked one time during World War II what he thought the Russians were going to do. And he famously replied that he did not know that no one knew what the Russians were going to do, that it was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And the question I want to ask this morning that Paul forces us to think about this morning is if it's true that we cannot know what a mere man is going to do unless he reveals it to us. How much more is it true that we cannot know what the Trinity is gonna do unless they reveal it to us? This very thing is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11, where he asks us a rhetorical question. He says, who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? And we could do that this morning. Who among you knows my thoughts unless I tell you? Who among here knows Braden's thoughts unless he tells us? We could go from man to man and woman to woman. It is of the characteristic of being a person that you have to reveal yourself in order for someone to fully know you. Of course, The thing that Paul is going on about in Ephesians, the reason this is one long run-on sentence in the Greek, and he's writing a peon of praise in his very opening of this letter, even though he's in prison, is one of the reasons is because God has revealed what He is going to do. God has made it known. It would be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, And you could go on and add more because it would be harder to know the will of God than to know the will of a man. But what Paul is excited about is that he has revealed it. Not only has God blessed us, therefore, with the blessing of election, which we saw in verse four, which gives us the first reason to take heart in this world and to praise Him. And not only that, and not only has He given us the second blessing of predestination, which we saw in verse 5, and that gives us the second reason to take heart and to praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But He has not only that and not only given us the third blessing of redemption that we saw in verse 7, and that is certainly a third reason to take heart in this discouraging world and to go on praising God, but he has given us a fourth blessing, which you could call revelation. And this is the fourth reason Paul is going on explaining about why he is taking heart, why we therefore can take heart and praise God. And last time we only covered three of the phrases that Paul uses to unpack this. The first one told us how God has given us an extra blessing. He says in verse 8, "...in all wisdom and insight." And we saw that this is a mental blessing. This is knowledge that when God saves a man, He doesn't just change him morally, and he goes from being a bad person to a good person, and not doing this to starting to do that, but He saves him mentally. That God is a God of light. and truth. And it's like when you're deer hunting and you're in the early morning and you really want to shoot a deer and everything looks like a deer. Or if you're scared, everything, you're in the water, duck hunting, everything looks like an alligator. Every log you see, you're afraid. It's alligator. And as the lights come on, you can see truth. You can see reality. You can see what's really there. And so in the spiritual realm, we're born in sin. It doesn't just mean that we're born morally fractured, but we're born mentally dim, that our hearts are dark. and that we can't see truth. I once was blind in one of the most famous hymns, we say, but now I see. And so here Paul says a gift of knowledge has been given to us, to the church, through the apostles, through the prophets, through the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His twelve apostles, which He sent to write Scripture through their word, we have been given wisdom and insight, all of the wisdom and insight that we need to glorify God in this life and to live it righteously and wisely. And that meant the church is not today in need of the world's wisdom. And we need to just listen to a group. The church is the group the world needs to listen to. And so, Peter, when he when he's walking up to the temple, what does he tell that lame man at the gate? Look at us. And that's what every Christian could tell the world. Yes. Look at us. Not because of us, not because we have anything in and of ourselves, but because of Christ and what he's done and he has revealed himself. And we can point to you that revelation. So that's how that's how he's given us all wisdom and insight. And then we saw what that wisdom and insight was. It was about the mystery of His will. See it there in verse 8. He made known to us the mystery of His will. Why is the will of God thought of as a mystery? Because it is a mystery. Men have always been mystified. Why is there a tree standing there? Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there a goal to the universe outside of me? Is it moving somewhere before I got here and continuing after I pass away from here? Is there a purpose? Is there a telos? And then what is that goal? Why did God create the world? The mystery of his will. And third, Paul told us why he has revealed it to us. According to his good pleasure. That was the standard he used. Not how well we prayed. We didn't have to sit cross-legged and hum and go through a ritual to get this insight and this wisdom. It was given to us because God was pleased to give it to us. That's the reason we have it. So, that was last time. This time, as Paul goes on, at the end of verse 9, and end of verse 10, explicates exactly what the mystery of the will of God is. And I don't know how you feel about that, but we could not be talking about a more sacred thing this morning. Who could dare ever stand up and say they know the mystery of the will of the God who created the cosmos? But yet, through Christ, God in the flesh, coming into the world, who knew the Father and has sent his apostles, we have access to this wisdom and this insight. And so I'm going to call today's sermon Mystery Transparency. Mystery Transparency. God has been transparent with the mystery. There was once a time when it was not revealed and it was secret. And that does not mean that it was this esoteric thing that only a few people could know. No, it means it was something that no one could know until God revealed it. It's like a gender reveal party like we have today. Once it's known, now everybody knows. Before it's known, only a few people know. Well, this is something only the persons of the Trinity knew. Not even the angels knew it. And it was a shocking, glorious, stupendous revelation. We're making it known today. That's what the church is for. So what has God revealed about His will? Two things, only two points this morning. Number one, give them to you at the beginning. God has revealed, Paul says, the purpose of His will. And then number two, God has also revealed the process by which He is going to obtain His purpose. So God has revealed the purpose of His will, and He has revealed the process by which He is going to obtain it. So the transparency of the mystery consists, first of all, in the fact that God has revealed to us, number one, the purpose of His will. Which, the end of verse nine begins with which. That refers back to the good pleasure. You see it in verse nine, which he purposed in him. The which is referring to the kind intention or the good pleasure is a better. Translation, the pleasing will of God. Everyone has a will, every person has a will, and you choose things according to your greatest inclination at the moment, always. It's the law of the soul. You choose the things that you like. So Paul is saying he's anchoring all this. Why did these things happen? He's saying there is a good pleasure in God. God has preference. God has favor for this versus this. And that guides His will. It guides His choices. So His good pleasure set forth a goal. He purposed something. The good pleasure purposed a goal. The word purpose just means to set forth. in the English or the Greek, it means to set before the mind. Like you would say in the law that you want the law of God on your, like hanging in front of your head. You put something in front of a horse to chase after. It's the purpose. It's the thing before your mind. And Paul is saying God's good pleasure chose a goal, a purpose for creation. You ask somebody, what do you want to do? And they tell you they want to do X. What you want determines your goals. And so God's good pleasure set forth a goal. That's what which he purposed means. The good pleasure set forth a goal. What was the goal? What kind of a goal? What kind of a purpose in him? which he purposed in him. That means in Christ. It is a Christ purpose, a him purpose. That's the kind of purpose. It's the kind of purpose that everything is for him. Everything. Not just we sing a song all to Jesus, all this, all that. God sings that same song. Let everything that has breath, Psalm says, praise the Lord. Everything in the deep, everything in the sky, everything at the top of the mountain to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and to the infinite galaxies east and west, north and south, you can go. All of it is created for Him. John Lennox, a famous mathematician in Oxford, still alive, uses this illustration. He's a Christian scientist, and he uses this illustration that scientists, he teases his colleagues with this, they can tell you what things are, but they can't tell you why they are. So he says, think of someone that bakes a cake. You know, maybe his aunt bakes a cake and it's, you know, some lemon cream cake, he says, or whatever. And he says, a chemist could break that down and tell you what it is, tell you what chemistry is in it, what molecules are in it, what ingredients are in it. But after all that he can tell you what it is, he doesn't know why it is. He says, for that, we have to go ask Aunt Betty. Only she can tell us why she made it. And only the creator knows why there is something rather than nothing. He and he alone knows why he was motivated to say, let there be light. He and he alone knows why I exist and you exist. Why I was formed this small in my mother's womb and stand here today. And you were, and you sit here today. He alone knows why we exist. So we can know what, but we cannot know the why, unless it is revealed to us. Now, why is it important to know this? Because imagine this, imagine you walk upon a big construction project and people are there, some contractors and architects, and they are building a massive structure. But you don't know the plan. You don't know the design. You don't know the end in sight. And so you see one guy doing concrete, some people hauling in boards, some wiring going on, and people moving and going, and it all alike appears confusion to you because you're not aware of the plan, of the purpose. But once you know the plan and the purpose, now you see the coherence of why they're bringing wood here, and putting wiring there, and doing concrete there, and shooting a nail there, and putting the roof this way, because this is gonna go that. You know the whole thing. And you see coherence, even though there's all these various different looking parts. Listen to how men, describe the world without this revelation. Shakespeare has Macbeth say this in the play Macbeth, history is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Now that's an accurate conclusion if you don't know why the creator made it. Because to you it is all confusion. If you don't know the plan, if you don't know the purpose, the French philosopher André Moreau said the universe is indifferent. Who created it? He asked, he answers. He asked, why are we on this puny mud heap spinning in infinite space? I have not the slightest idea, he says. And I am convinced that no one has the least idea. Richard Dawkins, another popular atheist today, says, there is no purpose. There is only blind, pitiless indifference. Or the late Christopher Hitchens, there is very likely no purpose at all. Stephen Hawking, quote, we are just an advanced breed of primates. on a minor planet orbiting a very average star, which is one of a billion galaxies. Now that is what you get when men who merely know a fraction of the what. Even Thomas Edison said, we don't know one tenth of one millionth of any of the knowledge that fills the universe. And we take that little sliver of the what that we know and infer a purpose to the whole set of all reality. Paul says, the creator has revealed his purpose. And his purpose is to glorify his son. That's the purpose. That's why pine trees exist. That's why rain exists. That's why different color irises of human eyes exist. That's why red birds exist. That's why plastic exists. It's why transportation exists. It's why oxygen molecules that go in your lungs exist. It's why everything exists. The reason there is something, it is an amazing truth. To just stay here. Y'all may think it's weird, but I sometimes go on a walk and I can stagger at the tree in front of me. Because it is there by the power of God. And it is held together every moment by Christ. And it is flooding revelation into my psyche. The pressure of revelation to get me to respond to this glorious being who is God. Why is it there? Because He wanted to reveal Himself. Because He wanted to make Himself known. Specifically, Paul says, because He wanted to glorify His Son. So that's the very first thing about the mystery that Paul says has been revealed. God has revealed to us the purpose of His will. And that purpose is to glorify. Christ. But God has not only revealed, remember, the end, but his means, and he is going to use to achieve his end and obtain his end. So go to number two. Basically the rest of verse 10, Paul says, God has revealed the process by which he will obtain this purpose. So everything in verse 10, is given a more precise meaning on the purpose that he just mentioned. All in verse 10 is about that purpose. So notice the first word, administration. It's a word you've been hearing a lot lately. You've been hearing about a Biden and Harris administration. It's been in the news a couple of weeks ago. current term. It refers to controlling and governing things. The Greek word is where do we get economy from? It's oikonomia. You can almost hear economy in it. And it's economy is the methodical, structured administration of transactions and goods and services flowing and how they flow. It is a set, structured order. And so there's the meaning. And sometimes you hear Christians We'll even talk like this, they'll speak of God's economy, by which they mean something like God's rule, God's control, his ways, the way he orders and administrates everything. It was used of household servants. in the ancient world. So you, a steward, so you think of the modern day best example would be Alfred on Batman. He's an administrator and an orderer and a governor and a controller and a dispenser of all of Bruce Wayne's domain and all of his things. So here it means, God not only set forth a purpose to glorify his son, but he did so with a view towards also governing and controlling every single fact so that it points to that purpose. Every, according to Paul, There is a divine administration over a Biden and Harris administration. There is an administration of protons and neutrons and quarks and atoms and hydrogen and events and kings and births and deaths and heights and strength and riches. All of it. It is being ordered like a mechanical machine with one singular purpose in view. Just give you one example. Joseph had a coat of many colors. That's a fact. There was a coat. But because of that, it created jealousy. Because of that, He got sent down to Egypt. Because of that, the children of Israel got to go to Egypt and get their needs met. Because of that, they were there when a new Pharaoh arose who didn't know him. Because of that, there was a deliverance. Because of that, there was an exodus. Because of that, there was king. who then failed and they're waiting on another king and there was a people and there was a David and from him came the Messiah. So that's just one example of how a coat was connected to Christ. Another one. You've heard the adage, right? For one of a nail, the shoe is lost. For one of a shoe, the horse is lost. For one of a horse, the rider is lost. For one of a rider, the battle is lost. For one of a battle, the war is lost. And so the war is lost because a nail is lost. They say the Watergate thing happened because someone didn't just quite, they tried to shut the door and it didn't quite shut and it had a little crack. That, the mechanics of the door, was connected to that event, which led to all kinds of other events. God has that kind of control. No, it doesn't violate our free will of self-determination. So for example, Joseph's brothers meant evil, he says, right? And the Midianite traitors wanted a prisoner. So it was a perfect, it's like, hey, win-win. So in their intentions, God was carrying out a super intent. Even when men say we will see what will become of his dreams, they fulfilled it. So this is what is meant by God is administrating. This is a flat out text that God controls everything. There's an administration in line with a purpose. Now, this administration, this governing of history, so that all the parts connect to this one unified purpose, is then further defined by Paul as the fullness of the times. And here you may just simply think of a mug, maybe a coffee mug with a certain shape, and then the liquid goes in it. and it contours to that shape and then you get all the way up to the top and you say it is filled to the full, it is full filled. Paul is saying that the times and the epics and the seasons and the flow of history is a certain shape. And the thing and the person that gives meaning to that shape that corresponds to the shape is the person and work of Christ. That's just another image of how everything is ordered according to him. So that coat of many colors was shaped toward Christ. Alexander the Great is another one. just ravaging through the ancient world, just ravaging through it. He was a Greek. He was taught by Aristotle. Why was Aristotle so smart? Well, he taught Alexander the Great. Greatest military conqueror ever. And it led to what's known as the Hellenization of the world, the spread of Greek language everywhere. Well, he just so happens to die. And after that, just so happens to be right around the time when Jesus comes into the world. And after that is just so happens to be right around the time for the Great Commission. So that the New Testament could be written in Greek. And it just so happened that everyone in the ancient world spoke Greek. The Proverbs says, even the wrath of man shall praise you. Every step on this earth, Alexander the Great took, was in accordance with the fullness of the times, was wrapped around God's purpose in Christ, and only furthered the purpose of God in Christ. That's what Paul is saying. Finally, he gives one last description of this. This governing of history in sync with this one great purpose in Christ so that all times and epics and seasons serve this one unified interest is spelled out in its most specific form. And every commentator says this is a high point of the passage. Paul says the summing up of all things in Christ. And it's got a prefix again that is untranslated. And you can check Lloyd-Jones. He even points this out. One other commentator points it out. It's very unfortunate that they don't translate it. But if you have the summing up, it should say the summing up again. If you have a translation that says bringing together in the one, it should say bringing together into one again. If you have bringing into a unity, bringing into unity again, unto one head, unto one head again, should be the idea. This word sum refers to a principle of unity. Please don't check out on this. This is the main point. It refers to a principle of unity by which different parts can come together. It's actually used in math. The Roman, Centurion Paul talked to when he said that I purchased my citizenship with a great sum of money. It's a related term to this term here. So if you take the two numbers six and four, they're different, but they have in common the number 10. 10 is the sum. So 10 is the number that can bring a unity out of six and four. That is one example to think of. Another is to think of an orchestra of different instruments. You've got your wind and you've got this and you've got the brass and you got all these different instruments and different instruments within families of instruments. But when you hear them all playing the same song, that song becomes the unifying principle to them all. Or you see a flock of birds and all of a sudden, maybe 200 of them just swoop in the same direction. That direction is the unifying principle that brought a harmony out of all these fractory pieces. It's used in Romans 13, 9. where Paul says, whatever commandment you find in the Old Testament, it is summed up in this, love your neighbor as yourself. That means all of those, it looks different, right? Don't move your neighbor's boundary mark. Don't steal. They look like different commandments. But they're all basically doing what love does in those particular circumstances. So love is the unifying principle to all of the commandments that seem so different. Or it's used, the form of this word is used in Hebrews 8.1, where the author says this, now the main point in what has been said is this, and it's the same term. So think of a paper, you've been in school, you write your thesis, And then everything you write is related to that one thing. Every chapter is a support or a build or an illustration or a story or something. It's working to try to establish this one proposition. And so Hebrews is saying the main point of everything he said about Moses, everything he said about Joshua, everything he said about the angels, is that Christ is superior. Christ is superior to the angels. Christ is superior to Moses. Christ is superior to Joshua. Christ is superior to the Levitical priesthood. Christ is superior and worth more than all the sin of the world is the main point. of the book and it gives a unity to it. The idea is this, the cosmos, you know what I mean by cosmos, the order of reality, the universe we're in is orderly. Like we don't just melt like Frosty the Snowman when we sit in the pew, our bodies are held together. Apples remain apples. Oranges remain oranges. Seasons come and go. Reality maintains its shape and its order and its identity and its consistency. And you can see in Genesis 1, God gave order to the chaos. So chaos and cosmos are opposite terms. Chaos is just everything disorderly. There's no harmony. There's no universe. That's a squishing of two words, unity and diverse. So all these different things coming together in unity. That's why we call it a universe. We are assuming there's some kind of unity. And the idea is this, here's how this term goes together with the prefix again, listen to this. There was once this orderly cosmos, and then sin fractured it. Sin fractured it. That very language of chaos is used in the prophets to rebuke Israel, that they're in this void wasteland again. That sin has a decreating effect. But now, Paul says, God is putting all things back together again. But Christ is the principle of unity by whom and in whom it is all put back together again. When he says things in the heavens and things on the earth, It's a way of referring to all of reality, like from the top to the bottom. If you said from the North Pole to the South Pole, this is the deal, you would be saying something about the whole earth. So when it says God created the heavens and the earth, it's a way of saying he created everything. If you say I searched from one end of the house to the other, then you're telling me you searched the whole house. When Paul says things in the heavens, and things on the earth. He means that sin has disrupted and fractured not only things on earth, but things in the heavens. And that it is indeed fractured heaven and earth. And that the goal of our faith is heaven coming down to earth where there's a new heaven and a new earth. It doesn't mean qualitatively new. It means reordered, put back together again. And he's literally claiming that Christ is the unifier of all of these fragmented parts in this fallen world. In Lewis's books, the Narnia series, many of you know of the line in which in The Wardrobe, when Aslan dies for Edmund, But in The Last Battle, the last book called The Last Battle, they discover that Aslan didn't just die for Edmund, but they discovered that he died for everyone. And he died to put all things back together again. So think about this. You and I are prone to think of the work of Christ as forgiving us of our sins, dying for us, but widen the scope of your view of it. He did die for me, and he did die for you. But Paul said he died to reconcile all things in himself, not just us. Let me tell you a parable, which is my best shot at trying to get at what Paul's doing here, and then we'll close. There was once a father who was an artist. And he only had one son whom he loved. So he made a mosaic for this son, one of his most special works. You know what a mosaic is if it's been a little while out of art class, I understand. But these are where you take little pieces of glass and colored rocks and things that are not naturally together, and you put them together in such a way that they make this beautiful art. And so he made this mosaic for his son, incredibly valuable. As time went on, the father passed away, the son passed away, generations had gone by. And it was passed down in the family from generation to generation until finally one family became that family who dropped it and it broke. Now, the thing about a mosaic that's really, really bad is you can't put it back together. Because the only person who knows how all of those disparate parts were arranged is the one who did it. So once it breaks, it is ruined. And so they broke it. But one of the family members remembered that not only was the mosaic constantly passed down from generation to generation, but there was a little envelope with it. And the envelope said, only open if it breaks. So they ran to the family safe, they open it up, they got the envelope, they open it up, see what's inside. And it said this, there is a secret image. on the back that I painted on the flat back surface of the mosaic. Over the whole thing, I painted a picture of my son. And so just like a puzzle, here is the image, here's a copy of the image, and if you work from that image and you turn everything upside down, You can piece the entire thing back together again. And then after you've done so, you can turn it over and you will have the mosaic restored. Paul is telling us that God the Father only had one son. And he loved his one son. And he created a world for his son in order to honor and glorify. And he prays on the son whom he loves. But there was a fall that fractured this gift of God to his son, this mosaic, this creation. But God planned for the fall. There was a book of the life of the lamb that was written before the foundation of the world. And what God did, Paul is saying, is he structured the world in such a way that when it fragmented, the mystery that has been revealed, the secret that has been revealed, is that if you orient these fragmented parts toward Christ, they come back together again. But what that means is there's only one way to unify this fractured world by the design of the Creator. And further, and most importantly, what it means, all things for his son. By painting him on the backside, by making, if we want unity, people are always talking about unity, political unity, and this unity, and the best you can ever find in this life is a little temporary glob of things that are together. And they fall apart, and they fall apart, and they all take their place in the ebb and broken, shattered world. But God has done it so that if you orient everything towards Christ, if you make everything about Christ, then it comes back together again. That's what he means by saying God not only had a purpose to glorify his son, but he has a process by which he is going to obtain his purpose. There was a creation, there was a fall, but the mystery has been revealed. He planned for a way for it to be all put back together by focusing every single piece on his son. That's how he makes all things exist. for his son. That's how he makes every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. That's how he makes him preeminent and first place among all things. So what have we learned on this Sunday? that God has revealed to us the purpose of His will and the process by which He is going to obtain that purpose. Put more bluntly, God has revealed to us one purpose of His will and one process by which He's going to obtain that purpose. Therefore, there is no other conclusion to draw for me for you and your life, then there is only one thing for us to do. If we wish to bring harmony and peace to any fractured pieces in this world that sin has broken, there is only one thing for us to do, to take all of our fractured pieces and begin to orient them toward Christ. To take our individual selves and our fractured souls and allow Christ to be the unifying principle that puts us together again. And then to take your marriage with all of its fractions and allow Christ to be the unifying principle there. and your relationship with your children that is fractured to let Christ be the unifying principle there. And the relationships in the church, the world is supposed to come to a Christian church and find people that are sixes and fours, people that are different. People that, apart from Christ, you would not expect to ever find joined together. And so we're to be putting on display the initial putting back together again of the cosmos, because we're all orienting ourselves toward the one and the same Christ. So how did Lady and the Tramp, for the kids to get this, how did Lady and the Tramp ever come together? By eating the same noodle. How do you and I get a unity with each other? By glorying in the same Christ. By worshiping the same Lord. we will find ourselves in sync and in a unity with one another. So God has one purpose for his will and one process by which he's going to obtain that one purpose. Therefore, let's take all of our fractured pieces from our emotions to our relationships, to all hostilities and seek to join in that process of putting them back together again by orienting them all to Jesus. Amen.