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(upbeat music) - Welcome to day one of our look at Ephesians chapter three in
daily drive time devotions. I am Pastor Tom Holliday, and we're going to be looking
this week at a chapter that's really all about serving and the significance of
serving and the fact that we serve our way into significance. There's a lot of
ideas out there about how we attain significance in life, but the truth of the
Bible is we serve our way into significance and learning to serve is the key to
true significance in life.

It's amazing how many business books or marriage books or other kinds of books
you can pick up to talk about service and the importance of serving one another.
Sometimes like it's a new idea. Well, it's not a new idea, it's God's idea.

And it's his idea of how everything works in our lives. All relationships and
all things work through us deciding to do what God's given us to do in this
world, to serve him in this world. We're reading Ephesians, it's written by the
apostle Paul.

Paul was one of God's most significant servants without a shadow of a doubt. He
wrote a large portion of the New Testament and began a large portion of the new
church and we can learn from him. We can learn some key attitudes, some key
resources that we have as servants.

Ephesians is six chapters long and it breaks up easily into the first three
chapters being about what we believe in our lives and the last three chapters,
chapters four through six being about how we behave in our lives. Or another way
to say that is chapters one through three are about assurance for living the
life that God's given for us. And chapters four through six are about actions
for living the life that God's given to us.

And we've been walking through the first three chapters, assurance for living.
And the assurances are, well, chapter one, one to 14, assured that we are
blessed. Chapter two, one to 10, assured that we are saved.

Chapter two, 11 to 22, assured that we are accepted. And then also in those
verses, assured that we are important. And when we get to Ephesians chapter
three and begin the chapter, in a way this chapter is what I would call a
powerful parenthesis.

Because Paul begins this chapter by saying, for this reason I, Paul, the
prisoner of Jesus Christ. And then there's a dash in most of your Bibles because
he breaks his thought there and goes to something else. Because he remembers,
well, maybe I haven't said enough yet about what it means for me to be a
prisoner of Christ for the sake of the Gentiles.

When we get to chapter four, you're going to find that he comes back to this very
same thought again. He returns to it, and you've done that in a conversation.
You begin to say something, you remember, oh, there's something else important
I've gotta say first.

You say that first, and then you get back where you were. That's what happens in
Ephesians chapter three. And I'm glad Paul remembered he had something to say.

Because what he talks about is how significant servants see themselves. It's a
parenthesis for all of us who feel at times useless or unimportant or
ineffective in this world. Paul says God has a great plan for your life.

He begins by talking about who he is, how he sees himself. And it might surprise
you at the beginning. Then he goes on to talk about how God sees us.

And it's all about serving. And if I'm going to serve Christ in an effective way, I
need to see myself as a servant in an effective way. Sometimes we say we want to
serve, but we see ourselves in ways that keep us from serving.

I say I want to serve, but I see myself as deserving other people's attention,
as deserving the things that other people might need to give me. And obviously,
if I see myself that way, it's going to get in the way of me serving effectively.
Paul, a significant servant, how did he see himself?

Well, chapter three, verse one, here's how he saw himself. For this reason, I,
Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles. We're going to
talk about two or three ways that he saw himself in these next few days.

The first way he saw himself is a prisoner of Christ. Now, remember that Paul
was a prisoner in Rome as he wrote this letter. But instead of seeing that
imprisonment as a barrier to his serving or a pause in his serving, he sees it
as a vital part of what it means for him to be a servant.

He embraces it as a servant. And the question behind this, as Paul talks about
who he is, is what's the orienting guide in your life? Like the instrument panel
on a plane or the gauges on your car, what gauges are you looking at to
determine, am I going in the right direction in life?

What is your life mission? And for Paul, even sitting in a Roman prison cell, he
still looked at the gauges and he realized, I'm still on mission. Because even
in this Roman prison cell, I am a servant, I'm a prisoner of Christ Jesus.

You see, Paul didn't say, I'm a prisoner of the Jews or I'm a prisoner of Rome.
He's sitting in a Roman prison cell chained with Roman chains to a Roman guard,
awaiting a Roman trial. And Paul says, I'm a prisoner of Christ.

And that's perspective. He had a different perspective on why God had put him
there. And because of that, he was a man who was able to serve God in whatever
situation he was in.

Because he realized that Christ could work in whatever situation he was in. I
don't know about you, but many times, I think I can only serve Christ when the
situation is going well, when the situation is going as I expected. But Paul
says, even as a prisoner, I see how Christ is using me.

It's all a matter of perspective, how you see what you're doing. And Paul saw
himself as a servant. It reminds me of that old story of when Sir Christopher
Wren was building St.

Paul's Cathedral and he walked through, most of the people didn't know who he
was, even though he was the architect of what was happening there. And he saw
one guy cutting stone down to a certain size, earning so much money for an hour.
And he asked him, what are you doing?

He said, well, I'm cutting the stone. I do this day in and day out. Walked down
the road a little bit and he saw another guy doing the same thing.

And he asked him, what are you doing? And he said, I'm helping Sir Christopher
Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral.

One had the narrow view, one had the big view. And when it comes to serving, the
question is, is your service just drudgery? Is it just earning a paycheck?

Or is it building a cathedral? Realizing what God has given to you to do. See,
Paul is able to say, I'm a prisoner of Christ.

Now, let me just pause here for a minute. Ask a question. Was Satan involved in
the circumstances that sent Paul to prison?

If you study the book of Acts, of course he was. Jealousy was involved, anger
was involved. Satan was involved in motivating some of those events.

And yet, Paul still saw himself as the prisoner of Christ. I believe that today,
too many Christians allow their perspective to be set by their awareness of
Satan and his schemes. Yeah, Satan has some power in this world.

Yeah, he has some schemes in this world. And yeah, it might even seem like he's
effective at times, but he is not. He is at work, but he is not in control.

Remember that about Satan. Satan is at work in this world, but he is not in
control. God is always in control.

And Paul's life mission, that he was a servant of Christ for the sake of the
Gentiles, that helped him to see his circumstances in light of his calling,
wherever he was. I'm a preacher of Christ, in Christ, for the sake of the
Gentiles. I am a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles.

I am whatever he was doing for the sake of the Gentiles. Paul's life mission
helped him to see Christ's control even when he had no control. Are you able to
see that?

To see Christ's control even when you have no control? Because he is in control.
That's what the Bible teaches us.

I can hang on to that. I'm a prisoner, Paul says, for the sake of the Gentiles.
Paul's life mission helped him to see the impact upon those whom he served, even
above the consequences in his own life.

Instead of saying I'm a prisoner and this stinks, when am I going to be out? He
realized that even here in prison, God can use this for the sake of someone
else. And you know this, it is always easier to suffer if you know it's for the
sake of something.

A parent suffering for the sake of their child, it's always easier to suffer.
And the Bible teaches us that whatever tough times you're going through in this
world, whatever tough times you're going through right now, that Jesus Christ
can use it. So whatever I'm going through in this life, I can realize God can
use it for the sake of my growth in Jesus.

And God can use it for the sake of my witness to other people, whatever I'm
going through. Yeah, maybe Satan threw it at you, but God can still use it, that
is his power. So as we take a minute to pray today, let's talk about our
circumstances.

And I encourage you just to say, Jesus, you know the circumstances I'm going
through right now. You see what I'm facing. They may be good, they may be bad.

They're probably a mixture of both. Jesus helped me to serve you in and through
every circumstance. And helped me to see, as Paul saw, that there is no
circumstance that can keep me from serving you.

I can serve you anywhere. So whatever job situation I'm in, whatever
relationship situation I'm in, whatever life situation I'm in, Jesus Christ, I
want to serve you. Help me to have the attitude of a servant wherever I am
today, whatever I face today.

I need your strength for that. I ask for your strength for that. Jesus, I want
to live, I want to live not for myself.

I want to live to serve others, to serve you. I pray you'd strengthen me to do
that today. In your name, Jesus, amen.

Well, join us tomorrow. We're going to continue our study of what a servant
looks like as we look at verses two to six of Ephesians chapter three.