I'm going to show you a picture of me doing up here.
Oh, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.
Oh, shepherds, have you watching for silent blood's by life?
Behold the Lord God above, the shown Lord holy, the whole wide.
Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and down the railing.
Oh, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.
The shepherds here to travel, when lo, above the earth,
Make of the angel cometh, and hail the Savior's blood.
Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and down the railing.
Oh, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.
Down in the glory manger, the hope of Christ was born.
Then God's final salvation, then blessed Christmas was born.
Oh, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and down the railing.
Oh, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.
That Jesus Christ is born.
Grandpa, Caleb, and Tony Tate.
Tony Tate?
I got three boxes here.
Come on.
You can have this box.
You're going to open your box last, okay?
And there's a purpose to that.
Go ahead and open yours.
I got a buck.
No, leave you.
Sometimes good things come to fell back.
Okay, go ahead and open yours.
You got a foot.
So before you open up your gift, people know that a lot of people think that Christmas is all about the gifts and the fun that you get.
But there's a true meaning to Christmas.
Go ahead and open up your gift.
Yeah! It's just everything I wanted.
So, and there's a meaning behind that.
You don't need a gift for Christmas, for Christmas to be Christmas.
If you get a Christmas gift, that's just something someone is giving to you.
You don't need a Christmas gift to celebrate Christmas.
What you need is the Holy Spirit and a Bible.
You need the Holy Spirit to know that God is the reason behind Christmas.
Because Jesus was born supposedly on Christmas by Mary and Joseph.
And you need a Bible so you can look up verses on the Bible Christmas story.
Which actually, Tommy, if you could switch to the next slide.
I'm going to read a little bit of the Christmas story.
Sorry.
Oh, it's up there.
It's up there.
Yeah, you guys can sit down.
It's my dollar.
I'll go to my dollar.
Okay.
Yeah, give me a sec.
Okay.
I'm going to follow along. It's Luke 2, 3 through 14.
Give it a second for everybody to get there that wants to follow along.
I know. I know.
So, starting at verse 3.
And Joseph went to the city of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea to the city of David which is called Bethlehem.
Because he was off the house and family line of David to be registered along with Mary who was engaged to him and pregnant.
While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.
Then she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him snug in a cloth and laid him in a feeding trough because there was no room for them in the lodging place.
In the same region, shepherds were staying out in their fields and keeping watch at night over their flock.
Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, Don't be afraid for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
Today a savior who is the Messiah, the Lord was born for you in the city of David.
This will be the sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped snug in a cloth and lying in a feeding trough.
Suddenly there was a multitude of heavenly hosts with the angel praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to earth to the people he favors.
Amen.
I read that story and I also know it's sung by heart.
Every time Christmas comes around, I always think back to it because it shows that when they get to Bethlehem, God already has set out.
People sometimes think that there's no room in the lodging place because everybody came in.
But God wanted the son to be born in the manger around with all the animals to show that he is going to be the land of the earth and of the animals.
So he made the lodging place full so that they would have to go into the manger not because they wanted to, but because it's what God had planned for the birth of his one born son.
If anybody here knows John 3.16, for God so loved the world he gave his one and only son to us.
That ties into the Christmas story because he gave Jesus to live a life on earth, to do miracles in his favor, and to share his word in his favor as a walking image of God himself.
And then to die on the cross to save us from our sins, even us now, we're still saved from our sins from when he died back when he lived.
We are still saved up to this day no matter what you do, no matter how you do it.
We are always going to be saved because of what he did when he died, because he died for us now when he lived and forward on in the generation we're living in now.
Well done. You want to lead us in prayer?
Yeah.
Alright, let's pray to Jason.
Jesus God, thank you for this day.
Thank you for giving us another opportunity for us to share your word, for us to celebrate your coming to earth, and to celebrate that we are always saved from our sin in the glory of you.
And to celebrate with our family, with our friends on the holiday we call Christmas, but we all know here that Christmas is to celebrate you, not just to celebrate with our family and friends.
Although that is a part of it because you love us and you love us to the day you're going to love us even till the day we die and so on and so forth.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we go to Christmas, sing we know well. Angels come to shepherds, lay the flocks at rest.
Journey forth to Bethlehem, by the lamp in the house. Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well.
In the store they found him, just the very man. See it from the manger, watch the holy child. Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well.
From the Eastern Country came the Kings of God. Merry Christmas to them, glad you are a star. Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well.
Go with God and talk that is your greatest prize. Never spare a single soul on the roadside. Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well.
Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well. Hear our people's praises, to the things so good. Sing we know well, the King is born to well. Sing we know well, Christmas, sing we know well.
The King is born to well.
He's closing the door at night, singing sleep with the moon at night. And the mountains everywhere, and the way he's breathing right.
Oh, warrior, in the shadows he's sleeping.
Shepherds will be shepherding, while the stars are happy cheer. The green flag is the largest sign, when the tallying's in what you hear.
Oh, warrior, in the shadows he's sleeping.
He'll come to earth, the heavens sing, and words like the angels sing. So little will there be, I fell on my new morning.
Oh, warrior, in the shadows he's sleeping.
What, what?
I think I made an extra copy tonight. Thank you sir.
Real quick, while we're passing those out and getting organized, do we have that pen cut back there still? Yep, awesome.
With pen able. Real quick, so just to be clear, we all probably already know, but Mary was Jesus' mother, but God was Jesus' father.
Okay, just to be clear. So who raised him? Kind of Mary and Joseph, right, kind of physically raised him, right, but God was Jesus' father.
Okay, and also Jesus was God. So that's cool.
Also, I'll tell you a quick story while you're looking over this amazing worksheet that I made.
I went to a concert years ago, a choir concert at Northwood, and they were singing a medley of Christmas songs.
And when they sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo, which we sang, it's part of Angels We Heard on High, they didn't sing the verses, they only sung the chorus.
And the whole audience joined in, and everybody, it was like 350 people singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo, right?
And I thought to myself, how many atheists do you think are probably in the room?
How many people that don't want God, don't want to know anything about God, don't believe in God, and everybody was singing?
And of course, that means they don't know what Gloria in Excelsis Deo means, right? It means Gloria in excess to God.
You can almost kind of see it, it comes from the Latin, but so that means there were people there who wanted nothing to do with God, who were singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo, which cracked me up.
Everybody knows that, even though they don't want it to be true.
Okay, so we're going to go kind of quick on the overall of this, because as you can see, there's a lot of information on your sheet.
It's kind of fun, that is a maze in the middle there, and there's symbolism in the fact that we kind of get in the maze of life, and the maze has a name,
and I'm going to give you all of that, but first we're going to look at the verses.
So if you look right across the top there, I've given you the last reference already.
So going from the left, it is Colossians 1, 24-27.
Yep, everything about the book of Colossians is awesome.
Okay, and then the next one is 1 Corinthians 2, 1-16, and then the next one is Romans 16-25.
And then of course, the first one was Colossians 1, 24-27.
Okay, I'm going to do the reading, partially in the interest of time, but partially because we're going to go over the verses like multiple times, so I'll do it.
Before we start, most of the information is in the maze, and the maze has a name, and its name is written down the left-hand side,
and its name is Wisdom of Men.
Wisdom of Men. So you'll see that box there, it says, there's a blank, that's Wisdom of Men.
And the reference is 1 Corinthians 2, 5, where it says, So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men.
Okay, you don't need the reference, but it's called Wisdom of Men.
It is largely, the maze is largely composed of two things, and they go in the top boxes, one to the left of the gate, one to the right, and the one on the left says, Mystery.
So in the box to the left of the gate, up here, Mystery, and the box to the right of the gate, Hidden.
Anybody here ever been through a maze?
Most of us probably, sometime or another, right?
Have you ever been through a maze of mirrors?
Yeah, I've been through a couple mazes of mirrors, went through one.
Yeah, it was kind of fun, I mean, don't walk fast, because you'll think you're going through an empty space, and you're actually going through a mirror, right?
So, I mean, you can't break the mirror, because they're pretty protected, but the one maze we were in did have a broken mirror, somebody broke it.
But mazes generally are the mystery of which way do I go, and the correct path is hidden.
And this maze that we're talking about today is no different in that regards.
Alright, so we'll listen to the verses, and then I will try to plug in some of the parts of the maze as we go, and then we'll go from there.
Alright, so first we're going to read from 1 Corinthians, actually.
Okay, and I'm going to read all the verses, but as we get to it, I'll hone in on the first blank, you'll see a number one.
In the maze, you see a little number one, and then you have, there's two lines there, next to it.
Okay, I'm reading from 1 Corinthians, chapter 2.
And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
And my message and my preaching were not persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, there is the name of our maze, but on the power of God, there is the goal.
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.
But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory.
The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood. For if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
And here's coming on the first box. But just as it is written, things which eye has not seen.
And so the two blanks are not seen. So number one, in the maze, upper left hand corner, it's got a little box one, next to these two lines, not seen.
Continuing in the same verse, an ear has not heard. So that goes in the middle, just below the gate, not heard.
Number two is not heard.
And which have not entered the heart of men, that actually goes on number five, straight down in the middle, look at number five, not entered heart.
Okay, going on.
All that God has prepared for those who love him. Again, that's a synopsis of our goal, what's on the other side of the maze.
We'll come back to that in a minute. For to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. That's good.
For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. All that's good stuff. We'll use it before we're done.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?
So in other words, who knows my thoughts except my spirit? And vice versa.
Even so the thoughts of God, no one knows except the Spirit of God. And that is number four.
So go to the left, number four, no one knows. No one knows.
Okay, so we should have in the upper left hand corner, not seen, directly below the gate, you should have not heard,
over under the word, I'm sorry, straight down from that, number five, you have not entered heart.
And number four, you have no one knows. Now if you notice, this maze comes to those places a lot of different ways.
Okay, we're going to continue on. Twelve. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.
So that we may know the things freely given to us by God. Again, that's a goal. Which things we also speak, also a goal.
Not in words taught by human wisdom, that's kind of the name of our maze, but in those taught by the Spirit,
combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things.
And so number six in the maze, not accepted. So number six is to the right, about half way down, not accepted.
Okay, only a couple of verses left here in this and I'll finish them real quick.
Does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them.
And that is another one for number, that is number three, I'm sorry we didn't do number three yet.
So number three then is not understood. Up in the right hand corner up there, not understood.
Because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual, there we go, he who is spiritual appraises all things.
Yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him.
But we have the mind of Christ, again that's the goal. Okay, now you've got two left, number seven and number eight.
Number seven comes from Romans 16 25 where it says, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel
and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which, quote, has been kept secret for long ages past.
And so it starts at the seven and there are four lines that go down to the right, has been kept secret.
And then number eight comes from Ephesians 3 and for the moment we'll just go read the verse we need which is Ephesians 3 5.
And it says, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of man as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the spirit.
So it was not made known. Okay, so if you start at the top of the maze you're in the wisdom of men.
Okay, and as you search in the wisdom of men, this is where I was for 25 years, as you search in the wisdom of men
and you're looking around for, you're going to run into these problems. The problem is that the truth has not been known.
When I was looking at possibly becoming a Christian and I thought I would go to church, I knew one person,
exactly one person who called themselves a Christian and I thought acted like a Christian. One.
That's not very many people living in America surrounded by churches. Church buildings are in Toledo, right?
I knew one person. And so when we thought, well, we think we want to go find out more about God,
we thought we'll go to church, we better go to that church where that one person goes because that's the only person we know
who professes to be a Christian who acts like we think a Christian should act. So these things are not known.
Until I was 25 years old, it hadn't entered into my heart. I really hadn't even thought about it.
In fact, there was two young people that had shared Christ with me. Well, one person was 12 and the other person was probably in her 20s.
And I didn't accept Jesus Christ. I didn't really think of it. It didn't really concern me.
I was just living my life and I had all kinds of problems and stuff and I was doing all kinds of things
I probably shouldn't have been doing and I knew some of them I shouldn't have been doing,
but I really never even seriously considered it. I had not accepted it. But this isn't talking about my life.
This maze is not talking about my life and it's not talking about your life. The wisdom of man is not chronologically set.
We're not talking about the collective wisdom in this room or the collective wisdom on the earth in 2023.
We're talking about the wisdom of men always, since Adam and Eve, all the way till now and all the way to the future.
Now there come a moment in time when Jesus was born, laid in a manger, lived, died, was crucified.
From that moment in time, something has happened. Something really cool has happened.
And it is that there is a way through the maze, a way past the wisdom of men.
And if you'll notice, there is an exit to the maze down on the bottom.
And I've filled in some of the little words just to save time with your writing and like that.
But all of these things have essentially happened now, been made, I should say, been made available.
Let's say it that way.
So the first one on the left, if you were walking out the maze, it would be on your right, but it's actually on your left, is power of God.
And you'll recall we read this verse, 1 Corinthians 2.5 says it,
so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
So you realize that in Christ, in the resurrection power of Christ, the same power that brought God back to life as Jesus,
Jesus came, God the Son, died, came back to life, that same resurrection power is in us now.
It's in the church. It's in people.
Then across next to that is a phrase, freely given.
So it's given is written in for you and the other word is freely.
Okay. And then it's that comes from 1 Corinthians 2.12.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
Down under power of God, the next one down is a single word, and it is wisdom.
2 6 said, yet we speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.
Then to the right of that, from several verses in there, including that one we just read, we speak.
1 Corinthians 2.13 says, which things we also speak.
Right. So notice that we have a job to do.
Since we're saved, we're talking about something. What are we talking about?
I mean, yeah, we like to talk about football. We like to talk about games. We like to talk about the weather.
We like to talk about jobs. We like to talk about getting paid or not getting paid.
Let's talk about what we're going through, all of those things we're talking about.
But if you're talking about all of those things and you're not talking about the single most important thing, then you're kind of missing the point.
Because we speak about this. This is what we were created for.
This is why God made a way through the wisdom of man to get to the wisdom of God, if you will, so that we can talk about these things.
Then the phrase down from there to the left is riches of Christ.
That comes from Ephesians 3.8.
Riches, like money but not riches, R-I-C-H-E-S, of Christ.
And Ephesians 3.8 says, To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.
This is the whole point. What is it all about? The riches of Christ.
And over next to that, we have the depths of God.
1 Corinthians 2.10 said, For to us God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
You understand, as a human being, you now have access to all the things, the Holy Spirit's in you, you have access to all the things that God does and He thinks and like that.
Now, He's not going to overload you so you get a bunch of stuff, you might know what somebody's favorite color is in China or something.
That's worthless knowledge. It means that you have the ability to understand what you're going through, what you're doing, what God is trying to accomplish.
We don't have to walk around bewildered. The Spirit understands.
Now, He may say to you, look, it's okay, just stick in there, wait and see where this is going, you're going to love it. Right?
The same as Ariadne would like to know what her Christmas present is, but she would never sneak and peek because she loves the surprise.
It's part of it. And it's the same way with God. The Spirit understands the depths of God, but it doesn't mean that He's going to reveal everything to us.
Sometimes that would be too much, but everything that we need is revealed. And the last one in that cloud there of good stuff is the manifold wisdom of God.
Manifold, M-A-N-I-F-O-L-D, like an exhaust manifold, but the other kind of manifold. Manifold wisdom of God.
And again, that comes from Ephesians 3.10 where it says, so that the manifold wisdom of God now be made known, might now be made known.
And I'm intentionally not finishing that verse because there's a huge point in there.
So if you're following along in your Bible, you can look at it now and get the kind of like heads up before we get there.
But I'm not reading the second half, I'm only reading the first half. We'll get there in a minute.
Alright, so we've made it through the maze. Mystery hidden. Wisdom of men. We've got all those little numbers filled in in there.
Is everybody with me? How have we done? Who's got it? 100% every blank filled in. Raise your hand.
Okay, alright, pretty good. We're doing pretty good. And some people do have it but didn't raise their hand because they were doing something.
So then you follow the arrow from the cloud down. Now we've got this. This is what the maze was all about.
God brought us through the maze so that we could have the power of God, the wisdom, the riches of Christ.
It could be freely given. We could speak of this. Depths of God, manifold wisdom of God.
And God Himself so that these things might, the first two blanks, be made known.
Ephesians 3.3. That by revelation there was made known me the mystery. So God made you know.
There's a moment in time where Peter comes to Jesus and he professes that Jesus is the Christ, the Lamb, the Son of God.
Taketh away the sins of the world. Something like that. I forget what phrases he uses exactly now.
But he comes and he confesses it and Jesus says, man did not reveal this to you. But God did.
You're not saved because you figured it out. You're not saved because someone convinced you.
In fact, I'm just going to say, if you figured it out and that's how you think you got from being not saved to saved,
if you figured it out, then you're not saved. And if you think someone talked you into it,
somebody told you real well how this will go and you wanted what they said and they encouraged you
and they talked you into being saved, then you're not saved. This is something that God made known to you.
You could never divorce yourself of God now because you know these things about God.
Now you don't know everything. God's still revealing. God's still teaching, whatever.
But it's all available as need be. Right? And how do you go back from that?
Sherry's grandmother used to make cutout cookies and she had a certain cutout cookie recipe that she used.
And she handed that cutout cookie down to Judy, who's gone to be with the Lord, we believe.
And Judy handed that cutout cookie down to Sherry, the cookie recipe down to Sherry.
And about 15, 20 years ago, the first time we ever wanted to bake Christmas cookies,
she said, I want to make Christmas cookies like my grandmother makes.
And so she called her mom and her mom said, well yeah, just do it like this.
Throw this in there, throw that in there, measure, blah, blah.
And she's like, I really would like to have the steps and have it written down or whatever.
This is before texting. And so she said, well, I don't have it written down. I just make them.
So Sherry called her grandmother and her grandmother said, yes, I will give it to you.
Let me get my recipe book out. She got her recipe book out and she read it off and Sherry wrote it down word for word.
See, Sherry wanted the cookies that grandma makes.
Once you know the cookies that God makes, you'll not settle for the cookies that man makes anymore.
Why would you go back in the maze? That doesn't make any sense.
Why would you go back to living your life by the wisdom of men when you know that the wisdom of God has been made available to you?
It's been made known.
The next one right under that is you can understand.
And that comes from Ephesians 3, 4, which I'll read by referring to this.
When you read, listen to this by referring to this, when you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ.
Now, he's saying this is what I've figured out and you can understand it, too.
There was a great debate, a great theological debate going on in a Christian games group that I'm part of online.
And one of the guys basically said, well, I tend to listen to these big theologians.
They've done a lot of work. I read books on this.
And he was basically claiming that he knew what he was talking about because he went to the people who studied, who really knew a lot, doctors, you know, doctors of theology and stuff.
The other guy came back with, I hear what you're saying and I would take anybody's argument.
I would listen closely if somebody seemed like they knew what they were talking about.
He said, but this is what I believe about the word of God, that we can read it and we can understand it.
Any man from any walk of life can read it and by God's Holy Spirit understand it if he wants to, if he's willing.
When I was 25 years old and started asking things about Christ, I started reading the book of Daniel and I read the first seven chapters and I did not understand it.
Now, when I was in sixth grade, I had a reading level probably way higher than I have now, but I had a college reading level in sixth grade.
So there's no reason at 25 years old I can't read anything. I could read very technical manuals.
I could look anything up online on eHow. That's pre Google, you know, pre like instead of asking Alexa to do something, looking up an eHow, whatever.
And I could do all that. But I couldn't read the book of Daniel and understand what God was talking about because I wasn't saved.
But once you're saved and you have the Holy Spirit, you can understand. And by the way, what does understand mean?
Does it mean you know what it means? That's what people take it to mean, but that isn't what it means.
Say it again. Yeah, it means you stand under it. You can put it to use. That's what it means. So I've got it and I can use it.
So you can read your Bible, figure out what it says and do something.
What happens if you read your Bible and it told you to do something and you went to go and do that thing and it wasn't exactly what the Bible was telling you to do?
You didn't quite understand it exactly right or you did something that was kind of risky and there would have been another way to do it that wasn't so risky.
Well, that's all in God's hands. He can handle all of that.
You can end all you walk up and start telling somebody about Jesus that doesn't want to hear it.
And that guy might beat you up or knife you or throw you in a gutter somewhere.
God can handle all of that. Just trust what you read, do what you read and let God take care of the rest.
Because why? Because you can understand. And then the next one is now revealed.
So there's three there that are kind of down past the arrow from the cloud. It's made known, you can understand and now revealed.
And Ephesians 3, 5 says, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men and it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit, by God's Spirit.
Now it's revealed. By the way, a thing that has not been made known that is now revealed is a good thing.
It needed to be in this case. Now follow the arrow up to the left.
We're almost done. But there's several really important things that we need to see here.
It's coming together as the mystery will be revealed.
Before we go and read this, I want to read Colossians 1, 24-27. And it says this.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of his body.
In other words, he was living pretty well, not perfectly, which is the church, and filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.
That is the mystery which has been hidden. You hear it? The mystery which has been hidden.
That was the maze, the wisdom of God that people were trapped in.
He was preaching the word of God. That is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now been manifested to the saints.
In other words, now it has been revealed. It's been made clear to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And that last one again is the goal.
Now we're going to read Ephesians 3.6 again. If you'll look at this verse down here, I've given you quite a few of the little blanks.
So Ephesians 3.6, not the first part, to be specific that the Gentiles are, might be made known through the church
to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
So that's not Ephesians 3.6 by the way. I misquoted the reference.
So I read that, right? Yeah, 27. No, 3.10. Thank you. Yes, 3.10. My bad. I wrote it down wrong.
So that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. That's your blanks.
So I ask you, thinking caps on, this is the moment, drum roll please, no drummer in the house.
You went through the maze, which was the hidden, the mystery, the wisdom of men to come out the other side.
Power of God, wisdom, riches of Christ freely given, we speak depths of God, manifold wisdom of God made known to you, you can understand, now revealed.
For what? Was it so that you could tell other people about Jesus? No, it wasn't. Was it so that you could go to heaven? No.
Okay, so what was it? It's in the verse we just read, Ephesians 3.10, that it might be made known through the church to, to who?
Who are we affecting? The rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
When you tell somebody about Jesus, they could get saved, it's true. That would be awesome, right? But it's not about that.
It's not even what it's about. It's not about getting saved. So I've told, I'm studying this, I'm like, that's awesome, because I've told, told bunches of people about getting saved,
and bunches of them didn't, and some of them did, right? And I always go like this, I go, oh man, I explained it the best I knew how.
I asked them to get saved, I asked them to pray with me, I was ready to pray, you know, I was going to lead them in a prayer, whatever.
Got a great church where they can go and learn about Jesus, and I was kind of like, oh, I wish they would get saved.
Except, guess what? Not even the goal. It's not the goal. That is part of the process. They're in the maze.
See? They're in the maze, and they need to come out, they do, they need to come down here and begin the ministry of reconciliation, right?
So that's the same thing that's explained to us, we can explain to others, that's all part of that. But it's not the goal.
The goal is that this might be made known through the church, that's us, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
Our ministry of sharing the gospel, of telling people all of these truths, and the great mystery that God prepared through Jesus,
a way that people could get saved, no matter what your background, where you come from, whatever, the great exposition of that mystery,
is so that the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms can figure out what we know. Is that not awesome?
It has nothing to do with whether or not that person will pray. It has nothing to do with whether or not that person gets saved.
It would be great if they do, and we always say things like, oh, you know, if you have a friend, and they're going to hell,
and you haven't told about Jesus, well, shame on you, because you're letting them go to hell.
You have everything they need, and they're going to hell because you won't tell them about it.
Or if you had a friend that had a terrible disease, and you had the cure, wouldn't you take it to them and share them?
We're saying all those things to try to urge people to do what Jesus gave us to do in the Great Commission,
but the reality is, that's not the point. The point is we hold the mysteries.
Who fathoms the great depths of God? The Holy Spirit. And therefore, we do.
Angels don't. Demons don't. And many very wise men, or men that think they're very wise, don't get it.
There's lots and lots of people, and lots and lots of evil spirits, and lots and lots of angels.
This is for us to witness to them. That's what it's all about.
The Church then composed the people from all walks of life. Isaiah 49, 6. If you look at the very bottom of your paper there,
that's Isaiah 49, 6, two blanks on the left corner. And it says,
He says, it is too small a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel.
Who's He talking about? Talking about Jesus. It's too small a thing that the Christ would save Israel. That's too small.
He says, I will also make you a light to the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
Jesus couldn't just be the Christ of the Messiah just for the Jews and the Israelites, because that's just too small a thing.
The Christ died for everybody, and that's the message we carry. But the people of every generation, and now,
and every generation coming, will struggle to understand that because they're wrapped up, stuck in the mystery until it is revealed to them.
And it has now been revealed to you, and you have a responsibility.
And Jesus said it this way with regards to this responsibility in John 15, 15. And that's the last blanks you have there. It's John 15, 15.
And I kind of know it by heart, but I'm going to read it. Just make sure I get it right.
John 15, 15, Jesus says, No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing,
but I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard from My Father, I have made known to you.
You see, you've got a job to do. If you've become a Christian, you've got a job to do.
Your job is not as simple as, I'm going to go and be a witness to the nations. That's good, and you should.
I'd be a missionary or a pastor or just tell all my friends at work and school and everything, witness wherever I go.
That's all good. We should do that. But the fact that we can do that is the real truth that's been revealed,
that it's for everybody, and that message needs to be delivered to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.
We have the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2.16 says. This was prepared for us, 1 Corinthians 2.9 says.
And Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1.27. Get it? Is that not awesome?
Now let's assume for a minute here that there's somebody in this room that has not in earnest given their life to Christ.
Then this whole concept of being lost in the wisdom of men, they're going to spend their time not knowing.
They're not going to be in their heart. They're not going to accept it on first pass. They don't understand.
Not only do they not understand what we're talking about, they don't understand what Jesus was talking about.
They don't necessarily understand why it is that Jesus had to die to pay for sin.
But the truth is, sin separates men from God. And that meant that nobody had the right to do what we've now been given the right to do.
But Jesus began the church in a sense. And the church has this ministry that through us,
the rulers and the authorities and the heavenly places would learn this truth.
That we're in, that God says so, he made it possible and he says so. People from all walks of life everywhere.
The question is, has he shown it to you? And if he has and he's shown it to you for the very first time now,
then you have a decision to make and decide who I'm going to be going forward.
Why would you want to go back and live by the wisdom of men if you have access to the wisdom of God?
Why would you want to live in the shallow world of men where we go like, I'm happy, I'm not happy, I want this, I want that, I'm driven by my desires, etc.
When you have access to the depths of God and the riches of Christ?
And the answer is, you wouldn't. People who make it out of the maze don't willingly go back in and get stuck there again.
The only reason to venture into the land of the wisdom of men now is so that we can show others the way out.
I want to share one story and then we'll be through.
If there is a young person in the house who completed every blank on their page, I need to see it before you leave because I have prizes.
So if all your blanks are filled in, make sure I see it.
Okay. What? No sir. Not for this. You're definitely a young person but not for this.
I had a dream, it was a little over 20 years ago, and in my dream there was a skyscraper and the skyscraper, the lights were out.
There's no lights. And I got the impression it was kind of like a holocaust dream, like there was a lot of suffering going on.
And I went in this building and in the building there was a desk and the desk had flashlights.
And you could take a flashlight to go up into the building.
And everybody was going into the building looking for a way out to get somewhere we needed to get to.
And in my dream I didn't know for sure what it was. So it was heaven, a safe place, a place where they have food or medicine or whatever.
And so we're all getting our flashlights from this table.
And then we're going on the stairs and we're going up into this dark building and we're shining our flashlights around corners and in nooks and crannies and searching and searching and searching.
And never finding a way out.
So I'm 15 stories up in this building in my dream and Deacon Tony's with me.
We'd been to the top already and we're searching the middle floors now.
We thought it might be at the top. So we went all the way to the top and started there and then worked our way back down.
About 15 floors up and I said to Deacon Tony, I said, you know, I think, I wonder, did we even need to come up here?
And he goes, what do you mean? I said, I mean, don't exits of buildings, aren't they usually on the ground floor?
Why are we up here in the 15th floor looking for a way out?
And he goes, you know, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, I thought I saw something a way out down there.
Let's go check it out. And so we go back all the way down to the first floor.
We have the stairs, our little flashlights, right?
And just past the table that passes out the flashlights, just past the stairway that leads upstairs is the exit.
You didn't really ever have to go into the maze. You didn't really ever have to get lost.
It's by sin that we did that. We did it because we wanted it.
We did it because we wanted something we weren't supposed to have or because we thought by lying we would get something we would we wanted or we were violent or whatever.
A funny thing was in that dream, Deacon Tony and I said, you know, if we just turn our flashlights in here and just go past the stairs, we can go right outside and we're done. We're free.
And we said, no, we're not going to do it because if we go and we leave, then we're out.
They can't come back in. The doors locked was locking. There's no way back in.
And so we kept our flashlights and we went looking for people in the building, anyone who would listen to us, everyone was coming to get a flashlight.
We tell them, don't get a flashlight. Just go out. It's right there. Just go out.
And people would not listen to us. They just go out the door. It's right there.
They're like, there's no exit sign. I'm like, I know there's no exit sign, but I'm telling you, I went and looked out. This is the way out.
Just trust me. They still wouldn't do it. So we were go go up into the building.
We thought if people have been searching for a really long time, if they've searched every floor, they surely will be ready to exit.
So we said, let's go looking for people who have searched every floor twice and know there's no exit up there.
They all want to exit. And we took the flashlights and we went up to floor 11.
We found some people that had searched the entire building twice. And we said, you don't have to search the building. It's free.
We just go back downstairs. You don't need the flashlights. Go right where you got just past where you get the flashlight.
Just pass the stairs and go right out. It's free. And they wouldn't do it.
They had gotten so into the habit of searching. They were so they said, no, one guy said, we've searched the whole building twice.
We know there's no exit, but we have to have missed something. We've spent so much time searching now we can't possibly quit.
And they kept searching. But eventually we found a few.
And we a couple of people said this is the way out. And they're like, oh, that makes so much sense.
Of course, we've searched everything up here. There's no way out up here. It had to be down there.
I don't know why we didn't think of that. And they started to go down.
And I said, do you want to go down and go out? Or do you want to help us find other people and tell them how to go out?
And almost to a man, they said, no, we'll help you find others as long as we get out before it's too late.
If there ever is a too late, we'll help you find others.
And I woke up from my dream, remembering it still to this day, knowing that that's our job.
We are living in the world of the wisdom of man. We are living inside the maze.
Explaining to people that as soon as they are ready to stop searching in their own strength, in their own wisdom, in the way the world says it can be done, etc, etc.
And just willing to exit, then God will reveal to them everything they need.
And then they can stay in the maze with us as the church, and we will reveal that same thing.
Not only to those who are inside the maze, but more importantly, to the rulers and authorities of the heavenly realms.
Would you commit yourself to that? Stop fussing about whether you're going to tell somebody else about Jesus.
Because the truth is, this is what you were saved for. Tell everyone. Tell everyone.
And if they don't listen, it doesn't even matter. I'm not saying be a jerk about it, but tell everyone.
It doesn't even matter because the real witness isn't for them, it's for the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms who are watching us.
To figure out, is this really true?
God really saved some goofy dude that lives in Northwood who lied all those times, stole all those times, fought all those times, hurt all those people,
who had traumatic flashbacks about all the stupid things he's done, dabbled in this and dabbled in that, ruined his life in almost every possible way.
And God saved that person and made that person a preacher? No, God's going to crush him any minute now.
But no, he isn't. And that's what they need to know.