The sermon opens Ephesians 3, reading verses 1 through 6, and begins with the true story of Jacob DeShazer, an American bomber pilot in the Doolittle Raid who was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and held as a prisoner of war. Consumed with hatred for his captors, DeShazer was given a Bible to read during a brief loosening of prison conditions in 1944, and through it came to faith in Christ. After the war he returned to Japan as a missionary and distributed gospel tracts, one of which reached Mitsuo Fuchida, one of the commanders of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fuchida also came to faith, and the two former enemies later served together preaching the gospel in Japan. The sermon uses this story to illustrate what Paul has just described in Ephesians 2:11-22: two hostile parties, formerly strangers to God and to one another, reconciled through the cross into one family, one body, one holy temple where God dwells among his reconciled people.

Paul then begins chapter 3 with "for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles" - reason meaning the preceding reconciliation just described. The sermon observes that Paul appears to pause mid-thought, as though catching himself: having just mentioned his imprisonment "for you Gentiles," he seems to sense that the Ephesians, gentile believers themselves, might feel discouraged or guilty, as if his suffering were their fault. So Paul interrupts his own sentence to explain why he is in prison, not resuming his original thought until verse 14 ("for this reason I bow my knees before the Father"). The intervening verses (2-13) form a parenthetical explanation, climaxing in verse 13: "So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory." The purpose of this digression, the sermon argues, is pastoral: Paul does not want the Ephesians to be discouraged by his suffering, but to see it as bound up with his God-given calling.

The sermon then draws two points from verses 2-6. First, Paul explains his imprisonment by appealing to the stewardship entrusted to him: "the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you." The Greek term is oikonomia (stewardship) or oikonomos (steward), the word used of Paul's specific apostolic call to the Gentiles, as confirmed in Acts 9:15, where the Lord tells Ananias that Paul is "a chosen instrument" to carry Christ's name before the Gentiles, kings, and Israel, and in Galatians 2:7-8, where Paul and Peter recognize a shared but differentiated calling - Peter to the circumcised, Paul to the uncircumcised. This, the sermon insists, is not merely Paul's or the apostles' burden but belongs to every Christian: whatever work God has entrusted to a believer is likewise a stewardship of grace. The parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16:1-3 is cited to show that a steward manages what belongs to another, and is accountable to the owner for it.

From this the sermon develops its central application: many Christians operate with a "dualistic" or "split" mindset (illustrated by the analogy of a split-system air conditioner) that treats church activities, prayer, and Bible reading as "sacred" while treating ordinary work - as a doctor, lawyer, businessman, or homemaker - as "secular" and disconnected from faith. Scripture rejects this division: the whole of human existence belongs to Christ. The sermon quotes Abraham Kuyper's famous line that "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, 'Mine!'" and adds Tim Keller's observation that Kuyper deliberately said "the whole domain of human existence," not merely church life and personal devotion. Francis Schaeffer's maxim is likewise invoked: "if Christ is not the Lord of all, he is not the Lord at all." Every legitimate vocation - farmer, truck driver, baker, shopkeeper, carpenter, even Adam's original calling as gardener, and Christ's own thirty years as a carpenter before his public ministry - is dignified as a stewardship of grace to be carried out for the glory of God and the good of others, not for self-enrichment or self-glory. Martin Luther's reflection on the Lord's Prayer's "give us this day our daily bread" is used to show that God ordinarily provides through the long chain of human labor - farmer, miller, trucker, baker, shopkeeper - each of whom, knowingly or not, is used by God to answer that prayer.

The sermon's second point turns to what this stewardship specifically meant for Paul: the mystery of Christ was revealed to him by revelation, previously hidden from earlier generations but now disclosed to the apostles and prophets, namely that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus (v. 6). This revelation, having been written down, must now be read, pondered, and obeyed by believers across the ages. The sermon closes with a video illustration of the Kimyal people receiving the Bible in their own language for the first time after decades of translation work, urging the congregation not to take the availability of Scripture for granted but to read and meditate on it daily, becoming like the tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.

Bible Verses Used

• Ephesians 3:1-6: The main text; Paul's parenthetical explanation of his imprisonment and the mystery that Gentiles are fellow heirs with Israel in Christ.

• Ephesians 2:11-22: Cited as the preceding context - the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile into one body - that Paul's "for this reason" in 3:1 refers back to.

• Acts 9:15: Used to establish Paul's specific apostolic calling to carry Christ's name to the Gentiles.

• Galatians 2:7-8: Cited to show Paul and Peter's mutually recognized, differentiated stewardship - Paul to the uncircumcised, Peter to the circumcised.

• Luke 16:1-3: The parable of the dishonest manager (oikonomos), used to define "steward" as one accountable to an owner for what has been entrusted to him.

• Psalm 1: Alluded to in the closing exhortation - the one who delights in God's word is like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season.