The Big Picture

Ephesians 3:1-3

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%203%3A1-3&version=NIV;ESV

 

You may be familiar with the “parable of the talents” in Matthew 25. A land owner gives one of his servants five talents; to another 2; and to another 1 talent. Each servant

was a steward over the talent(s) they were given.

 

However, you may not be as familiar with the concept of being a steward of God’s grace. Paul was. He wrote about it in Ephesians 3.

 

² …assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, ³ how the mystery was made known to me… ⁶ This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. ESV

 

Paul is taking a Big Picture look at his life and his ministry. He didn’t focus on his past, feeling guilty about how he aggressively persecuted the church to the extreme of imprisonment and even death. And he didn’t focus on his current circumstances while writing this letter in prison potentially feeling powerless or sorry for himself.

 

Instead, Paul focused on the calling he had from God to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. Paul was a steward of all that God had given him which included his calling.

 

In the same way, God has given each of us, you and I, a calling on our life. It is up to us

to look at the Big Picture, not the past or the present, and to be good stewards of His Grace.

 

In looking at the Big Picture of your life, ask yourself, what are the “talents” that God has given you to be a steward over? How can you use those “talents” to spread the Gospel of Christ? To build the Kingdom of God? What desires has He given you to touch the lives of others?

 

Paul concludes his look at the Big Picture in Ephesians with a powerful prayer for the Gentile believers. His prayer is just as powerful for you and me today.

 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power,

together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.                       NIV