Partakers of the Promise | In Heavenly Places E06 [Ty Gibson]

"For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles." First of all, notice Paul identifies himself as the prisoner of Christ Jesus, not the prisoner of Rome.

Now, this is important for where Paul is going because in Paul's perspective, the new project that has been launched by Christ through the Gospel is transnational, and Jesus is the supreme ruler now of the world and the whole universe.

So Paul's allegiance is to Christ, and even though he has found himself imprisoned by an earthly empire, he's like, "Whatever.

I'm with Jesus, and I'm a prisoner of Christ," which is a kind of tongue in cheek slap in the face to the empire and saying, "You think you have me? No, Jesus has me.

Wherever you have me, Jesus has me." "If indeed you have heard of the..." This is strong, heady language.

We don't know what he's talking about.

Usually [laughs] we have to unpack it.

This is Paul, after all.

"Indeed, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you." The dispensation.

Paul here is talking about a period of time.

A dispensation is an epoch.

It's a period of time.

It's a stretch of history.

So in this stretch of history, now that Jesus has come, he's chosen me, Paul.

He's tapped me for an, an assignment, and he's told me to take the Gospel of Christ and translate it specifically for the Gentile world.

That's what I'm doing, Paul says.

There's a dispensation of grace, and this grace is for you.

No matter what you've imagined, no matter what you've been taught, no matter what anybody has tried to persuade you with bad religious ideas, that God has you on the outside with a few chosen ones on the inside.

No, this grace of God is for you, and Jesus asked me to tell you about it.

This is what he's saying here.

And this grace is for the Gentiles, and Jesus gave it to me, and I'm dispensing it to you through the preaching of the Gospel.

How that by revelation, I mentioned this last night, just wanna mention it again.

We are so deeply embedded in our egos, in our narcissism as human beings.

We are so...

When human beings fell into sin, this is theological language, what it essentially means is that the selfishness principle was introduced into human psychology and sociology.