How to Change the World #2 - Part Two
Description
Pastor Russ Brasher explores Ephesians 4:6-12, revealing God's perfect strategy to change the world through service. Discover how understanding God's sovereign plan—to unite all things under Christ through lavished grace—transforms our service from burdensome obligation into joyful participation in His mission, equipping each believer to make an eternal difference one act of ministry at a time.
Summary and Application
When you think about changing the world, where would you even start? The problems seem so big, so complex, and we're just one person. In his message on Ephesians 4:6-12, Russ challenges us to see world-changing impact through a surprisingly simple lens: the word "serve."
But before we can understand what it means to serve, we need to grasp something foundational about God's character and His plan for the world.
One Strategy: Trusting God's Sovereign Plan
Paul writes in Ephesians 4:6, "One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." This isn't just theological abstraction—it's the foundation for everything that follows.
Russ reminds us that "there is one God, one Father who is in control, who has always been in control. From the dawn of time, God has been working throughout human history to bring to light his strategy, his plan to save the world—to reunite each of us into relationship with him."
Unlike our human plans that inevitably fail, God's strategy is perfect and unchanging. As Russ points out, "every human plan eventually fails. Every human strategy has flaws... But God's plan doesn't fall apart. God's strategy doesn't depend on perfect conditions or ideal circumstances."
Earlier in Ephesians, Paul reveals this strategy: "In him, talking about Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure" (Ephesians 1:7-9).
God's grand plan is "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ." This isn't a mystery anymore—it's been revealed through Jesus.
The Power of Lavished Grace
The word "lavish" carries tremendous weight. As Russ explains, "To lavish means to give generously, abundantly, extravagantly—without restraint or limitation. God doesn't give us just enough grace to get by. He doesn't portion it out carefully, making sure we don't get more than we deserve. No, He lavishes it on us."
And why does God do this? "According to His good pleasure. It brings God joy to lavish His grace on us. It pleases Him to be generous with His undeserved kindness toward us."
This changes everything about how we approach service. When we understand that God's strategy has always been at work, when we grasp that "He is over all and through all and in all, then our service becomes a response to what God has already done. Our ministry becomes participation in what God is already doing."
From Burden to Joy
Here's where the rubber meets the road. Russ acknowledges a common struggle: "If we don't start here, if we don't begin by understanding that God is sovereignly at work and that He has a perfect plan, then when we start talking about service and ministry, it becomes just another thing on our to-do list. It becomes another burden we have to carry. Another expectation we're failing to meet."
But when we start with God's sovereignty and lavished grace, everything shifts. We're not serving to earn God's favor or prove our worth. We're responding to what He's already done. We're participating in a plan that's already guaranteed to succeed.
As Russ puts it, "You're no longer overwhelmed by how big the problems are, because you serve a God who is bigger. You're no longer paralyzed by your own inadequacy, because you're not depending on your own strength or strategy. You're participating in God's perfect plan, and He has already guaranteed the outcome."
The Foundation for Service
This is only the beginning of understanding how to change the world. Russ uses a memorable equation to frame the entire series: 1 + 1 = 1, or "one strategy plus one Savior equals one service."
In this message, we focused on the first part: one strategy. God the Father has a perfect plan centered on His Son, Jesus Christ. Everything flows from this truth.
"You can't serve effectively, you can't change the world meaningfully, until you first understand and believe in the one God who has the one perfect strategy to redeem and restore all things through His Son."
The upcoming messages will unpack the rest of the equation—looking at Jesus as the one Savior and exploring what it means that the ultimate act of service on the cross motivates and models our own acts of service.
Two Questions for Reflection
1. Do you truly believe that God has a perfect strategy at work, even when circumstances seem chaotic or broken? Take time this week to identify areas where you're tempted to doubt God's sovereignty, and ask Him to help you rest in His plan rather than stress over your own.
2. How does understanding God's lavished grace change your motivation for serving others? Consider one way you can serve someone this week—not out of obligation or to earn favor, but as a joyful response to the grace you've already received.
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Well, good morning. Let's pray to jump in today.
Father, we thank you for a chance to gather today as a church. And Lord, I pray that the words I've prepared may both glorify you and draw each of our hearts to a deeper understanding of your love for us and the fact that you sent your son Jesus to die for us. And we can respond to that in relationship with you. In your name we pray. Amen.
Introduction: The One-Word Question
Today I want to start by asking each of you a question. And this isn't something that you're gonna have to blurt out or tell your neighbor or the person in front or behind you, but just where you're at in your chair by yourself. I want to ask you a question, but you're only allowed to answer it by thinking of one word.
And the question is: If it was up to you, how would you change the world? But you can only think of one word. Go ahead and think about it. Try to figure it out.
Okay, now that you've got maybe that one word, if you had to use it in just one sentence to explain the reason for why you picked that word, what would that sentence be?
Now, I would imagine in a room this big, and even those online, for some of us, it was probably hard to that quickly come up with a word or a phrase or a sentence for where we would start. Because as we look at the world, we say, oh, it's pretty big, it's pretty broken. I'm just one person. Where would I even begin?
The Beauty of God's Word
Well, what I love about the word of God is we get a chance to take that question and apply it and go directly to God and ask him. And what we're gonna see today as we continue to look through Paul's words of Ephesians 4 is, in a sense, this question is placed in front of Paul, and Paul gives us an answer.
And the one word that Paul chooses for how to change the world is the word serve. And if Paul were to use that word in a sentence to explain his reasoning, he gives it to us in verses 11 through 12, where he says, if we want to change the world, equip yourself to go do works of service.
In other words, what Paul is saying is, if you want to go change the world, recognize how each one of you is equipped to go do ministry. And to help kind of look at today's text and remember everything that we've talked about, I've come up with an equation, a math equation.
A Math Equation from the Holy Spirit
And how you know it's from the Holy Spirit is, if you knew me from Kindergarten to senior year, you would have known math was not my strategy. I had a hard time understanding math. So now I'm saying I'm going to use math to help all of us understand God's word. You know it's from the Holy Spirit.
And you also see that I struggled in math because this equation actually doesn't make sense. And any math teachers in here are going to probably get upset with me. But the equation that's going to help us is one plus one equals one.
If we want to know how to change the world, we've got to understand this equation of 1 + 1 = 1 and understand not only how it applies to changing the world, but how this equation applies by looking at Paul's text today—how it should change each of us.
The Equation Explained: 1 + 1 = 1
And it's one strategy plus one Savior equals one service.
Let me break that down for you:
One Strategy = God the Father
One Savior = Jesus Christ
One Service = The Cross
And how does one strategy (God) plus one Savior (Jesus) equal one service (the cross)? Not just understanding that, but believing this equation—how does that actually lead to changing the world through one act of service, one act of ministry at a time?
I'm glad you asked. That's what we're going to dive into today.
Part One: One Strategy (One God)
So let's take that strategy, that equation, and apply it to today's text, starting in verse six of chapter four, where again, Paul says:
"One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:6)
So the first part of our equation today is one strategy. And we get that from this verse in chapter four, verse six, where Paul is trying to say, hey, before each of us focuses on maybe what we feel like we now have to go do, or are being asked to go do if we call ourselves a believer in Jesus, Paul says, I want to draw each of your attention, our attention, to the one God, the one Father.
Does God Care About the World?
And if any one of us was to run to God and say, "Hey, God, do you care about what's happening in the world? Do you see how much change is needed? And God, are you doing anything about it?"
Paul is saying, absolutely, God does care. He cares so much about it that he is doing something. And it's part of God's strategy. It's part of God's plan, and he has one.
And in fact, when Paul talks about one God and one Father, what he's trying to get us to trust and find rest in is that we have one God, one Father who is in control, who has always been in control. From the dawn of time, God has been working throughout human history to bring to light his strategy, his plan to save the world—to reunite each of us into relationship with him.
God's Strategy Throughout Ephesians
And really how we get to this verse in chapter four, verse six, is from the moment Ephesians starts. When Paul starts writing Ephesians, he is drawing our attention to this strategy, to God. And he says in chapter one, starting in verse seven:
"In him, talking about Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure." (Ephesians 1:7-9)
So Paul is trying to get us to see, each one of us, that if you do wonder if God cares and does he have a strategy, Paul says, absolutely, God does.
The Mystery Revealed
And the beauty of God's word is it reveals to each one of us that it's no longer a mystery. We don't have to run around trying to figure out, does God care? Does he have a plan?
Paul says, God does have a plan. He does have a strategy, and it's no longer a mystery. I'm gonna tell you what it is.
God's plan is to lavish each of us with his grace. Another way to describe grace is undeserved kindness. God wants to lavish each one of us with undeserved kindness according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the time reaches its fulfillment.
God's Grand Plan to Change the World
And here's the grand plan. Here's God's strategy to change the world: to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
If you ask the question, "Does God care?" Scripture says, yes, he does.
If you ask God, "Well, what's your plan to change it?" Scripture says, "My plan, my strategy, is that I am gonna work to deliver a Savior. I'm gonna make a promise, and I'm gonna keep delivering on that promise."
And part of that promise, part of my strategy is I'm going to send my Son, and through the Savior, I am going to unite everything under him.
What God's Son Will Do
My Son is gonna come and he's gonna do for each of us what we could never do for ourselves. He's gonna serve us in a way that none of us deserved and we could have never done or done for our neighbor.
And when he does what he's about to do on the cross and the way in which Jesus is gonna conquer the grave and defeat death, anyone who puts their faith and trust in what I have done in my plan through my son, I am going to unite them. I'm going to bring them all together.
Those that put their faith in my son are going to become sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in Christ. They are going to become one body, the universal church, who as they continue to show up, are going to equip themselves to then go do acts or works of service, to go do ministry.
Becoming Part of God's Strategy
Because they now see themselves as part of my strategy, my plan to go tell other people and live out the mission of helping people find and follow Jesus. Because they, each one of us, has found Christ.
And see, the ultimate act of service is what motivates us to go do acts of service. And so again, that's what he says. That's the plan.
Illustration: The Fantasy Football Lesson
And you know, has anyone ever done fantasy football before? Raise your hand if you have. That's okay. Just... these are all the unhappy people in the room right now.
Here's the thing that you need to know about fantasy football. If you've never done it: Everyone thinks that they show up to the draft party with the perfect strategy, the perfect plan to draft the perfect team that will guarantee success and Super Bowl victory, right?
Everyone Has a Different Strategy
And then you show up to the draft party and you realize, oh my gosh, everybody has a plan, everybody has a strategy, and everyone's approach is different. And all the hard work that you put into trying to come up with the strategy, even though we all googled and clicked on the same links to listen to the experts, none of the experts can agree on what the perfect strategy for fantasy football is.
And then you start to doubt, like, oh my gosh, am I good at this? Should I even be in the room?
The Unlikely Winner
And then you know what happens if you've ever done fantasy football—you know this. And we'll all start crying here in a moment. Do you know who ends up winning the league every time?
The person who showed up with no strategy. The person who just shows up, eats all the food that everyone else brought, lets the team auto draft, and then just doesn't make any roster moves and wins the Super Bowl.
Do you know who that person is right now in the fantasy league that I'm in? It's your senior pastor.
That man decided that during the draft party he's gonna go off the grid and go climb Mount—or the Grand Canyon or something like that. Doesn't come to the draft party, doesn't even download the app until week four, and somehow manages to go undefeated, including two weeks where he didn't even start a quarterback.
That man is heavily favored and blessed.
The Point: God's Perfect Strategy
But my point is this: In fantasy football, there is no perfect strategy. There is no plan that guarantees victory. But what Paul is trying to get us to see here is that there is one God, one Father who has a perfect strategy, who has a plan to reconcile all of his children under His Son, Jesus Christ.
So that's what verse six is. And you can't start thinking about what you can do to serve others until you understand and put your faith in the one God the Father and His strategy.
Understanding the Foundation
See, before we can talk about serving, before we can talk about changing the world through acts of ministry, we have to first understand that God has been at work long before we showed up. His plan wasn't dependent on us getting it right. His strategy wasn't formed in response to our failures.
From before the foundation of the world, God had a plan. And that plan was centered on His Son, Jesus Christ. Everything that God is doing, everything that He has ever done, has been moving toward this one central truth: that through Jesus, all things would be united under Him.
Why This Matters for Us Today
Now, why does this matter for us today? Why is Paul spending time reminding the Ephesian church—and reminding us—about this one God and this one strategy?
Because if we don't start here, if we don't begin by understanding that God is sovereignly at work and that He has a perfect plan, then when we start talking about service and ministry, it becomes just another thing on our to-do list. It becomes another burden we have to carry. Another expectation we're failing to meet.
But when we understand that God's strategy has always been at work, when we understand that He is over all and through all and in all, then our service becomes a response to what God has already done. Our ministry becomes participation in what God is already doing.
The Contrast with Human Plans
You see, every human plan eventually fails. Every human strategy has flaws. We've all experienced this in our own lives. We make plans, we set goals, we strategize and prepare, and then life happens. Circumstances change. Unexpected obstacles arise. And our carefully crafted plans fall apart.
But God's plan doesn't fall apart. God's strategy doesn't depend on perfect conditions or ideal circumstances. God's plan has been unfolding throughout all of human history, despite human rebellion, despite our failures, despite every obstacle that's been thrown in the way.
And what is that plan? To bring unity to all things under Christ. To reconcile us to Himself. To lavish us with His grace. To transform us from enemies into sons and daughters. To take broken, sinful people and make them into the body of Christ, equipped and empowered to do His work in the world.
The Power of Grace
Let's camp out on this idea of grace for just a moment, because it's so central to everything Paul is teaching us here. Paul says that God has lavished His grace on us. That's such a powerful word. To lavish means to give generously, abundantly, extravagantly—without restraint or limitation.
God doesn't give us just enough grace to get by. He doesn't portion it out carefully, making sure we don't get more than we deserve. No, He lavishes it on us. He pours it out abundantly. He gives us more than we could ever need or imagine.
And why does He do this? According to His good pleasure. It brings God joy to lavish His grace on us. It pleases Him to be generous with His undeserved kindness toward us.
What Grace Does in Our Lives
And here's what that grace does: It reveals the mystery of His will. Before Christ, we were in the dark about God's plan. We couldn't understand what He was doing or why. But through the grace that's been lavished on us in Jesus, the mystery has been revealed. Now we know. Now we understand.
We understand that God's plan has always been Jesus. We understand that His strategy for changing the world is through the cross. We understand that He's bringing everything together under Christ—including us.
And when we understand this, when we really grasp what God has done for us through His grace, it changes everything about how we live and how we serve.
Preparing for What's Next
Now, we've only covered the first part of our equation today: one strategy. We've established that there is one God who has one perfect plan, and that plan is to unite all things under Christ through His lavished grace.
In the coming weeks, we're going to continue unpacking this equation. We're going to look at the one Savior—Jesus Christ—and what He accomplished through the cross. We're going to explore what it means that one strategy plus one Savior equals one service, and how the ultimate act of service that Jesus performed on the cross becomes the motivation and model for our own acts of service.
We're going to see how God has equipped each one of us uniquely to participate in His mission. We're going to discover how the body of Christ is designed to work together, with each member using their gifts and abilities to build up the church and reach the world.
The Challenge Before Us
But for today, I want to leave you with this challenge: Do you believe in God's strategy? Do you trust that He has a perfect plan, and that His plan is at work even now?
Because if you do, if you truly believe that there is one God who is sovereignly orchestrating all of human history toward His purposes, then that changes how you view your life. It changes how you view your circumstances. It changes how you view the brokenness you see in the world around you.
You're no longer overwhelmed by how big the problems are, because you serve a God who is bigger. You're no longer paralyzed by your own inadequacy, because you're not depending on your own strength or strategy. You're participating in God's perfect plan, and He has already guaranteed the outcome.
Rest in God's Sovereignty
So before we talk about what you need to do, before we get into the practical steps of service and ministry, I want you to rest in this truth: God has a plan. God is at work. God's strategy is perfect. And He invites you to be part of it—not because He needs you, but because in His grace, He wants to include you in what He's doing.
That's the foundation. That's where we have to start. Because you can't serve effectively, you can't change the world meaningfully, until you first understand and believe in the one God who has the one perfect strategy to redeem and restore all things through His Son.
Closing Thoughts
As we close today, I want you to think back to that question we started with: How would you change the world in one word?
Maybe your word was "love" or "justice" or "hope" or "peace." All of those are good words. But what Paul is showing us is that the way we actually change the world is through the word "serve."
And we can only truly serve when we understand that we're serving a God who first served us. We can only give grace when we understand how much grace has been lavished on us. We can only bring unity when we understand that we ourselves have been united to Christ through His perfect plan.
So as we go from this place today, my prayer is that you would be overwhelmed—in the best possible way—by the reality of God's perfect strategy. That you would rest in His sovereignty. That you would marvel at His grace. And that out of that place of rest and wonder, you would begin to see how God is inviting you to participate in His mission to change the world.
This is just the beginning of our journey through this series. There's so much more to discover about how God equips us, how Christ serves as our model, and how we can practically engage in ministry that makes an eternal difference.
But it all starts here. It all starts with understanding that there is one God, one Father, who has one perfect strategy. And that strategy is centered on His Son, Jesus Christ.
Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for having a plan. Thank you that your strategy is perfect, even when ours fails. Thank you for lavishing your grace on us, for revealing the mystery of your will, and for inviting us to be part of what you're doing in the world.
Help us to rest in your sovereignty. Help us to trust your plan, even when we don't understand all the details. And help us to respond to your grace with lives of service that point others to Jesus.
We love you, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.
AI-Generated Disclaimer: This transcript has been cleaned, formatted, and expanded by an AI assistant. While efforts have been made to accurately represent the original sermon content and to enhance clarity and readability, some sections have been developed further to provide additional context and application. Please refer to the original audio recording for the complete and authoritative version of this message as delivered by the speaker.
