Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right. Well, good morning. I am glad that I have this opportunity to share with you. I want to have a moment of just corporate prayer and introduced last week that we're praying as we get closer to the election. We're praying for our country. We're praying for discernment when it comes to voting. We want to pray also for the candidates that God in his grace would soften their heart and make sure they follow after him. And so we want to just do this as brothers and sisters together. So let's pray. Well, Father, in Jesus name, we thank you for the opportunity we get to vote, to speak into the things that happen in and around us.
[00:00:38] Lord, I pray that you would just give us discernment and wisdom as we prepare for that, as we pray for that, that you would lead us, that we would hear from you in regards to that. Lord, I pray for the candidates that your Holy spirit would just soften their hearts and, Lord, draw them to yourself.
[00:00:53] They would follow after your ways, follow after your word. Truly follow after your word. Father, we thank you. We pray that you would lead us today and help us understand this gift that we have in the gospel and what we get to talk about together. We thank you for this. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:01:09] So there's this place. Just kidding.
[00:01:12] I don't know if anybody ever been to Lower Alabama, Louisiana. Anybody been to la?
[00:01:18] Okay. Yeah, me and. Me and my buddy over here. So, yes, la, there's a place called Dothan, Alabama, the peanut capital of the world. Peanuts, anybody?
[00:01:28] Okay, you guys are fun today. Awesome. Well, right beside Dothan, Alabama is a place called Enterprise, Alabama, the home of the boll weevil monument. Does that ring a bell?
[00:01:38] Oh, my gosh, people. Anyways, let's not talk about that Dothan then. Real quick, check this out. In 2 Kings, chapter 6, this event happens where Elisha's servant walks out and sees that there is this army of Syria, like, coming to take him. Okay. One of the things that was happening was Elisha had this ability to basically understand what the other the foreign king was doing, saying. And he would tell it to the King of Israel and let him know. And then it was that he was the secret weapon because they couldn't do anything without his knowledge of it. And so they're like, the best thing we could do is to take that guy out. And so they came. Elisha's servant looks out and he sees these people there at sunrise in Dothan and looks out and realizes they're in trouble.
[00:02:25] And the thing that I love that Elisha does.
[00:02:29] He's like, he doesn't. Doesn't, like, let him know, like, hey, it's okay. He doesn't flinch. He just prays that his servant would be able to see, because once he sees, he's able to understand that surrounding that foreign army that means them harm is God's chariots and angels ready to come after them. And so they are safe and protected. And it's with that picture in mind that Paul is writing, too, for us as the church, that we would be able to see that the eyes of our heart would be open to the work of God and His grace, that he's reaching out to us, doing this thing. So I'm excited for this, for us. Paul is writing from a Roman prison, and he's never even asking for a way out. He's praying that the followers of Christ would know God better, that they would see what they already have in him and that they would grasp the power that raised Christ from the dead. That's the prayer. It's this reality that right here in this little section of Scripture, following what we dealt with last week, which we're going to read again in a moment, is Paul gives this thing, Lord, help them see. Help them see what you're doing. And so just briefly, if you would, look at Ephesians, chapter one, we're going to begin in verse 15. And as we do, I want to let you know we have the sermon notes in the back. We also have those little journal packets, so if you want to use those. But we want to study this together as brothers and sisters. And I do care about you guys being good students of the Word, not just knowing it, but applying it to your life. Look at this with me. For this reason, he says in verse 15, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. And here's the prayer that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom, wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.
[00:04:25] Notice. For this reason, he points to their faith in the Lord Jesus, this vertical relationship that they have, that they have this deep, abiding faith and their love for all the saints. This is proof that they trust and love the Lord and are loved by the Lord. But what's also in view is what we just came out of. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to back up a few verses to verse three. And I'm just going to read and highlight some points as we read it. So that if you weren't here last week, you at least get to see how we got to where we are today. Verse 3 says this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ.
[00:05:04] That's a phrase we want to kind of keep in mind in Christ, in Him, right? Keep that in view in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, blameless before him in love. He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons. Through this came through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved, in Him, in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us, and our wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will. Here it is again, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time. To do what? To unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth in Him. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. Notice again, according according to the counsel of his so that we who are the first to hope, these are the Jews. First to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. And then notice verse 13 in him. You also Gentiles, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
[00:06:36] The Holy Spirit is our seal. This promise, who is a guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
[00:06:45] One of the neat things that I love too.
[00:06:48] In John 17:3, it's called the high priestly prayer. John 17 is Jesus is praying that they would have eternal life, that they would know you, the only true God, praying that his followers would know God. And this sense of knowledge which we're going to unpack here is a relational knowledge. It's not just an academic intellect. It's relational. J.I. packer puts it this way in his book Knowing God. He says people who truly know God have great energy for God, great thoughts of God, great boldness for him, and great contentment in Him.
[00:07:25] And Paul is praying that they would have a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Spirit of wisdom. This Holy Spirit given disposition and understanding rightly towards the things of God. It's not. It's right discernment. And then revelation is the unveiling of what's been hidden that they would rightly see what God has for them. And then the knowledge of him. This is all part of this prayer, knowledge of him. A full, deep, personal knowing, not facts, but to know Him.
[00:07:59] And then verse 18, continuing that desire, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. And here it is, as we mentioned in the previous section, according to.
[00:08:24] According to the working of his great might.
[00:08:29] Notice that phrase, the eyes of your hearts.
[00:08:33] In Scripture, the heart isn't like just feeling and mushy and cotton candy and rainbows. It's the control center of your mind, your will, the affections, all together. And Paul prays what's already true would become clear to the whole person that these things are already true of them, but they would be able to see it. Enlightened here carries the idea of a spotlight putting on it. It's not new information, but it's information that they have seen. He's asking for that information to be exposed to them so that they can respond in it.
[00:09:08] The theologian from the 18th century, Jonathan Edwards, had it this way. He says, you can hear someone testify to you that honey is sweet, but you don't know until you taste it yourself. That's what Paul's praying, that they would be able to taste and see themselves what God has for them in Christ. And so that's what he's praying. And so three things he wants them to see.
[00:09:31] The first one is hope. To know what is the hope to which he has called you. To know what is the hope to which he's called you.
[00:09:40] The future God has called you to is not wishful thinking. Glory is coming. Hope isn't the opposite of pain. Hope is the opposite of despair.
[00:09:51] In the Bible, hope means certainty about the future, not a wish.
[00:09:56] How you live now is controlled by what you believe your future is.
[00:10:01] And again, think about verses 3 through 10. These are all past tense. Blessed, chosen, adopted, headed for a world that's united under Christ. It's a future that's certain because he's already done the calling we live, many of us live off of smaller hopes. And we kind of bank our existence on these smaller hopes. If my grades are good enough, I hope I make a good grade. I hope my bank account is okay. Okay. I hope my team wins. And I know yesterday was hard for a lot of us.
[00:10:33] And so what happens is when you hope on these things that are good and important, but none of those hopes are certain.
[00:10:41] So what happens is when you hope on those smaller things, you become anxious and worried.
[00:10:46] Suppose you get, like, two people who do the same job for a year. One person is they're like, you know what, you're going to get paid a small wage at the end of the year and you'll be fine. The other person says, you're going to work the same job that that guy does, but you're going to get paid a fortune. Which one will work differently.
[00:11:06] You see, if you know what you have in Christ, it begins to change and transform the way that you respond in the present. If you know the hope you have, it changes how you live right now. And that's the heart that Paul wants the church to get to notice the riches. The next thing is the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
[00:11:25] Glorious inheritance. It's what God gives his people. God gives himself a renewed world with everything united under Christ. In chapter 1, verse 10 in chapter 1, verse 14, it gives us spirit as proof of this work, of this inheritance. Peter calls it in First Peter 1 he calls it this inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
[00:11:51] Then it says in the saints, this is something that you this inheritance we get, we receive together with other brothers and sisters in Christ throughout history and even in this moment, as brothers and sisters right now with God's people.
[00:12:04] God is his people's inheritance.
[00:12:07] For the Levites, they had no land. And he says to them in numbers 18 I am your portion, your inheritance. David says, the Lord is my chosen portion. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. From Psalm 16.
[00:12:21] And then in Lamentations 3, Jeremiah says, the Lord is my portion. My soul knows it very well. Therefore I will hope in him.
[00:12:31] But what's cool too, and this is also in the Old Testament, is God's people are also his inheritance. Notice this, in Deuteronomy 32 it says this, the Lord's portion is his people. And then in Deuteronomy 4, a people of his own inheritance.
[00:12:46] And then in Exodus 19, my treasured possession, he calls of his people. See, what's great is this inheritance runs in both directions. In Scripture, he is ours, and we are his.
[00:12:58] And here Paul's emphasis, though, is on what we receive. This inheritance. So many of us are like the older brother in Luke 15 of the Prodigal Son story. We know that, right? We know about the younger brother who asks his father for his portion of the inheritance and he goes and wastes it. And then he comes back. And by God's grace, Father receives him, kisses him on the neck and places the robe around him, ring on his finger and just welcomes him back. And they party because he was lost and now he's found. The other brother says, dad, I've done everything you've asked me.
[00:13:30] And then do you remember what the father says to him?
[00:13:33] He said, my son, all that I have is yours. It's already been yours. You've been working and not receiving because you're focused on the wrong things. You're focused on the stuff and not me.
[00:13:46] You've had it all along.
[00:13:48] So many of us are like that. We're working, we're doing what we think is the right thing. But we're missing out on the gift of the gospel that we already have in Christ.
[00:13:58] So we look for our inheritance through security in our life, through land, the family name, retirement, the kids, success.
[00:14:07] Those are good things. But those things can't carry the transformational weight that we have in Christ and our inheritance in Him.
[00:14:16] So picture someone who is an heir to a massively like overwhelming inheritance. A lot of money, right, that they've been given, yet they're still living anxious and poor lives while the fortune is sitting there collecting dust.
[00:14:35] You and I have this power, this gift, this inheritance in Christ already. But many of us are living as though we don't. By the way we respond when things come against us.
[00:14:48] We're heirs because we're joined to the ultimate heir, God's Son. We see this in Romans 8, 17 and 18, right?
[00:14:57] CO heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him. And then he says in verse 18 that I consider the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory that's going to be revealed in in us, this work of us being revealed with Him.
[00:15:10] And then verse seven of this same chapter lets us know the price which his blood paid for, right? The Son is the heir of everything, was cast out so that you and I could be brought in. We only know the value of something by how much they're willing to pay for it.
[00:15:26] The value of you was so important that Christ gave Himself for it.
[00:15:34] And then the third thing that he's hoping that they understand is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. Notice immeasurable greatness of his power, meaning it is a boundless understanding. That's how powerful it is. And what Paul does, it seems like he's running out of vocabulary, so he just stacks a bunch of words.
[00:15:56] He calls it power, this explosive power where we get the word dynamite from. And then he says, working here, that word working is where we get the word energy from.
[00:16:07] And then might. He's saying, all these things are ours, this power and notice toward us. He aims it toward us who believe. He's not putting this gift of power toward a concept.
[00:16:19] He's putting this power towards you for your good.
[00:16:26] Name one situation where you've been counting the amount of things that are against you instead of seeing the providence of God for you.
[00:16:36] We're really good about saying, oh, I got this bad thing. This ruined my day, this ruined my month, this ruined my year. And we can list all these hard things and then what happens is we miss out on all the different ways where God has surrounded the enemies that are against us and he has overcome them. But for some reason, we don't see him because we're too busy looking at the enemy.
[00:16:56] And there's more for us.
[00:17:00] So I love how he transitions here.
[00:17:05] Notice in verse 20, this is how this power is evident. So if you think about a resume, this is the LinkedIn page for the Power of God. Here's the LinkedIn page. Okay. Notice in verse 20 that he worked this power that he worked in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come, the One to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
[00:17:46] Real quick.
[00:17:48] The power at work in you has a face, has a throne, has a body, and he has a name. His name is Jesus.
[00:17:59] That immeasurably great power toward us is evidenced by, and this is what Paul wants you to see. It's evidenced by the resurrection of Jesus. Notice, raised him from the dead. That power that is at work toward us is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
[00:18:12] The Old Testament measured God's power by creation, by the Exodus. Paul measures it by the empty tomb.
[00:18:21] It's the enemy every one of us will face, and Christ crushed it.
[00:18:25] The same power that saves us, the same power that sanctifies us. We'll hear Paul say again in chapter three, the power at work within us. Just as the cross is the highest display of God's love, the resurrection is the highest display of God's power.
[00:18:40] And then the second evidence he gives about the power of God. The power of God that was able to enthrone Jesus, seating him at his right hand. Jesus claimed it. He talked about it before the sanhedrin in Matthew 26, in Hebrews 1. He upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[00:18:56] And he does that sitting down.
[00:18:59] If he holds the whole cosmos sitting down, I think he can handle your problem. Problems.
[00:19:08] Then the third evidence is the supremacy of Jesus. Notice far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. He put all things under his feet. So think about this. All things that you and I happen to fear and get distracted by, they're below him.
[00:19:33] Every worry that keeps you up at night, all those things are below his feet.
[00:19:42] Every outcome that you may, like, really get bent out of shape about, that may never even happen under his feet.
[00:19:51] Even the things that may happen are under his feet.
[00:19:57] What if you and I just trusted in this power? What if we saw it? What if our eyes were open? The fourth evidence is the power placed Jesus as head, gave him as head over all things to the Church. He rules everything for the sake of his people. It's about Him.
[00:20:18] And notice what Paul calls the Church. The fullness of him. The fullness of Christ, who fills all in all.
[00:20:25] Christ fills the universe. And he fills the Church in a special way with his presence, his grace, and his gifts. He gives the Church. This is what's powerful. The greatest gift the Church gives is Christ Himself.
[00:20:37] And I want you to pay attention to the order here, okay? He's not telling the Ephesians to try harder to be more powerful. He's not telling us to do that. He prays that we would see the power that has already raised Christ from the dead.
[00:20:53] Just see that it's there, that your eyes would be enlightened to notice what he's already done, that he sits above everything that you and I may fear.
[00:21:02] Prayer isn't about getting God to fit into your plans. It's about asking him to open our eyes. And when he opens our eyes, we'll get to see what he's already done.
[00:21:14] So back to Dothan again. Not Lower Alabama.
[00:21:19] Elisha's servant was counting the army.
[00:21:23] And what happened when he did it, when he focused on the enemy. When he focused on the problem, he panicked.
[00:21:30] Elisha never did.
[00:21:32] He'd already seen who was on the mountain around the enemy. He'd already seen what God had done.
[00:21:39] Paul's praying that for the church, that we would see, that the eyes of our heart would see what God has already done.
[00:21:46] And what's great is it's not always a way out.
[00:21:50] Sometimes it's your eyes seeing what's already yours. It's already yours in Christ, a hope that is certain, an inheritance that's held already in your name, and the power that raised Christ from the dead.
[00:22:04] That power is aimed at you, but you got to see it.
[00:22:11] So three opportunities this week.
[00:22:15] What if you took time this week? And again, if you're walking with us through the book of Ephesians, what if you begin to journal? Like, what's one area where you've been counting the power and the number of the enemy while missing the opportunity that God has already provided and a way out in the middle of it? What if. And you wrote that down.
[00:22:38] What if this week, second thing. What if this week you knew of someone that could really benefit from having the eyes of their heart enlightened to see what God had done around them, and you begin to pray and just take verses 17 through 19 and pray that over that person this week, pray that God would just reveal himself, show himself, show his faithfulness to them.
[00:23:02] And then here, today, if you have never trusted Christ, I want you to see something. Notice the one who sits on the throne, it's Jesus. The one who conquered death and holds out his hands to you.
[00:23:17] He's not waiting for you to see everything clearly.
[00:23:21] Right now. You just need to see his hands reaching to you. He's inviting you to respond to him. So what I want to do is just pray that God in his grace would help us just walk these things out, respond in faith to his Word. Let's pray together. Father, in Jesus name, I thank you so much for this opportunity that you've given us as brothers and sisters just to dig into your Word. And I pray that you would just help us be good students of your word.
[00:23:49] Lord God, help us see what you've already done.
[00:23:54] And may that knowledge of what you've already done continue to fuel our hope and really the way that we live right now.
[00:24:01] Not just for the future, but for right now.
[00:24:04] So, Lord, we thank you for this. We trust you. We place our faith in you in Jesus name. Amen. Please stand as we sing.
