Main idea: Pray that you would know God better, thankful for the hope, riches, and power of the exalted Lord Jesus.
Thank God for making us belong to Him by faith (Ephesians 1:15-16a).
Pray that you would know God better by His Spirit’s work (Ephesians 1:16b-18a).
Worship the exalted Lord Jesus, whose power guarantees our future with Him (Ephesians 1:18b-23).
Automated Transcription
0:21 Good morning, Faith Bible Church. Morning. Let me add my welcome to all of you who are visiting as well. I'm glad that you're here with us, and I would love to meet you if you're new. Love to help you get connected with people in our church. Our goal is together to worship Jesus, and so what a what a joy to be going through Ephesians this morning. We start a new section in Ephesians, and I'm going to preach the first three verses of it, but kind of overview the whole section, and then the next few weeks we'll be looking at in more detail the last second and third part of that prayer. And really, it's a prayer, a thankful prayer to get to know God better. Like, what do we need in our lives? We need what Paul prays for here. We need to be thankful and get to know God better. And so, let's stand together. We're going to look at Ephesians chapter one, verses 15 to 23, and read that Ephesians 1:15 to 23. I'm going to see Paul's thankful prayer to know the Lord better. He says, "For this reason, because I have 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, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to 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, according to the working of his great might, 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 one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. God, we praise you for what you have done. You have been so gracious and kind to us to adopt us as your sons and daughters, not because we deserved it, but because of your amazing kindness and grace that you determined even before you created the world. Thank you, Christ, for purchasing us with your blood. Thank you, Spirit, for sealing us, for opening our eyes to see, to understand that Jesus really died for our sins and rose again. And I pray that this morning you would open the eyes of our hearts, help us to see clearly and to understand and be impacted by these truths. Fill us with gratitude and thankfulness as we think about all that you've done to us and for us, and all that you are, all that we are in you, God. I pray for those who are here this morning who are discouraged, who maybe feel like the gospel isn't true, maybe feel like your promises aren't happening for them. I pray that you'd help them strengthen their faith, strengthen all of our faith. Help us to see that you are better than our sin, that you are worthy in our suffering. Help us to be sustained by you and by a clear vision of you to love others, we pray for churches around our city. We ask that you would be working mightily to lift up your name through them. We pray for Grace Christian Fellowship Central over by Logan Elementary that you would help Brett Sweet and Dave Nelson and all the dear brothers and sisters there to to know you, to worship you faithfully, help them to make you known to each other and to their community. God, we pray for another church, altar church, close by in front of the Corbin Senior Center, where Dave Musser and others are are worshiping you. Pray that you would help them to faithfully proclaim the gospel, believe the gospel, live the gospel, encourage them, and help them to make you known over there.
3:35 God, we thank you for the the privilege we have of gathering right now. Help each one of us in this room, to know you, and we want to worship you more faithfully through what we see here in your word. We pray in your name, Amen. May be seated. When I started here at Faith Bible Church in 2014, Earl Dan was our counseling pastor, and Earl, if you didn't know him, went blind in his late teens. So he knew what it was like to see, and then he knew what it was like to lose his sight. But it was amazing hanging out with Earl. You would feel like he could see, like he would give you directions, places he could describe landmarks to you as if he were seeing. And I think I learned from Earl that sometimes people who can't see can see better than those who can see. And I want to read you an extended quote from Helen Keller. She wrote in 1933. If you don't know who Helen Keller is? She was born not being able to see or hear, so deaf and blind, and she overcame that and was able to to really be such a blessing in so many ways. And I want to read you this article that she wrote in the Atlantic Journal in 1933. It's longer, but just listen and let's learn some wisdom from Helen Keller. She says, "The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing. Only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly, does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life? But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties." Their eyes and ears taken all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill. I've often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight. Silence would teach him the joys of sound. Now and then, I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently, I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. Nothing in particular, she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses. For long ago, I became convinced that the seeing see little. How is it possible? I ask myself to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note. I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In the spring, I touch the branches of trees, hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening nature after her winter's sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower and discover its remarkable convolutions. And something of the miracle of nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, I am very fortunate, and I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open fingers. To me, a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me, the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my fingertips. At times, my heart cries out with the longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight? Yet those who who have eyes apparently see little. The panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted. It is human perhaps to appreciate little that which we have and to long for that which we have not.
6:53 But it is a great pity in that the world of light that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere convenience, rather than as a means of adding fullness to life, I, who am blind, can give one hint to those who see, one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight. Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind, and the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, of the electric guitar, the bass guitar, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch, as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste and relish, with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you would never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense, glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which God provides, but of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful. We listen to the wisdom of Helen Keller and we think, what a blessing to be able to see the glory of God on display in His creation. What a blessing to be able to hear the sounds of joy and sorrow in life. But what's even more important than sight, more important than hearing, is to be able to see God. Right to be able to know God. What does Hebrews 11 one say that faith is? Faith is the conviction of things not seen. Right, we who have been given the gift of faith, we who have the Word of God, who get to know God personally through Jesus, how often do we take for granted our knowledge of God? How often do we act like someone with amnesia or dementia? And something that we know, we stop knowing. Something that's true that we believe to be true, we stop acting like it's true. We need to see what we already have seen. We need to know what we already know. We need to know God better. What's the best thing that Jesus can give us? He healed many blind people, right? Remember the story in John nine, the man who was blind from birth, Jesus made the mud mud pies and put them on his eyes and told him to go wash in the in the in Siloam and the guy did that and he was healed, but the best thing that Jesus did was he revealed who God was. Right? He showed people God. He gave them the knowledge of God. John 17 three. What does it say? Eternal life is. It's to know God and His son Jesus. That is the gift, the greatest gift that we can all enjoy. And as much of a tragedy as it is to to not take advantage of and appreciate a sunset, or a beautiful concert, or to miss a show, or or some amazing song that was written, an even greater tragedy is for us to to not know God better and better every day. We have this opportunity to know Him better, to go deeper in our knowledge of God and our relationship with God, and that's what Paul prays for here in Ephesians one, because he knows that's what they need. They have a relationship with Jesus. They need to know Him better. He knows that they're going to face the same temptation that you and I are going to face to feel like the gospel is not true, to forget how good God is to forget how wonderful it is to be in Christ, and to not live out the realities of the gospel. So we need to learn from Paul. How do we live life seeing? How do we see what God wants us to see every day? We need to be thankful. We need to pray with thankfulness, as Paul shows us, and then we need to ask the Spirit to show us to open our eyes. To see what we've already believed, we need Him to open the eyes of our heart. Michael W. Smith wrote a song, which I'm going to sing a little bit of. I apologize in advance.
10:07 In 2001, it goes like this: Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I want to see you. That's what Paul is praying. He's praying that for them right here, in this passage, that they would see the Lord, that they would know Him better, as people who already know Him. He wants them to know Him better because that's what they need the most, and that's what you and I need. So we see our main idea: we should pray that we would know God better, thankful for the hope and riches and power of the exalted Lord Jesus, pray that you would know God better. Thankful for how you already know Him, right? So, look the first point there. Thank God for making us belong to Him by faith. Paul starts out with gratitude, and if you want to know God better and better each day, if you want to shake off the cobwebs of amnesia or dementia in your in your spiritual heart and your spiritual eyes, if you want to believe what you actually believe and act like you believe it, we need to be thankful. Start with thankfulness. Look at what he says in verse 15. For this reason, he's pointing back to what he's been praising God for in verses three through 14. For this reason, everything that he just said, he gives thanks in verse 16. I do not cease to give thanks for this reason. What are the reasons that he's giving thanks for? He's thanking God that He's given us every spiritual blessing in Christ, everything that God has given, that the Father's given to the Son, every favor, every love that the Father's given to the Son, He's given to us who are in Christ. Verse three of Ephesians one, every spiritual blessing. What are those blessings? We could summarize them by saying God makes us belong to Him. Verses four through six, the Father chooses us. He adopts us. What greater gift can we give God thanks for than He has adopted us as His sons and daughters into His family? Not because He looked forward and saw our performance and was impressed. He looked forward and saw all the sin, all the brokenness, all the rebellion. But He chose because of purely because of the goodness of His own gracious, merciful heart to choose us to belong to him, to be holy and blameless. Paul gives thanks for that, and we should give thanks for that if we're in Christ, right? Secondly, we see in verses seven through 12, not only did God adopt us to be his sons and daughters, Christ purchased us to be his bride. With his blood he shed on the cross, with his death on the cross he redeemed us to bring us under His rule, to bring us into His His as His treasured possession, as His bride, as His beloved. And then we see in verses 13 to 14 that if we've believed in Christ, we've been sealed by the Holy Spirit to guaranteeing that we're forever going to belong to God. Those things that we just sang in those songs, we can be confident in the power of Christ that we stand in-that we are going to belong to God forever. No sin that you commit, no suffering that you go through. If you are in Christ, if you belong to Him, and He belongs to you, He will overcome that in you and through you. And so Paul gives thanks, and these are reasons we should give thanks, right? If you want to shake off the the blindness, appreciate something even greater than a walk through the woods for an hour, give thanks to God for making you belong to Him in Christ. Paul gives us all these amazing reasons why we should give thanks, why we should be rejoicing. And how does he know that the Ephesians have participated in this blessing that he's describing? Look at verse 15. Says, "Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love to all the saints. So Paul is giving thanks for the reason of all the blessings they have in Christ, and he knows that they have participated in those blessings because they have faith in the Lord Jesus. It says, having heard, Paul was with them five or six years earlier.
13:32 He'd been in Ephesus up to maybe 55 A.D. and now he's writing this from prison, so probably 60 to 62 A.D. And he's heard from Tychicus. We think that these people are continuing to believe. Many of those that he already knew have continued in the faith, and so he's giving thanks. Their faith didn't just get them in to relationship with Christ; it's continuing, and now others have believed as well. I'm sure, and so he's thankful for new people that have been added through their faith. What is faith? What does it mean to have faith in Christ? Like Arceus Paul said, the faith is it's three things: it's knowing what the truth is, it's agreeing that it's true, and then trusting the truth. Right? Like I can know the truth that this is a what is this thing a music stand? I don't know. I can know this is a music stand. I can agree it's a music stand, but am I going to trust it as something I'm going to stand on? If I did, I would probably fall over and someone have to come help me from the front row there because I would be hurt. This I'm not going to trust in this. Like you could tell me this is going to be a great platform for you to stand on. I wouldn't believe it. I wouldn't trust. When we have faith in Christ in the Lord Jesus, we believe that He is God. Come to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, rose again, risen to heaven. He's going to return one day and reign forever. We know that we agree with it. The demons are all the way up to there, right? They know and agree, but they don't. They don't trust. They don't love. They don't. They don't submit. And so faith-that's saving, the faith that the Ephesians had that Paul gives thanks for-trusts in Jesus. And so then you enter in that relationship with Him by faith. He gives you faith. Ephesians two eight. Says he's given us the gift of faith, so that we can have this vertical relationship with God, where we know Him and are loved by Him. And then, what does that result in? The last thing that He gives thanks for here in verse 15, they have love for all the saints. What is love? One commentator said that love is that which seeks to give rather than possess. Give rather than possess. Always seeking the good or the will of God in the one loved, love seeks the highest good in the one loved. What's best for the other person, regardless of the cost. That's what Paul is thanking God for in the Ephesians. That they love, they want what's best for the people around them, and particularly they want what's best for the other saints. Who are the saints? They're not people that have done some kind of miracle and have been recognized. They're people in Christ. Everyone who is trusted in Christ is set apart. They belong to God. They're saints. So Paul is thankful that they have love for all the saints, not just the ones they get along with really well, but love for for all the saints, the unlovable, the more difficult, the ones they have to bear with. They have love for other believers. Listen to what Jesus says in John 1334 and 35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. This is the sign of people being in Christ, that they have truly received Jesus, that they have faith in Him, is that they're going to love each other. Right? That vertical love that we receive, we express it horizontally, not perfectly, but we actually love other Christians. First John says that if I say I love God, who I can't see, but I don't love my brother or sister, who I can see, I don't really know God. Not that our loving each other causes us to be saved, but it's it's a fruit of that root that we have a relationship with God. If we have a relationship with Jesus, we're going to love others. So Paul gives thanks for that.
16:39 He thanks God that they are in Christ, that they have all these blessings, that they have faith, and that they're showing love to each other. He rejoices, and we should do the same thing, right? We should give thanks when you wake up and roll out of bed. If you're like me, maybe you're tempted to grab your phone and kind of start checking out information. We should wake up and thank God. Thank you for making me belong to you for choosing me. Thank you for purchasing me on the cross, Jesus. Thank you for giving me your Spirit. Thank you for giving me faith. Help me to express that faith now and love today. Like we should give thanks. Look around the room. Like we should give thanks to God for all the people in this room who have faith in Christ. You don't know. We don't all know each other, right? But you probably know some people here that have trusted in Christ, and that's something to give thanks for. It's a sign that God is keeping His promises. He's making a people for Himself. Your faith, your love for for others, your faith in Jesus. It's evidence that God is working. He is doing what He promised to do, and making a people, a family, a kingdom for Himself through His church. And so we give thanks. Think about the 1000s of people in our city who are part of other churches. We give thanks to God for them. That's why we pray for them. We're thankful that we are part of a bigger family of God in in this city, and then even in our country, millions in the world, if not billions in history, of people who have believed in Christ. We give thanks. God is so kind and gracious to not only save you and me, but to save so many others, we give thanks for the ones in Venezuela that we know, who have been suffering with the earthquake aftermath in Guatier, where Dan Lois Belch started a church, in Cati Lamar, in the Amazons, where Gabriel Sanchez is. We give thanks. We give thanks for the believers in Czech Republic, where many people are right now about to celebrate Logan and Lydia getting married next week. We give thanks for that church that gathers together and faithfully loves the Lord. We give thanks for the church in London, where the DNs are growing their family right and safely having a baby. We give thanks. We give thanks for the the church in Papua New Guinea. Rushio's are going to watch this later. Hi, Rushios. Frank, Jacqueline, Frankie, Toby, Logan, Hannah. They're in Papua New Guinea, helping the church be established among unreached language groups, language groups in the the Finister Mountains. Right, we're thankful. We're thankful for you. We're thankful for the people that God is saving and the the people groups up in those little mountains in those remote villages. We're thankful for the people in Nepal who gathered on the hallway on Saturday night, for the ones in Nepal that that some of you are in the room here are ministering to. We're thankful, right? Thankful for God's work in Southeast Asia, in Java, in Sulawesi, in Papua. We're thankful for what God is doing. So I encourage you to give thanks. One of you who was our global partner in Southeast Asia before shared a Thanksgiving this week for someone who's believed from one of these unreached groups. We give thanks with you. Thank God that He's saving people from all the tongues and tribes and nations of the world, and we pray for them. So I encourage you: if you're sitting in this room and you haven't put your faith in Jesus, if you're trusting in yourself, if you're trusting in being religious or trusting in being a good person, maybe not sure that there's a way to be saved. I want to encourage you: put your faith in Jesus. He is the way to experience all these blessings from God, to have Jesus as your Lord, as your Savior. That is our deepest longing for you. That you would know Christ, that you would love Him, that you would be forgiven by Him. He freely will forgive you and save you if you trust in Him. That's our prayer for you, and then we would give thanks for you as well, because.
19:59 God's grace in your life. So, what does Paul do for these people that he's thankful for? What should we do as we're thankful for God's work in our lives? We should pray. The second point: pray that God that you would know God better by the by His Spirit's work. Pray that you would know Him better. You know, to go back to Helen Keller's example, you walk through the woods, you appreciate that it's beautiful, but then you walk through the woods again and appreciate it again, right? We should pray. What Paul is praying here is that we would not only be thankful in the very beginning for what Jesus has done and who He is and who we are in Him, but be thankful in an ongoing, deeper and deeper way, as we know God better and better. That is the thing that we need every day: is to know Him better. And so Paul is praying here that the Spirit would help them know God better. He says, "Remembering you in my prayers, verse 16. He's he's remembering them, praying for them, asking God for them. And who is who is Paul praying to? Look at verse 17. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. This is the audience to whom Paul prays, and the one to whom we pray. Who is this God? Remember in the Old Testament they would call God the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is how they knew who he was. He'd revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was their God, and now how has God ultimately and perfectly been revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ? He is the one who makes God known. How do we know that there is a God? Jesus has come to Earth. He has shown us through His teaching, through His miracles, through His life that God is real. He's shown us that we can trust the Bible. He's shown us what God's intentions are in making a people for Himself. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who shows us God. This is the Christian God, the God of Christ, the only true God, the Creator. He's the one that Jesus is revealing. What do we see about Jesus from the way that Paul talks about God? He says, "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ. We see He's Lord. He's Master. He's not just the one that comes alongside and takes the wheel when you feel like it, and then you're taking the wheels other times. Like He's the one that's Lord. He's the Creator. He wants to steer our lives and be our Master. And He's the one who's worthy of that. He is King. He's relational. It says our Lord. He wants to relate to us and be our Lord together. He's with us. He's a real person, Jesus of Nazareth. That's His name, historical person who lived. He's the Christ, the Messiah. The Christ means anointed one. He's the King coming back to reign, the King of the Jews, the King of all the nations. He is the King of Kings, and He came into the world as the light of the world and gives sight to all who trust in Him. That's who Paul prays to, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ. And secondly, Paul prays to the Father of glory, the glorious Father. Right? What is glory? The glory is the reflection of the essence of one's being. It's it's your your splendor, your power, your radiance. All of us have some glory, right? But how great is our glory? Like it pales in comparison to God's glory. Like I think about something that is a little bit glorious that some of us are enjoying these days: the World Cup. Like I'm going to watch Spain and Argentina play, and I've got my red shirt under here with my blue. You can guess who I'm cheering for. We used to live in Spain, so go España. But that's a it's a it's a thing where there's lots of glory for a moment. Like what does the Spanish announcer say? Not the English ones, but the Spanish ones. For about 20 seconds. He says, "Go right because it's it's worthy of a little bit of glory. How much glory? Maybe 20 seconds.
23:09 It's it's pretty cool that they've scored a goal there. That takes a lot of talent. How worthy is God of glory, of recognition, of everyone cheering and being excited? Like we're gonna sing for all of eternity, like they're singing in Revelation four and five. We're gonna sing because God is so amazing. Those Spanish announcers being excited for 20 seconds is gonna be like the smallest thing compared to all of us, with everyone from every tongue and tribe and nation that Christ has purchased praising Him and saying, "You are amazing, God. You are worthy of honor and glory and praise, recognition. His glory, his power, his majesty is far greater. He is the one who's worthy of all praise. He is glorious. He's a glorious Father. Why does Paul say the Father of glory? He's emphasizing his generosity, his power as Father to fulfill his promises, to care for his children. Look at Luke 11 verses nine through 13. We see what Jesus teaches us about God as the glorious Father. This is the God to whom we pray. He is not stingy. Jesus says, "And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then are evil, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? How generous is God? Like us dads in this room. Like if your kid asks you for for what does he say here for a fish, are you going to give him a snake instead? Would you do that? Did you give your kid a venomous snake instead of a fish? No. If your kid asks you for some bread for a cookie, are you going to give him a rock? Like we're not even that good as dads, and we're not going to do that. How much more is God, as the glorious Father, going to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Right, and so that gets us to Paul's prayer request here. He says in verse 17 that God may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of Him. So there is some debate. Is he talking about giving them the Holy Spirit to minister to them, or is he talking about giving them a little less spirit, and different translations have that different ways. But think about what he's asking for: the God, the Father of glory, would give them the spirit or a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Who is it that gives wisdom and gives revelation? It's it's the Holy Spirit, right? But these people already have the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 113 and 14. So he's not asking that they receive the Holy Spirit for the first time. He's praying that the Holy Spirit would minister to them and give them wisdom and revelation. The Holy Spirit was already in them; that He would minister to them and help them to know God better. Let's think about what wisdom is and what revelation is. Wisdom is true insight into the nature of things. It's a deep understanding, seeing how something applies. Like we just sang, "Here in the power of Christ I stand. So let's imagine in a circumstance you're struggling because everything is falling apart. Maybe your body is falling apart. Maybe your house is falling apart. Maybe your kids are falling apart. Maybe your marriage is falling apart. I don't know what's falling apart, but there's something falling apart. And your reaction to that is like, "This is not good. I'm angry. And you're struggling with with being angry. You you see your own part in it falling apart. So you're feeling guilty, shameful, maybe. What does it mean? What is what is wisdom in that situation?
26:27 It seems how it applies that you are in Christ, in the power of Christ, in the redemption of Christ, in the forgiveness of Christ, in the hope of Christ, in the the riches of Christ. How does that apply to that situation? How can you be composed and trust Christ when you're facing a situation that makes you feel like it's not true, like the gospel's not true. We need the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our heart to give us wisdom to help us to see how it applies that we're in Christ. If you're in Christ and you're being tempted to sin, how does it being in Christ apply to that? How do you trust in Jesus and say no to that temptation to sin, to follow your flesh, and how do you say yes to obeying Him and loving Him and worshiping Him as supremely worthy? The Holy Spirit helps us to have wisdom to see what it means that you're in Christ. The second word there He talks about is revelation. Revelation is something hidden being unveiled, something that cannot be discovered by human investigation. One theologian says it's not a revelation of a new truth, but an illuminating work of the Spirit to impress already revealed truth about God into the conscious reflections and heartfelt convictions of the readers. In other words, he's saying it's not that we need new information; we need to believe what we already know is true. Like I know Jesus died for my sin, I need to see and understand how that applies to this situation where I'm tempted to to be really angry, or to be very greedy, or lustful, or to give up, to lose hope. I need to see what the truth of what I already believe means. Like one of my friends here at church says, I need to believe what I believe. Do I believe what I believe? Like the guy that Jesus was helping, and he said, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Like we're all torn so many times, we have this this battle in us to believe what we believe, to act like it's true. And I want to encourage you, as Paul prays here, that God would give the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the Ephesians. He wants to do that for us. He wants to help you see what you already know is true and believe it and understand it. God is generous and He wants to give us greater understanding of the things that we already know. He wants us to know Him better. It's not going to be some secret like, "Oh, I need to use this vegetable so I can defeat my sin or endure suffering. Like, no, it's going to be about Jesus. It's going to be about trusting Jesus. If you think the revelation is something else, it's probably not not from God. Like, it's going to be from Scripture. The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God. It's the sword of the Spirit. Ephesians 617 He's going to help us to see what we what we know is true and to understand it, to see what it means. It's illumination. Like imagine you're Batman with your belt of all those things that you have, but it's dark and you're like, "Where's the where's the thing I need to beat the bad guy? Like illumination. Like oh, flashlight. You can see. Get your then you can find the tool and you can use it, like showing you what you have. You have forgiveness. You have the Holy Spirit. You have power. You have hope. Use it. Trust Him. Know Him. He's praying that we would have more influence from the all-wise Spirit. That we'd have a deeper, more intimate knowledge of God. Look at what He says at the end of that that phrase. There, give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. That knowledge is not just knowing about Him; it's knowing Him personally. Like you might know about a famous person, a political figure, or you might know about Leonardo Messi or some other famous soccer player, but do you know Him? Right. This is knowledge of God, intimate, personal knowledge. He prayed that the Spirit would help them to know God personally and better, and grow in their knowledge of God, go deeper in their knowledge of God.
29:46 This is the result of the Spirit working in us. He helps us to see that God is better, that He's worthy. He's better than Jesus is better than our sin. He's worthy to endure suffering for. We see that He is who He says He is. He opens their eyes to see and to trust. What did the psalmist pray in Psalm 119 verse 18? He says, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. He's not praying that God would create wonderful things in His law. They're already there, right? The forest is already beautiful. The psalmist is praying, "God, help me to see how wonderful your rule is! To see how wonderful your character, your glory is. How many times do you get up in the morning or the lunch or nighttime when you read the Bible and you read through the Bible and you're like, oh, it kind of just goes in one ear, out the other ear. You feel like your heart is kind of the same as when you started. Like, ah, I still just kind of want to go do a project because that feels like that might be more helpful or meaningful. Or I just want to go eat something now. Can I just get through this and go eat some breakfast? Like, sometimes we don't really value the knowledge of God and what His Word is saying. We need the Spirit to to open our eyes, to minister to us, to help us to see the reality of these things, to appreciate how great it is what He's written here, what He's given us in Himself. He wants to open the eyes of our heart, like when we sing together, and I love it when we have a five-song Sunday. We had four songs before the sermon. We're gonna have one after the sermon. Sometimes when we have a three-song before, one song after, it's it's usually my fault because I'm doing some global outreach thing or some local outreach thing. So that's mostly my fault. But when we have a four-song before the sermon, I'm like, yeah. Why is that exciting? Because when we sing together about these truths from Scripture, from the gospel, God uses that to help our hearts to say, "Yeah, that's true. I believe that. That matters. That's that gives me joy. That truth is real. God uses the singing of the word to help us. The Spirit opens up our eyes of our heart. He massages those things into our hearts so that we believe them and and we're we're affected in how we live by these truths. It's the same thing that we pray happens when we preach. When you read the Bible, when you study the Bible in your small group, when you meet with somebody one on one and read the Bible together, that the Spirit would open up your eyes to see what's going on there, to really know Him better. So I encourage you, when you're not sure how to pray for yourself, you're not sure how to pray for others, ask God, the Spirit, to help them to help you to know God better. That's what we need. We need to know God better. That's our greatest need every day: is to see these things that are already revealed in Scripture to believe them. Listen to First Corinthians 10 or two talks about the illumination of the Spirit. First Corinthians two verse 10, Paul says, "These things God has revealed to us through His through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. For the Spirit helps us to believe that this is true. He helps us to see what it means in our lives. He does the ministry of illumination, like He illumines. He opens up our eyes to see. When Paul talks about in Ephesians 518 he says, "Be filled with the Spirit.
32:54 How does that happen? When the Word of Christ dwells in us richly, parallel Colossians 316 with Ephesians 518 the word of Christ is dwelling in us richly. The Spirit is filling us. He's influencing us. He's affecting us. He's characterizing us. That's what He wants to do. He wants to help us to see Jesus in the Scriptures as we trust in Him. He helps us. He wants to help us to love Him and to know Him better. Can you count on the Holy Spirit to do this to help you when you ask Him? Like if I pass the soccer ball to Leonardo Messi, is he going to make a good pass? Is he going to score a goal? If I pass the ball to Jude Bellingham from England, is he going to make a good pass or score a goal? Probably. But how much more reliable is the Holy Spirit? He's not going to fumble. He's not going to kick the ball over the goal. Like he's going to, using the analogy, he's going to help us to know God better. He's going to convict us. He's going to strengthen us. He's going to encourage us as you're going through trials, as you're suffering. What can you do? Look to Christ in God's Word and ask the Spirit to help you to see, to believe, to be impacted by these realities that we see in Scripture. Go to your brother, your sister in Christ. Look at God's Word together. Look to the Spirit to work in you to massage those truths into your heart. Then, what's the result? Look at verse 18: having the eyes of your heart enlightened, enlightenment for your eyes of your heart. That's that's a it's something that's that's completed and it's having ongoing effect. And I think that this verse 18 is talking about something that happens to you at salvation, and and it's also the result of the ongoing ministry of the Spirit, it's kind of both. Like, listen to Second Corinthians four, verse four. He says, "In thir case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, and who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What happens at salvation? God shines light so you see who Jesus is and you believe in Him. If you're sitting here today and you haven't believed in Him, that's our prayer for you. That you would see that Jesus is is God. He came to earth and He died for you and He rose again. He's worthy of loving. Trusting-that's what happened at salvation, as we all saw who Jesus was and trusted Him. And what happens as Paul prays this prayer in verse 17, that the Spirit would give us wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of God? What happens as you go deeper in the knowledge of God? You're going to see and be impacted by again and again by Christ. The Spirit keeps enlightening, keeps helping us to see who God is. It's like what verse 18 of Second Corinthians three says: We all, with unveiled face, beholding ongoing the glory of the Lord, are being transformed, ongoing again into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. As we behold Christ, as we see Jesus through the scriptures, by the ministry of the Spirit, the eyes of our heart are enlightened, and we begin to be transformed to be like Him. The more we get to know Him, the more we become like Him. Like I've been getting to know Julie, my wife, for about 22 years, 23 years, and she is impacting me as I get to know her better. I'm learning how to love her better. She's helping me learn how to love other people, like in Costco, for example.
36:00 I I just want to stand in the middle of the aisle and talk to somebody and like if someone gets blocked by my cart, oh well, like they'll figure out how to get around me. My wife, on the other hand, is very considerate, very thoughtful, so she's like, let's get out of the way because our cart is blocking the traffic. So I'm learning as I get to know her better to love her by moving out of the way because I don't want to be unloving towards her. And furthermore, she's impacting me, and I'm thinking, you know, I should be loving other people. I should care about other people in Costco. My flesh leader response is not to care, but but she's helping me grow in caring. As you get to know God better and better, as the Spirit ministers to you, you're going to become more like Him. Ephesians four through six is going to happen. You're going to live like God is. You're going to think like God thinks, you're going to understand His perspective on things, and know Him better, and worship Him more, and obey Him more because the Spirit is working in you. So I encourage you: pray to God, the Spirit, that He would open the eyes of your heart to see and to trust Him, to know Him better, to love Him. That's what we need. That's how. That's what we do when we're not feeling it. When we're feeling like it's not true. We look to God, we look to His Word, and we trust the Spirit to help us. The Spirit wants you to hear the Word of God. He wants you to see Jesus. That's what He's going to do as He works in you. This last point from the rest of verse 18 through verse 20-three, I'm going to just briefly touch on. Then Dan's going to preach it over the next couple weeks. But we see that we should worship the exalted Lord Jesus, whose power guarantees our future with Him, as you're thankful, as the Spirit is helping you to know God better, you're going to worship Jesus, who's exalted because of His great power and the wonderful future we have with Him. Look at what He says here in verse 18. He says that you may know what is the hope to 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? Three things, right? Hope, riches, and power. What is hope? It's confidence in what God has promised for your future, your future with God. What did Dan just preach about or talk about in the class first hour? Many of you were in there. Our hope-that's our hope. We're going to see Jesus face to face, First John three two and we're going to become like him. How does that hope encourage you now? One John three three. You want to purify yourself. You want to be like him because you you know you're going to be like him one day. Philippians 321 He says that Christ has this power to transform everything, to conform everything to his image. He's going to conform us to his image. We're going to be like him under his rule. Ephesians one four says he chose us to be holy and blameless. That is the hope, and as you get to know God better, you're more and more confident in the future that He's promised you. That He's going to move you along towards holiness and blamelessness, towards Christlikeness. So you trust Him because you know Him, and you want to be like Him because you're seeing Jesus more and more. So you're like, I want to be like Christ. So he helps us to to trust that hope that he's given us. The second thing is is the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. What is this talking about? Remember, a couple weeks ago, Dan talked about is it God inheriting us or us inheriting God, and both are true, right? This is talking about the riches of God's inheritance in the saints. He gets us to be his people. It's talking about the value that we are that we have to God is that because we're so amazing on our own? No, but God's chosen us.
39:06 He's made us His people, and so we are valuable because we're we're Christ's bride. We're God's sons and daughters, and so there's great value, great riches, and glory, and and being those who are His people. Look at Ephesians two verse seven. This is the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints says that he raised us up with Christ, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. That's the riches of his inheritance, immeasurable riches of his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus for all of eternity, an unending succession of days of time with God. He's going to be showing us the riches of His kindness in Christ Jesus. We're going to be on the new earth eating some kind of food that'll taste better than than Joe's brisket. We'll be like, how did you do this, God? And He's going to help us. Joe might even be helping us, like make even better stuff. Like we'll be cooking the fruit. I don't know. Maybe maybe there's no death, so there's no there's definitely no death for us, but. There's no death for animals too. I don't know, but anyway, it's going to be amazing the unending riches of His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. That should excite us as we look forward to living forever on the new earth under the reign of Christ. No more corrupt governments, no more selfish leaders, no more the earth being cursed and groaning and people dying from earthquakes and all kinds of other tragedies. We get to look forward to the riches of God showing His kindness to us in Christ. And how do we know this is going to happen? Look at verse 19. The third thing that that we understand as we know Him better and the Spirit ministers to us is the greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might. We see our identity in Christ, but how are we capable of being that it's God's power. We see God's promises, but how is He going to make those promises come to pass? It's His power. He wants us to see His power in this passage. How great is His power? Look at verses 20 to 20-three. It's the power that rose Jesus from the dead, the power that seated Jesus at God's right hand above all authorities and rulers and names, the power that put Him that put everything under His feet in subjection to him, in the power that gave Jesus as head over all things to the church, that is the greatness of his power. God's power is so great. So as you're facing that situation that makes you want to complain, makes you want to doubt that the gospel is true, makes you want to think that you're still condemned. Trust God's power. His power is great towards you. You don't have to sin by complaining and grumbling. You don't have to sin by being selfish. You don't have to to not see how great God is. He can give you power. He can enable you in your spirit by His Spirit to trust Him, to know Him better. He explains of what this power has done in chapter two, one through 10. It rose us up with Christ from being dead spiritually and being alive with Him, it's the same power that 211 through 22 describes made us go from being far away from God to being near God as His people, Jews and Gentiles together. It's the same power that He prays would operate in us in chapter three, so that Christ would be living fully and richly through us. And then the power that acts so that chapter four through six happens. We can have unity. We can walk in love towards one another, we can build each other up. We can be godly in our jobs, in our relationships, in our homes, in our families, in our in our ethics, in our morals. We can be like Christ because His power is acting. Do you need to have a renewed view of God's power every day? I do. I need to see clearly every day that God's power is great. He wants to change us and work in us to make us like Christ, and that's what He's doing.
42:23 So we can trust Him. We can get to know Him better and better. Remember Helen Keller's encouragement from 1933. After living a life without sight and hearing, don't take for granted the gift of sight, and even more so, don't take for granted the gift of faith. You have seen. If you know Christ, you have seen who God is through Christ. Get to know Him better every day. There's nothing better than knowing God more and more, becoming more and more like Him, getting His help. So think about that situation that you're going to face this week, where you're going to be tempted to to not believe the gospel is true. You're going to be tempted towards spiritual amnesia or spiritual dementia. Think about that situation. Give thanks to God for all that you have in Christ, for all that Christ is to you, that you belong to Him. Ask the Spirit to help you to see that the promises of the gospel are true, to help you to know God better through Christ by His Spirit, and worship Jesus. He's exalted. He's reigning, regardless of the sin, the suffering, the struggle in our lives, Christ is reigning on His throne. Regardless of the brokenness we see in the world, Christ is reigning. We can worship Him. We can trust Him. We can love Him. So I want to finish with Michael W. Smith singing this together. If you want to sing, if you know this song, if you were born before 2001, you might know the song. So we're not going to sing the whole thing, but we'll just do the first like couple little things here. So this is our prayer to God, right? That He would open the eyes of our heart. So, sing it together if you want to. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see You. I want to see You. Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you. I want to see you. To see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory, pour out your power and love as we sing, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. Let's pray. Sorry to cut you off. You're doing a good job, God. We thank you that you are holy, and we do pray that you would open the eyes of our hearts more and more each day to see you, to know you more intimately, to appreciate the depths of your grace, the glory of your grace. You are the glorious Father. We worship you, Jesus. You are a great and mighty Savior. You are exalted above all, and we ask Spirit that you would help us. To see you, to see Christ, to appreciate, to live in the wisdom and the the knowledge of Christ, that who Christ is and who we are in Christ would impact every aspect of our lives. God, we we long to see you receiving the worship and the praise that you deserve to receive every day. Help us to trust in you and to seek to know you more. Amen.
Nathan Thiry is the Growth Groups & Outreach Pastor at Faith Bible Church. He enjoys biking and outdoor activities, and has a passion to see the gospel spread throughout our community and the whole world!
