Scripture reading; Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Paul’s Prayer

Ephesians 1:15–23 (NASB95)

introduction

If you brought your bibles turn with me over to the book of Ephesians chapter one. The book of Ephesians chapter one and in a moment we are going to read Vs. 15-23 of Ephesians chapter one. The tittle of the message this morning is Paul’s Prayer.

There is a lot of conversation in the world today about the decline of the Christian faith. Especially in America where we have seen an incredible decline over the years of those who believe in God. Pew research reported in 2019, 65% of Americans describe themselves as Christian, that is down from 90% in 1990. Meanwhile those claiming to be atheist or agnostic are up to 26% of our population.

But, as Christians we can’t blame the culture for the decline of our faith. Certainly, sin and selfishness have a powerful draw on the people of the world. But I think a bigger problem is a lack of genuine love and concern for each other in the church.

The Bible teaches us an important characteristic of our faith is to love other Christians. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples.” By what? “Your love for one another.”

So, instead of looking out at the world and questioning why they don’t believe, we need to look inside ourselves and ask what do we do wrong. Why is there so little love in the church today?

I think the most obvious answer is we neglect to pray for each other. When you love someone you pray for them, yet we fail to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ. I don’t think we do it on purpose, I think many of us fail to pray for each other because we seldom remember to pray for ourselves. But I can’t help but wonder how powerful and effective our faith would be, and the impact we could have on the world, if we were praying for each other to grow in the wisdom and knowledge of God.

That is the example the apostle Paul sets for us in our passage this morning. He teaches us that we should be praying for each other, and we should be praying specifically that we would grow deeper in our relationship with God. (Eph. 1:15-23)

For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,

16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;

17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might

20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,

21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,

23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Pray)

In our passage this morning, Paul is praying for God’s work to be done in the life of believers at Ephesus, He expresses the gratitude of his heart to God for these people.

So, he begins with a word of encouragement, thinking of what he has heard about them. Remember Paul spent three years at Ephesus, so he was very close to the people. But a lot of time has passed, and He is in prison now. It is obvious by the language of this letter, Paul doesn’t know all these people he is writing to, yet he is still praying for them.

What we learn from this passage is; Christians should pray for each other to grow deeper in their understanding of God and His strength. There are three principles from Paul’s prayer that should inspire us to pray.

The first thing I want you to see is the reason for Paul’s prayer, Vs. 15-16. Why did Paul pray? What was in his heart for these people? Well, It was all about their faith in Christ and their love for the saints.

Notice Vs. 15 begins with the phrase, “For this reason” That takes us back to the previous verses in chapter one. Where Paul praised God because they had been chosen by the Father, they had been redeemed by the Son, and they had been sealed by the Spirit.

Paul says, that’s why I pray for you. It’s because of the blessings of God that we share together. It is because of this common bond of belonging to Jesus. I want you to know I feel that way about each person in this room. We have something in common that we don’t have with anyone else in this world. We serve God together, we share our faith together, and for that reason, we should want to bless one another.

That is what Paul is doing here, he is praising God, and praying for the people. Those are the two most important things we can do for each other. I am reminded of Jesus, when He said, the greatest commandment is to love the lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.

That is what Paul wanted to do. He wanted to be a blessing to the Ephesians. Why? because he loved the Lord, and he loved people. That attitude should be reflected in the life of every believer.

Notice Vs. 15 Paul was thankful for two reasons; “Their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints.” Those are two very important characteristics of being a Christian. If you want to evaluate yourself, and see if your faith is genuine , this is where it all begins.

Ask yourself this; in whom do I believe and who do I prefer to be with? Because you cannot be a Christian if you do not have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and fellowship with other believers.

There is a lot of fellowship we can have in the world. I have a friend whose son plays travel hockey and he and his wife are close to the other families on the team. They travel the country together, they eat meals together, they drink together, They have a great time together centered around the hockey team, but all that takes place in the hotel bars.

There is only one type of fellowship that is centered around the Lord Jesus Christ and that takes place in the church, in the house of worship where we gather to honor His name. You can have fellowship with many people in many ways that has nothing to do with Jesus, but faith in God is centered around the fellowship of the church.

Those who belong to the Lord are a part of the body of Christ. So, you can tell if someone is a genuine believer or not by the priority they place on Jesus and the preference of who they want to be with. And what we learn from Paul is a genuine believer wants to see God’s people blessed and growing in their faith. Why? Because it makes the church stronger.

1 John 3:14 says, “We know we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. So, according to John our love for one another is a good litmus test of our salvation. My dad use to always say, “a Christian should never have to learn to love another Christian. We should sense their faith in our spirit and automatically be connected to that person.”

Notice Paul’s commitment to prayer Vs 16 says, “I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers.” Now that doesn’t mean Paul spent every moment of the day, on his knees praying for the Ephesians. If you remember what we learned from the book of Daniel is it was the Jewish custom to pray three times a day. So, most likely that’s what this means here, three times a day Paul would lift them up in prayer, and he would mention them by name.

Let me ask you this; Who can you be praying for? How can you commit to being a blessing to them? How can you regularly remind yourself to do so?

The first principle that should inspire us to pray is, we have a reason to pray for each other. We share the blessings of belonging to Jesus, so, we should want to be a blessing to each other. That was the reason for Paul’s prayer.

In addition to Paul’s reason for prayer, the next thing I want you to see is the purpose of Paul’s prayer. Vs. 17-19. Paul had a specific purpose in mind for God’s people. He wanted to see them grow in their knowledge of God. As Christians we should want to pray for one another to grow because the whole body of Christ benefits from strong believers.

Most of us are perfectly happy to hear about someone who is living in faith, but not Paul, he prayed for more. Vs. 17 says, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

Notice that it is God the Father who grants us the Spirit of wisdom. This is speaking of the Holy Spirit of course. Paul is praying for the fullness of God, the whole Trinity to be at work in their lives.

Wisdom is the knowledge of God applied to our life. It means putting the Word of God to work. We want to be doers of the Word and not hearers only, and it is the Holy Spirit that teaches us to do that. Most of us barely use the knowledge of God we have because we lack wisdom.

That’s why James tells us in James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given.” So, you see God wants to grant us wisdom. He wants us to grow in our understanding of the Word and apply it to our life, but He also wants us to ask for it.

I am amazed at how many Christians today think there is no reason to pray. After all, God already knows what we need. But that is not what the Bible teaches us. We are meant to always pray.

In Luke 18 Jesus tells the parable of the unrighteous judge, and He teaches us to keep praying and never give up. It’s a story of a widow who is seeking justice from a judge who refuses to help her. But because she keeps coming back the Judge has to grant her request.

That story is meant to teach us to not give up, but to keep going to God in Prayer because He is not like the unrighteous judge. But He is our Father who wants to answer our prayers, and He wants to give us wisdom.

Notice Vs. 18 as Paul continues to pray. He says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.” I can’t help but think about how this reminds me of the great hymn by John Newton, Amazing Grace. He said, “I once was lost but now I’m found, I once was blind but now I see.”

Interestingly that was Paul’s own testimony. Remember it was Paul who was converted on the road to Damascus. After persecuting Christians, he was knocked from his horse and his eyes were blinded. And Luke tells us a man named Ananias prayed for him to receive his sight, and something like scales fell from his eyes so that he could see. That’s a picture of the spiritual condition of every human being until we realize Jesus is Lord.

The eyes of our heart is a metaphor Paul uses throughout his writings and we see it here in Vs 18. When Paul says, the eyes of our hearts he is talking about the center of our existence. The the headquarters of who we are. Our minds, will, and emotions. There is a veil over that whole thing and Paul says, only in Christ can it be removed.

So, just as a child is born into the world and can’t see everything there is to see, when we are born again, as a new creation in Christ, we cannot see everything we need to see either. We need the eyes of our heart to be enlightened so we can see the blessings that belong to us in Christ.

In Vs. 3-15 he laid out all of these amazing blessings we have in Christ and now he says, “can you really see them.” That should be our prayer for each other, that we can see the blessings of God.

Paul is not finished yet, but he continues to pray in Vs. 18. He prays they could grasp “the hope of His calling” He is talking about our salvation here and the full completion of our redemption in heaven. We have been chosen in the past, we believe in the present, and our hope is in the future.

You had to know Paul would get around to talking about hope in this passage. Because Faith, hope, and love are the three essentials that mark every Christians life. They are the glue that bonds our heart to Jesus. And because of their faith and love Paul prayed they could know the hope of Christ.

But he is still not finished, Paul continues in Vs. 18 and he prays they would know, “The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” This is amazing to me because this isn’t just talking about what we receive from God, but this is talking about what God receives in us. This is talking about the value God places on your life and mine. We are His inheritance, think about that.

We think of inheritance as possessions being transferred after a person dies. We picture the family sitting down at a table and a person’s last will being read, and their children receiving their inheritance. But, in the bible, many times a person received their inheritance in advance.

For example, Israel in the Old Testament knew long before they left Egypt, they were going to inherit the land of Canaan, and even when they were lost, traveling through the wilderness, God said He was going to give it to them.

In the New Testament we have the story of the Prodigal Son, who took his father’s inheritance before he died and squandered it in a foreign land. That is a picture of us today living as sinners in the world squandering our inheritance from the Father.

The idea here is that God has already made His will known to us in His Word. And Paul prays that we come to know, not only our inheritance in heaven, but God’s inheritance in us.

So, the second principle that should inspire us to pray is, we are praying with a purpose for each other. There is so much more of God we can know and understand, but we need the Holy Spirit to teach us. So, we should pray for one another to be given a spirit of wisdom and knowledge of God.

The final thing I want to show you in this passage is the power of Paul’s prayer, Vs. 20-23. Notice how Paul’s prayer reaches a fever pitch in these verses, as he begins to talk about the preeminence of Christ. He points out four things for us as the evidence of God’s power.

First, Paul points out the resurrection of Christ, Vs. 20. He tells us, God has done what no man could ever do, He has raised Jesus from the dead. Death is an enemy we face our entire life yet, because of the resurrection we don’t have to fear death, why? Because Jesus crushed it!! And Paul says that’s the kind of power we are praying with. It is the kind of power that can overcome death.

Second, Paul points out the enthronement of Christ, and you see that at the end of Vs. 20. “He seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.” What Paul is saying here is that Jesus is not only alive forever, but He reigns forever. He is seated at the right hand of the Father and that is a position of privilege, authority, and honor and that is a position that only belongs to Jesus.

What does that mean for us? It means everything is under His command. Our hope and trust is in the power of the eternal king.

Third, Paul points out the supremacy of Christ, Vs. 21-22a. The throne of Christ is above everything. He has no competitors. He is over every principality, power, and authority. He is over heaven and earth and Satan and the world. Nothing comes before Him. He is first in all things and has been given a name that is above every name, and it is all for the glory of God the Father.

Finally, Paul points out the headship of Christ. Vs. 22 -23 says, “He is the head over all things to the church.” There is nothing in all of creation except the church that is called the body of Christ. What a privilege, what an honor. We have a special connection as the children of God to the authority of Jesus. We are His hands and feet in the world. We are given the privilege of serving Him and knowing Him.

What should that mean to us? It means that the church should be important to us. It should be sacred to us and held in high regard. We should never dismiss it because it is the body of Christ and He is the head of it. So, we should have a deep desire to belong to it.

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a spotlight and a laser beam. I mean how can a laser beam burn through steel in a matter of seconds while the most powerful spotlight in the world will only make things hot?

The difference is unity. The power of the laser beam is focused energy in one direction, and the same thing is true about the church. All our energy and focus are on the one who has the power over all things, Christ Jesus.

So, the third principle that should inspire us to pray is , we are praying with power for each other. We want to see the power of God at work in each other’s lives. Why? Because the whole body of Christ becomes stronger when we become like a laser beam in the world, shinning the light of Jesus.

Conclusion

So, what we learn from this passage is we have a reason to pray. We have a purpose to pray. and we have the power to pray. And my hope is that will inspire you today to begin to seek God for each other. We are stronger together, and we can help one another grow in our understanding of God and His strength.

If you have never reached out to Jesus for someone other than yourself begin to do that today. Make prayer a priority in your life. Make a list that you can pray over every day. Put on sticky notes, write it in a journal. Do something so that you can be reminded of your commitment to prayer.

God’s Word says, “we have not because we ask not.” Don’t let that be your testimony. Lets go to God together and begin to ask Him for His power in each others lives.

Primary sermon resources;

Merida, Tony, Exalting Jesus in Ephesians.

POSB-KJV, Gal. -Col

Cole, Steven J, Ephesians

Barry, John D, The Lexham Bible Dictionary