Appraising Our Account

Paul desired the Ephesian Christians to understand their great wealth in Christ. He knew of their faith and love, and in this he rejoiced.

The Christian life has two dimensions: faith toward God and love toward men, and you cannot separate the two. But Paul knew that faith and love were just the beginning. The Ephesians needed to know much more. This is why he prayed for them and for us.

In the prison prayers of Paul (Eph. 1:15-23; 3:14-21; Phil. 1:9-11; Col. 1:9-12), we discover the blessings he wanted his converts to enjoy. In none of these prayers did Paul request material things. His emphasis was on spiritual perception and real Christian character. He did not ask God to give them what they did not have but rather prayed that God would reveal what they already had.

Before we study Paul's four requests in this "prayer for enlightenment," we must notice two facts. First, enlightenment comes from the Holy Spirit.

He is the "Spirit of wisdom and revelation" (Isa. 11:2; John 14:25-26;

16:12-14). With his natural mind, man cannot understand the things of God. He needs the Spirit to enlighten him (1 Cor. 2:9-16). The Holy Spirit reveals truth to us from the Word, and then gives us the wisdom to understand and apply it. He also gives us the power—the enablement-practice the truth (Eph. 3:14-21).

Second, this enlightenment comes to the heart of the believer Eph. 1:18

Ephesians 1:18 (KJV 1900)

18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

We think of the heart as the emotional part of man, but in the Bible, the heart means the inner man and includes the emotions, the mind, and the will. The inner man, the heart, has spiritual faculties parallel the physical senses.

The inner man can see (Ps. 119:18; John 3:3), hear (Matt. 13:9; Heb. 5:11), taste (Ps. 34:8; 1 Peter 2:3), smell (Phil. 4:18; 2 Cor. 2:14), and touch (Acts 17:27).

This is what Jesus meant when He said of the people, "They seeing see not, and hearing they hear not" (Matt. 13:13). The inability to see and understand spiritual things is not the fault of intelligence but of the heart.

The Spirit of God must open the eyes of the heart.

1. A GROWING KNOWLEDGE (1:17)

Of course, this is the highest knowledge possible. The atheist claims there is no God for us to know, and the agnostic states that if there is a God, we cannot know Him. But Paul has met God in the person of Jesus Christ, and he knows that a man really cannot understand much of anything else without a knowledge of God.

This willful ignorance of God led mankind into corruption and condemnation. In Romans 1:18ff., Paul described the stages in man's devolution: from willful ignorance of God to idolatry (substituting a lie for the truth) to immorality and indecency. Where does it begin? It begins with an unwillingness to know God as Creator, Sustainer, Governor, Savior, and Judge.

The believer must grow in his knowledge of God. To know God personally is salvation John 17:3). To know Him increasingly is sanctification (Phil. 3:10). To know Him ideally is glorification (1 Cor. 13:9-12). Since we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28), the better we know God, the better we know ourselves and each other. It is not enough to know God only as Savior. We must get to know Him as Father, Friend, and Guide, and the better we know Him, the more satisfying our spiritual lives will be.

Sometimes, we get the idea that our hearing the word of God is to help someone else see where they are wrong.

Indeed, there are times when we use God's Word as a sword to defeat the enemy, but that is not the primary purpose behind the writing of the Bible. As the familiar hymn puts it,

Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord.

My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word.

2. A GLORIOUS CALLING (1:18A)

The word called is vital in the Christian's vocabulary. The word church combines two Greek words that mean "called out." Paul never tired of testifying that God called him "by his grace" (Gal. 1:15), and he reminded Timothy that the believer has a "holy calling" (2 Tim. 1:9).

We have been "called out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9) and have even been “called to glory” (1 Peter 5:10). God calls us by His grace, not because of any merit that we may possess.

Paul wanted us to understand the hope that is ours because of this calling (Eph. 4:4). Some callings offer no hope, but our calling in Christ assures us of a delightful future. Remember that the word hope in the Bible does not mean "I hope so," like a child hoping for a doll or a bike at Christmas. The word carries with it "assurance for the future." The believer's hope is, of course, the return of Jesus Christ for His church

(1 Thess. 4:13-18; 1 John 3: 1-3). When we were lost, we were "without hope" (Eph. 2:12 NIV), but in Jesus Christ, we have a "living hope" (1 Peter 1:3 NV) that encourages us day by day.

Dr. Kenneth Chafin, a well-known Baptist author, tells about the pastor and deacon visiting prospective members and drove up to a beautiful suburban home surrounded by a velvet lawn and gorgeous landscaping. Two expensive cars stood in the driveway, and through the picture window, the men saw their prospect lounging in an easy chair and watching TV. The deacon turned to his pastor and said, "What kind of good news do we have for him?"

How prone we are to confusing prices and values. Ephesus was a wealthy city that boasted the temple of Diana, one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Ephesus is an archeologist’s paradise today, but its wealth and splendor are gone. But the Christians who once lived there are today in heaven, enjoying God’s glory!

The hope that belongs to our calling should be a dynamic force in our lives, encouraging us to be pure (1 John 2:28 - 3:3), obedient (Heb, 13:17), and faithful (Luke 12:42-48). The fact that we shall one day see Christ and be like Him should motivate us to live like Christ today.

3. A GREAT WEALTH (1:18b)

This phrase does not refer to our inheritance in Christ (Eph. 1:11), but His inheritance in us. This is a fantastic truth-that God should look on us as a part of His great wealth! Just as a man's wealth brings glory to his name, so God will get glory from the church because of what He has invested in us. When Jesus Christ returns, we shall be "to the praise of the glory of his grace" (Eph. 1:6).

God deals with us based on our future, not our past. He said to cowardly Gideon, "The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valor" (Judg. 6:12). Jesus said to Andrew's brother, "Thou art Simon ... thou shalt be called Cephas [a stone" (John 1:42).

Gideon became a mighty man of valor, and Simon became Peter, a rock. We Christians live in the future tense, our lives controlled by what we shall be when Christ returns. Because we are God's inheritance, we live to please and glorify Him. This truth suggests that Christ will not enter into His promised glory until the church is there to share it with Him. He prayed for this before He died, and this prayer will be answered (John 17:24). Christ will be glorified in us (2 Thess. 1:10), and we will be glorified in Him (Col. 3:4). Knowing this should lead the believer into a life of dedication and devotion to the Lord.

4. A GIFTED POWER (1:19-23)

By making us His inheritance, God has shown His love. By promising us an extraordinary future, He has encouraged our hope. Paul offered something to challenge our faith: "the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe" (Eph. 1:19). So tremendous is this truth that Paul enlisted many different words from the Greek vocabulary to get his point across dunamis-"power" as in dynamo and dynamite; energeia "working" as in energy; kratos-"mighty"; ischus-"power." Ephesians 1:19 can be translated as, "What is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the operation of the might of His strength." He is talking about divine, dynamic, eternal energy available to us!

After all, what good is it to have wealth if you are too weak to use it?

Or if you are so afraid of robbers that you cannot enjoy it? John D. Rockefeller was the world's first billionaire. For many years, he lived on crackers and milk because of stomach troubles caused by worrying about his wealth. He rarely had a good night's sleep, and guards stood constantly at his door. Wealthy—but miserable! When he began to share his wealth with others in great philanthropic endeavors, his health improved considerably, and he lived as an old man.

We Christians need power for several reasons. To begin with, we are naturally too weak to appreciate and appropriate this wealth, and to use it as it should be used. "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26141). To turn this vast, extraordinary wealth over to a mere human being, living by human wisdom and strength, would be like handing an atomic bomb to a two-year-old. God's power enables us to use God's wealth.

But there is a second reason why we need God's power. Some enemies want to rob us of our wealth (Eph. 1:21; 6:11-12), We could never defeat these spiritual foes in our own power, but we can through the Spirit's power. Paul wanted us to know the greatness of God's power so that we would not fail to use our wealth and the enemy would not deprive us of our wealth.

The power is seen in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, people measured God's power by His creation (Isa. 40:12-27) or

by His miracle at the exodus of Israel from Egypt (Jer. 16:14).

Still, today, we measure God's power by the miracle of Christ's resurrection.

Much more was involved than merely raising Him from the dead, for Christ also ascended to heaven and sat down in the place of authority at the right hand of God. He is not only Savior but also Sovereign (Acts 2:25-36). No authority or power, human or in the spirit world, is greater than that of Jesus Christ, the exalted Son of God. He is "far above all," and no future enemy can overcome Him because He has been exalted "far above all" powers.

But how does this apply to you and me today? In Ephesians 1:22-23, Paul explained the practical application. Because we are believers, we are in the church, Christ's body—and He is the Head.

This means that there is a living connection between you and Christ.

Physically speaking, the head controls the body and keeps the body functioning correctly. Injure certain parts of the brain, and you handicap or paralyze corresponding parts of the body.

Christ is our spiritual Head. Through the Spirit, we are united to Him as the members of His body.

This means that we share His resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. (Paul will amplify this later.)

We, too, are seated in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6

Ephesians 2:6 KJV 1900

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

and everything is under our feet.

To us-ward"! We cannot draw on our great wealth in Christ apart from this power.

I recall going to the hospital with one of our church members to try to get her husband to sign a paper that would authorize her to draw on his private checking account so she could pay his bills. The man was so weak he could not sign the paper. She finally had to get witnesses to verify his "X" on the document. His weakness nearly deprived her of his wealth.

Through the resurrected, ascended Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit is available to all Christians by faith. His power is to "us-ward who believe" (Eph. 1:19).

It is grace that supplies the wealth, but faith that lays hold of it.

We are saved "by grace, through faith" (Eph. 2:8-9), and we live "by grace" through faith

1 Corinthians 15:10 KJV 1900

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

In the four gospels, we see God's power at work in the ministry of Jesus Christ, but in the book of Acts, we see that same power at work in ordinary men and women, members of the body of Christ. What a transformation occurred in Peter's life between the end of the Gospels and the beginning of Acts. What made the difference? The resurrection power of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8).

The greatest power shortage today is not in our generators or our gas tanks. It is in our personal lives. Will Paul's prayer be answered in your life? Will you, starting today, begin to know by experiencing God’s calling— God's riches—and God's power?