2. Ephesians 1:15-23

SLIDE(TITLE) Thelma Howard SLIDE lived her life as a lowly housekeeper, earning a very modest wage. She came from a poor family. Each year on her birthday and at Christmas her employer would call her into his office and give her a gift. It wasn’t cash - just a simple piece of paper.

When thelma died, and her family were clearing through the contents of her tiny house they discovered that she was, in fact a multimillionaire.

You see her employer was Mr Walt Disney. And, unbeknownst to her, twice a year, every year… those slips of paper being handed to Thelma were actually shares in the Walt Disney corporation.

DELIBERATELY...

All of her life Thelma had been sitting on untold riches... but she didn’t know it.

SLIDE(back to title) We heard last week, (from the start of Ephesians 1), that the Christian life is a life of extraordinary riches - not material riches… but spiritual blessing.

We saw that we (in effect) have a spiritual bank account in what Paul called (in 1.3) the 'Heavenly Places’.

DON’Y READ ALOUD - SCREEN ONLY

Ephesians 1:3 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

PAUSE… THEN GO

We also saw that God is in the process of enacting his masterplan for the world.... that is a plan to bring all things together in Christ (or under Christ) as supreme head and leader.

And so those who acknowledge Christ as King now ... have be drawn into God’s masterplan for the world.… and as a result we have been hugely blessed.... and not because of things we have done.... not because we deserved it.... but because of what Jesus has done for us.... the deposits made into the Spiritual bank account are made by him.

SLOWLY

So, whatever life seems like, day to day if you trust in Christ as saviour and Lord - you possess extraordinary riches.

REPEAT

But what a tragedy it would be to possess a fortune but, like Thelma Howard, never to really know it.... and even More than that.... what a tragedy to miss out on really knowing the one who gives the blessing in the first place - that would be worse still!

And so from last week’s opening section - full of praise to God for all he’s given us in Christ - Paul is now driven to his knees to pray... praying that the same God who gave this blessing would help us to know it... and to know him.

PAUSE - THEN GO…

See how Paul begins… He begins with …(here’s the first heading on your sheet)...

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1. A Prayer of Thanks

read from v15...

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Ephesians 1:15–16 ESV

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,

What is Paul so grateful for - two things, did you spot them?

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1. Faith in the Lord Jesus (vertical relationship / gospel)

2. Love for all Gods people (horizontal / church)

You might say these are the two great themes in Ephesians - the gospel (which reconnects us to God) and the church …(where we are connected to each other).

The gospel - which, at it’s heart is the restoration of our relationship between God and us, that Jesus has made possible by his death and resurrection (that is, if you like the vertical relationship - us to God)..... and secondly Ephesians is about...

the church - which at is heart is God’s new society, a place where we enjoy relationships of love, unity and friendship one to another - that is in the horizontal level.

Paul is delighted to see that in both directions there are great signs of life among the church at Ephesus......

As an aside when you’re trying to assess a church to see if it’s any good or not.... do the people love each other deeply? Of course there are all sorts of other things which are vital - faithful teaching, biblical prayers, church discipline, Godly living... and not least of all evangelism - But one key marker is love.

There are great signs that the Ephesian church is doing well in all these ways. Notice though, that Paul doesn’t thank the Ephesian Christian’s for this - he doesn’t congratulate them... instead he thanks God - read again v15 -

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Ephesians 1:15–16 ESV

15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,

Thanks FOR you - he thanks God.

Stop and apply this to ourselves.... Paul is thrilled when he hears of God’s work in OTHERS.

Paul is delighted when he sees Gospel progress in others.

We pray earnestly for church growth, for conversions, for revival here in Cornerstone… will we be pleased if God answers our prayers in the church down the street rather than on our own doorstep?

Do we have an interest in Gospel work beyond our own immediate setting?

We should be thrilled when we hear of God’s work - in other people, and other places, and other churches. And we should THANK GOD FOR IT.

PAUSE - THEN GO…

Look though at v15 and see the verse begins “for this reason..” - And you’d be right to ask “what reason?” well of course that drives us back into last weeks text.

So remember… Why is there a church an Ephesus at all? Well only because God chose to show his grace to people....

Why is there a family of faith in Ephesus? Only because God adopted rebels as his children.... He chose, he predestined, he showed his grace, he brought forgiveness, he gave the gift of his spirit, he is guaranteeing there future hope of heaven... he, he, he.

All these benefits come from God.. in and through Christ.

AND... the same God who drew us into his masterplan in the first place Paul now prays will give us the strength and resources to live it out.... To be involved... and play our part… t

The God who calls us to Christ will keep us in Christ.... See how he goes on — he asks that… (v17)

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Ephesians 1:17 ESV

17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,

The God who got us started out in the Christian life is the same God who helps us to continue... and so Paul appeals to that same God for help.. and on that note (we reach our second point - the second thing to see).

Paul is grateful (he prays a prayer of thanks)…. But secondly… it’s…

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2. A Prayer to know God better

Think about your close family or friends… Picture them, in your minds eye.

What are our deepest hopes for those we love?

When we think of those we love - what do we want for them more than anything else?

It might be an old friend, or a relative - it might be your children - it might be your grandchildren - what are your greatest hopes for them?

Are we most concerned that they get that promotion at work, that pay rise which will help them stay afloat financially? are we longing and praying for health improvements? Is our greatest concern for our children or grandchildren that they get good grades... stay off the drugs.... get into uni.... find a promising career.

All these things are good, and I’m not suggesting for a moment that they are bad things to want or Wrong things to pray for.... but what is your deepest desire.

Put it another way, Think about yourself....when a Christian friend asks - ‘what can I be praying for you at the moment?’ - what do you ask for?

Improvements in health? Stuff at work... do we say “please pray for Aunty Ethels bunions on her left big toe?”

Paul’s focus is very different - and it’s very focuses - he’s razor sharp on the thing that maters most. He is asking that… (v17) SLIDE Eph 1.17

Ephesians 1:17 ESV

that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,

The NIV puts it more straightforwardly, I think…

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Ephesians 1:17 NIV

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, [here it is] so that you may know him better.

(PAUSE)

Remember that every Christian has been adopted into God’s family.... Paul prayer is that each would go deeper into that relationship.... experiencing it more and more fully... ‘that you may know him better’.

If we were honest, do we struggle to agree with Paul that knowing God more is really our greatest need?

Y’know in the complex world we live in... with all the pressures and demands.... Is that really what I.... what my daughter or son.... what my friend or relative really needs most?

I keep meeting Christian people who speak to me about their children or there grand children and they’ll be delighted - they’ll tell me how well they’re doing...

(RIFF - career etc) - but there is no mention of the Lord... // for some of you that is your yearning and i’s a bitter and painful one - prodigal children - don’t lose heart, don’t give up, or stop praying.

PAUSE - BREAK OFF

If you ARE a Christian… you are God’s adopted child - which means (to state the obvious) that he is our father… - which means our christian faith is fundamentally about relationship with him.

And relationships are organic aren’t they? You’ll know this from all sorts of relationships… typically they are either growing together or drifting apart.

Our relationship with God… our knowing him is central to everything.

Here’s the way one author - JI Packer - puts it…

SLIDE “We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing the God whose world it is. The world becomes a strange, mad and painful place... Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble through life blindfold... with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you.

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This is the way to waste your life and lose your soul... Our aim in studying God must be to know God better himself. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrines of God’s attributes but with the living God whose attributes they are”. JI PACKER

Many of us, rightly, dedicated huge amounts of time and energy to acquiring deep knowledge in our professional lives.... or in our hobbies - the things that take our fancy or spark our passing enjoyment.... and, rightly, many of us invest huge time and energy into growing and deepening relationships with those we love....

But how tragic it would be if we invested so much in knowing all of these things better… yet were content with knowing God very superficially.

How tragic to be a Thelma Howard.... to sit on untold riches but go through life never really knowing it, never really enjoying them.

Paul prays for these Ephesian Christian’s to know God better. I take it that means we OUGHT to pray for that growing closeness… which means we OUGHT NOT just to take it for granted.

Don’t take it for granted that you’re growing as a Christian, or that others around you are. If you want to pray for someone pray THIS for them.

It’s wonderfully freeing in prayer by the way… (of course it’s good to ask for specific prayer requests) -but even if you know nothing else about a person you actually DO know the most important thing to pray for them.... that they might know God more and more. And when someone asks you what to pray for.... be persuaded that this is what we need.

But even if you are persuaded..... you might say it sounds a bit abstract - What might it actually look like to know God better? Well Paul anticipates that question and he puts flesh on the bones and gives three ways.

SLIDE Know your hope Know your value Know God’s power

So first up....

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a) Know your hope (v18a)

Look at v18 now.… see how Paul continues his prayer… he prays that you would be…

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Ephesians 1:18 ESV

having the eyes of your hearts 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,

The language is a bit funny isn’t it - ‘what do you mean the eyes of my heart enlightened?

You may know that in the Bible the heart isn’t the beating organ in your chest.... it represents the centre of your being.... the person you really are.... the control centre you life.... it decides who you are, and what you love and how you act and so on.

Your heart - your centre sees the world a certain way, it has certain priorities and values which decide the who you are, and what you love and how you act and so on.

And Paul prays that right at the centre of our beings we might be shaped by the hope that we have in the gospel.

What is the hope we have? Well again its all grounded in chapter one... chosen by God.. forgiven our sins through the cleansing of Jesus blood... adopted as God’s children... sealed with his Spirit...

All of these things bring us HOPE... because - although we experience them IN PART right now... we’re looking forward to a day when we’ll know them more fully.

God has lavished his grace on us saved us now from the power of our sin..... one day we will be sinless and perfect

God has adopted us as his children.... and one day we will see and know him fully face to face.

God has made known to us the mystery of his will (his great masterplan for the universe).... and one day we will know him more fully still…

God has given us his spirit.... like a mark or a stamp or a seal to say that all that we know now in part and see now in part... we will know day know see and experience more fully... when (v9) God brings unity to all things under one head - Christ.

That is the Christian hope and it shapes life now. When the eyes of your heart are enlightened by this hope it changes how you live.... when the control centre starts seeing things differently you get behaviours.

So know your hope… Secondly... SLIDE

b) Know your value

v18 again - this time notice how the verse ends… SLIDE

Ephesians 1:18 ESV

having the eyes of your hearts 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,

Now, perhaps confusingly, Paul has just been talking about our inheritance in the gospel (back in v14). But here (I THINK - IF I HAVE THIS RIGHT) he switches the language around....

To know God better means to understand that he has a glorious inheritance to look forward to as well.... and here’s the thing... it is us. The inheritance is his holy people - that is the church. What an astonishing thing to say.

An inheritance is (usually) something valuable... that comes to us via the death of another. And a death has occurred.... costly death - the death of the Lord Jesus.... but through that death God has secured for himself a glorious inheritance - a people.

God places extraordinarily high value on his church, his people. You and me. He did not spare his own son - but give him up FOR US.

What remarkable reassurance it would bring to us if we could only get our heads around our value in God’s eyes - the price he has paid for us his church shows us his tremendous love for us.

At heart, as Morag will tell you, I’m quite an anxious person. I tend to fret and worry about the future.... Even on occasion to have mild panic or anxiety attacks. My default assumption tends to be that everything that possible can go wrong will go wrong... and that I will inevitably stuff things up and let everyone, including God down.

There is a ton of self help stuff out there.But the thing I need to go on learning is that I’m loved and valued by God... if I was able to grasp that more deeply I think it would change things quite a bit. Perhaps you’re the same.

It’s important that we know that God loves and values his church - because when we know something is valuable we know how to treat it accordingly.

we will....

Care for the people of the church.

Work for the mission of the church - evangelism.

take seriously the discipline of the church.

watch out what we teach in the church.

Think about how we live as Jesus’ church.

Know your hope…

Know your value... Lastly (and more briefly) to know God better we need to know his power.

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c) Know God’s power (v19-23)

Paul prays we might know (v19) SLIDE

Ephesians 1:19–21 ESV

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.

BREAK OFF TO ILL

Have you had one of those embarrassing experiences with your consumer electronics....? So your computer or your washing machine or something seems to be broken.... not working. You have the instruction manual out... you trying pressing buttons, then combinations of buttons.... you try the combination of buttons that the manual says will enact a factory reset. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous you might remove the side panel of the device and stare knowingly at the mess of cables and circuit boards that greets you. Eventually you’ve had enough... it just won’t work.... and after half an hour on hold you finance get through to the customer care centre....

“Hello Mr Turnbull, I’m very sorry to hear you’re having these difficulties sir. Before we go any further can you confirm that you have plugged you computer into the wall socket? At which point a sudden, crushing embarrassment descends on you. No matter what you tried.... it wasn’t gonna work... because you hadn’t plugged it in... there was no power flowing.

That is not the Christian life. Paul says that power flows from God to you, to help you, enable you, to empower you.

And it is no small power.. it is the same power that raised a dead man from the grave.... . its the same power that raised Christ up and placed him above every other authority on the planet. It is the same power that is enacting God’s masterplan for the universe - the plan we heard of last week to put Christ in charge and bring unity to all who are subjected to his authority - that is why he is head over the church v21.

It is massive power. But living as a Christian doesn’t always feel like that.... these Ephesian Christians were a tiny minority living in a pagan culture which for the most part wanted nothing to do with their so called God (feels familiar to us doesn’t it?!) .

So for them, and for us..... in the realities of day to day life I wonder if this promise of power just rings a bit hollow - you just find it slightly hard to believe that God has given Christians great power.

If there is such power why do I feel so small, frail and fragile.... if there is power why does it take all my courage just to nock on salmons doors and invite them to our Invitation Service?

Two thoughts to help us as we close.

Firstly you have already experienced this power. I don’t want to steal my own under for next week.... but we’ll see there that we have already experienced the full force of this power. Paul says (2.4)

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Ephesians 2:4–6 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

In other words what happened to Jesus... raised from death.... seated in heaven.... has already happened to us if we trust in Jesus. In other words it took extraordinary power for God to make you a Christian.

Secondly we need to understand what this power is for... what use it has in our daily lives. Should we all be walking around performing extraordinary supernatural miracles... No... the power is given for a purpose.... and that is the second half of the letter. Skip forward for a moment to 4.1

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Ephesians 4:1 ESV

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

And Paul will go on to describe that life... how we should live. The power is given for a purpose.... we are to be humble and patient.... we are to submit to one another.... we are to maintain Christian unity despite our deep differences... we are to put aside anger.... we are not to steal (in any sense of the word)... we are to watch our speech... (and so on and so forth)

It takes real power to live like that doesn’t it? In a thousand ordinary ways to submit our lives to God.

SLIDE(Thelma Howard) Thelma Howard never did discover the true riches she had. Don’t let your life be the same kind of tragic story... See that great riches are found in knowing God.... That really growing in relationship with him is the best thing for you, for your family, friends, for those you know and love.

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Know you hope know your value know God’s power for living.... And then you will know God better.

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Let’s pray.