Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro
Paul invites us to see the world and Christ as they truly are through the lens of prayer.
This is the great thing about the Scriptures and about Ephesians, we get to see the world as it truly is.
Paul is showing us what things are really like.
Now I am from Wisconsin and I am about to proceed to tell you a story about a cow field.
I did in fact grow up near a farmers field.
Everyone did.
And this particular field was in at the end of the backyard of my friends house.
And we had a spot where we would sneak under it to get into the field and woods around it.
One time there was a group of us and we wanted to explore and I had a metal baseball bat for some reason.
So in my infinite youthful wisdom I touched the bat to the fence to see what would happen.
The next thing I remember was me on the ground in my friends backyard and the bat lying near me.
There are whole realms of power that just by looking at things as we see them, we miss.
That fence with just a couple of wires could keep cows in and kids out.
It looked innocent but the reality is that it packed a wallop.
We easily lope through life and miss the power and victory that Christ brings.
That He still offers hope to our world, He still moves amongst His people.
He still reconciles and works.
But it can be easy to miss.
Paul is bringing us a prayer that brings the reality of that truth right into our face.
This morning we are going to look what life really looks like.
Paul prays in the book of Ephesians and he prays for us that we would see Christ in our lives, His hope, His power, His victory.
That we wouldn’t rest until we, together, see the fulness of Christ in our lives.
We are called to see and trust Christ as the God within us and the God victorious.
See and Know Christ in us
Paul again, is effusive in this passage.
He loves the church and is grateful for her.
So he prays and gives thanks for the church.
And he prays that the church would know Christ in all His fulness through the fulness of the church.
It is a prayer to overflow in Christ.
But Paul is clear to whom He is praying and what for.
Paul asks for a spirit of wisdom and of revelation
there are two parts to this.
That we would have wisdom
this is what God provides for us to apply knowledge to life.
So that we would have the resources to know
and of revelation
but wisdom is coupled with revelation which simply means something that we could not have known on our own.
Christ became accessible to us because He revealed Himself to us.
To have revelation is to be given information that you did not have.
This is not about new revelation this is about complete dependance on God for knowledge.
We are given what we couldn’t produce ourselves.
in our knowledge of Him
Wisdom and revelation to one end.
To know Christ.
We need to know Christ in us because without Him it’s only us.
And that hasn’t always worked great.
This leads us to the eyes of our heart being enlightened.
We see the reality of Christ in our inner selves.
Where have you seen God provide wisdom and revelation in your personal growth of your knowledge of Him? How has God shown Himself to you in your growth as a Christian?
This is great news.
The God of the universe dwells with His people.
And He has given us the capacity to know and see Him for who He is.
So as of right now, Paul is praying us through the self and into Christ.
later on in chapter 3 he will pray for us that our inner being will be strengthened so that Christ may dwell there.
Paul begins in the self
And that is good because that is where we begin.
Honestly we have no other starting place.
“The point in saying that Jesus is lowly is that he is accessible.
For all his resplendent glory and dazzling holiness, his supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ.”
Dane Ortlund Gentle and Lowly
And the amazing thing is that Christ starts there as well.
Look back through Ephesians 1 and point to places He is shown to be glorious and where He is shown to be accessible.
He has come to us to dwell in us.
Look at John 14:26-27
God begins where we begin.
We need Christ who has come to us to be in us.
We need the work of God not out there somewhere for us to find but in here, where we can know Him personally in our lives.
But the reality of Christ in us and starting with us is that He doesn’t leave us only there.
Christ in us means we are given beyond ourselves to see and know and follow.
But he doesn’t stay there.
The issue with prayer is that we often begin and end with self.
We look for Christ as Christ relates to us.
So we like this prayer, that WE would have wisdom and revelation, and that the eyes of OUR hearts would be enlightened.
Paul has no problem beginning in the self.
That’s where we begin anyhow.
We always begin with the self.
We are severely motivated to do so.
But we aren’t left there.
Paul moves us past that.
And prayer moves us past that.
“The war that rages in all our hearts is a war between the awe of God and the awe of self.”
Paul David Tripp.
Awe
I think that Paul is organizing something here.
I think Paul understands something about the human condition.
We begin with self.
When you are at the mall and you are looking for a Wetzel’s pretzels and you don’t know where it is, what do you do?
Find the mall map.
And you find two things.
The wetzel’s pretzels and the you are here sign.
you find the pretzels by knowing where you are.
Likewise this is how we grow in Christ.
We are called to follow Christ but in doing so we often have to find the you are here sign.
Paul allows us that luxury.
But he doesn’t let us stay.
We often try to look for Christ as we see Him.
But we have to find Him as He reveals Himself.
So we begin by seeing where we are and where Christ is but we are then moved into seeing Who Christ is.
The prayer to see him with a spirit of wisdom and revelation means that see and respond to Him based on who He is and how He has revealed Himself to us.
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