Blessed Be You

The last two Sundays we’ve taken a break from working through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Those were Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. And those Sundays are always a treat. But today we go back to the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. And that’s a different kind of treat.

If you take out the basic greeting in the first 2 verses, the chapter breaks down into two parts. The first part blesses God. It starts out, “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and it works its way through the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Every blessing in heaven is available to us through knowing this incredible God, one God in three persons. All of theology, all of human life, flows out of the wonders of this God. Blessed be this wonderful God.

The focus changes in the second half of the chapter. Now it’s blessed be you, my brothers and sisters in Ephesus, some of whom are old friends to Paul, but many of whom I have never met. He really wants them to experience this God for themselves, fully.

And so we have this privilege, to peek into Paul’s personal devotional life, how he prays, the insight that he had into God’s heart and mind and plans.

And this is much more than a history lesson. If the Holy Spirit was inspiring Paul as he wrote this and if the Holy Spirit has saved this letter through the centuries, then I think it’s fair to say that this prayer is on God’s heart for us today. And so, as we look at it, I invite you to answer back to God and say, thank you, Lord, for what you have for me. Lord, make it happen. I dare to believe that you can do this in me.

Would you please stand for the reading of God’s word? Today’s text is Ephesians 1:15-23.

15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20 God put this power to work 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 above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The first part of Paul’s prayer is to thank God for the Christians at Ephesus. Most of Paul’s letters start out with thanks to God for his Christian brothers and sisters. Paul treasured the church. He risked his life to plant it. He prayed for it every day. When he saw faith in God growing on earth, he was excited. When he saw that faith in God expressed as love between the members, he just kept thanking God for it.

And it wasn’t that everybody in these churches was perfect. Read Paul’s letters and make a list of the sins they were struggling with and that will become clear. It’s obvious that in Ephesus the Hebrew speaking Christians and Greek speaking Christians were having trouble getting along. In chapter 5 he spends a lot of time warning them about sexual immorality. It’s not hard to guess why. Read any of his letters and you’ll see that Paul regularly had to deal with greed, party spirit, false teachings, lawsuits between members and arrogance. He had lots of headaches. But he could see Christ being formed in those people, and he figured it was all worth it and he even gave God thanks for the privilege of being part of it and getting to see it happen.

I hope you can feel that God is doing something precious among us. Sure, it seems to be happening slowly and sure, we have setbacks. But God is molding us into something beautiful. That’s a precious gift and it should make us all thankful.