King!

15I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17I 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, 18so 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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20God 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, 21far 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. 22And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1: 15-23 (NRSVA)

One Thanksgiving season a family was seated around their table, looking at the annual holiday bird. From the oldest to the youngest, they were to express their praise. When they came to the 5-year-old in the family, he began by looking at the turkey and expressing his thanks to the turkey, saying although he had not tasted it he knew it would be good. After that rather novel expression of thanksgiving, he began with a more predictable line of credits, thanking his mother for cooking the turkey and his father for buying the turkey.

But then he went beyond that. He joined together a whole hidden multitude of benefactors, linking them with cause and effect. He said, "I thank you for the checker at the grocery store who checked out the turkey. I thank you for the grocery store people who put it on the shelf. I thank you for the farmer who made it fat. I thank you for the man who made the feed. I thank you for those who brought the turkey to the store." Using his Columbo-like little mind, he traced the turkey all the way from its origin to his plate. And then at the end he solemnly said "Did I leave anybody out?" His 2-year-older brother, embarrassed by all those proceedings, said, "God." Solemnly and without being flustered at all, the 5-year-old said, "I was about to get to him." Well, isn’t that the question about which we ought to think at Thanksgiving time? Are we really going to get to him this Thanksgiving? [1]

Paul does! In fact Paul puts genuine thanksgiving right in the midst of “getting to him”. This is Reign of Christ Sunday, and also the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Our text in Ephesians could not be more appropriate for marrying the two celebrations! Paul gives great thanks for the people who worship the One to Whom thanksgiving is always due…the King!

A Side Issue

I want to deal with verse 17 in our text before we get to the main thrust of Scripture: 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation….

Paul’s desire for them to have a “spirit of wisdom and revelation” is not for the ability to seem weird among normal people…rather it is so the “eyes of [your] enlightened heart” can help you know the hope, riches and greatness of his power. Some people treat “spiritual gifts” as some sort of illusory and mystical game; they are the David Copperfields of Christianity. For them, the “spirit of wisdom and revelation” is spooky – trances and predictions, secret instructions from above that only come if you’re an incredibly spiritual and superior saint!

Friends, that makes a mockery out of the God who died a painful and humiliating death just to open the door of relationship to everyone…not just “Joe Superchristian”. It reduces the realm of genuine spiritual giftedness, which is the reality of God having control over your life, to parlor games – shell games. The openness to revelation from God is not so you are able to guess which shell the pea may be under, but rather an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ – a personal relationship with the Lord – and an accurate understanding of Who Christ is, and what He calls us to be. In a sense it is the maturity factor of a believer who rightly is able to understand (see) Christ as the king, and himself as an obedient subject of the king….and then translate that into actions; actions being more than observations (or spooky parlor seances).